Dogs of War

I'll preface these short story snippets with some explanation: Our club played a narrative series of 1000 point games over about a month, and each player was required to write up their battle reports as narratives recounted by the generals of the respective forces. Some players made diary-style entries, some wrote campfire songs, and I wrote a kind of internal monologue about what Giacomo (the captain of my Dogs of War at the time) happened to be thinking about right before, and right after, his engagements.

They are intended to be humorous fluff-based battle reports, so I wasn't sure if they belonged here or in that section. Feel free to tell me to move them and I will. Apologies in advance for the ham-fisted writing.

THE SAGA OF GIACOMO
Scene 1: Is that Chaos I hear?

Giacomo Montagliano, Captain of a belligerent detachment of sell swords and brigands, was once again disappointed in his men. The marauder scouts on the ridgeline had been shadowing his small force for days and he was certain an attack was imminent, yet his cohort was terribly unprepared for any action due to ten kegs of contraband liquor several dwarven prostitutes had smuggled into camp with them the night before.

Giacomo, still nursing the wounds he had suffered at the hands of his last adversaries, was hoping this would be a small engagement; a trivial encounter where both sides postured for a bit and then moved on. Cutting such an impressive figure, he knew he could handle the mantle of leadership under those circumstances. Deep down in the pit of his prodigious stomach however, he knew it would never be so easy. Not where the forces of chaos are concerned.

As Giacomo mused over how he would direct his hung-over mercenaries, he let loose such a loud and prolonged rancid wind that he failed to hear what was no doubt the short, sharp, distant war-cry of wild-men about to commit violence on a massive scale.

Scene 2: Indeed it was.

Giacomo Montagliano, Captain of a belligerent detachment of sell swords and brigands, scrubbed pointlessly at his bloodied purple cape. Muttering epithets under his breath, he knew the stains would never come clean. His wife had told him not to wear his fine silks on his march to glory, but appearances meant a great deal to a mercenary lot such as he commanded. Giacomo gave up in disgust and waddled back to his horse recounting the bittersweet victory of the previous day.

His cannon had performed well enough that the men handling it would get to eat for a few more days. The Ogres on the other hand, while dispatching a rather exceptionally ugly and disgusting spawn of chaos, promptly turned tail and ran after that. Their pay would have to be docked. The pikemen did as they were ordered and held their ground bravely, even though it cost them dearly in casualties. No matter, the bonus gold coins the survivors earned roughly matched the dead left on the battlefield, therefore no additional expense. His own cavalry, led impressively by Giacomo, would not only get a pay increase, but would likely also get new purple cloaks. Matching attire was vital to noble knights, even mercenaries. Plus Giacomo figured his wife wouldn't notice a replacement cloak like she would the stains on his old one.

To Giacomo's eternal dismay it had been proven that his men fought better drunk than sober. The costs involved with providing copious libation and carnal entertainments prior to every battle he may face were considerable. Francisco Pasagni, Paymaster for the Miragliano mercenary detachments under Giacomo's command was not going to be pleased with the news.
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I've got a few more if there is interest.

Interesting. Very intriguing way you faced it!

I appreciate if you sent more in!

They probably don't make much sense without having known the actual battle firsthand, but I still like them as a bit of a glimpse into a somewhat ribald fictional mercenary's wargame life

Scene 3: Poor Phillipe

Giacomo Montagliano, Captain of a belligerent detachment of sell swords and brigands, found his rabbit stew severely lacking in flavor. The grey, stringy meat floated lazily in a tepid broth of slimy onions and moldy potatoes. His stomach rumbled painfully, increasing his despair. Giacomo used eaten well on these military excursions thanks to his brilliant personal Halfling chef, Phillipe. The two however had a falling out. During a terrible argument over the merits of extra salt in a soldier's diet, Giacomo slammed his fist down on the dining table separating them sending a fork flipping through the air. As if by design it embedded itself deeply into Phillipe's left eye. The noble little chef fell dead immediately. Giacomo was so full of rage and shock, he decided the halfling was putting him on and feigning the injury. He promptly strode over, reached behind his dishonestly large codpiece, and proceeded to urinate all over his now dead cook. The accompanying halfling attendants nearby were dumbfounded and quickly tackled Giacomo, rescuing their fallen comrade's corpse from potentially worse humiliation. No halfings had ever worked with Giacomo since, no matter the offering price. "Gossiping little bastards", he thought to himself as he forced another spoonful of stew down his throat.

