GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 3: Battle of the Sunstone Bridge

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Preparations

The armies of the earthlings arrived at the old bridge spanning the Sunstone River, and saw the force from Lumene encamped on the hill on the far bank, still within their own lands.  The bridge had been built in either the first or second empire, which made it at least a milennium old, and was a massive construction of brick.  There were some smaller bridges dotted up and down the river, but none wide enough to march an army across.  The earthlings could demolish it given enough time for their terramorphers to work, but it seemed likely that Lumene would attack if they did.

Despite Granmarg urging to attack immediately, a messenger was sent forth under a green flag, signaling that the earthlings wished to negotiate, and he was welcomed into the camp of Lumene.  Several minutes later, he returned and took a knee in front of the Triumvirate to deliver their response: Queen Edelina was requesting the surrender and conversion to worship of Astraeus of the earthlings, or else she would be "forced" to attack.

That meant war.  The earthlings settled in to a camp, and the two forces began drawing up battle plans and spying on the other as best they could.  Thicket used his skills as an administrator to rapidly bring up extra troops to the front line, while Pomegranite was able to infiltrate the enemy camp and bribed some officers in charge of signaling orders.  Mielikki and Granmarg both observed the enemy defenses but gained no insights.

On the second day, Thicket reworked the formations in the battle plans to pull even more troops from their sides to support the central effort on the Sunstone Bridge without weakening their flanks.  Pomegranite spied on the enemy commanders and got an idea of who was good at what, and Mielikki funneled even more bribes to the signaling officers.  Granmarg, who was elected to kill with fists rather than words, again accomplished little.

As Thicket was going over their battle plan, Pomegranite informed the others of who the enemy commanders were.  They already knew Eremon and Edelina, the brother and sister of the royal family of Lumene who were now Prince-Bishop and Queen respectively.  Eremon looked to be their spymaster and a capable commander, but not amazing in a fight, despite his magic.  Edelina was a talented diplomat and master of highly destructive sun magic, but had no experience as a commander.

Hugo de Villay, the Baron who held the fief of Monte Villay, he recognized as one of Eremon's bodyguards at the Great Court, and seemed to be their chief commander.  He wielded a crossbow expertly, but was not especially capable in courtly ways.  The last commander was an odd one: Felix, a child no older than 12, who seemed to have some sort of superhuman strength, and wielded a greatsword taller than he was.  Otherwise, though, he was about as effective as one would expect a child to be, and was guided by his father, uncle, and a priestess of Astraeus in other matters.

The next morning, the armies of Lumene marched out towards the bridge, and the earthlings took their posts.  Hugo and Felix were leading the assault on the bridge, so Mielikki and Granmarg would meet them.  Pomegranite would hold near the narrowest portion of the river upstream, where he would potentially be able to open up a new crossing, while Thicket sat at the back and would issue orders to their troops while staying out of the fighting himself.

Both sides advanced slowly onto their ends of the bridge, while their respective reserve forces hung back, before the earthlings charged full-out across and into the Lumenian lines.  Mielikki's forces clashed with Hugo's, but were repulsed into the center of the bridge, where the formation was then struck by a wave of fire that flowed outwards from Edelina's position on a nearby hill, leaving few survivors.  Hugo signaled for their magisters to launch another barrage, but the officers that had been bribed sent the wrong order, and Thicket directed reinforcements to Mielikki's forces before they could be wiped out.  Gramnarg had more success with his assault, pushing Felix's forces back, securing a foothold on the Lumenian side of the bridge.

Notes:

I don't know enough about history to say if there was some protocol or way that warring parties identified messengers, hence the green flag.  FWIW my instinct is that there was just nothing; you'd send in one unarmed guy on horseback and it would be pretty obvious.

The "Planning Phase" of the game is a bunch of special rules I made to give the Intrigue skills something to do before battle, since big battles are kinda the point of this campaign.  It involves alternating between the two sides and picking from a list of options, then rolling a quick contest between the character that's enacting the scheme, and a character chosen to defend against it in secret earlier.

One of the 9 possible actions is "get a buff from an ally".  Neither of the groups have allies, so it was basically a dead option.

Earthling prep work before the battle:

- Thicket increased their starting troops by 5 and on the second day doubled this to 10.

- Pomegranite got the ability to disrupt enemy orders and have one enemy commander do nothing once, and on the second day learned the two best skills of the enemy commanders.

- Granmarg failed his action both days

- Mielikki failed his action the first day but then successfully disrupted enemy orders even more, which would let them stop an enemy commander from acting a second time.

Lumene's prep work before the battle:

- Eremon spied on their commanders as Pomegranite did and on the second day stole their battle plans.

- Edelina activated Lumene's regional buff of Zeal which brings in reinforcements whenever a troop dies and on the second day upgraded it to be 1/3 of the time.

-Felix failed his action on the first day but got an enhanced Barrage action on the second.

-Hugo failed his first action but on the second got a one-time +5 to any Strategy roll in the coming battle.

Mass Battles in this game are a homebrew "dudes on a map" wargame.  So far it seems to work pretty good but I only fully tested this twice, and one of those was just me playing both sides (the other was with Thicket's player, but with none of the planning phase).  We'll see how it goes.

In this game, PCs (and their advisors) gain a skill level whenever they "beat" someone with a skill level higher than their own.  For Strategy and Intrigue, this is easy, as everything is Quick Contests.  Combat is going to be a bit trickier and I'm still not exactly sure.  I think so long as someone meaningfully contributes I'll probably give it to them.

The PC's strat at the end of the session was to now retreat and turtle, since the way the mission works is that they get points at the end of the round for how many ends of the bridge they control.  The score is currently 3-1, so as long as they can keep the Lumenians from taking the earthling side of the bridge at all, they're good.