Foul Mouth Freddy Sneaks past the ****ing Guards

Illustration by Edward Jackson

Scours, Speeds and Sneaks, part three

Foul Mouth Freddy Sneaks past the ****ing Guards

by Tony Harwood and Craig Andrews

After a night of drinking and debauchery and a race across the countryside avoiding local bandits and vicious Ogre provosts Freddy must now sneak back into the Albion Orc camp before they find out he's been out on the razzle in the local town of Burrow Port...

Will he find what he has lost and make it back to camp in time for roll call?

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You can find the first scenario of this campaign here, and the second here.

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In case you missed them:

In the first scenario of the Scours, Speeds and Sneaks mini-campaign, Freddy had to search the town of Burrow Port looking for his commander's beloved horse and the regimental Busby, having lost both of them the night before in a drink fuelled haze...

In the second scenario, Freddy had to race across the countryside past local bandits and the ever vigilante Provosts to get back to camp before Roll Call....

I give you the conclusion of "Scours, Speeds and Sneaks"...

Campaign Objective Update

Having searched Burrow Port and high-tailed it through the forest Freddy now has to get Sheer Guard (if he has him) back into the stables, the Busby (if he has it) back on the regimental standard and back to his tent to deposit any remaining loot (if he has any) all before roll call at 12 noon.

Any loot Freddy found in the first scenario (and didn't throw away as distractions in the second) can be used in this scenario, see the 'Being Spotted!' section below.

Don't forget that roll call takes place 30 turns after the campaign begins so be sure to keep track of how many turns go by in this scenario, adding them onto the total from the first two.

Notes on Playing this Scenario

The scenario below only takes about an hour to play through. Don’t forget that Freddy is still against the clock. The scenario plays well either solitaire or with someone controlling the Orcs in the camp. As with any of Freddy’s tales of adventure, the re-telling of each tale washed down with rotgut brandy by a roaring fire leads to different endings. Who knows if the one in which you control Freddy for is the real story or just a variation on the original?

Introduction

Bo****ks! It wasn't looking good. Barely any bl***y time to get the bl***y horse and bl***dy hat back to where they should be let alone get back to his bl***dy tent before they blow the bl***dy roll call horn. Ah well, tighter scrapes than this had not ensnared Freddy and his light footed step. Time to put all that bl***dy practice sneaking around to good bl***y use.

Map and Set Up

The table should be setup to represent an Albion Army encampment and the woods surrounding it. A selection of small and large tents should be arranged on the table top so they make a believable looking army camp covering roughly 72cm x 72cm in the centre of the table surrounded by trees. Then you must place Freddy’s three objectives on the table top as well. These should be placed by the player not playing Freddy and should be at least 36cm away from each other. The three objectives are the stables, the stone building and last of all Freddy’s tent. Freddy starts outside the camp boundary at any place chosen by his player. There are ten guards, these can be placed anywhere within the camp.

Scenario Forces

Foul Mouth Freddy
Veteran Orc Sergeant.
Freddy starts the scenario unarmed as he didn’t think to bring his musket out boozing with him.
Skill: Loud and Foul Mouth - Freddy has a coarse tongue and uses it often and well, In melee all mortal enemies suffer a -2 to their melee roll when fighting him.
Trait: Daisy Roots – Due to the size of his large previously-owned-by-an-Ogre boots Freddy gets +1 Impact when he wins a melee.
Flaw: Sauce – As per the rulebook.

The Guards – There are ten guards, they are all Orcs armed with muskets (although these are only used as melee weapons against our Freddy). Their individual experience level is not known until one of them discovers Freddy (as per the Being Spotted rules below). At which point draw a token as per the solitaire rules to determine their experience level.

Scenario Special Rules

Freddy – No stranger to sneaking back into camp, having done so more times than he can bl***y count during his 'colourful' military career, has let a few dodo decoys loose to cover his tracks. Freddy's player has ten identical tokens under his control at the start of the game, one of which is marked as Freddy. All the tokens are placed on the boundary of the camp. Each of them moves as per Freddy's racial statistics and each one rolls for sneaking as normal (rules below). Once spotted a counter is flipped over, if it's a dodo decoy it is removed from the table and replaced with a dodo miniature (or suitable tokens if you have no Dodos, we all know how rare Dodos are!).

Sheer Guard – Whilst leading the Colonel's prize horse though the camp Freddy (and his decoys) can move at no more than Slow March. Luckily Sheer Guard is a very well trained horse and makes very little noise.

Sneaking – The art of sneaking is the subject of an entire Distractions and Asides Flintloque rules supplement (No. 4 in fact, eloquently titled Sneaking About, which can be found in full on Orcs in the Webbe). A slightly modified for 3rd Edition version of those rules are reproduced below. The decoy system above replaces the 'Sneaky Starting Point' system from the original rules but the spotting table is used as more or less as normal. Sneaking is tough work and avoiding detection is hard to do. Each time Freddy or one of his cunning Dodo decoys (see below) moves you must roll a D100 at the end of its movement path for its sneaking roll. There are modifiers to this; as it is broad daylight (-20%) and Freddy is a Veteran (+10%) every roll receives a -10% modifier plus any applicable modifier below:

Movement path passed within 20cm of a sentry: -10%
Movement path passed within 10cm of a sentry: -20%
Movement path passed within 5cm of a sentry: -35%

As Freddy is bl***y good at sneaking he is not limited to Half Step March (Falter in the original sneaking rules) but suffers additional modifiers to the sneaking roll for moving faster.

