Blood and Serpents

You have heard tell of wandering aelven beastmasters who capture and break the mightiest of serpentine monsters. If you can impress these cold-eyed warriors, they may agree to join your warband - a potent boon indeed. You travel to the mountains encircling the Blood Lake Basin, soon discovering shadowy clefts in the rock that lead to the aelves' hidden beast pens. There, you find a veritable arena ringed by seats cut into the hardened rock.

The gate slams shut behind you as you walk out onto the sands of the arena floor. From the raised tiers above you, the hollers and howls of the bloodthirsty crowd ring out. But you have more pressing matters to attend to: opposite you, another gate opens, and a snorting serpentine beast is led out. If you are not careful, the monster will tear you apart for the amusement of the jeering audience. You must impress all present with your skill at arms and earn the approval of these reclusive beast-tamers.

Set-up

Prerequisite: 2 dominated territories

Stake: 1 dominated territory

The Adversary Warband

The Adversary musters a warband that consists of either:

• 1 War Hydra or
• 1 Kharibdyss

The Challenger Warband

The Challenger musters a warband with the following amendments:

1. The Challenger must muster an Order warband, and all fighters in the Challenger warband must be chosen from the Challenger's warband roster.
2. The combined points value of the fighters in the Challenger warband cannot exceed 3 times the points value of the adversary in the Adversary warband.

Special Rules

Battle Groups: The Challenger warband must be split into battle groups as normal. The adversary is not placed in a battle group.

Deployment: The Challenger sets up all their battle groups first. The Adversary then picks 1 of their deployment points and sets up the adversary as normal.

The Baying Crowd: Make a note of how many abilities are used by fighters in the Challenger warband each battle round. At the start of each hero phase after the first, roll a number of dice equal to the number of abilities used by fighters in the Challenger warband in the previous battle round. For each 6, the Challenger gains 1 additional wild dice. For each 1, the Adversary gains 1 additional wild dice.

Battleplan

Terrain: No terrain features are set up on the battlefield.

Deployment: Frontal Assault

Victory: A player wins the battle as soon as every fighter in their opponent's warband is taken down.

Twist: Grudge Match

The Spoils

If the Challenger wins the battle, they can choose 1 of the following spoils:

Treasure Hoard: See page 105.

Monster: The monster adversary can be added to the Challenger's warband roster.