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Gaming Blog

Skulls of Sedlec

27/10/2020

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27th October 2020

Gaming night at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues in what would the last game of the last meetup before Lockdown 2 came into effect.

The third and final game of the evening was 'Skulls of Sedlec', in what seems to be a game about digging up skulls and then errr... proudly displaying them in a pile for all to see?

Skulls of Sedlec is a microgame that comes from microgame publisher Button Shy who appear to specialise in creating games with 18 cards.
Their games are hand crafted and they aim to release 1 a month.

What's in a game?
As is befitting the name microgame, Skulls of Sedlec is small enough to fit in your pocket. 
  • ​Cards: Skulls of Sedlec consists of 18 cards and that's it! Each card displays 2 'layers' of skulls (one in the top half and the other in the bottom.) and each skull is from 1 of 5 'classes'.
  • Plastic wallet: The game fits into this tiny wallet, it's not strictly a game component, but it's cool enough to be worth mentioning.
The cards has nice and colourful skulls! There's not more I can really add, that's it - 18 cards.
The wallet is of course a bit of a gimmick, but it's a nice addition and I like it.

Picture
The graveyard.
Picture
The graveyard... after some digging.
Picture
1st layer of my skull pyramid.

How's it play?
Set up
  • Shuffle the cards and place them into 6 face-down stacks of 3 cards each, arranged in a 3x2 grid.
  • There are no more steps, I just added this to justify putting the set up into bullet-point format!

The objective of ​Skulls of Sedlec is to create a pyramid shaped layout of cards. Points are scored depending on how cards are placed in relation to other cards.
The size of the pyramid depends on the number of players but always has 3 layers of cards and thus 6 layers of skulls. Layers of cards are 'offset' (Like bricks in a wall.), this is important when calculating which cards are 'adjacent' to other cards.


On to playing
When 'building' a pyramid, players must start at the bottom and work up, thus there must be at least 2 cards in a layer before a card can be placed on the layer above.

In their turn, a player can perform 1 of 3 actions.
  • Dig: The active player can turn over 2 face-down cards, then they take 1 of the 2 into their hand.
  • Take card: The active player can take 1 face-up card (If face-up cards are available.) into their hand.
  • Play: The active player can play a card from their card into their pyramid. There's a maximum hand size of 2, so if a player has two cards in their hand at the start of their turn, they must play a card.

​​Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been taken and played into pyramids.
Then pyramids are scored, there are 5 class of skull and thus 5 ways to score points.
  • Peasant: Each 'peasant' skull in the pyramid scores a point.
  • ​Royalty: A 'royal' skull scores a point for each other royal and peasant skull in a layer below it. I guess they like to lord it over other cards.
  • Priest: Each layer that has a priest skull score 2 points, additional priest cards in the same layer score 0. Remember there's 6 layers in a pyramid.
  • Rogue: A 'rogue' skull scores 2 point for each priest card it is adjacent to. Typically, the church always has all the wealth.
  • Lover: When a 'lover' is adjacent to another 'lover' card, they score 3 points each (Collectively scoring 6.), 'lover's' can only be scored once. If a 'lover' is adjacent to 2 other 'lover' cards No extra points are scored. Infidelity's worth nothing in this game!
Points are tallied.
Highest score wins.

Picture
Graveyard being depleted of skulls.
Picture
My finished skull pyramid.

Overall

Simple to learn, but lots to think about. Skulls of Sedlec packs a some solid gameplay into a tiny package.

I really like that the face-down stacks of cards visually represent a graveyard and 'digging' turns them over. It's a clever touch and good example of maximising what's available in a game. Less can be more.

The 2 card hand limit is a great mechanic too: It gives players enough choice  to give them tricky decisions, but it stops players from hording cards - making their decisions easier.
Every card can potentially score points, so every decision when playing a card is meaningful and you really can't ask for more from a game in my opinion.

Skulls of Sedlec is a 2 or 3 player game. It's worth noting that that there's an expansion that takes the player count to 4, adds a new class and increases the deck size up to a heady 24 cards! 

A good little microgame that is a perfect filler with some depth. One I'd like to own and that's not just because it comes in a neat wallet (Although it does add to the appeal.).
​
​I'm just glad that the publisher hasn't started numbering their wallet games, that would be too hard on my real wallet!
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Port Royal - 12

27/10/2020

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27th October 2020

Gaming night at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues.

Next it was time for the return of an old classic and favourite of mine... Port Royal, read my blog about it here.
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Karuba

27/10/2020

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27th October 2020

Tuesday evening is here and I'm at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking with the Woking Gaming Club.

Time for the first game of the evening; Karuba.

​Have you fancied yourself as an explorer just landed on some unmapped jungle island? Well in Karuba you control not just 1 explorer, but 4! All in a rush from beach to jungle in order to find temples, treasure and ultimately glory first before everybody.

What's in a game?
  • Player boards: All player boards have 30 spaces in a 6x5 grid. Half of the grid's perimeter is bordered by the beach and the half by the jungle. Each half of these perimeter's is numbered (In increments of 10.) from 10 to 110, these numbers represent compass degrees. There is little artwork here, but what there is, is nice enough
  • Path tiles: Each player has 36 identical numbered tiles. Each tile shows a path or a junction. Some tiles will also display a gold or diamond symbol.
  • Meeples: Each player has identical tokens, 4 sets of an explorer and a temple, in 4 colours. These are nice wooden tokens.
  • Gold and diamonds: Shiny and translucent little plastic tokens are used to represent gold nuggets and diamonds.
  • Scoring tokens: There are 4 sets of 4 scoring tokens in the same 4 colours as the meeples. Iin each set of tokens they are worth from 2 to 5 points.
There's not much to be said about the components. The meeples are good classic wooden tokens and the gold and diamonds are a nice touch too. The rest of the components are well made and sturdy.

Picture
Player board.
Picture
Gold, diamonds & scoring tokens.

How's it play?
Set up
The set up for Karuba very straightforward, if a tiny bit time consuming.
  • First choose 1 player as a 'caller'.
  • Starting with the caller and clockwise order, each player will put a single explorer down in a beach space numbered from 10 to 110 on their player board, at the edge of the grid. All other players must also put down an explorer of the same colour on the same space on their own player boards. Then the player puts down a temple in the same colour as the explorer, but in one of the jungle spaces numbered from 10 to 110 instead; the only restriction is that it cannot be less than 3 spaces away from the same coloured explorer. Again all other players follow suit. Continue until all explorers and temples have been placed. All players should now have all their meeples in identical spaces.
  • The caller is given their set of 36 tiles, these should be shuffled and placed into a face-down stack.
  • All remaining players should place their tiles face-up in numerical order around their board so that they can be easily found.
  • Gold, diamonds should be placed in an easily accessible spot for all players.
  • The amount and value of scoring tokens used will be dependant on the number of player. 1 face-up stack in each colour should be created, with highest value token on top and lowest at the bottom. All 4 stacks should placed in a spot easily reached by all players.
Now were're ready to go.

Picture
Tiles set up and ready to use.
Picture
Meeples.
Picture
Temples


Gameplay for is very straightforward. Players are trying to move their explorers to the temple of the same colour. Unsurprisingly, this is done by laying tiles and moving the explores along the paths that are created.
Karuba has no turns, everyone makes their choices at the same time.
  • The caller will have a stack of face-down tiles. They turn over the top tile and announce the tile's number to all other players. The other players should then find and pick up their matching tile. Now all players have to make 1 of 2 decisions: Lay tile or discard tile to move explorer.
  • Lay tile: If a player chooses this option, they must put the tile on to a grid. There is only one rule; tiles cannot be rotated, the number in the corner of tile must always be upwards. Other than this, any placement is ok, you do not have to connect it to another tile or path, you can create dead-ends or block other routes off or send a route off the grid, remember the only player you can screw over... is yourself. Finally if the tile has a gold or diamond symbol on it, then place a corresponding token on to it.
  • Discard tile to move: If a player discards a tile, then they can move an explorer along a number of tiles equal to the number of exits on the discarded tile. Thus a straight or bend confers 2 movement points, a T-junction confers 3 and crossroad -4. There are some rules here: Only 1 explorer can be moved, the movement points cannot be split between explorers, an explorer cannot pass through a tile that is already occupied by another explorer nor can they end the round there. If an explorer moves on to a tile with a gold or diamond token on it, the player can choose to pick it up, picking the treasure up ends the explorer's movement irrespective of any remaining movement points.
  • Once all players have finished playing a tile or moving explorers. A new round begins and the caller draws another tile.
  • When an explorer reaches their temple (By moving off the grid and onto the temple's space.) they collect the topmost scoring token in the same colour as their explorer/temple. If two or more players reach the same coloured temple in the same turn, they all score according to the topmost token, players who take the lower value tokens also take diamonds to make up the difference.

Endgame
Play continues until one player has moved all 4 of their explorers to the relevant temples, or as is more likely until the caller has depleted their entire stack.

Players add the points of all the scoring tokens they've collected and the gold and diamond tokens, gold is worth 2 points and diamonds 1 point.
​Highest score wins.

Picture
My board at the end of the game.
Picture
The treasure I'd accumulated.

Overall

Despite the simplicity of the rules, Karuba gives players lots of decisions to make nearly all the time.
​
The most common of these is whether to play a tile or discard it for movement.

This is a very elegant mechanic, the best tile to build paths with is the crossroads, because it gives you the most options. But the crossroad is also the best tile to discard for movement, as it give you most movement. 

Early in the game, you'll obviously be wanting to play the tiles more often to build up your paths, but you can't afford to play them willy-nilly. A meandering path is something players will want to avoid.
You may end up putting tiles in seemingly unconnected, random places, hoping to get the right tiles later on!
Players have limited rounds in Karuba and will want to build their paths as efficiently as possible. The game has an absolute maximum of 36 rounds.

If you look the photo of my gameboard from the end of the game. All 36 tiles were drawn. This means  I played 19 tiles, which means I moved 17 times, whilst I managed to get 3 explorers to their destination, the blue explorer barely managed to leave their starting spot.

Movement may also provide difficult decisions.
For example; you may have an explorer who is just 1 step away from a treasure or a temple but have just drawn a crossroads tile which grants you 4 movement, using it on 1 movement can be a waster. Do you use it to move another explorer to maximise it's value, or do you use 1 movement to complete an objective and waste the rest of the movement?
Also, when moving explorers, players will need think ahead a little, a badly placed explorer can block their colleagues, meaning it might require an entire round to clear the path.

Only towards the end of the game, when I had connected everything up and reached 2 temples, did the decisions become no-brainers. But because the game is played simultaneously and other players were more or less in the same situation: There was little downtime between rounds, which passed very quickly.

Karuba is a quick game to play anyway, if a player spends 1 minute deciding their move, the game has a play time of 36 minutes.

The only small criticism I could level at Karuba is that there is no interaction with other players. Not a problem for me personally, but it can be for others.

Otherwise I thought it was a good game.
Quickly and easy to learn, quick and fun to play.

​Anybody can learn and play Karuba. It's such a visually driven game that players should quickly comprehend what they need to do.

It's a game that's definitely going on my list.
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Ride the Rails

23/10/2020

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20th October 2020

Tuesday evening in Woking at 'The Sovereigns'.

Time for a boardgame with the Woking Gaming Club.

Tonight's game was 'Ride the Rails'.
Now Ride the Rails looks like a traditional railroad building game set in North America, but it has a few wrinkles that make it play a bit differently.

What's in a game?
Some of the components will seem familiar to any that's played a railroad building game
  • Game board: Like all self respecting railroad building games, the board depicts continental North America with a hex map! The map also shows about 50 cities, most are coloured black, but some have other colours related to the rail companies. A scoring track runs around the edge of the board and there's also a section for tracking share price and travel.
  • Train meeples: There 27 train meeples in each of 6 colours.
  • Passenger meeples: There are about 50 of these. Look closely and you'll that these little meeples are waving their hands!
  • Player boards: These player boards track the railroad shares that have been purchased by players.
  • Disc components: Used to track turn order, player scores and changing share prices.
There are lots of little components here, all of them are of a good quality, the train and waving passengers meeples are particularly nice.
You may have noticed that I mentioned shares, but there are no components for shares and no money either. Well, more on that below...

Picture
North America in hexes.
Picture
A whole lot of meeples.
Picture
Player board.
Picture
A meeple in every city.

How's it play?
Set up
  • ​Put all of the share price tracking discs on to their starting spots.
  • Put a passenger meeple on each city space in the map.
  • Sort the train meeples by colour.
  • Give each player a player board.
  • Determine starting order.
That's it, pretty simple.