So preoccupied with his dismal meal was he, that the miserable little Captain failed to notice the rattle of drum and twitter of fife that signaled the formation of his troops for an unexpected engagement. Giacomo was lost in a daydream of ten fat vengeful Phillipes boiling him in a massive stewpot as he reluctantly tested his own broth finding it uncomfortably delicious. "Curse those gossiping halflings", he hissed, "curse this stew."

Scene 4: Poor Giacomo

Giacomo Montagliano, Captain of a belligerent detachment of sell swords and brigands, had an extremely painful hangnail. The events of the subsequent day had been terribly stressful and exhausting for a man of his age and stature and all that trouble had finally manifested itself in the form of a jagged, raw, and splintered bit of flesh at the end of his left pinky finger. Gripping his wineskin sent waves of agony coursing through his hand, but, as was custom with a moderately successful Captain, alcoholic celebration was required.

While pondering his meal and general lot in life his forces had been set upon by more chaos vagabonds. Their leaders looked familiar to Giacomo but then again, all those horns, spikes, and skulls looked the same after awhile. He lazily arrayed his forces in a defensive posture atop, and at the base of, a small rise around his personal camp. As usual, his marksmen and cannon teams failed in their duties to sufficiently whittle down the approaching enemy to manageable portions so Giacomo had no choice but to ride out and meet them in battle himself. With his pikemen on the flank and his cavalry at the fore, he was overcome with a flash of glory and bravery and rushed headlong into the opposing warlord's personal retinue. What followed next was a veritable tornado of entrails. Giacomo couldn't quite recall exactly when he fell off his horse and developed his thrice-cursed hangnail of doom but it was after he had accepted a barely intelligible challenge from the ugliest member of the opposing unit named, Tor-Bell? Thornhill? Torkel? Turkey? The name hardly mattered. Giacomo accepted the challenge so not to appear the fool in front of his men and was promptly struck from his horse by a series of ferocious blows. His sword was violently ripped from his hand, shredding his pinky finger on the way to the ground. Everything that followed was a blur, but certainly believing that their heroic Captain had fallen in battle, the rest of his army panicked and ran after a few futile engagements.

Giacomo winced again as he squeezed the last bit of wine from its skin into his profound gullet. "SURGEON!" he bellowed as he wiped his mouth. Surgical care was required since the large amounts of wine he had imbibed had done little to quench the pain. A belch and a sigh then preceded the loud thud his body made upon the ground as he passed out.

Aah, the travails of a mercenary captain!

Great work Number9!

Keep it coming - I for one will be reading them avidly!

Scene 5: On fashion and Ogres

Giacomo Montagliano, Captain of a belligerent detachment of sell swords and brigands, knew he was being swindled. Unfortunately, there was little to be done about it. The last few weeks had seen considerable hardship for him and his men, and supplies were in desperate need of replenishment. Giacomo surveyed the moldy barrels of wine, and leaking sacks of rotten grain that paraded from the trader's decrepit barn to his baggage train. The only consolation were a few butchered and salted sides of beef that he had earmarked specifically for himself and his fine cavalry. "Let the rest of them eat spoiled pork." he muttered to himself just as the very smoked meats and sausages were joining the line for delivery.

Though the goods were hardly quality, and the prices were extreme for the region, Giacomo took consolation in the fact that once again, on the distant ridge-line he noticed cautious marauders spying on them. A battle was coming, probably in a day or so, and that meant casualties, which meant less payroll, more surplus, and the best of all, less complaining.

Giacomo was growing weary of his more human comrades, they were a burden on his spirit. He had begun to form plans to replace many of them with ogres, as these were much easier to pay by way of meat gleaned from the enemies and beasts they faced. Their ferocity in battle was a bonus. The hardest part of this grand scheme was finding proper tailors to dress them. The idea of a uniform was very important to Giacomo. How a soldier appeared mattered to their general state of mind and discipline. A bunch of shirtless dirty howling hooligans couldn't be expected to do much more than run headlong to their deaths. BUT put them in fine pink silk pantaloons and shimmering green doublets with orange piping, and you could get them to skip in time to song, march in step, and hold the line against all odds. Ogres functioned similarly (at least in Giacomo's mind) and every time he signed on a new unit, he would discard their silly belly plates and their stinking leathers and provide soft, colorful, warm coats, pants, and hats. Ogres especially seemed to take pride in the larger ostentatious feathers, bows and bells too. It all came out of their pay naturally, but the esprit de corps they exhibited as a result, and fear inspired in the enemy at the sight of relatively organized monsters clad head to toe in purple and yellow finery, was worth every cent.

Lost in these fashionable musings, Giacomo resolved to find a decent tailor with a decent collection of fabrics before drawing up his plans for the coming battle.

