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Jim Patching
United Kingdom
Cardiff
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France has fallen – now for Rome!
King Arthur wastes no time in mustering his army and marches straight towards the heart of the ancient Empire. His troops have to march through the Roman provinces of Burgundy and Gaul en route. They meet no armed resistance here at all and our knights do their bit during the journey:
 Sir Breakius makes sure the men stay in line and no one acts in-appropriately.
Handsome Sir Owen does his best to win over the hearts and minds of the people as they pass through.
And Marshal Arkan? Well, he does his best to at least crack a smile at the common folk
Marshal Arkan Frowning
Marshal Arkan Smiling
You may well wonder how to tell the difference between frowning Marshal Arkan and smiling Marshal Arkan. The secret is to look at his feet.
If the Marshal is up to his waist in the bodies of his slain foes then it’s a fairly safe bet that he’s smiling.
Beyond Gaul, the Britons endure an arduous crossing of the Alps before they enter Italy.
Emperor Lucius isn’t about to sit around on his ass and endure the ignominy of Arthur’s troops marching across his lands. He raises his own army, an absolutely enormous host, and goes out to meet the Britons on the field of battle. At the sight of the vast Roman army the boldness of British hearts begins to falter, but Arthur delivers a stirring speech extolling the virtues of British knighthood and assuring his men that many of the Roman troops will be simple levies who will not stand if the battle turns against them.
“It will be hard as hell at first,” says Arthur, “But if we can endure the initial assault and not be overwhelmed by their weight of numbers we will prevail.”
With rousing speeches over, the Britons charge at their foes.
The Britons are heavily out-numbered and the Knights of Salisbury find themselves charging into two enemy units – Crossbowmen and Alpine Knifemen. The crossbowmen unleash a hail of bolts at the thundering knights but they’ve obviously loosed too early as most of their quarrels bounce harmlessly off the armour of their opponents. As the knights bear down on them, the crossbowmen discard their crossbows and draw shortswords.
The philosophising crossbowmen are utterly crushed by the charging knights. The Alpine knifemen fare slightly better and even manage to drag Earl Robert of Salisbury from his horse, but our knights manage to rescue their liege lord after a manic few minutes of fighting.
Before they know it our knights suddenly find themselves pressed on both sides by far tougher troops – veteran spearmen and elite guards equipped with the large rectangular shields once so common amongst Roman troops.
The infantry give our knights a good fight and after an hour of combat all three units are very battered. The tables almost tip against our heroes when a mounted unit of Berber cavalry ride past and unleash a withering hail of arrows that causes carnage amongst the knights of Salisbury:
Fortunately the deadeye horse archers aren’t seen again, one can only assume they rode back from whence they came:
The battle rages on until finally our knights spot Arthur’s personal unit engaging with that of Emperor Lucius. They attempt to force a way through to this potentially battle-deciding confrontation but find their way blocked by The Last True Century, a unit of full-on Roman troops (I got the PCs to roll randomly on the Roman army list for this unit and Arkan’s player was good enough to roll up the toughest unit in the force).
These guys put up stiff resistance and prove more than a match for our Salisbury knights. By the time they’ve forced a way through the infantry the crucial combat is over, Arthur having dealt the killing blow to Emperor Lucius personally. With the death of the Emperor, the Roman army crumbles and the day is carried by the Britons.
A New Emperor
Arthur leads his troops in triumph to the ancient city of Rome. He’s met outside by a group of senators who, eager to appease him, declare him the new Emperor. A lavish ceremony is held in Rome and there is much celebrating. Our knights take time out to visit some of the historic monuments of the Empire’s capital including:
obelisks plundered from Egypt
the Colleseum
Trajan’s Column
The triumphant year is brought to a close by a grand tournament. Arthur invites kings and rulers from the farthest reaches of the Empire to visit Rome and pit their martial skills against his Round Table Knights. Such worthies as King Epistrofus of the Greeks and King Ali Fatima of Spain (amongst many others) show up to test their mettle against Arthur’s round table kights. Of course, the Knights of Salisbury are included amongst this list . as is Sir Le Beau, who frankly is just present to make up the numbers.
Through a series of rounds, the knights pit their jousting skills against each other. Sir Breakius is knocked out early, but is soon joined by Sirs Hywel, Owen and Arkan. Unbelieveably Sir Le Beau seems to be sailing through, via a combination of great luck and swashbuckling panache. No one can quite believe it but the last two contenders standing turn out to be Le Beau and King Arthur himself.
Le Beau’s been fortunate thus far but everyone’s money is on Arthur. Unlike Le beau, he’s not had a wobble, crushing every opponent he’s come up against with ease. It really must be Le Beau’s lucky day because he manages to un-horse the new Emperor of Rome. Arthur is so in awe of this knight’s prowess at the joust that he makes him a Round Table knight on the spot.
526 is brought to a close by the knights of Briton finally making their weary way back home to their wives and families.
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You can find the previous adventures of the Cardiff Boys on this Geeklist.
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panzer-attack wrote: They attempt to force a way through to this potentially battle-deciding confrontation but find their way blocked by The Last True Century, a unit of full-on Roman troops (I got the PCs to roll randomly on the Roman army list for this unit and Arkan’s player was good enough to roll up the toughest unit in the force).
You're underselling these guys a little. It wasn't enough that their armour was so much better than ours that we could hardly damage them, oh no. They got two attaks a round both with a sword skill of 25. Twenty five! If we wanted to face these guys on a level playing field we'd have needed a sword skill of 50.
That isn't panzer-attack wrote: a unit of full-on Roman troops it's a team of nigh invulnerable super Arkans!
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