Five Leagues from the Borderlands 2e

Nordic Weasel Games recently released the second, expanded edition of "Five Leagues from the Borderlands", and I was so excited to try it, but I just didn't have any fantasy stuff to play with.  Over the course of a month, I put together a modest bit of terrain and collected some fantasy/medieval minis, and tried to get them ready.  In the end, I couldn't hold out anymore.  As such, please forgive the primer grey and black figures. :(

"Five Leagues" is a fantasy solo campaign skirmish game, designed with easy to use rules that are optimal for solo play without being boring.  You start with a party of (usually) four Heroes and four Followers, and a few villages suffering the depredations of Outlaws, Border Tensions, and Dark Secrets.  Each of these Threats has a rating, and your goal is to bring them to zero, eliminating the Threats and rescuing the villages.

Normally, I'd go through the setup and tell you about it, but I've been playing with proxy terrain and figures for a while now, and I'd certainly not subject you to that.  The unpainted figures are bad enough.  Instead, I'll give you a brief synopsis of the campaign turns so far, and pick up from there.

Every turn you heal up anybody who's hurt and then you get two town actions, and then you can trade and then see what kind of trouble you can get into.

Campaign Turn 1:
Unsuccessfully foraged twice.  Bought some bandages.  Couldn't afford a Shadowy Cloak.  Wandered around looking for adventure, but found nothing.

Campaign Turn 2:
Helped the villagers in the fields (where one Hero's Farming skill came in handy) for 3 Gold Coins.
Met a priest who asked us to help drive out some smugglers (that I assume are importing crudely drawn pornography to the faithful).  Raided a camp full of Fanatics, but we were driven back and lost a couple of guys.

Campaign Turn 3:
An Iron Shortage hits the village, but it's not a problem for me right now.  We visit the healer and carouse to hire on some new blood.  We decide to look for those Smugglers, and we find them on the road.  They get the drop on us, but we defeat them.  They don't have much loot, though.

Campaign Turn 4:
Herbs are in bloom, so we do some foraging, and visit the healer again.  We meet a nice pilgrim, heading for some local holy site.

Campaign Turn 5:
The omens are good this week as we help the villagers in the fields and do some (fruitless) studying.  Then we go adventuring, and find some people ridden by dark spirits, the "Taken".  They come howling and gibbering out of the forest, and we are nearly cut down to a man.  One of ours manages to flee the encounter.  Luckily, nobody dies.

Campaign Turn 6:
A wandering merchant comes to town, but we're too busy healing and studying to care.  One Hero learns the "Library" skill, which will make it easier to study later.  Again we encounter fanatics, this time in an old battlefield by a ruined tower.  We win the day, and find a magical amulet of water breathing and vital information about the threats facing the village.  We also dig up evidence of dark rituals that will finally get the local lord to take the problem seriously.

At this point, the Outlaw problem is rated at 2, Border Tension at 1, and Dark Secrets at 2.  I'm doing pretty well and will probably be eliminating a Threat in the near future.

My roster has changed up a bit since the beginning, but here's where it currently stands:

Cyrano, my Avatar.
Skills: Leadership, Tactics, Thick-Headed

Falko (the bard)
Skills: Tactics, Barter, Lance of Pain (a spell)

Waltram (the tough guy)
Skills: Scrounging, Endurance, Farming

Gorman (the new guy)
Skills: Library
Gorman was a follower, but got upgraded at some point.

The followers are:

Petr (the apprentice)
Petr was a Hanger-On, and apprentice to Gorman, but he advanced to be a Follower.

Gil (the villager)
Gil was a Hanger-On, a seat-filler while others healed, but he did well for himself and now he's a follower.

Luitwin (?)
I forget how Luitwin came on board, but he's agile, so that's cool.

Unfortunately, Luitwin is recovering from an injury, so we trawl the village for brave (or foolhardy) volunteers, and get Lorem and Ipsum, a pair of brothers that fit the bill.

Anyway, my niece was visiting, so she got to play my guys.  This is what happened.

Campaign Turn 7:

Petr's pipeweed habit got to be a problem, costing me 1GC to keep him stocked.  We visited the healer (because we are hurt all of the time) and helped out in the fields (because we're also always low on funds).  I bought some light armor for Gil, and some Medical Herbs.  Then, while out adventuring near the village outskirts, we were attacked by Brigands!  Five of them, plus a tougher Sergeant.  A couple more rolls tell me the fight is near the village outskirts, and that there are no "oddities" (special effects, like "Fog", or the ghost of the "Pallid Wanderer").

The edge of the village, near the forest.  There's a hill with some standing
stones just inside the treeline.  Then enemy are in two groups.

Some of the player characters hide behind these copses.

The others hide behind this cottage.

We roll 2d6 to see if we can seize the initiative, but a 3 isn't nearly good enough, so we start the turn as normal.  Rolling as many dice as we have figures, we get two 1s and a bunch of garbage.  We can use a die to activate a figure that has an equal or higher agility.  Most figures have Agility 1, so we decide to activate Cyrano and Falko, who move toward these ruins.  I'm not sure why.  My niece was in charge, and when I asked her, she just shrugged.  Kids these days. :P

"Cyrano, what's the plan?"
[Shrugs] "Iunno."

With the "fast" figures out of the way, the enemy all move in the "normal" phase.  They can't reach anybody, so they all sprint (Speed + 2) toward the nearest player characters.  Then, the remaining player characters act in the "slow" phase, all of them sprinting in the general direction of the enemy (except a couple on the outside who are maybe trying to outflank?  Again, my niece was not forthcoming.)  None of the player characters have ranged weapons, so that's about it.