Scene 6: 'V' is for Voland, or victory?

Giacomo Montagliano, Captain of a belligerent detachment of sell swords and brigands, missed his horse. While searching for a suitable Ogre tailor in the wretched trading outpost his cohort had encamped near, he had run afoul of some burly ruffians. They hurled cruel insults regarding his mother and grandmother, and before he could draw his weapon to challenge their aspersions, he had been knocked to the ground, and his horse absconded with. Painfully limping back to his camp after a fruitless search for his stolen steed, he found even worse news awaited him; all his fine cavalrymen were deathly ill from tainted salted beef sides he had purchased earlier. The prospect of battle without his horse and without his horsemen sent the beleaguered Captain into a spiral of despair.

Yet all was not lost! The legendary Voland of Voland's Venators that very day came riding to the very same outpost to provision themselves. With a swiftness of mind only a merchant prince could muster he sacked his vomiting cavalry, and hired Voland on the spot. The price was steep, but hopefully the return on his investment would be significant. Such beautiful armor they wore! What handsome horses they rode! A faint oak-tree of hope and delight dared curl outward from the depths of Giacomo's shriveled acorn of a heart.

The next day the field was chosen, and again Giacomo stared down his persistent chaotic adversary from the far north wastes. He was particularly proud of his troop's deployment. In the midst of both battle lines was a disgusting pool of rot that gurgled ominously and at times sent a diseased tentacle out to snatch a nearby wayward rat into its depths. Giacomo had set up his crossbows and artillery on the opposite side of the fetid waters expecting no general could be foolish enough to cross its breadth to threaten his withering missile fire. Of course he was wrong but it seemed like a clever idea at the time.

On the outskirts of the field a handful of roving spawn, no doubt birthed by the pool before them, hemmed in the rather nervous mercenaries and chaos soldiers alike. Their thrashing and mewling hardly concerned Giacomo as he had known such filth before and bested them in combat easily.

Like most of his battles, a defensive posture was the most prudent, and the forces of chaos advanced through a disappointingly inaccurate barrage of bolts and balls. On the flanks of his force, an enemy spawn attempted to charge his skirmishers but they appropriately fled making way for the ogres nearby to sweep in and cut it to ribbons. Thankfully one of the random chaos beasts had threshed its way into the chaos line and pinned down a full unit of the heavily armored soldiers; a move that no doubt saved his ogres from their own annihilation.

Voland, in his infinite wisdom, saw an opportunity to run down a small pack of enemy hounds. The ensuing chase led his cavalry far into the backfield of the enemy force, a move that would prove decisive later, though not for Giacomo. Thanks to the gap in his defenses left by the advancing cavalry, black clad chaos knights on horseback careened into the now defenseless crossbows and artillery. Though they put up a brave fight and held back certain death far longer than they should have, they eventually fled the field. The pikemen Giacomo commanded personally upon seeing their comrades obliterated by the enemy horsemen, turned tail themselves. The brave Captain desperately tried to hold them in place but was caught up in their flight as well.

Back at camp, Giacomo had to painfully interpret his Ogre's broken common in order to learn the rest of the enemy's fate. Apparently the enemy general had attempted the unthinkable and marched his personal guard across the cursed bubbling pool! At first there was no difficulty, and then the advancing warriors were bathed in might and magical power. BUT as soon as such gifts had been given, the entirety of the unit was sucked under! All that surfaced after was a lone wretched spawn, spat back towards the ogres, bloodthirsty and raging!

They promptly drove it away.

Though the day was his, the losses had been great. More than anything else however, the blisters on his tender feet were the size of robin's eggs. Giacomo simply wasn't accustomed to marching (or fleeing) so much. He lamented the theft of his horse and resolved to get a new one at the first best opportunity.

Though the great saga of Giacomo has ended, a new hero has risen in the ranks: Lorenza of Tilea! Her tales are recounted in an epic opera which I have recopied here. Her tale is ongoing even as we speak, and more verses will certainly be added as our club campaign progresses.

War is a song that sings it's love through death
A Tilean Opera for 500 point battles in 4 acts

Verse the first:

(outskirts of the Tilean city of Verezzo where a small army gathers)

(narrator)
Lorenza oh Lorenza dear, I see
thy sad and horrid future destiny.
A broken heart, nay more than that alone
shall break thy spirit; chill thee to the bone.

All for his love, his gentle touch. A sweet
gesture of care. Yet from his horse eyes meet,
a moment briefly shared, then turn'd away.
Through battle grim you'll prove your love this day!