Ride the Rails is played over 6 rounds.

It's important to know that there are only 2 train companies (Red & blue.) available from round 1. The orange becomes available from round 2, yellow from round 3, purple from round 4 and black from round 5. No new companies appear in the 6th and final round.
Additionally, each company has it's own rules for the placement of train meeples.

A round consists of 3 actions, which all players will carry out.
  • Acquire a share: Each player (In reverse turn order.) can take one share from any available company, thus in round 1 there is choice of 2 companies. When a player takes a share, they take a train meeple of the relevant colour from its supply. These are the same meeples used to build railroads, the more shares that are taken, the less meeples are available to expand the company. It's also worth noting that because there are only 6 rounds, players will only ever acquire 6 shares.
  • Build railroads: Going in turn order, each player can build railroads. A player can only build railroads for any companies in which they own shares, but the player can mix the companies they build for. This is done by taking meeples from the supply and either starting at a city or continuing on a railroad. There are rules for which cities a rail company can start from. There are also limits on how many different companies can occupy the same city or hex. Lastly, building through mountains will slow expansion down a little.
  • Ride the Rails. Once all players have build railroads, then in turn order, each player can select any meeple in a connected city and move it to any other connected city going thorough as many connections (Cities.) as they want, there is a limitation though. A single journey cannot use the same hex more than once. Then the meeple is immediately scored and removed from the game. Scoring is a little involved. The share value of company is increased for everyone of it's connections used. So if a journey used 3 blue and 1 red connection, the share value for blue would be 3 and for red 1. Every blue share would pay 3 and every red 1, this is for all players for shares that they own. Finally, only the active player earns 1 for each city that was in the journey, this is equal to the total connections plus 1, in the example above, the active player would earn 3+1+1 for a bonus of 5. The share value and journey tracker are then reset to 0 for the next player's journey. The more connections a journey has, the more points are scored.
  • New turn order: Once all players have ridden the rails a new turn order is determined based on the players with the lower scores going higher in the turn order.
Players can earn bonus points by being the first to reach certain cities, or being the first to connect the east coast to the west coast.

Endgame
Play continues until the 6th round has been completed. Final scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Picture
Some early train expansion.
Picture
My 6 shares at the game's end.
Picture
Tracking share price and movement.
Picture
Map at the end of the game.

Overall
As you can see, Ride the Rails is pretty straightforward and simple to understand, it also plays quite quickly.
Don't let the simplicity fool you though, there is a fair a amount of depth here.

Firstly; Ride the Rails has the classic dichotomy in which competing players may need to cooperate. If more than one player has spent a turn investing in a certain company, it's to both their benefits to expand that company efficiently.

Being able to gauge which shares will generate the most points is vital to winning, if a player manages to get 2 or 3 shares (Out of their 6) in a rail line that will see a lot of use, they can potentially rake in a lot of points. If a player however invests too quickly in a single company, it can scare off players who might perceive they are helping another player too much. Remember, 2 players can build up a network much quicker than a single player.

Secondly, building rail networks. In the first round, red and blue train meeples can only start in east coast cities and must more or less head west.
Should a player create a meandering network that maximises connections?
Or should they race towards the west coast? No single rail company can cross the entire map, it will probably take the efforts of 3 companies to do that and this will involve crossing the mountains.
This means it's unlikely that more than 2 companies will connect the east and the west. Making this connection first can be very lucrative, it forces other players to either use the rail network you've got shares in, or waste time building a separate network and just like with shares, each player will only have 6 opportunities to build their network.

I think that Ride the Rails is a good game, that has a lot of elements that will be familiar to experienced gamers but actually plays a bit differently.
You buy shares, you just take them and you don't pay to expand a rail network, it just happens. There is no money in the game in fact, money immediately translates into points.

I definitely want to try Ride the Rails again.
3 Comments

The Networks

14/10/2020

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13th October 2020

Tuesday is here and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

Time for the Woking Gaming Club to play a game and tonight we will be playing 'The Networks'.

This is a game for the budding media mogul inside everybody; create TV shows, hire film stars, fire chat show hosts, stick advert breaks everywhere, well at least during primetime! Fun for everyone.

When we played The Networks, a couple of expansions were also used.

What's in a game?
The Networks is a card game that has some nice additional components.
  • Starting cards: Each player is given 3 TV show cards, 1 Star card and 1 Advert card.
  • TV show cards: Each show has a production cost/requirements, a possible upkeep cost and a genre. All shows run for 4 seasons and the card will show how many viewers it accumulate have per season.
  • Star cards: Stars are everybody from Shakespearean actors to cookery show chefs. Star cards have a hiring cost/requirements and possible upkeep. Stars are hired for up to 4 seasons and can be put on to a show. They add a varying amount to a show's audience for each of those 4 seasons. Some stars will add less audience if they are not put onto a show of specific genre. A talk show host won't add much to a soap opera's audience figures for example.
  • Advert cards: Unlike the previous 2 types of card, a player will earn money if they take an advert! Furthermore, if an advert is attached to a show, it will generate money for every season the show runs. Certain adverts will make more money if attached to certain genres.
  • Network cards: These cards grant the player a bonus or advantage of some kind, it may immediate, at a certain time or at the game end.
  • Player boards: Each player has their own player board. Each player board has 3 spaces on either side. The 3 spaces on the right are used for the 3 timeslots you control (8pm, 9 pm & 10pm.). The 3 left spaces are The Green Room, Reruns and Archive.
  • Genre card: Part of an expansion I believe, each card shows the game's 9 genres and also has a bonus track.
  • Scoring board: Tracks player's accumulated audience figures and turn order which can change from season to season.
  • Tokens: The Networks also includes tokens, including cubes of the soulless little wooden cube variety!
  • Currency: Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning a games currency, but The Networks uses little plastic tokens for money, each one looks like a pile of money.
All the cards are very nicely illustrated with cartoony artwork and flavour text that cheerfully spoofs various different TV programs. Our game was played with an expansion that added classic British TV programs, I'm sure you'll recognise 'The IV Crowd', 'Drake's 8', & 'Creepy Puppets Save The World Again'.
All the other components are standard, except the money tokens which are cool.

Picture
Player boards for 2 players.
Picture
A stack of cash.
Picture
Starting cards genre card.
Picture
Season 1.

How's it play?
Setup
  • Each player takes a player board and starting cards.
  • The 3 TV show cards are put into all 3 slots on the player card. The Star card and advert card are both put into the Green Room.
  • Starting player is determined, this also determines starting money for each player.
  • All the cards are put into their relative decks and shuffled.
And the game's ready to go.

The Networks is played over 5 'seasons'.
At the start of each season, TV show, star and advert cards a dealt in 3 rows.
Network cards are only dealt out from the 2nd season onwards.
After this, in turn order, players take 1 action each. This continues until there are no more actions that can be performed or all players have chosen to finish for the season, this is called 'drop & budget'.
The actions are:
  • Produce a TV show: If a player wants a TV show, they have to pay for it. A TV show must be immediately placed into a time slot, any show that is currently in the chosen slot must be removed and then put into Reruns. Furthermore TV shows may require a star and/or an advert. If a player does not have the required star/advert in their Green Room, they cannot produce it. Some shows allow players to optionally add stars and/or adverts. In either case, any stars or adverts in The Green Room when the show is produced can be added to the show as part of the same action. Each show also has a limit to the number of Stars and Adverts that can be added to it. Finally; the player must put a marker on to the 1st season row on the TV show card.
  • Hire a Star: A player must pay to hire a star, the star is then added to the player's Green Room, not added to a TV show.
  • Get an Advert: As their action, the active player can take an Advert, unlike acquiring a TV show or star, the active player is paid to take an advert. Like a star card, an Advert cards goes into The Green Room.
  • Acquire a Network card: A player can take any available Network card. It's effect may occur immediately or later in the game, or at the endgame. Network cards become available from the 2nd season onwards.
  • Move a Star or an Advert: As their action, the active player can move a single star or advert from their Green Room to a TV show. They maybe some other requirements that must be met, otherwise the card might be flipped upside down to it's less effective side.
  • Drop & Budget: The active player, as their action can choose to end their turn (Effectively ending their season.). They then choose to either receive either money or an increase in audience figures. The earlier a player does this  - in relation to the other players, the more money/audience they acquire. This also determines the turn order in the next season.
Once all players have ended their seasons, the next steps occur:
  • Balance budget: Certain shows and stars require an upkeep and adverts generate profit. Once these are balanced, you may earn extra money or have to pay some money. If you don't have the money to pay your costs, then you lose audience figures instead.
  • Calculate audience figures: Each show will generate audience figures for it's current season, plus any bonus conferred by an attached star. Shows in the Rerun slot also generate audience figures for one more season.
  • Age shows: All shows in the Rerun slot are moved to the Archive slot. Then all remaining shows are aged. This is done by moving the marker on the current season row down to the next lowest row. If a show was in its last season, then it is put into Reruns.
  • Set up new seasons: Any cards which were not taken from the current season are removed and discarded and an entirely new set of shows, starts, adverts and network cards a dealt out. Thus cards are only ever available for a single season before disappearing. Then the new season begins with the new turn order.
There are additional rules about acquiring shows of certain genres, but that's more or less it for the main rules.
​

Endgame
The game continues for 5 seasons, at the end of the 5th season the shows are still aged. Then a 6th season is scored (No new cards or other actions occur).
​Accumulated audience figures are tallied, highest score wins.

Picture
My TV network part way through the game.
Picture
My network after the end of the 6th season.

Overall
The Networks has some cool design choices that give players interesting decisions to make.

A player can keep going and acquire more stars and adverts for as long as they've got money, which can give them an advantage later on because having these cards in their Green Room means that it's easier and quicker to develop shows. But ending your season early gives you more money/audience, more importantly though, it allows the player to be earlier in the turn order for the following season. So when the new cards appear, that player will get first dibs.

Because the game is very much about card drafting, players really have to think about how they prioritize their actions, as all players will be vying for the same cards.

Players have to try and use their actions as efficiently as possible, there's a fine balance between doing all the actions you want to do and ending your turn quickly.

All in all, The Networks gives players important decisions to make throughout the game and that's a good thing.
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Merry Outlaws - Session 09 Finale

14/10/2020

1 Comment

 
10th October 2020

Saturday has rolled around again and I'm in the living room, logged on to Skype.

This means it's time for the final session of Matakishi's​ Merry Outlaws campaign.

Location: The Badger's Set.

A day ago Sir Nigel had confronted Sir Gaston in his camp at the southern side of Hexham. This was a matter between knights, so we left them to it and went back to the forest.

Now, the next day had come. Dawn sunlight glinted off the dewy landscape and cast long morning shadows as we marched northwards out of Caucy forest and through the heathland to Hexham.

Sir Nigel's forces were nowhere to be seen and it seemed as if Sir Philippe's and his men had departed. Something must've occurred yesterday.

Upon entering Gaston's camp, we were confronted by guards. After showing them Lady Margaret's ring, they granted us access to Sir Gaston.

Gaston was curious, he wanted to know how we came by this ring. We replied that Lady Margaret had gifted it to us after we helped to recover her wedding gown and foiled Conrad's poison plot. He was surprised as he thought Clugney had recovered the dress, however he seemed satisfied by our answers.

Now that the small talk was out of they way, we asked Gaston what had happened to Sir Nigel?
Gaston explained; after Nigel had issued him a challenge, Philippe had taken it upon himself to attack Nigel. They exchanged several volleys of arrows, which resulted in Philippe's death. Nigel had also been struck down by an arrow and his men retreated, carrying him off. Gaston was unaware of Nigel's fate. Following this, the majority of Philippe's men had packed up, left and headed east, some had stayed and joined Gilbert's or Gaston's camp.

Next, we spoke at length about Sir Michael Somerville. Gaston was aware that Michael was at Hexham's north gate. He was unsure of Michael's motives and feared that if he attacked Hexham, Michael might wait for him to do all the hard work, then sweep in to finish the job, seizing all the glory.
Gaston was considering attacking tomorrow.

Quietly, Gaston confided that he would not be unhappy if Michael were to meet with an accident. He promised to pay us a thousand coins apiece and make us officers in his army if we took care of matters.
We agreed to his terms, in truth we were undecided about how to deal with Sir Michael, but felt there was no harm in complying with Gaston, at least for now.