That scene where everybody is charging and screaming.

Rolling for fast actions again, we get a single two.  Gorman has an Agility of 2, so he can go early.  He moves around these trees, taking the long way for reasons that I cannot begin to fathom.

No, Gorman is not actually a lizard man.
It's... it's a skin condition.  Yeah.

Now all of the enemy go in the normal phase, here ganging up on poor Ipsum the village goon.  The combats go in a series of three exchanges.  If you miss, the other guy becomes the attacker.  If you don't die, maybe you get pushed back, or choose to lose ground.  Very dynamic.  Ipsum dodged the first swing, failed his counter-attack, and then got hit on the third exchange.  He's un-armored, so he doesn't get an armor save.  The Harm roll scores his Toughness exactly, so he doesn't die, but he's wounded.  Amazingly, he actually manages to avoid the other two attackers!

"Ho! Ha Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! HA! Thrust!"
THWAP!

In the slow phase, Ipsum chooses not to attack (I don't know why), but instead breaks off from the fight, which only allows an inch of movement.  At the end of his turn, he rolls a d6 for each (one) wound and rolls a '1', passing out from his injuries.

"I just need to lie down for a minute.  Come back to me."

Now, I'm going to admit, this wasn't going like I had hoped.  But I said that she could choose the player characters' actions, so that's what's going on.

The other player characters move in toward the baddies.  Cyrano actually gets into an exchange and comes out wounded as well, but doesn't succumb to his wounds.

"You can't kill me!  I'm the main character!  The nerve!"

Next turn, Gorman gets to move in the fast phase, so he charges up to the bowman that's been shooting at him and... Ha ha!  Just kidding!  Actually, he casually saunters to the bowman's left, not even in cover, and just looks at him.  I'm sure my niece has a plan, but I certainly don't know what it is.  The bowman proceeds to shoot Gorman in his scaly face, taking him out of the fight. (He fails his armor save, and the enemy rolls higher than Gorman's Toughness.)

"'Hisssssss! Twang! Gack!"

The three guys on Cyrano attack him, and one impales himself on Cyrano's sword.  Does Cyrano run?  Heck no, he stands there and applies a bandage to his wound without breaking eye contact.  Hardcore!

The other slow characters do some maneuvering, avoiding contact with the enemy.  Now that the enemy have lost a guy, I roll a d6 for morale.  I get a 4 (not a 1 or 2) so nothing happens.

"Should we attack him while he's distracted by the bandaging?"
"Seems like a trap.  Let's wait."

Cyrano gets to go first this turn, and ducks behind these ruins.  That doesn't stop the enemies from ganging up on him though.  Not that it helps, and yet another Brigand falls to his own incompetence.

"Oh, crap!  Dude, I'm sorry!  I didn't see you there behind me!
Are you alright?"

Meanwhile, over by these trees, another enemy leaps onto Petr's sword.

"I REGRET NOTHING! GACK!"

The other player characters maneuver again, and at the end of the turn, we roll a d6 for each enemy felled this turn.  We get a 1 and 5.  A 1 is a morale failure, so one of the enemy nearest the player's table edge changes his mind about his life choices and flees!

"I HAVE REGRETS!"
[Flees and re-applies to that online beauty school.]

Despite facing both Gil and Waltram together, one of the enemy manages to wound our tank.  Instead of counter-attacking in the slow phase, Waltram chooses to flee and... [rolls d6, gets a '1'] ...bleed out beneath this tree.

[Watches blood drip to the ground.  Composes new theory of gravity.  Profits.]

With a cry of anguish, Gil avenges his companion, slaying the Brigand!  At the end of the turn, the enemy gets another morale failure, and the last remaining enemy (the bowman) flees the table.

"My mom said I have to be back home when the street lights go on.  Bye!"

Aftermath

Gorman ends up with a light wound that will see him recuperating for three campaign turns.  It turns out that Waltram was just knocked out, and is otherwise fine.  Poor Ipsum doesn't even get a roll.  Maybe he's dead.  Maybe he's just scared off.  Nobody even bothers to check.  Poor guy.

Checking for unusual finds, we discover a few battered weapons that we can use or sell later.  We also loot 5 Gold Coins and a decent helmet!

Having won the fight (but having killed less than 5 enemies) we need to roll 4+ to decrease the Outlaw threat.  We get a 4, and succeed.  Because we killed a leader, we get a second roll at 6+, but only get a 5.

The Threats stand at:
Outlaws - 1
Border Tensions - 1
Dark Secrets - 2

Adding up Experience points, Cyrano, Falko and Gorman have enough to level.  I roll on a chart, which gives me some options.  Cyrano gets +1 Agility (because going first is usually a good thing) and Falko and Gorman get +1 Combat (because I feel like if you kill the other guy first, you don't need increased Endurance).

And that's the game!  Unless I end up facing Dark Secrets next Campaign Turn, I'll almost certainly destroy one of the threats, and then I can roll on the "The Wheel Turns" table to see what side event happens!  (Maybe it will be an incursion of Rat-Men, or the Shadowed Knight will show up!)

I'm really looking forward to the next game.  Maybe I'll even have my minis painted!  (Again, I am indeed mortified.)

You can get "Five Leagues from the Borderlands" HERE on WargameVault.com

- Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E