More Narrative Combat - Aboard the Derelict Ship

The session closed out with the Explorers opening the derelict ship and discovering that it's infested with orks! We did some narrative combat to get the idea across of a battle with hundreds of troops to either side.

What I did was to use the squigs stats from Creatures Anathema. Then, I just wrote down a large number of hit points. What I ruled was this - the party had to do 400 points of damage to the general squig horde within 3 rounds. Failing that, their forces would be pushed back out of the ship and the ork horde would spill out into Footfall. Bad news.

So, instead of hardcore miniatures and tactics, I had them roll attacks and damage. Weapon Penetration added to the damage. At the same time, each round each member of the party was subjected to 2 squig attacks. Just 2 squig attacks a round was bad! One of the Arch-Militants had to spend a Fate Point to stay up!

The team was able to pull out a victory and push back the horde of squigs that attempted to pour off of the ship. To keep the encounter narrative, I allowed each player to narrate what their character looked like as he was inflicting damage onto the oncoming horde. It made for a great scene and allowed each character to shine.

Then, each party member had to make a specialized skill test to represent them pushing on into the ship. The seneschal was stalking and hiding through the ship as a scout, so he made a Concealment check. The explorator was spotting for trouble, so he made an Awareness check. And so on.

The results were interesting. Half of the party blew the rolls. Based on what rolls succeeded, I ruled that the party had kept their troops out of trouble. However, the blown rolls meant that their troops' morale was severely shaken. Right about that time, the Explorers rounded a corner and ran into an ork nob. We ended there on a cliffhanger.