Since there was no news about Sir Nigel, we decided to learn whether he lived still or not. This took us along the road through The Forest of Caucy and past the Knavesmire ruins.
It was a quiet journey. Once this leafy forest road had carried a small but constant stream of travellers and peddlers, then it became host to bands of roaming soldiers, now it had become all but unused.
The only people we encountered were our own diligent outlaws, dutifully but vainly watching the road for potential targets.

Soon enough we reached The Fork and decided to go to Wedgemore first. Wedgemore was the same as always, fortunate to survive this conflict unscathed.
We found a small number of Nigel's archers in Wedgemore, they informed us that Sir Nigel did indeed still live and was convalescing at Wenham Castle, on account that Wedgemore Castle was still uninhabitable. So to Wenham we went.

Crossing the River Scarmore we entered southern Wenham and approached the castle. The damage suffered by Wenham was still in evidence everywhere, but the oppressive gloom that had been cast by the Teutons and Osric had evaporated. People were slowly returning and the residents were now busily going about the tasks of repairing and rebuilding Wenham.
More of Sir Nigel's men were guarding the castle gates and even though they recognised us, they denied us access.
"Sir Nigel is not seeing any visitors at this time," they told us.

There was nothing more that we could achieve in Wenham, instead we decided to observe the Sir Michael's army north of Hexham.

Leaving Wenham behind, we entered the forest once more and headed eastwards to its furthest reaches.
Sir Michael's besieging army was unchanged. Whilst observing them, we noticed that various foraging parties had been sent out to feed the camp.

Once again, the farms of Little Wenham were forced to endure the pillaging of an invading army. Foragers were also moving west along Caucy's northern border, they did not venture very deep into the woods though.

As we were watching them, we concocted a plan.

Marching back south across the Scarmore, we searched for some of Sir Gaston's own foragers from the shady confines of the forest.
It did not take long to find a foraging party of seven and we ambushed them.

The battle did not last long after unleashing a couple of volleys of arrows upon unsuspecting foragers.
Quickly we hid their bodies and their cart in the forest. Then we searched them, the cart was filled with food, but more importantly, the dead men all wore Sir Gaston's colours, so we took their badges.

Once again we marched, this time back to the north edge of the forest again and once again we watched for foragers from the shady confines of the forest - this time for Sir Michael's foragers.

Once again, it did not take long to find some and once again we ambushed them. This time it was different though!

We were wearing Gaston's colours and tried to speak with French accents when we attacked! We took down four of them and allowed the others to flee, deliberately missing them with our shots.
Hopefully when they reported back to their camp, they would report that they had been attacked by Gaston's men.

We then hid the bodies and cart of Michael's men and took their badges too!
During the remainder of the afternoon, we harried all of Michael's foraging parties that we encountered. Never intending to kill anyone, but to convince them that they were under attack from Gaston's forces.

We hoped provoke Michael into attacking Gaston.
As the day began to close, we did not see any response from Michael's army. We had to learn if we had been successful, remembering that Gaston might attack tomorrow, time was not on our side. We needed those answers now!

We had badges in Michael's colours and one of his carts, so we disguised ourselves as foragers and approached his camp.

Sir Michael's camp was well guarded, but no one suspected anything and we easily infiltrated it. Even so, we had to tread carefully, we were now surrounded by three thousand soldiers who would not hesitate in killing us if they ever discovered our identities.

The onset of night was nearing, the day's colour was fast draining out of the sky. Numerous campfires had been lit and their hazy orange glows held back the twilight in illuminated spots throughout the camp. Food was being cooked and men were gathering round, turning their hands and feet to the warmth.

It was a perfect opportunity to hear some gossip and we were not disappointed.

Talk of attacks by Gaston's men was rife in the camp. 'We were supposed to be in it together' was a common sentiment. Soldiers also questioningly spoke of how Gaston had managed to get his men on this side of the river and navigate through the forest?

We realised that no one in the camp was aware of the two fords in the forest that crossed the Scarmore.

Finally, men spoke of Michael's reaction: Upon hearing of the attacks, he was now considering attacking Hexham without delay in the morning.
We had indeed provoked Michael, but not in the intended manner.

This was not the best of news. Could Hexham resist the advance of both Gaston and Michael at the same time? This could not be left to chance.

Finding Michael's tent was not hard, it was the only tent in the camp with guards. They did not however, guard the rear of the tent.

We waited and night came, Mopsa slyly went to the back of Michael's tent. Slowly and quietly she cut an opening in the tent wall and crept in.
Michael was asleep and undisturbed. Silently, Mopsa approached and slit Michael's throat and took his signet ring as proof.
Then as a sign that Gaston was culprit behind this. Mopsa took Lady Margaret's ring and dipped it in Michael's cooling blood, then pressed the seal against his forehead. After this, she left the tent, no one was the wiser.

If we remained in the camp when Michael's body was recovered, the guards would prevent anyone leaving and then, sooner or later we would be found out.

The long, long hours until dawn passed uncomfortably, we were restless, wary and on edge. Eventually after an interminable wait, smudges of pale light began to appear in the eastern sky.
We returned to our cart and headed out of the camp, telling the guards that we needed to make an early start on our foraging, they were not unduly suspicious and did not hinder our exit.

Once the camp was out of sight, the cart was abandoned and we turned south and headed back to Gaston's camp.

Dawn had come and gone by the time we arrived, there was a noticeable bustle as soldiers were up and about, busying themselves with various tasks.

Gaston himself was easily found, shouting commands to the scurrying soldiers. When we gave him Michael's signet ring, he seemed most pleased and ordered his paymaster to give us three thousand coins.
​He then went on to yell even more orders and commands at his men. Gaston explained now that Michael was out of the picture, the siege at the north gate would end. This meant that Sir Roland would be free to leave via that route. Gaston said he had no choice but to attack soon.

It seemed that no matter what how hard we tried, the assault on Hexham would proceed.

We politely refused Gaston's invitation to join his army and left them mobilising for war.

We had to find a way into Hexham and warn them of the impending attack. Hexham was a city built on both sides of the River Scarmore, which travelled its way through the heart of the city.
The defensive walls of Hexham only reached as far as the riverbanks, riverboats could freely travel through Hexham. This could be the way in we sought.

We followed the river upstream into The Forest of Caucy. Dotted along the banks and close to the easternmost ford lived some fishermen who eked a living out of this stretch of the river. We found one and paid him some coins for the use his boat.

From here, the waters flowed downstream into Hexham, with the fisherman's boat we took to the river and allowed the current to bring us to the city.

Some of the besieging forces were close to the Scarmore, but they paid scant attention to the sight of a mere three commoners in small boat on the river passing into Hexham.

Once we had drifted beneath the bridge, we began rowing to the riverside and found a place to moor.
Our landing had not gone unnoticed and after tying up the boat, a band of Hexham's guards came down to the river and demanded that we state our business.

We told them that we bought important news about the army outside the city gates. They agreed to take us to the sheriff.

As we walked through Hexham, it did not seem as despondent as we expected. None of the buildings appeared to have been boarded up, there were no dead-carts plying their trade through the city.

Soon enough we arrived at the sheriff's office at the East Gate, we spoke with the sheriff and he explained to us that there was no plague in the city, it was a rumour that had been spread to misinform the besieging forces.

After this, we tried to convince the sheriff of what was coming, that we needed to speak with Sir Roland, we even showed him Lady Margaret's ring. He refused to listen and this was evident when he ordered a score of his men on us. They did not attack us directly, instead they kept us at arm's length en masse with their spears and we were forcibly herded down the stairs into a familiar dungeon and locked up!

Two long hours passed until we received a visitor. The face of a man we did not recognise appeared the door's small window. He spoke to us and asked us several questions, finally asking us what we had to do with his wife?
Sir Roland! It could only be him.

It was no time to be coy, we told him everything we knew. We even showed him the note that Lady Margaret had sent to Clugney about how she was about to strike. It was surprising then, to see that he found it all quite amusing?

It was enough to convince him of something though, as he ordered the watchmen to unlock our cell.

Then under the watchful eye of his own guards, we were taken to Hexham Castle and down into the dungeon?

Sir Roland led us to a cell, within it we saw Lady Margaret! When she saw us, here eyes widened, perhaps she was hopeful we would help. She silently mouthed 'help me'.

Sir Roland could not conceal a smirk, he waved her note to her and said. "These fellows seem to think you sent this!".

It was staggering, if Lady Margaret hadn't send the messages... Then he had to have been Sir Roland.

We had thought that Lady Margaret had been 'playing' Sir Roland, instead he had been playing her!
Returning upstairs, Sir Roland explained that he had been sending the messages, spreading false rumours and misinformation, spreading inaccurate stories of the plague. It had been good enough to give them second thoughts on attacking. Sir Roland went on; all Hexham had to do now was hold until tomorrow, then all these matters would be resolved.

Sir Roland the thanked us for our service and invited us to stay and to help defend Hexham.
We had no love for Roland, but the welfare of Hexham's population did concern us. If Gaston's forces broke through, the people would be the ones to pay the price. So we decided to take Roland up on his offer.

Before we took up our posts, we sought out Friar Nicholas and gave him the money that Gaston had given us.

Gaston did not disappoint and soon enough at three past noon, his forces attacked.
Fighting was fierce and the clamour of battle loud. During the fight Gaston would attack and be driven back, regroup and attack again. Hexham's defences held steady as assault after assault broke like so many crashing waves against the defences.

As the day grew long, Gaston ordered his men to build gigantic bonfires and lit by flame, fighting continued into the night.
Eventually though, Gaston's forces had to fall back for the remainder of the night.

Having earned our respite, we slept fitfully and too briefly. Just before dawn we were woken and took up our posts. In the dimness and from our vantage point we could just about make out the activities beyond our defences.

Gaston had gathered all of his soldiers into one formation, it looked like he was planning to one final massive push.

As the dawn broke, his soldiers gave a bellowing roar, the ground seemed to tremble from their charge.
Gaston held nothing back and struck at the defences with his full force.

This time they did not fall back, nor could we push them back. As time passed, our defences weakened and finally broke. We flew to the streets and fought Gaston's men face-to-face. They were outnumbered and could press their advantage, however in this war of attrition, we could not hope last forever.

It was midmorning when when beyond the melee, along the Knavesmire Road we saw another sizable army approaching, they displayed no colours.
The column stopped at The Green and began to form up into battle order.

Word had reached Sir Gaston that something was up, he had ordered his men to pull back, returning to The Green, to confront this new arrival.

As Gaston's men were regrouping, the new army revealed their colours, unfurling The King's banner.

This changed everything. Gaston could not hope to win against The King, who also blocked any route of escape, nor could he retreat into Hexham. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place and was left with only one option.

Gaston and Gilbert surrendered to the King's men. It was over, Hexham had prevailed. The pair of them were marched off in shackles.

Sir Roland quickly set about organising a feast of victory - and to thank The King for saving Hexham!
It was a feast of grand size that emptied Hexham of much of its food, leaving the residents low on supplies. Some things we could not change.

To Sir Nigel, he gave Wenham and Wedgemore.
To Sir Michael's army which still lingered at Hexham's north gate, The King appointed a new Warden of the North. Soon after, the army left Hexham and returned north.

Finally, as a reward to us, The King rescinded our status as outlaws and gave us Drumclog Castle and the freedom of Billige. We were now free to live in these places unmolested.

Perhaps in the annals of Robin Hood, the deeds of The Merry Badgers of Billige would only warrant a footnote. 
Even so, a fine summer day had dawned for the simple peasant folk who were now free from the threats, violence and machinations that they had suffered. Billige and the surrounding settlements no longer felt the yoke of corrupt and oppressive lords. At least for now; who could know what the future might hold.

It's true that no summer could last forever, not even an English one. Autumn will come and it too must yield to winter, but for now; there are days enough left to enjoy the summer.


So ended the ninth and final adventures of:
Calder Winterbourne, the wise and mouse-eater. 
Mopsa Hiems, Mopsacle
Randulf The Red
Black Stan
Forever known as The Merry Badgers of Billige.

Final Thoughts

Matakishi's campaign perfectly blended together the 'Merry Outlaws' rules and the style of play he used for this campaign.

Merry Outlaws is a straightforward, unobtrusive light set of rules, there are no feats or special moves and never at any time did we feel like supermen. For most of the campaign I was no better at fighting than any guard. The only advantage we all had over our opponents were our hit points and to be honest; a couple of bad rolls and they would easily be whittled down to a dangerously low level.
All of this served to give the rules a grounded feel.

