After many weeks of quiet inactivity, suddenly everyone seemed to be on the move. The army of Khaibar Gunther, having just dealt with internal problems on the side of the Empire's forces, was just moving to its new area of responsibility, when it suddenly found itself faced with increasing activity from the Thain besiegers of the city. The Eagle tribe he was facing seemed to be on the move when it bumped right into his vanguard on its way to the area he would have to patrol. Earlier than expected, his army was about to meet their new foes for the first time.
In this battle, the two armies run into each other on the march. The Thain army had the Eagle Archers at its point, followed by the vanguard with the savage warriors and the Gar'nar'og. The general Dagor'Kolja'gar and the shaman were following behind with the ballista, and the spearbearers brought up the rear.
Khaibar Gunther's patrol was unchanged from its previous battle.
The imperial soldiers pressed their attack early on, with the guard cavalry leading the charge. They quickly found out that a Thain shaman can be a formidable opponent, though, when the Eagle mage took control of their horses and scattered the whole unit so that parts of it blocked the advance of the imperial pikemen and others were baring their backs to an attack from the savage warriors. Selageth managed to delay this attack some time by throwing a numbre of fireballs right into the warriors, so they needed time to reorganize themselves, but after the shaman took control of the knights' mounts once again they were taken in the rear and thrown back in scattered flight. The savage warriors had become impetuous during heir charge on the enemyÄs elite and continued with their attack, pushing the pikemen away sonn after.
The savage warriors prepare for their first attempt to charge the scattered Emperor's guard while the imperial dragon heads for the spearbearers in the Thain rear.
The fireballs against the savage warriors weren't the only ones cast by Selageth and by the Order mage on the chariot, but while they did hurt, they weren't enough to decide the battle on any part of the field.
Towards the end of the battle the Thain victims of fire magic took their revenge: Ogayin'xa'gor kept Selageth busy long enough that the Eagle shaman could conjure three of the feared Eagle spirits to take on and nearly eliminate the renowned Empire wizard.
The Gar'narÄog chases the Order wizard who was driven out of his chariot by the Eagle spirits. However, Selageth is about to fry the Gararyd with a handful of fireballs... On the right, the savage warriors are locked in melee with the imperial pikemen.
The enemy that Thain warriors feared most was the dragon rider. Howevre, he stayed in the air for a long time before trying to attack the Eagles with little luck (he caused no damage against the few spearbearers he managed to attack, took several hits from the Eagle archers who turned to fire on him, took off again and later just managed to destroy the ballista with firebreath and an overrun before he himself was killed by more arrow hits and the Thain general who attacked him while he was busy trampling over the remnants of the Thain artillery.
At the end of the day, both armies managed an honorable withdrawal. Historians would later describe the battle as a close win for the Eagles, but this was not so clear to the soldiers as they withdrew to their camps for the night. They had both shown their enemies that they were serious forces to be reckoned with, they both had many casualties to mourn, and they knew they would be facing each other again soon. In fact, the Empire general took great care to scout out the continuing march of the Thain army and followed them until he felt he knew where they were heading. He made his army ready to march on the green hill and stop the Thain warriors from whatever they were trying to accomplish there.
Copyright Notice: This report (C) Klaus Herrmanns 2003. All rights reserved. Thanks for providing the photos goes to the Wiesbaden players group. Please only pass this on to others for private, noncommercial use. If you want to use this article elsewhere, let me know koljag@SPAMBLOCKyahoo.com (remove the SPAMBLOCK and the following dot before using the mail address. If you quote me as author and add a copyright notice like this, I'm perfectly happy to let you re-use this article.