Aloysius Black - Duerer
Aloysius fires his ribault at Lucia and the cutthroat on top of the cart. He misses Lucia and hits the cutthroat, but once again damage rolls fail him.
James the Black - Red-Rover
The marksmen shoot from a better position now, and kill the legionnaire.
One of the captives strikes her captor with an axe, but the armour saves him.
The cutthroat responds by knocking her out with the blunt part of his hatchet.
The freed soldiers bravely sprint to safety.
James suddenly surges forward and jams his sword into the face of the cutthroat hiding behind the war beast, killing him.
The cutthroat that's in combat with Lorreaine strikes her, but the princess takes the hit on her armour and then counterattacks, however missing completely.
This was the moment Magio's been waiting for!
He overskills the strike, but even with the extra die only deals 7 damage.
Lucia's cutthroats - Archduke (but NPC'd again 'cos of no orders, I'm controlling them because I enjoy it, okay?
)
Lucia gets down from the cart and exchanges her pistol for her whip again. Her men take cover behind the cart.
"One step closer and this guy gets it!" she threatens, her sword hovering dangerously close over an unconscious prisoner's back. "And you, get back here!" she shouts at the running soldiers.
"Fuck you!" they respond. Lucia for the first time fails a feat, and fails it hard (roll of '1' vs '6' and an additional '5'). Channeling their inner rage, the soldiers are inspired to a feat of strength, throwing their weapons at Lucia...
Both hit, and fall 1 point short of killing Lucia! [-1 HP]
"You'll pay for that!" she promises.
Princess Lorreaine - Falk
"WHIRLWIND SLASHU!"
Critical success! Princess Lorreaine gets to make a strike on each of the enemies surrounding her. The strike misses the cutthroat, but decapitates the halberdier and even kills Magio, who failed his parry. Alas, he had a decent run, but it seems he won't become part of the regular Falx cast.
(I didn't have her move 'cos it would've triggered the Falx response and given her opponent a free counter, and because the conscious prisoners were already out of attack range).
She then breaks her weapon striking at the cutthroat with her regular attack (too many critical failures on her attack rolls).
Magio's remaining forces now have a choice. Having completed their objective, they can march home victoriously and let Lucia clean up her own mess, or see her as their new leader and attempt to help her. If particularly brazen, they could still attempt to take her prisoners for themselves, although this plan seems to have a limited chance of succeeding.
How will the crusaders handle this situation? Attack anyway and hope Lucia rolls a 1 or 2 for damage? See the prisoner as a necessary sacrifice? Cut their losses and retreat with just the two prisoners they've freed already? Or something else entirely?
A chance for the crusaders to get on better terms with the Bulls has thus been lost, but at least these Bulls won't cause any trouble for them later.