​Meanwhile, Matakishi's campaign felt well researched and authentic (Not necessarily realistic which is arguably a different thing.). There was enough flavour to make it feel like a medieval setting, but not so much detail that it felt bogged down. The campaign was plotted in such a way that our influence and decisions had impact. Sometimes our actions influenced events, sometimes they spiralled out of our control, the mixture of the two felt compelling.
All of this served to make us feel invested in the setting and campaign, which I think is very important, maybe the most important thing. I noticed that as a result we generally always remembered the names of NPCs, we remembered because we had a stake in the narrative.

This combination of these two different factors led to a very enjoyable and memorable campaign.

As a final final note, I'll add that we spent a lot of time learning how to write bloody stanzas!

The Ballard of Calder Winterbourne 'Mouse Eater'

It is unclear where or when the ‘Ballad of Calder Winterbourne’ originated.  No copy exists with provenance earlier than the mid-fifteenth century (and that only a fragment).  It is likely that early versions have been adapted by others over the centuries and sections re-written or entirely new text added, perhaps to add contemporary references, incorporate unrelated fragments or cover situations likely to be familiar to new, later readers.  There is, for example, an oblique reference to a possible act of enclosure in the prologue, which must either be a poor transcription or later addition to a supposedly ‘medieval’ text.  No reference to Calder Winterbourne exists in the historical record and it is therefore likely that, if he ever existed, his story has been greatly embellished or his tale is a combination of several stories combined in a convenient narrative thread.’‘It is unclear where or when the ‘Ballad of Calder Winterbourne’ originated.  No copy exists with provenance earlier than the mid-fifteenth century (and that only a fragment).  It is likely that early versions have been adapted by others over the centuries and sections re-written or entirely new text added, perhaps to add contemporary references, incorporate unrelated fragments or cover situations likely to be familiar to new, later readers.  There is, for example, an oblique reference to a possible act of enclosure in the prologue, which must either be a poor transcription or later addition to a supposedly ‘medieval’ text.  No reference to Calder Winterbourne exists in the historical record and it is therefore likely that, if he ever existed, his story has been greatly embellished or his tale is a combination of several stories combined in a convenient narrative thread.’

​Prologue
Calder Winterbourne, archer bold
Born afar in Blackmore Vale
Full man o’war, full man o’peace
Far-sighted, swift and hale.
 
Served his lord full time in France
Gave all honour and duty.
Came back with naught but empty hands
Nowhere a sign of booty.
 
Returned to see the Vale closed down
The villagers all evicted
Saith he ‘I served ignoble lords
Now shall I never more’.
 
Calder has taken to his travels.
He wanders near and far
Trusts not the rich, befriends the poor,
Takes all men as they are.
 
Part One
To hear a blacksmith’s tale of woe
His daughter held by Giles
Another woman held for trial
A witch? A slander vile.
 
Four foresters guide to Giles tower
Outside henchmen in force.
All take stock and arrows nock,
A bold rush is the course.
 
Calder’s arrows fly and two men die
Giles slain in dreadful fight.
His henchmen turn and see the light
The blacksmith’s daughter is aright.
 
A witch is held for loss of flour,
The miller is distraught
The cause is naught but pilfering
Yet from a bloodstained thought.
 
A forester’s been done to death
His friends the guides are grieving.
A blackmailed man is stealing flour
To hide innocence with thieving.
 
Now truth is out and witch is freed,
No charge in any eyes.
Loot found, restored, in easy shares
And a new-named Calder Wise.

Part Two
Now safely camped in de Courcy
They look t’ward easy living
A blameless life, an end to strife,
Days of gathering and giving.
 
But Black Crows are in the meadows
Wat Taylor’s going to burn
The Crows have stole a wedding dress
All honour do they spurn.
 
At Knavesmire side Wat’s wounds they bind
Carter Emlyn aids them.
They take their rest and full refreshed
By Odo and Crispin’s singing.
 
The village fills with gentry’d folk
To Hexham their road winds
A missing dress? Oh woe! Distress!
All are commanded ‘Find!’
 
Great search ensues as trouble brews,
For Mannering’s men are slacking.
Courcy’s crew their search renew
They need no other backing.
 
They track their foes, the evil Crows,
Black Stan has heard their calling,
And Mopsacle undoes their traps,
At all points Crows are falling.
 
To search Crows’ nest without arrest:
How, in a camp this size?
A simple feat for crew includes
Randulf, Lord of Disguise!
 
Now Mopsacle has found the dress,
To Hexham heroes hurry.
Return of gown lifts bridal frown
And frees her mind from worry.
 
In gratitude, reward is made
Wedding party is delighted.
Crew bids adieu and melts from view
Now troths can all be plighted.
 
The cost of dress drawn with duress
From common folk to vex them
A shadow falls within town walls:
Sheriff Rolfe, the curse of Hexham.
 
“Reward’s not ours – the people gave,
Now we can make amends.
Money goes to those in need
Through Friars and our friends.

Part Three
News cross the land: all wake, all stand!
A holiday in season!
But dreadful word; for no good reason,
Emlyn will hang for treason.
 
To cast more dark on happy Saint’s Day
The friends are now all outlaw.
It frees their hands to make a stand
Fight injustice as they saw.
 
In Hexham town Emlyn is bound
And lies in reeking bower.
Stan and Wat are took by Sheriff’s crooks
All held in Eastgate Tower.
 
Their friends rush in to break them out,
There’s close and nasty fighting
All are now saved, rope’s end denied!
Now to Wat’s home, for hiding.
 
The Dyers Guild sold Wat to Sheriff:
They are due a reckoning.
The crew close in on Guildhall door,
Trader’s entrance is a-beckoning.
 
Calder holds the staff enthralled,
Speaking words of honey.
Friends search the house, creep cat and mouse,
All following the money.
 
Guildmaster Lister speaks in whispers
Dealing with Edward Crow.
Crow brethren leader mocks and jeers –
Ranulf fells him with one blow.
 
“Tis done, Crows hate no more or less
Than when that man was living.
Good Friars still take what we gain
And see the poor are shriven.”
 
Carter and all the Taylor folk,
Subject to lies unseeming,
Must leave the town and join the camp
Beneath the oak trees greening.
 
And what shall be this brave band’s theme?
All sett – the Billige Badgers?
Clad in simple Hexham Green, their role –
A knee in the Sheriff’s nadgers!
 
Notes from the expanded second edition of the renamed ‘English Folk Songs, Ballads and Verse’ (1895):
‘The author (or authors) now appear to regret the choice of third person as the voice of the ballad, with the appearance of apparently direct speech from Part 2 onward.  Almost inevitably this will be complete fiction and should not be taken as reporting of actual conversation. Part 3 ends on a rather coarse and vulgar note, possibly reflecting the limited range of rhyme available for ‘badger’ and the author’s frustration at possible future limitations.  If inclined toward sympathy, readers should note first the (unverified and probably apocryphal) comment attributed to Christina Rossetti:  ‘At least they weren’t a French gang living in Orange’

​Part Four
The world is in a turmoil
Badgers seek and snuffle round.
There’s money in the villages
Noses to the ground!
 
Where’s the money coming in from?
Why are maypoles growing here?
Which lord is up, which lord is down –
Let’s think on’t over beer.
 
Why is Conrad’s squire in Knavesmire?
A physick for Lady M?
For she has the morning sickness
It’s a panacea for them.
 
But the potion is of hemlock
Just a foul Socratic brew
Badgers know a milder herbal
Goodly Alice tells them true.
 
Badgers now in Wenham find
The potion brewer’s lair
But they dally and they tarry
Deal in nothing but hot air.
 
So they’re off to Lady Margaret
Nought must upset the borning
She grants them all her favour
In gratitude for warning.
 
But why are Gascons in the bailey?
Why did Klea take a fall?
Foreign cash abounds for Clugney –
Will the outlaws hear it call?
 
So the Badgers make a plan to seize
The treasure train from France
Coin here will feed the poor once more
Badgers prepare a merry dance!

Part Five
Badgers lurk on Drumclog Moss
‘Til treasure train appears.
Their eyes are fixed on mule-packed gold:
All ready, no-one fears.
 
But the trap is sprung by a ragged band,
A mob that no-one knew.
A starving group down on their luck
The undaunted Drumclog Few.
 
Hugh is the leader of The Few
Badgers challenge, Hugh defiant.
The quarterstaffs spit fire, and then
After hurricane, the quiet.
 
The treasure shared, all part as friends
Money now with friars to share.
But Wenham’s full of stranger tales
Almost too much to bear.
 
Lady Margaret’s Clugney’s friend
And will not hear of Conrad.
More shrines appearing all round town
Must drive good Churchmen mad.
 
Now down the road Knavesmire’s alight,
Black Crows defend it stoutly.
Badgers shepherd the villagers
To Billige for their safety.
 
Horsemen from Hexham harry home
Billige is all a-fever.
Badgers stand, protect their friends
And help defeat the reivers.
 
In Wedgemore’s where it comes together
Waiting for Chatsworth’s presence.
Though shrines are found all round the town
None can explain their essence.

A chance to see the castle, so
The Badgers take a turn.
Take Clugney's gold, make note of all
And leave the hold to burn.
 
{Editor’s note:  there appears to be another stanza, or possibly two, here but the only existing copy of this section is badly damaged.  It appears to mention a raid on castle, but the text is near illegible.]

Part Six
In Wenham, world turned upside down;
Retinue poor but people wealthy.
Now Clugney's brought in Teuton knights -
They're brash and never stealthy.

They come to aid in Clugney's fight
He says 'gainst unjust king,
But here local lords oppress the folk
And cause balladeer to sing.

A northern host of unwashed rage
Closes on the county
Demagogue fans flames of war
With promises of bounty.

The rabble to north, Clugney's to south,
Conrad's in a vice.
The innocent poor of Wenham town will
Be those that pay the price.

Can Badgers few stem the tide alone?
Could they be a small town's saviour?
They'll try by landing careful blows -
Not bludgeon but a rapier.

To northern host in dead of night,
A stealthy undertaking.
Calder finds their leader's bed, and
He'll never more be waking.

All of a dither now south of the river
Black Company falls on Wenham.
To thin their ranks, ease townsfolk's lot
Badger arrows fly from woodland.

Now Clugney rides in sight of all
And the shooting heeds the call.
Sebastian-like he's pierced by shafts
But no martyr, a tyrant falls.

Weham's taken, town is sacked,
Misery for Badgers' friends.
O where is justice, where the right?
And who shall make amends?

Part Seven
​TBC


The Mystery of Calder Winterbourne
Scholars who have followed the campaigns and ballads of the outlaw group infamously known as "The Badgers of Billige" have noted several missing stanzas concerning one of the founding members - Calder Winterbourne. For many years it was believed Calder's sudden absence from the tales of the group was due some heroic death whilst attempting to liberate the townage of Wedgemore prior to the Siege of Hexham.

However recent archeological digs have found a mysterious set of incomplete stanzas that refer to the leader of a previously unknown peasant uprising far to the South in Dorset.

Many leading scholars note similarities between the subject (and style) of the ballad and the erstwhile Winterbourne and believe Calder - having liberated Little Wenham from the Peasant Army of the North and assassinated their leader - had seen fit to take command of the thousands strong  group and lead them safely away from the armies of Sirs Nigel and Somerville for revolutionary glory in the South.

Whilst much of the stanzas remain fragmented and Calder's involvement remains in dispute, a recent dredging near Christchurch discovered a mysterious wreck - The Curlew of Avon. Little of value lay within the ship after so many centuries, but in an old chest deep within the Captain's cabin was found two strange artifacts.

A friar habit and a single arrow fletched with black feathers

The Ballard of Mopsa Hiems 'Mopsacle'

Rumble rumble in the village
We shout and perform in little Billige
Down the road and through the woods
Defeating great Giles, who thought we could?

Father and daughter reunited,
To save poor Alice we can’t be short-sighted
Back at the mill, held against their will
“Here they are, the real witches"
"Come Mr Merick and smack these bitches”


Wedding gown stolen,
Three feathers in its place
We rushed through the forest
There was no time to waste

Traps nor Crows could not stop us
We’d get it, come what may
400 gold for the dress returned
Priceless to save her day


Announced as outlaws
A friend sentenced to hang
To save his life, 
We’ll go out with a bang

A nun walks into a jail
Three friends walk out free,
Face off at the dye guild
A crow lets out his final plea


​An ambush by the inn,
The crows flock once again,
A plot to poison a friend,
A dastardly deed orchestrated by men. 
​

A Dozen Badgers plan a heist,
Drumclog few get in on the fight,
Burning confusion within a village,
We stand proud an' strong at great Billige. 
​

The day before battle they gather,
Foreign knights and uprising peasants, 
Midnight and Dawn we struck,
Their leaders last breath, unpleasant.


