En Garde!: Witchfinder 2, the Ruined Abbey...

In this episode...

The King's Witchfinder General has appeared in Durham, and begun abducting and murdering anyone accused of Witchcraft.  The final straw was his assault on Mistress Quickly at the Queen's Head Inn, and the murder of one of her girls "Doll" Tearsheet.

The Inn's patrons, under the leadership of Captain Quilp, the dandy and incontinent Highwayman, have banded together and sworn to put an end to Master Price and his Witch Finding...

Our hero has mounted his horse, Brown-Bess, and seems keen to test the mounted rules in En Garde!  The rest of the warband have to walk.  They have chosen to appoach the abbey from across the river,  but will find the bridge defended against them.

The Witch Finder himself is not present in  the camp, having been called to a secret meeting.  His Lieutenant is the psychotic Sterne, who will defend the bridge over the River Wear.

The Queen's Head Heroes
Captain Quilp (3) Pistol and rapier, mounted
Sir Huge, the Fat Knight (3)  Pistol and rapier 
Ancient Pistol (2) two pistols
Solomon Whitemoore, Puritan  (4)  Pistol and rapier 
Bardolph  (2) Longsword and dagger
Nym    (2)  Rapier
Fenton (1)  Matchlock 
Perkins (1)  Matchlock 
18 points.

The Witch Finder's Men
Lieutenant John Sterne (4)  Rapier and Pistol.  
Justice Shallow  (3) Rapier and dagger
Vile  (3)  Longsword and buff coat
Feeble  (2) rapier
Fang     (1) sword
Snare   (1) sword
Dick     (1) Matchlock
Travers  (1) Matchlock
15 points.

HOLD THE BRIDGE

In this scenario one player tries keep his opponent on the opposite side of a river.

SET-UP

• Forces: Determine which player is attacking and which is defending (roll randomly if necessary). The attacker's force has 20% more points than the defender.
• Terrain: Use a playing area 36" square. A river or stream 3–6" wide runs through the centre of the board, and is spanned by a bridge in the centre of the playing area. Randomly determine which direction is downstream. Each player places a piece of terrain on each side of the rider, at least 6" from the river's edge. The river is difficult terrain – roll a D6 for each model entering the river.

On a 6, the model is swept downstream 2D6" and gains a Stunned counter, then roll for drowning (p.9). A model that is at least partially in the river fighting a model not in the river suffers a -1 Initiative penalty.

• Weather: Roll a D6. On a 5 or 6, roll again on the Weather Table. Otherwise, the weather will have no effect on the game.
• Time of Day: Roll a D6. On a 6, roll again on the Time of Day Table. Otherwise, the engagement takes place during daylight hours.
• Deployment: The defender places all of his figures anywhere on the table, and then indicates which edge the attacker will start from. The attacker's models move onto the table anywhere along that edge.

VICTORY

When the game ends, each warband gains Victory Points equal to the Ranks of all of its models on the Defender's side of the river. If the Attacker has the most Victory Points, the Attacker wins. If the Attacker has less than half the Victory Points of the Defender, the Defender wins. Otherwise, the game is a draw.

The Queen's Head Heroes deploy on the table edge.  The Witchfinder's Men deploy a Matchlockman on the bridge, with the rest of the warband in camp.  The sentry will alert Lieutenant Stearne and his men on turn one with a half action.

"Leave him, He's mine!" Quilp and Stearne duel on the bridge.

A matchlock duel across the river

Bardolph fights with Vile, both are duellists and use a left hand dagger.

Perkins fires into the melee across the river, misses and grieviously wounds Nym... who is on his side!

The duel on the bridge continues.  Both are seriously wounded...

The fat knight jumps into the river from the bridge, and manages to join the fight

Another seesaw fight, but Solomon Whitemoore has killed his man and now joins this one!

The fight on the bridge ends, as Stearne runs for it

Sir Huge, a "powerful" character, uses a mighty blow ploy, rolling three sixes!

The last of the Witchfinder`s matchlockmen falls, and it's game over...  Stearne escapes but the Queen' Head heroes have won the day.  Whitemoore collects both plot points, (as he dies Travers shouts "The Devil is Loose" a reference to Sir Oliver Crumble)

Stearne fought his duel and gets 5VP.  Solomon gets 5VP as does the fat Knight.   The heroes total 26 VP,  having killed almost the entire enemy warband.

The Bishop's Guard can now be alerted to the treason and Captain Lee will be joined by the survivors of the Queen's Head heroes.  Their task in game 3 will be to raid Sir Oliver's Manor at Shiney Row and arrest the Witch Finder on the Bishop's Writ.