Moved at Slow March: -5%
Moved at Quick March: -10%
Moved at Double March: -15%

One additional modifier is if Freddy is leading Sheer Guard, he receives an additional -10% modifier and cannot move within 20cm of a sentry.

Freddy just has to move into base to base contact with a building and use one special action to 'drop off' both the horse and/or the Busby. Once done he only has to move into his tent to win the scenario.

The Guards – All the soldiers in the camp are still quarantined in their tents leaving the camp relatively deserted despite it being mid-morning. There are pickets around the camp however, as well as guards placed in several important places. After all who'd trust an Albion soldier to stay in his tent and behave during quarantine.

How you control the guards depends on how many players you have:

If you have three players then one person acts as the Umpire and all guard movements are carried out as normal on the tabletop and Freddy (and his Dodo decoys) are moved in secret by telling the Umpire each turn. All the rules from below apply but Freddy and the Dodos are not put into play until discovered.

If there are two players then the rules are used as below but each turn the guard player must write down the actions for each guard before each turn begins, as well as in which order they will act. These instruction should be written clearly e.g. Move forwards 10cm then turn right 90 degrees etc). He can only deviate from these instructions if Freddy is sighted and a shout is given (see Being Spotted below).

If you are playing the scenario solo then each turn every guard moves 1D20cms in a random direction, their order is determined randomly. If a dodo decoy (or Freddy) has moved within 15cms during the turn they will be the next to activate and will move 20cms towards it.

Being Spotted !

As you may have surmised sneaking back into the Albion camp is not going to be easy. It's broad daylight and Freddy's leading a horse for starters. When discovered Freddy can be engaged in melee by any guard that can activate and move into base to base contact with him. If Freddy manages to move off before a guard can get into base to base contact then he is free to carry on moving. If the guard wins the combat scoring any hits then Freddy has been subdued and this retelling of the tale has ended. However if he wins the combat he can avoid being written up on a charge by slipping the guard a trinket or two, if he has nothing with which to bribe this too ends his tale this day. Depending on the experience level of the guard different amounts of trinkets are required.

Raw: 1 Trinket
Average: 2 Trinkets
Experienced: 3 Trinkets
Veteran: 4 Trinkets

Freddy may also have some rotgut brandy left over, he can attempt to use this to bribe the guards but must make a roll on the tipple table found in Distractions & Asides: The Demon Drinke available here on Barking Irons. Guards suffer the affects as normal but are also considered bribed if they achieve the following result:

Raw: Not Bad or worse
Average: Rosy or worse
Experienced: Sozzed or worse
Veteran: Mangled or worse

Author's Notes on the Scours, Speeds and Sneaks Campaign

Uncle Fred had been banned from most of the pubs in the Sandfields, - his local drinking haunts. The latest plan was to use his newly acquired Puch moped (50cc’s and peddle power) to motor down to a newly opened Students Union bar – the beer was cheap, there were ‘fresher week offers’ and he had yet to blot his copy book with the steward! The only problem – was that the UK government has recently passed a law stating that safety helmets had to be worn. Fred had no such crash helmet and so he pinched his sons skateboard helmet, a bright orange plastic hat that sat on top of his head like an egg cup on a football to ride the moped!

The journey back was even more eventful as he was so drunk he drove down the seaside promenade instead of the main road! What would have happened if he was caught by the local police is anyone’s guess although I can picture him peddling for all his worth as the Puch had a top speed limited to just 30mph!

These three scenarios are based upon actual events – just the location has been changed to protect the not-so innocent!

I would also like to thank Craig Andrews, Editor of Barking Irons, for helping to ‘flesh-out’ and editing the original back-story and scenarios, he has turned sketchy notes into a truly fantastic story and modified (or made up) rules to fit in with Freddy’s latest adventure, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Miniatures for your Collection

VLE09 Foul Mouth Freddy
This code is limited to only 250 packs before the master and molds are destroyed. Supplied with numbered insert containing optional rules and uniform guide. This ninth code in the Very Limited Edition range is, like the others, limited to 250 numbered packs only.

Foul Mouth Freddy is currently available now from Alternative Armies webstore.

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This article was originaly published on Alternative Armies' content portal, Barking Irons, and later Orcs in the Webbe. All of Freddy's adventures can be found tucked away on Craig Andrew's Orcs in the Webbe - check out this link.

I have been promising myself for some time that I would re-post Freddy's adventures onto this Blog. I am doing this for two reasons; firstly - there maybe some who have missed these short stories/scenarios and might find them of interest, secondly - I felt that I had more control over this Blog than OITW, after all Craig has in the past commented that he might close this portal down. If this happened then the Foul Mouth Freddy (and other adventures) would be lost to the Flintloque gamer.

Tony