A rivalry comes to an end,
Badgers verses Crows,
With new found friends,
Happiness through Billige flows.


One by one the dark knights fall,
Master disguise and infiltration,
With an army by our side,
We shall bring Salvation. 
​

Nine nobles 
Now there is one
Badges unite
The deed is done

They begun deep in the forest,
The Set amongst the trees
They retire up in Drumclog
Peaceful and at ease. 

The Ballard of Randulf The Red

Stand and listen gentlefolk
A giant cometh across the land
Let us speak of a grappling God
Randulf the Red, brute of his band

With a grin he wrestled the best
Tankards of mead followed a great draw
With sweep of his arms, bandits were battled
Until the ghastly one was no more


He climbed great oaken trees
To take the crow men by surprise
To save a maidens wedding day
He became the master of disguise


Loyal friends are captured
Rescued by friar and nun
Once three birds of a feather
One crow down, a traitor undone


A poisonous plot
And the swoop of the Crow
For such heroics toward Our Lady
A token of friendship she did bestow


A raid on the rich, a parley struck
Beside fellow outlaws, sorely deformed
As tension flamed, villages did burn
Against the oppressors, The Badgers then stormed


As Nobles prepare for war
Ironhanded knights join the fray
As Northern rebellion is halted
An arrow at dawn ensures Clugney’s last day


"Stand and Deliver" 
The Black Crows finally flayed
With Randulf's new hammer
Foreign Knights were outplayed


By stealth, by bludgeon
Our enemies all fell
In chivalrous duel
Was the last Teuton sent to Hell

By boat and by cunning
Was Hexham freed from pillage
Through Royal decreed
All hail Randulf, free man of Billige

The Ballard of Black Stan

Fine Alice from Billige, accused.
Blodwin gone, was kidnapped.
A witches trial we denied.
And thus, Giles got slapped!

A horrific sight encountered.
Three feathers up the arse!
By crows, the bride's gown was stolen.

Saved, reward to folk, passed.

Emlyn unjustly imprisoned.
A pal not forsaken.
A crow and dyer conspire.
Justice and coin taken.

The errand squire we did find.
Poison plot uncovered..
To a Priory we did go.

An ally discovered.

Gilbert's coins, a generous gift.
Knavesmire 'tween a fight.
Conrad thwarted, Clugney attacked.
His keep we set alight.


A Peasant's Army encroaches.
Plowright stabbed in the face.
A Black Company advances.
Clugney kissed Randulf's mace.


'Ware, Drumclog Moss Road, we do rule..
Neilson learnt the hard way.
Defeated Matterson the cruel.
Billige ended his day.

Badgers did poison Thorbjorn.
On the road, a knight met.
Vertingeld slain, and the way.
To Hexham we were set.

Lords corrupt, may rule the land, but.
Defeat at Badger's hand..
Calder, Mopsa, Randulf the Red.
​Friends, loyal to Black Stan.

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Pan Am

6/10/2020

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6th October 2020

It's Tuesday evening at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking and it's time for a boardgame.

The main game this evening was 'Pan Am', a game about building up airline companies over the years and then watching as they bought out by Pan Am in exchange for shares!

What's in a game?
​This game is set in 'The Golden Age of Air Travel', which I guess covers from the 'inter-war years' to the late 1960's.
This is reflected in the games look and art, which has a cool retro look to it.

  • Board; Pan Am's board is a very distinctive looking map. It may seem strange, but it's a map depicting the globe - just displayed from an unusual angle! The board displays a lot of important information. It displays spaces and tracks for workers and share values. It also displays all the available air routes, 4 'lines' of these routes are marked with special symbols
  • Hangars; these 4 trays are used to hold the 4 different classes of aeroplanes available.
  • Aeroplanes; there are 4 classes of aeroplane, only the first 2 classes are available at the game start. The other classes become available during the course of play. The models used to depict the aeroplanes are quite nicely made. They start with the class 1 aeroplanes which look a bit like a DC10, up to the class 4 model that looks like an early jumbo jet.
  • Meeples; each player will have a number of meeples to represent airports and engineers (Engineers are your workers.).
  • Destination cards; these cards depict different cities throughout the world that form the game's routes. Cards also belong to a region such as Europe or America. The art on all of these is great, having the look of classic airline posters from the era.
  • Directive cards; these cards usually give the player some sort of special action or bonus, sometimes these are dependant on an in game criteria, which sort of gives the player an objective to work for. Even though these cards only have text, they are printed in a typewriter font, which is a nice touch
  • Event cards; Pan Am is played over 7 rounds, at the start of each round an event card is drawn, there 4 for each round and the art on them is very good. Event cards look like newspaper front pages from those times. The art is thematically appropriate.
  • Player boards: These are simple card boards, they show a brake down of how a round works and give players a spot to place the unused aeroplanes in their air fleet. Most importantly, player boards display the player's income track.
  • Pan Am die; this is used to determine the actions taken by Pan Am at the end of each round.
  • Pan Am tokens; as Pan Am spreads throughout the map, it will take over any route that it reaches, these tokens are used to track that expansion.
  • Money & shares; currency is represented by thick card tokens and shares are bit like paper money.
Of course they are some other components, but they are fairly minor.
The game's components are all good and the game's art direction and quality are worth noting. This shows the game's attention to detail.

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A map of the world, but not as you know it.
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Aeroplanes in 'hangars'.
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Starting resources.
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Destination cards.
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Event card.

How's it play?
Setup
The set up for Pan Am is pretty straight forward.
  • Shuffle the destination cards and deal 2 to each player, these are placed face up in each player's area. Deal 4 face up on to the appropriate spots on the board. The remaining cards form a draw deck on the board
  • Shuffle the directive cards and deal 1 to each player, the remainder become a draw deck.
  • Prepare the event deck, there are 4 cards for each of the game's 7 rounds. Randomly draw 1 card from each of the sets to form a 7 card deck, with the round 1 card on top.
  • Give a player board to each player along with their starting aeroplanes, engineers and starting money.
  • All airport meeples are placed next to the airport worker track on the board.
  • Determine the first player (Last player to fly on a aeroplane.) and we're ready to go.

​Event card
Every round begins by turning over that round's event card. This determines some actions that will occur in the game.
  • Event; each card will have a specific event that occurs, this can be quite different from card to card.
  • Stock price; the event card may raise or lower the value of shares. An event card may even reset the stock value to a new value.
  • Pan Am activity; this is how many times the Pan Am die is rolled at the end of a round for their expansion.

Worker placement
This is where the majority of the game occurs;
Usually placing workers starts with the 1st player, but there is something called priority. This is explained in detail below, but basically any workers that were placed into the directive spaces in the previous round go first in placement order.

There are 2 types of spaces a worker can be placed into. 
  • Auction track; These are vertical tracks. All spaces on an auction track have a cost associated with them. The first player putting a worker on to an auction track, it can choose to place it anywhere. Subsequent players must place their worker above any worker already there (Thus outbidding them.), the worker in the lower space must be removed. This means that only one player can benefit from a particular auction track. Additionally, if a worker is placed into the topmost spot in an auction track, no one can outbid them.
  • Placement order track; these are horizontal tracks. All workers placed here are put into the leftmost empty space. When they are resolved later on, it is done in order of placement, which is potentially very important.

So we go on to the five different types of worker action available to players. Players can obviously place down their workers in any other, but below is the order in which they are resolved
  • A: Airports; this uses an auction track. When a player acquires an airport, they can place on any open city space and it grants them permanent landing rights at that city, it also prevents any other player from placing an airport on that space. Finally an airport increases a player's income by 1.
  • B: Destination cards; destination cards use auction tracks. There always 4 different destination cards that can be bid on. Destination cards give players permanent landing rights in the relevant city. They can also be discarded to gain temporary landing rights in other cities (More on this below.). All destination cards are displayed face-up in the player's area.
  • C: Aeroplanes; aeroplanes also use auction tracks. Winning an auction for a aeroplane grants the player an aeroplane of that class. Aeroplanes are not unlimited, as the class increases, the amount of aeroplanes available to each player decreases. At the start of the game only class 1 & 2 aeroplanes are available, class 3 aeroplanes unlock on the 3rd round and class 4 on the 6th. Each class of aeroplane has its own auction track. Better aeroplanes are needed for longer flight routes.
  • D: Routes; uses the placement order track, this track determines the order in which players can claim routes. A player can claim one route per worker placed in routes. In order to claim a route a player needs 2 things; landing rights for 2 'linked' cities with a route between them and a aeroplane that can fly that route. Landing rights come from having airports or destination cards for relevant cities. Alternatively if a player has a destination card for the same region as one of the cities, then that card can be discarded for temporary landing rights. If a player has 2 destination cards from the same region, then both can be discarded to get landing rights in any city in any region. Finally, every route is rated for length from 1 to 4, the player must place a aeroplane with and equal or higher class on the route to claim it. The aeroplane stays there until the route is bought by Pan Am. When a route is claimed, the player increases their income by the route number. Since only one player may claim a route, going before another player can be very important.
  • E: Directives; also uses a placement order track. In placement order, players draw a directive card. Unlike all the other tracks, workers are not removed when the action is resolved. Instead they stay there until the next turn. Then in placement order, they can be placed on the board before the first player begins. Thus if you really need to go first in the next turn, you can use the directives track to do it. Directive cards should be kept hidden from other players until they are used.
That's it for worker placement.

Expansion
Pan Am airlines starts the game in the Miami city space. The die is used to determine how and where Pan Am expands. The number of times the active player rolls it is dictated by the event card.
When the die is rolled, it will show one of two types of action.
  • Pan Am symbol; when this symbol comes up, any player may sell any route they have claimed to Pan Am (See below for more info on selling routes.).
  • Routes; the die can show a face which will have 2 symbols that match symbols on certain routes on the board. When this happens, Pan Am will travel along the lines with matching symbols. They will claim any routes they reach. If Pan Am reaches a route that a player has claimed, then the player is forced to sell it. They have no choice in this, Pan Am is just too big and powerful to refuse!
Selling routes
Selling (Or being forced to sell.) routes is not necessarily a bad thing, it can be vital to winning the game.
This is because Pan Am actually offers reasonably good money for a route.
A 1 point route will earn a player 1 per round, thus if a player has it for all 7 rounds it will earn a maximum of 7 throughout the game. Pan Am pays 5 for a 1 point route. So long term, keeping a route earns more, but it's a slow drip of money. Selling to Pan Am gives the player a lump sum that can immediately be re-invested into claiming more routes (Or buying shares.).
A 1 point route is worth 5.
A 2 point route is worth 9.
A 3 point route is worth 12.
A 4 point route is worth 14.

Obviously, there are diminishing returns here, but remember the class 4 aeroplanes will not appear until turn 6 (Unless an event card changes this.) and will only generate income for 2 turns.
When a route is sold to Pan Am, the player reduces their income track by the value of the route and the aeroplane on the route is replaced by a Pan Am token. The aeroplane is returned to the player which is actually very useful. The amount of aeroplanes a player can have is limited to the number of aeroplanes available. Each player only has 1 class 4 aeroplane, so being able to use it, sell the route it's on and then use it again is the way to go.
Players not only get the opportunity to sell routes during expansion, event cards and directive cards can also allow players to sell routes.

Income
Players earn an amount of money equal to their position along their income track.

Buy shares
Players can now buy shares, because this is the airline business, the only shares that matter are Pan Am shares.
Players may buy as much Pan Am stock as they can afford, the price of the shares is influenced by the event card played at the start of the round.
Since there is only ever 7 opportunities to buy shares, it's probably a good idea to try and buy them at every opportunity.

Once all players have bought all the shares they want, the round ends. The first player marker is moved left to the next player and new round begins.

Endgame
In this game, no one cares about the little routes that you create, they only care about Pan Am.
​After the end of the 7th round, players tally up the shares they have bought. Highest number of shares win. Remaining money counts as a tie breaker.

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Overall
Pam Am does a good job of blending accessibility, depth and player options.
Very rarely was there a meaningless choice in the game. Most of the time I felt that I could do with an extra worker or two.
Maximising your workers is very important, as is knowing when to bid for something or not. The destination card and class 1 aeroplane auction tracks have a minimum bid of 0. There's potential to get stuff for free when other players have minimal interest in it.

The key to the game I think, is selling routes to Pan Am at the right time, the prices are set a sweet spot of being good but not too good. Generally it's prudent to sell routes to Pan Am, but it's never a no-brainer - and that's a good thing.
Ideally players will want to try and build routes close to Pam Am, hoping to get bought  out. It's almost a counter-intuitive way to play.