(Lorenza)
Around me pikes! Tilea calls! We march!
For glory and a love no heat can parch!
We'll serve my Prince, we'll gather gold and fame,
we'll crush his foes, bring honor to his name!

(pikemen chorus)
We're doomed! We're doomed! She's dim and poorly train'd.
We're doomed! Our blood on a battlefield stained!
Our Prince so wise, cares not for her full girth.
He'd rather entertain her sister's mirth.

(all)
Here begins our tale for you,
hilarity will ensue!

Verse the second:

(scene change to Sorrow Valley encampment at night)

(Lorenza)
I fear perhaps I was a bit hasty.
These men are scared, and belligerent.
(beastly belch offstage)
What's that! A beast that might find me tasty?
Alas 'tis prudent I hide in my tent.

(ogre chorus)
Now look what we've done, we've just scared her off!
Oh she must cope with our belches and farts!
We'll fail in battle if a simple cough
seems cannons firing to her hearing parts.

(narrator)
A truly tragic, fragile state they're in
upon the eve of battle almost joined,
where brave and dying kin must trust in kin.
And all because of love; a heart purloined.

Lorenza oh Lorenza dear, you must
be fearless and prove your arduous lust.
For if you can't lead your men to their war
can you expect a prince at your soul's door?

(Lorenza)
Alas, in magic's hands I place my fate.
The winds, the sky, the lightning bolt will prove
that I have got what it takes to be great;
that I'm a militant force none can move!

Verse the third:

(Sorrow Valley encampment, loud cheers of celebration offstage)

(Lorenza)
The orks pushed back, the chaos gods dismayed,
our enemies are on their heels, 'tis true!
Our battles won, a chess match rightly played,
a fair price for bullets and Halfling stew.

(Halfling chorus)
Huzzah Lorenza the brave and cru-el!
Huzzah for vic’try and rich spoils of war!
Huzzah for weaponizing our gru-el!
Huzzah for foes covered in their own gore!

(narrator)
Lorenza oh Lorenza dear, you’ve sparked
the flame of your Prince’s admiration.
Continue the journey that you have embarked
and bring true glory to his home nation!

Beware, beware for trouble awaits you!
Your magic was sloppy and ill-advised
despite its power, on further review
‘tis likely to cost you the love you’ve prized.

For Princes are politic, not arcane,
and distance themselves from the sorcerous.
I fear your great strength may soon be your bane
and might make of your heart something torturous.

Until then be proud, you routed the orcs!
You peppered great chaos with ample lead!
Your pikes skewed marauders like meat on forks,
and razzed the greenskins as they boiled ‘til dead.

(Lorenza)
Destiny awaits, I’ve more fights to win
before my sweet Prince’s heart lets me in.
More gold for our chests, and I’ll soon a-bed
the man of my dreams who I hope to wed.

Verse the fourth

(scene change to the field after the Engagement of Weeping Pass)

(Lorenza)
A day hard won, soldiers exhausted still.
Grave digging commences for ours and theirs.
(she spits)
Those vicious dark elves have deadened the thrill
of vic'try. See, my men are all blank stares.

A narrow engagement, a narrow pass
heralds doom without reinforcement.
My finest strategy shattered like glass
unless my Prince finds resources unspent.

Curse this fool love which drives me to murder
This brave cohort of men I am leading!
Curse this heart which once served as a girder
to a roof of lust. My men lie bleeding!

(imploringly to the audience)
Have I not proven my fierce loyalty
in this backwater? Please say you love me!

(The Prince, offstage like a prayer on the wind, a voice in her head)
More soldiers I send to encourage you.
Dare not give up if you think your love true.

(narrator)
How much can she bear, how much can she take?
How much will she risk lest her pure heart break?
If only she knew the truth far away
her sister sends troops to keep her at bay.

(spot on The Prince and Lorenza's sister Mariella)

(Mariella)
More wine I offer to encourage you
to weaken your mind; make me your queen too!

My sister's a fool, she thinks like a man.
My female gifts offer a better plan.

(Mariella laughs sinisterly)

(curtain on act 1)

Funny! Keep writing- one thought/nitpick. In an opera, wouldn't the position of narrator be filled by the chorus? I could be wrong.

Love it. Keeo it coming!

Thanks for the comments

I try to do something a little different and silly with my campaign reports. Though this opera/epic poem doesn't really describe the battles at all, it helps reinforce my campaign background and the characters in the army.

As for narrator/chorus, I don't know? I've never written an opera before, and I'm not particularly a student of them. The model I am using for Lorenza is from Reaper:



Since she looks the part, the idea was born.