Since the game is ultimately all about Pan Am shares, you obviously need to buy as many as possible and the game only gives players 7 opportunities to do this.

Stock prices generally start low in the game and rise continually throughout the game, this can put players in a quandary.
Do you buy shares in earlier rounds when they are much cheaper and run the risk of lacking funds to compete in bidding?
Or do you buy them later, hoping that your early investments pay off and give you more money to buy the invariably more expensive shares.

Finally, it's quite interesting watching as Pan Am unfailingly spreads across the board, consuming everything in its way.

I have the urge to play Pan Am again, that's always a solid indicator of a  good game in my opinion. It's definitely worth trying.
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Medium

6/10/2020

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6th October 2020

For the first time in nearly 7 months we're in Woking at 'The Sovereigns'. The last we were here was the 17th March!

The Woking Gaming Club isn't really back up-and-running yet, but a few of us have raised our heads above the parapets to wave the flag and of course; play some games.

The first game of the night was 'Medium', a light word-association card game.

What's in a game?
  • ​Medium cards; there are 270 of these, each card displays a single word, written normally and upside down so two people can easily read them at the same time.
  • Crystal ball cards; there are 3 of these, each one has an illustration of a crystal ball.
  • Scoring tokens; there are 3 types of double sided scoring token, scoring 5-6, 3-4 or 1-2 points. On the other side they are numbered 1, 2 or 3.
That's it for the components, the quality is perfectly acceptable and the small amount of art used in the game is also OK.

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How's it play?
Before play begins the deck must be created, the number of cards used depends on the number of players. The deck is shuffled and the 3 crystal ball cards are shuffled into the bottom third of this deck.
6 cards are then deal to each player.
Finally, the scoring tokens are laid out with the scores face down and the 1, 2 and 3 numbers displayed.

  • Medium is both a competitive and cooperative game, this means that the active player will partner up with the player to their left.
  • The active player and their partner in turn each play a single card facing each other. Thus there will be 2 words displayed. 
  • Now both players try to think of a common word between the 2 displayed words (It can't be a word on the two cards.). When they're both ready, they both count down 3... 2... 1... and both say their word simultaneously.
  • If the 2 words match; then a number 1 token (Worth 5-6 points.) is placed between the 2 players and play progresses to the next player.
  • If the 2 words don't match; then the 2 players must guess again. Except this time they must try and find a common word between the 2 different words they just spoke, not the words on the cards, furthermore they can't use the words on the cards or any previously spoken words as the common word. If the 2nd guess succeeds, then a number 2 token (Scoring 3-4 points.) is taken. If they failed again, they get a 3rd and final attempt using the last 2 words they spoke, the same rules above still apply. Success means a token scoring 1-2 points is taken, failing a 3rd time means they score 0 points.
  • Play progresses until all players have been the active player, then all players draw cards to refill their hands.

Endgame
Play continues until the 3rd crystal ball card is drawn, which triggers the endgame. The game then continues until the current round is completed and all players have had an equal number of turns.

Each player then tallies up the scores from the tokens to their left and right​, highest score wins!

Overall
There's not much to say. As you can see from above, Medium is a light game that may appeal to casual players, it is a game that can be quickly learnt.

It's not a deep game either, random chance can play a part and sometimes you'll get 2 words that have no obvious commonality. There is some room for strategy in Medium though. The player that goes 2nd will have the opportunity to play a hopefully suitable second word.

We didn't play the game extensively, but it seemed if a common word wasn't guessed first time, the 2nd and 3rd guesses weren't going to be any better.

It's a strangely stressful game, I think it's because your guess will also affect your partner's score.
Conversely; when it's not your time, observing how other people play is fun.

One potential issue was the scoring, each 'level' of scoring has a 1-point variation in its score and some people are not fond of it. We house ruled it and used the other side of the tokens for scoring, a successful first guess would get 3 points, down to 1 for a successful 3rd guess.

If you like somewhat stressful word-association games, then you might like this. Easy to learn and play, it's a reasonable little filler game.
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Merry Outlaws - Session 08

6/10/2020

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3rd October 2020

Saturday night in the living room and logged into Skype.

We may a player down, but Matakishi's Merry Outlaws campaign continues.

Location: The Badger's Set.

We had successfully liberated Billige from the yolk of The Black Company and defeated Matterson the Cruel.
After some discussion, we decided that we should press on against The Black Company.
Their leader, Thorbjorn Neilson had assumed Clugney's seat in Wedgemore, this is where we decided to go.

We instructed The Crows to watch the road and 'relieve' any passing supply convoys or soldiers of their possessions.

Taking the Welshmen with us, we journeyed through the forest uneventfully, but we stopped short of leaving the tree line and observed from the safety of the shady foliage.

Wedgemore was as prosperous as it had always been and the residents went about their business normally, seemingly unaffected by the violence that had afflicted all the other local settlements.

As we watched, we could see small groups of soldiers patrolling, each consisted of about half a dozen of Clugney's men begin lead by a man-at-arms from The Black Company.

Wedgemore Castle was still uninhabitable and the tent camp was still in use. we spotted Thorbjorn, he was residing in one of the signature black and white tents favoured by The Black Company.
The other black and white tent was occupied by his retinue.

The direct approach here was not much of an option, there were too many enemies.

Instead we discussed our next step. That next step, it appears would be a devious one. Mopsa still had the poison given to her by Mother Benevolent.

We knew that the servants in Thorbjorn's retinue would provide him with food and drink at mealtime. We came up with a plan to poison his drink.

The best time to poison him was at breakfast we surmised. So we waited until the fall of night and in the hours between midnight and dawn, Mopsa slyly entered the camp.

It was quiet in the camp, there was no movement. Shrouded by darkness, Mopsa crept between tents, making her way until she found the servant's tent.
Quietly, Mopsa entered the tent. Inside it was pitch black, Mopsa couldn't even see her hand in front of her face.

It was too risky to have any kind of light, Mopsa had to very slowly navigate the tent in the darkness. Eventually, by touch alone she discovered the serving jug.

Mother Benevolent had told Mopsa that there was enough poison to kill about six people. Mopsa poured about half of the poison into the jug.
The servants would not pay any attention to such a small amount of liquid in the jug when they filled it with beer in and handed it over to Thorbjorn in the morning. He would drink it, the poison would do its thing; job done.

Mopsa now had but to leave the tent and return to the forest. As she made for the exit she stumbled over something.
There was a splutter and a grunt, one of the servants had woken.
Mopsa lay on the ground, holding her breath. In the dark she could hear the rustle of clothing and blankets, still she waited, breath held.
The movement and rustling continued for a few more moments. Then Mopsa heard the recognisable sound of someone flopping back down to sleep.

Mopsa waited a few more moments, there were no more sounds of movement. Mopsa made for the exit again - this time even more cautiously.
After making it out of the tent, Mopsa returned to the sanctuary of the forest.
Now all we had to do was wait and watch.

Dawn was still a thin rosy band along the eastern horizon when the Teutons rose at five o'clock.
As the camp stirred, we watched the servants bringing food and drink to Thorbjorn.

An hour passed as we continued to watch. We saw one of the servants come out of their test, he was coughing blood and collapsed! The wrong person had been poisoned.
There was alarm, but nobody seemed suspicious at the cause of his demise as they carted off his corpse.

Not be deterred, Randulf came up with a possible solution to our dilemma: Now that the servant was dead, he would need to be replaced.
Randulf disguised himself as a resident of Wedgemore and approached Thorbjorn's remaining servants and asked for employment.

The servants seemed quite happy to employ Randulf: He spent the day as their general dogsbody, they worked Randulf quite hard through the day whilst they relaxed.
Randulf did however get the opportunity to search their tent in the afternoon. He found several serving jugs, including one that was particularly well made, this must have been the jug used to serve Thorbjorn.
Carefully, Randulf tipped the remaining poison into this jug.

As the day wore on, the servants prepared Thorbjorn's evening meal. Randulf saw that they filled the poisoned jug with beer and took to him.
When no one was looking, Randulf nipped back in the tent and stuffed the now empty vial into a servant's sleeping bag.

An hour later, a bellowing roar came out of Thorbjorn's tent. The Teutonic knight came staggering out coughing blood, he walked a few swaying steps before toppling to the floor. He was dead.

The Black Company men-at-arms were highly suspicious now, they had seen two people to die in the same way on a single day. They suspected poison - and they were right to do so.

The men-at-arms rounded up all the serving staff, as Randulf was the newcomer, suspicion immediately fell on him.

But as fate would have it, one of the soldier returned from having searched the servant's tent.
He had a vial in one hand and and some blankets in the other.

The servants were questioned and the one identified as the owner of the blankets was dragged away.
Without delay, the men-at-arms began torturing the poor servant. He squirmed and screamed but did not admit to the poisoning.

Meanwhile, the remaining servants - including Randulf were still kept in custody.

The torture continued for some time, but still the servant vehemently protested his innocence. The soldiers were less convinced of his guilt now and some of them were beginning to give Randulf sidelong glances.
It was only a matter of time before the men-at-arms came back to Randulf. We had to get him out of there and fast!

There was no time for a clever solution, instead we had to use the direct approach. Along with the Welshmen, we launched a volley of arrows at the soldiers keeping the servants in custody.
Our aim was true and we landed several arrows on target, thinning their numbers.

With alarming skill, the men-at-arms reached for their weapons, turned to face us and immediately formed a shield war and began advancing on our position on the edge of the forest.

We loosed a second volley into the shield wall, it was much less effective, but it kept their attention firmly fixed on us.

This gave Randulf the opportunity he needed to make good his escape. As he did so, one of the servants tried to hold him back, but Randulf simply swatted him away and being swift footed, easily fled into a different part of the woods.

The rest of us also retreated into the woods. We all met up soon enough and returned to The Badger's Set.

Poisoning was a rather nasty way of meeting your fate and it had been a messy end to Thorbjorn's messy end, but the deed was done and that was what counted.

The next day came. Next we decided to travel to a place we had yet to see; Wenham and Wenham Castle.

We were certain that the road to Wenham would be guarded at the bridge. Instead we decided to cross the Scarmore River at the western forest ford.

Once again, we took the Welshmen with us, the others would be left watching the road.

With Knavesmire abandoned and The Crow Folk leaderless, the forest of Caucy north of the road had become a quiet, somewhat remote place.
We marched along the woody trails and verdant winding paths in an unremarkable journey.

We emerged from the trees somewhere between Wenham and Little Wenham.

Little Wenham had suffered the encroachment of The Peasant's Army, we thought it prudent to check on the settlement first.
Farmers had returned to their homes and fields, they were busy repairing the damage and vandalism done to the land. Crops and been stolen or churned up, farmland would need reseeding.


The Peasant's Army's advance had been halted before they reached Little Wenham and it had been was mostly unchanged.

Turning south, we saw small bands of people and families walking north out of Wenham with whatever belongings they could carry. It was a scattered but definitely constant stream of people.


Stopping some of these people, we asked them what the situation was like in Wenham?
Their answers were not good.

Once the defences at the bridge had fallen, the Teutons and Clugney's men had swept in, sacking Wenham, killing, burning and looting at a whim.
Among the invaders was a man dressed entirely in black, he set on himself to destroy Wenham's church and persecute the parishioners. They had no choice but to flee.

We gathered together as many of the refugees as we could and told them that they could find safety at Billige if they chose to go there.
Most of them found this agreeable and we instructed the Welshmen to lead them through the forest to Billige.

Continuing south, we came upon Wenham's northern gate. It was a typically walled town, guarded by Clugney's men, they seemed very relaxed and paid us no attention as we came into the town.

It was obvious to all that Wenham had endured an attack. From broken windows and sundered doors to burnt and blackened ruins, seemingly every building showed evidence of damage. Smoke still rose from the southern half of the Wenham.

The town was surprisingly free of corpses considering the attack it had so recently experienced. Even though much of Wenham's population must had fled north, they were still a few brave souls solemnly going about their business.

Next we decided to investigate the smoke, this took us into the southern parts of Wenham, once again we passed the guards and they completely ignored us.
The southern half of Wenham was a lot more densely built up than the north. The houses and buildings here were a lot more tightly packed together and generally at closer to each other.
Even so, the southern half was a lot less populated than the northern. The town square was closed, shops were closed, streets were practically empty of people and an eerie quietness had settled on the south.

The town's church wasdevastated, it was burnt and ruined dead husk of a building. Workmen were busily ripping its stony corpse apart, taking away the brickwork and masonry, apparently to rebuild houses elsewhere in Wenham.
Worse than that; the corpses of a number of clergymen had been strung up around the ruined church.

There we saw Osric; the 'man in black', he did not see or perhaps recognise us, he was fully occupied with directing the gutting of the church.

Wenham Castle was also located in the southern half, the black and white Teutonic flag fluttered atop the castle. The walls and battlements were surprisingly undamaged, it didn't look like the castle had put up much of a fight against the invaders.

Still further to the south, smoke still rose. We continued towards it until we discovered the gruesome truth behind it.

Piled high were the bodies of the dead townsfolk, here was where the dead had been taken. Victims of the fighting had been gathered into some sort of huge pyre. But this was no ordinary pyre,  no funeral pyre would ever burn this long. Wood was being used to keep the fire going and the occasional newly-found corpse would be heaped upon it.

The sight of this, chilled us to the core. What could be the purpose of this?

We spoke with some of the few townsfolk that still lived in this part of Wenham. They provided us with several answers. They said that they had been told it was supposedly a 'German tradition', or was being done to 'stop the spread of the plague'.
The orders to slowly burn the bodies had come from Osric. Some of the townsfolk also swore blind that Osric had 'turned into a bird, flown into the castle and opened it up for the attackers'!
Well, it would at least explain why the castle had been taken without sustaining damage!

Finally, they told us that they had heard rumours that another army was attacking Hexham from the north.
This was significant. We knew that Gaston, Gilbert and Philippe were on the southern of Hexham, who could be on the north?

Further south, past the pyre, the southern gate out of Wenham was locked and had been barricaded. There was no way out through there.

Our options were limited: We could not conceive any way to get into the castle.

Osric however, was without guards, busy supervising the workers at the church. He would be our next target.

First we scouted out the area around the church and devised an escape route. Fortunately getting over the town wall would be easier from the inside.
During this time, we were approached by two men in black.

Reflexively, we assumed that they were Crow Folk - and we were correct. They meant us no harm though, they had heard that following the deaths of their leaders, we had recruited some Crow Folk. They asked to join our cause too, we chose to accept them.

Now that we had an escape route, we had to deal with Osric. There was no time to devise a clever scheme, instead we just shot him with arrows, except for Randulf who charged Osric, yelling.

The strange black robed priest was made of sterner stuff than appeared. Several arrows had hit their mark, Osric was staggered but still standing. He tried running into the ruined church for cover when Randulf intercepted him.

Osric whipped out a pair of wicked looking daggers, Randulf and he exchanged blows for a few moments. Then our two new recruits both landed their shots on Osric. It was too much for him and he crumpled to the ground, dead.

After a few moments of yelling and fighting, a calmness had settled on the ruined church. The workers had wisely fled at the first sign of trouble, looking round we realised that we were alone.
This wouldn't last; Randulf searched Osric and found some knuckle bones and runic pendants. He took all of them, along Osric's two daggers.

After this, we fled. There were no problems as we followed our escape route out of Wenham and made for the safety of the forest.
From there we returned to The Badger's Set. When we arrived, we learnt that the refugees had successfully reached Billige.

The next day came and deciding our next step was easy. It was agreed that we should investigate this mysterious army north of Hexham.

We marched north through the forest, across the road and over the river, after some hours we reached the northernmost edge of the trees.

From our position, we could see that there was indeed another sizeable army besieging Hexham's north gate. Three or four thousand in number.
Their colours were 'vert a tree or', I recognised it as the livery of 'Sir Michael Somerville', a powerful lord from the north.

In our estimation, Sir Michael's forces were greater the combined French forces south of Hexham. This new obstacle was a significant one.

As we watched and deliberated the predicament, we spotted some movement, further north past Sir Michael's army, at the horizon.

It was a column of some sixty riders led by a knight, they had stopped well away from Sir Michael's army. They lingered for a minute or two before heading off in the direction of The Devil's Cut, they were skirting the army by going cross country.

This would bring them close to the tree line, as they drew closer, their colours became clearer.
'Argent three sparrows sable', these were the colours of 'Sir Nigel Loring' a well known knight with some renown for fighting the French.

Looking as unthreatening as possible, we stepped out of the relative safety of the trees and waved down the column.
They halted and the heavily armoured knight at the head of the column cantered up, upon reaching us he flipped up his visor and identified himself as Sir Nigel Loring.

We exchanged pleasantries and Sir Nigel told us that he, along with Sir Michael Somerville had been tasked with pursuing The Peasant's Army on its march south. When The Peasant's army was dispersed, word reached Sir Michael that Hexham was being besieged, he abandoned the pursuit in favour of personal gain. Sir Nigel was not impressed with Sir Michael going against Roland, 'The King's man'.

In turn, we explained to Sir Nigel what had passed in this Parish in the last few weeks.
How Wenham and Wedgemore were in the hands of Teutonic knights and how French forces were besieging Hexham.
Sir Nigel was not pleased to hear of the encroachment of French soldiers and particularly the Teutonic knights.

He decided to set things right.
We looked at his men and when we explained to Sir Nigel that he would be matching his sixty against Gaston, Gilbert and Philippe's hundreds, he did not seem perturbed. Instead he ordered his men on to Wenham.

Sir Nigel had no quarrel with us accompanying him, so we did.

He rode into Wenham and up to the castle. Shouting loudly, he challenged whoever was inside to single combat, announcing that everyone inside was a cowardly cur.

The Wenham castle gates opened and out rode 'Vortingeld the Black', last knight of The Black Company.

Sir Nigel and Vortingeld lifted their visors in salute to one another as a crowd began to gather, news of their fight had spread fast, the growd continued to grow as they prepared.

Once these preparations were completed, they met in battle.

Sir Nigel and Vortingeld charged each other with lances, the result was a tie, they wheeled round and had a second pass, again it was indecisive, they were quite evenly matched.
They had a third pass and Vortingeld was finally unseated, toppling head over heel and crashing to the ground.

The battle continued on foot, here it was clear Sir Nigel had an advantage and Vortingeld was quickly dispatched.
A roar of approval rose from the watching English crowds.

Vortingeld was the last of the three knights, perhaps it meant an end to the Teutons.

Having won the fight, Sir Nigel demanded The Black Company vacate Wenham Castle. Despondently, most of them left the castle.
A hand of the men-at-arms belligerently decided to stay on in the castle, among them was Bjorn Ironhand.

We remembered the time when Bjorn had boasted of burning The Three Stoats and a Weasel inn down to the ground and the bodies that we had found strung along the road next to the ruined inn.

Randulf stepped forward and shouted his own challenge to Bjorn. Luckily for Randulf, Bjorn Ironhand was happy to acquiesce.

Randulf waved Matterson's warhammer at Bjorn and they met in battle. Bjorn was outmatched and he soon fell to Randulf's blows, he had failed to land a single blow on Randulf.

Seeing that Bjorn too had been bested, the last remaining Teutonic soldiers fled the castle.

Sir Nigel ordered his men to secure the castle and took command of Wenham. The day was late and the sun was crawling towards the horizon, Sir Nigel decided to spend the night at Wenham and continue on in the morning.
He invited us to stay in the castle as well, but we declined. Instead we returned to the forest and to The Badger's Set after telling him we would return in the morning to lead him and his men to Hexham.

We rose early and with the low morning sun blazing at our backs, travelled through the forest to Wenham. The morning was quiet save for our marching and the energetic birdsong, we arrived at Wenham without mishap.

After exchanging pleasantries, we took the lead and set out for Hexham. It did not take long to reach The Fork, we had to stop short, it was barricaded and manned by Clugney's men.

We had forgotten that The Fork would still be under control of The Black Company. Sir Nigel did not seem concerned though.

He called over one of his men. "Samkind, it's your turn," he told the man.

Samkin ordered the men to dismount and organised them into a formation, they then loosed a volley at the soldiers manning the barricades. Several soldiers fell to the arrows, those remaining realised that they could not hope to resist the archers and retreated.

The archers remounted their horses and we continued passed the fork.

It was decided that we should visit Wedgemore before heading to Hexham. Whilst the forces at Wedgemore were fairly insignificant, we did not feel like having them at our backs as we advanced eastwards.

When we arrived at Wedgemore, the townsfolk came watch us reach the town. We talked with Sir Nigel and told him we should give the soldiers an opportunity to surrender or retreat. He did not protest this and said that we should speak with them ourselves, if that was how we felt.

So we went into Wedgemore and addressed the soldiers, there were no more than twenty of Clugney's men and Teutons.
Mopsa told them that we intended to take control of Wedgemore and behind us were sixty archers. If the twenty of them left Wedgemore now, they would be allowed to leave unharmed.
They did not spend much time deliberating, they were outnumbered three-to-one and left without causing trouble.

The Black Company were now well and truly vanquished and their grip here was broken.

From here we set out for Hexham once again.

Passing The Fork once more, we soon entered the gloomy stillness of Caucy Forest. As we passed the burnt out, gutted remains of Knavesmire, Sir Nigel could see that this destruction had occurred recently.

He turned to us and asked who had done this.

We replied that Conrad had destroyed the village, but the inn had been attacked by The Black Company.
Sir Nigel shook his head and commented that the world had gone mad.

The column continued east until reached Hexham.

As the forest fell away, giving way to open field and pasture, we could see the forces arrayed out against us.
Sir Gilbert held the green with his men.
Sir Philippe held the area further east of Hexham, including Drumclog Moss Road.
Sir Gaston was on the crossroad itself, he was in a commanding position there.

Unperturbed, Sir Nigel and his men rode straight into Gaston's camp and he issued Gaston a challenge.
Gaston however, refused the challenge, stating he had ni wish to fight another English knight.
Sir Nigel then give him an ultimatum; fight or leave.

We decided to leave them to it, there was little we could do here.
Instead we had another idea and went all the way back to Wedgemore.
The town was as pleasant as always and quieter now that it was empty of soldiers. 

Wedgemore Castle was equally as quiet when we returned to it. Previously we had seen pigeons arriving at the castle from the direction of Hexham. It was likely that whoever was sending them would not be aware that Clugney was dead and his castle had fallen.

We found the castle's dove cage, as luck would have it, there was a messenger pigeon here.
It read: 'Are getting worried, will strike tomorrow. M'.

'M' had to refer to Lady Margaret. What was she planning, was she planning to kill Sir Roland?
we discussed what we should next, ultimately we decided to send a reply.

'Stay for hand for two days.' it read,

After this we returned to The Badger's Set.
Thus ended the eighth adventure of The Merry Badgers of Billige.

The Ballard of Calder Winterbourne 'Mouse Eater'

It is unclear where or when the ‘Ballad of Calder Winterbourne’ originated.  No copy exists with provenance earlier than the mid-fifteenth century (and that only a fragment).  It is likely that early versions have been adapted by others over the centuries and sections re-written or entirely new text added, perhaps to add contemporary references, incorporate unrelated fragments or cover situations likely to be familiar to new, later readers.  There is, for example, an oblique reference to a possible act of enclosure in the prologue, which must either be a poor transcription or later addition to a supposedly ‘medieval’ text.  No reference to Calder Winterbourne exists in the historical record and it is therefore likely that, if he ever existed, his story has been greatly embellished or his tale is a combination of several stories combined in a convenient narrative thread.’‘It is unclear where or when the ‘Ballad of Calder Winterbourne’ originated.  No copy exists with provenance earlier than the mid-fifteenth century (and that only a fragment).  It is likely that early versions have been adapted by others over the centuries and sections re-written or entirely new text added, perhaps to add contemporary references, incorporate unrelated fragments or cover situations likely to be familiar to new, later readers.  There is, for example, an oblique reference to a possible act of enclosure in the prologue, which must either be a poor transcription or later addition to a supposedly ‘medieval’ text.  No reference to Calder Winterbourne exists in the historical record and it is therefore likely that, if he ever existed, his story has been greatly embellished or his tale is a combination of several stories combined in a convenient narrative thread.’

​Prologue
Calder Winterbourne, archer bold
Born afar in Blackmore Vale
Full man o’war, full man o’peace
Far-sighted, swift and hale.
 
Served his lord full time in France
Gave all honour and duty.
Came back with naught but empty hands
Nowhere a sign of booty.
 
Returned to see the Vale closed down
The villagers all evicted
Saith he ‘I served ignoble lords
Now shall I never more’.
 
Calder has taken to his travels.
He wanders near and far
Trusts not the rich, befriends the poor,
Takes all men as they are.
 
Part One
To hear a blacksmith’s tale of woe
His daughter held by Giles
Another woman held for trial
A witch? A slander vile.
 
Four foresters guide to Giles tower
Outside henchmen in force.
All take stock and arrows nock,
A bold rush is the course.
 
Calder’s arrows fly and two men die
Giles slain in dreadful fight.
His henchmen turn and see the light
The blacksmith’s daughter is aright.
 
A witch is held for loss of flour,
The miller is distraught
The cause is naught but pilfering
Yet from a bloodstained thought.
 
A forester’s been done to death
His friends the guides are grieving.
A blackmailed man is stealing flour
To hide innocence with thieving.
 
Now truth is out and witch is freed,
No charge in any eyes.
Loot found, restored, in easy shares
And a new-named Calder Wise.

Part Two
Now safely camped in de Courcy
They look t’ward easy living
A blameless life, an end to strife,
Days of gathering and giving.
 
But Black Crows are in the meadows
Wat Taylor’s going to burn
The Crows have stole a wedding dress
All honour do they spurn.
 
At Knavesmire side Wat’s wounds they bind
Carter Emlyn aids them.
They take their rest and full refreshed
By Odo and Crispin’s singing.
 
The village fills with gentry’d folk
To Hexham their road winds
A missing dress? Oh woe! Distress!
All are commanded ‘Find!’
 
Great search ensues as trouble brews,
For Mannering’s men are slacking.
Courcy’s crew their search renew
They need no other backing.
 
They track their foes, the evil Crows,
Black Stan has heard their calling,
And Mopsacle undoes their traps,
At all points Crows are falling.
 
To search Crows’ nest without arrest:
How, in a camp this size?
A simple feat for crew includes
Randulf, Lord of Disguise!
 
Now Mopsacle has found the dress,
To Hexham heroes hurry.
Return of gown lifts bridal frown
And frees her mind from worry.
 
In gratitude, reward is made
Wedding party is delighted.
Crew bids adieu and melts from view
Now troths can all be plighted.
 
The cost of dress drawn with duress
From common folk to vex them
A shadow falls within town walls:
Sheriff Rolfe, the curse of Hexham.
 
“Reward’s not ours – the people gave,
Now we can make amends.
Money goes to those in need
Through Friars and our friends.

Part Three
News cross the land: all wake, all stand!
A holiday in season!
But dreadful word; for no good reason,
Emlyn will hang for treason.
 
To cast more dark on happy Saint’s Day
The friends are now all outlaw.
It frees their hands to make a stand
Fight injustice as they saw.
 
In Hexham town Emlyn is bound
And lies in reeking bower.
Stan and Wat are took by Sheriff’s crooks
All held in Eastgate Tower.
 
Their friends rush in to break them out,
There’s close and nasty fighting
All are now saved, rope’s end denied!
Now to Wat’s home, for hiding.
 
The Dyers Guild sold Wat to Sheriff:
They are due a reckoning.
The crew close in on Guildhall door,
Trader’s entrance is a-beckoning.
 
Calder holds the staff enthralled,
Speaking words of honey.
Friends search the house, creep cat and mouse,
All following the money.
 
Guildmaster Lister speaks in whispers
Dealing with Edward Crow.
Crow brethren leader mocks and jeers –
Ranulf fells him with one blow.
 
“Tis done, Crows hate no more or less
Than when that man was living.
Good Friars still take what we gain
And see the poor are shriven.”
 
Carter and all the Taylor folk,
Subject to lies unseeming,
Must leave the town and join the camp
Beneath the oak trees greening.
 
And what shall be this brave band’s theme?
All sett – the Billige Badgers?
Clad in simple Hexham Green, their role –
A knee in the Sheriff’s nadgers!
 
Notes from the expanded second edition of the renamed ‘English Folk Songs, Ballads and Verse’ (1895):
‘The author (or authors) now appear to regret the choice of third person as the voice of the ballad, with the appearance of apparently direct speech from Part 2 onward.  Almost inevitably this will be complete fiction and should not be taken as reporting of actual conversation. Part 3 ends on a rather coarse and vulgar note, possibly reflecting the limited range of rhyme available for ‘badger’ and the author’s frustration at possible future limitations.  If inclined toward sympathy, readers should note first the (unverified and probably apocryphal) comment attributed to Christina Rossetti:  ‘At least they weren’t a French gang living in Orange’

​Part Four
The world is in a turmoil
Badgers seek and snuffle round.
There’s money in the villages
Noses to the ground!
 
Where’s the money coming in from?
Why are maypoles growing here?
Which lord is up, which lord is down –
Let’s think on’t over beer.
 
Why is Conrad’s squire in Knavesmire?
A physick for Lady M?
For she has the morning sickness
It’s a panacea for them.
 
But the potion is of hemlock
Just a foul Socratic brew
Badgers know a milder herbal
Goodly Alice tells them true.
 
Badgers now in Wenham find
The potion brewer’s lair
But they dally and they tarry
Deal in nothing but hot air.
 
So they’re off to Lady Margaret
Nought must upset the borning
She grants them all her favour
In gratitude for warning.
 
But why are Gascons in the bailey?
Why did Klea take a fall?
Foreign cash abounds for Clugney –
Will the outlaws hear it call?
 
So the Badgers make a plan to seize
The treasure train from France
Coin here will feed the poor once more
Badgers prepare a merry dance!

Part Five
Badgers lurk on Drumclog Moss
‘Til treasure train appears.
Their eyes are fixed on mule-packed gold:
All ready, no-one fears.
 
But the trap is sprung by a ragged band,
A mob that no-one knew.
A starving group down on their luck
The undaunted Drumclog Few.
 
Hugh is the leader of The Few
Badgers challenge, Hugh defiant.
The quarterstaffs spit fire, and then
After hurricane, the quiet.
 
The treasure shared, all part as friends
Money now with friars to share.
But Wenham’s full of stranger tales
Almost too much to bear.
 
Lady Margaret’s Clugney’s friend
And will not hear of Conrad.
More shrines appearing all round town
Must drive good Churchmen mad.
 
Now down the road Knavesmire’s alight,
Black Crows defend it stoutly.
Badgers shepherd the villagers
To Billige for their safety.
 
Horsemen from Hexham harry home
Billige is all a-fever.
Badgers stand, protect their friends
And help defeat the reivers.
 
In Wedgemore’s where it comes together
Waiting for Chatsworth’s presence.
Though shrines are found all round the town
None can explain their essence.

A chance to see the castle, so
The Badgers take a turn.
Take Clugney's gold, make note of all
And leave the hold to burn.
 
{Editor’s note:  there appears to be another stanza, or possibly two, here but the only existing copy of this section is badly damaged.  It appears to mention a raid on castle, but the text is near illegible.]

Part Six
In Wenham, world turned upside down;
Retinue poor but people wealthy.
Now Clugney's brought in Teuton knights -
They're brash and never stealthy.

They come to aid in Clugney's fight
He says 'gainst unjust king,
But here local lords oppress the folk
And cause balladeer to sing.

A northern host of unwashed rage
Closes on the county
Demagogue fans flames of war
With promises of bounty.

The rabble to north, Clugney's to south,
Conrad's in a vice.
The innocent poor of Wenham town will
Be those that pay the price.

Can Badgers few stem the tide alone?
Could they be a small town's saviour?
They'll try by landing careful blows -
Not bludgeon but a rapier.

To northern host in dead of night,
A stealthy undertaking.
Calder finds their leader's bed, and
He'll never more be waking.

All of a dither now south of the river
Black Company falls on Wenham.
To thin their ranks, ease townsfolk's lot
Badger arrows fly from woodland.

Now Clugney rides in sight of all
And the shooting heeds the call.
Sebastian-like he's pierced by shafts
But no martyr, a tyrant falls.

Weham's taken, town is sacked,
Misery for Badgers' friends.
O where is justice, where the right?
And who shall make amends?

Part Seven
​TBC

The Mystery of Calder Winterbourne
Scholars who have followed the campaigns and ballads of the outlaw group infamously known as "The Badgers of Billige" have noted several missing stanzas concerning one of the founding members - Calder Winterbourne. For many years it was believed Calder's sudden absence from the tales of the group was due some heroic death whilst attempting to liberate the townage of Wedgemore prior to the Siege of Hexham.

However recent archeological digs have found a mysterious set of incomplete stanzas that refer to the leader of a previously unknown peasant uprising far to the South in Dorset.

Many leading scholars note similarities between the subject (and style) of the ballad and the erstwhile Winterbourne and believe Calder - having liberated Little Wenham from the Peasant Army of the North and assassinated their leader - had seen fit to take command of the thousands strong  group and lead them safely away from the armies of Sirs Nigel and Somerville for revolutionary glory in the South.

Whilst much of the stanzas remain fragmented and Calder's involvement remains in dispute, a recent dredging near Christchurch discovered a mysterious wreck - The Curlew of Avon. Little of value lay within the ship after so many centuries, but in an old chest deep within the Captain's cabin was found two strange artifacts.

A friar habit and a single arrow fletched with black feathers

The Ballard of Mopsa Hiems 'Mopsacle'

Rumble rumble in the village
We shout and perform in little Billige
Down the road and through the woods
Defeating great Giles, who thought we could?

Father and daughter reunited,
To save poor Alice we can’t be short-sighted
Back at the mill, held against their will
“Here they are, the real witches"
"Come Mr Merick and smack these bitches”


Wedding gown stolen,
Three feathers in its place
We rushed through the forest
There was no time to waste

Traps nor Crows could not stop us
We’d get it, come what may
400 gold for the dress returned
Priceless to save her day


Announced as outlaws
A friend sentenced to hang
To save his life, 
We’ll go out with a bang

A nun walks into a jail
Three friends walk out free,
Face off at the dye guild
A crow lets out his final plea


​An ambush by the inn,
The crows flock once again,
A plot to poison a friend,
A dastardly deed orchestrated by men. 
​

A Dozen Badgers plan a heist,
Drumclog few get in on the fight,
Burning confusion within a village,
We stand proud an' strong at great Billige. 
​

The day before battle they gather,
Foreign knights and uprising peasants, 
Midnight and Dawn we struck,
Their leaders last breath, unpleasant.


A rivalry comes to an end,
Badgers verses Crows,
With new found friends,
Happiness through Billige flows.

One by one the dark knights fall,
Master disguise and infiltration,
With an army by our side,
We shall bring Salvation. 

The Ballard of Randulf The Red

Stand and listen gentlefolk
A giant cometh across the land
Let us speak of a grappling God
Randulf the Red, brute of his band

With a grin he wrestled the best
Tankards of mead followed a great draw
With sweep of his arms, bandits were battled
Until the ghastly one was no more


He climbed great oaken trees
To take the crow men by surprise
To save a maidens wedding day
He became the master of disguise


Loyal friends are captured
Rescued by friar and nun
Once three birds of a feather
One crow down, a traitor undone


A poisonous plot
And the swoop of the Crow
For such heroics toward Our Lady
A token of friendship she did bestow


A raid on the rich, a parley struck
Beside fellow outlaws, sorely deformed
As tension flamed, villages did burn
Against the oppressors, The Badgers then stormed


As Nobles prepare for war
Ironhanded knights join the fray
As Northern rebellion is halted
An arrow at dawn ensures Clugney’s last day


"Stand and Deliver" 
The Black Crows finally flayed
With Randulf's new hammer
Foreign Knights were outplayed

By stealth, by bludgeon
Our enemies all fell
In chivalrous duel
Was the last Teuton sent to Hell

The Ballard of Black Stan

Fine Alice from Billige, accused.
Blodwin gone, was kidnapped.
A witches trial we denied.
And thus, Giles got slapped!

A horrific sight encountered.
Three feathers up the arse!
By crows, the bride's gown was stolen.

Saved, reward to folk, passed.

Emlyn unjustly imprisoned.
A pal not forsaken.
A crow and dyer conspire.
Justice and coin taken.

The errand squire we did find.
Poison plot uncovered..
To a Priory we did go.

An ally discovered.

Gilbert's coins, a generous gift.
Knavesmire 'tween a fight.
Conrad thwarted, Clugney attacked.
His keep we set alight.


A Peasant's Army encroaches.
Plowright stabbed in the face.
A Black Company advances.
Clugney kissed Randulf's mace.


'Ware, Drumclog Moss Road, we do rule..
Neilson learnt the hard way.
Defeated Matterson the cruel.
Billige ended his day.

Badgers did poison Thorbjorn.
On the road, a knight met.
Vertingeld slain, and the way.
To Hexham we were set.
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