The battle of Waldorf
Yes, well, there was a battle. Never intended for there to be one. Just a nice but tricky encounter to force some cooperation and perhaps trust between the witch hunter and the pc:s. Oh, well.
The coach traveled on, stopping for a short rest where Adele points out that they need to pass through a village an hour down the road, because there's a bridge that needs to be crossed. Kühnheit knows of the village, says there's nothing about it. Von Stangel raises the possibility that it's been attacked.
Onwards, and as they draw closer to the village Waldenfrau observes that there are no people about, which alarms her somewhat. Adele says that either they've been warned or they've been attacked.
Onwards, and Kühnheit who rides front guard a couple of turns ahead of the coach sees a sign, saying “Waldorf, population 160” and a couple of boots lying in the grass and lots of blood. He also rolls a chaos star and is attacked by beastmen whom he easily scatters.
No matter, still onwards, and the village is sighted up ahead. The banner of Khorne has been raised, heads are staked on the palisade and marauders are lounging about the open gates. A bad sign? Nope. Charge!
I tried. I tried to hint that caution might be needed. What's ahead is basically the none-shall-pass-chaos-warrior-encounter, but with a village filled with marauders, beastmen and no-one else alive. I imagined lots of ways the pc:s could have drawn the troops out, or even magicked their way across the river, but no! Alas, they attack. A village. 30 marauders, 20 beastmen, 1 wargor and 1 chaos warrior of Khorne. Not that they know the count, but a village massacred? They should have seen it coming.
Charging into ten marauders who were somewhat surprised isn't difficult to survive. They were smashed apart, quickly, and the coach and Kühnheit on his war-horse got through into the village. There, the opposition thickened. Bow-men were shooting from a roof, more marauders and beastmen came running to have a go at the coach and the knight. Shots were fired, blows landed, wounds inflicted, heads bashed, limbs cut, bones broken et.c.
Reinhardt got on top of the coach to fire his pistol, holding on for his life (literally!) but managed to slip and fall off, onto the street. He was attacked by two marauders who came running after the coach, but one stabbed the other (redirect) and was himself slain by Fräulein Waldenfrau's magic. The coach slowed enough to let Reinhardt run after it and get inside.
Joseph Köhler, the sigmarite, had been flogged in Middenheim and wasn't really up for a fight (4 wounds left, 1 critical wound, queasy condition, insane) but said a prayer to Sigmar, went berzerk and jumped out of the coach when it slowed and ran up to the big melee where Kühnheit fought everyone and their mother. Together, they killed or drove off them all.
In one way or another, everyone had been involved, fighting from the doors of the coach or from the roof or on the ground. As they moved forward towards the bridge, they were in a sorry shape. Kühnheit, riding his war-horse in front of the coach said nothing of his wounds, but as it turned out he'd taken quite a few hits during the battles he'd fought that day.
The death of a knight
Coming up on the bridge spanning the river, the pc:s saw lots of beastmen off to the side of the bridge, with a massive wargor in their midst. With goat-faced braying or wolf-snouted howling, they greeted the pc:s but didn't attack. On the other side of the bridge were grinning marauders, some wielding those horse-bows of theirs. And on the bridge, an iron-clad knight, one of the chosen of Khorne, a chaos warrior. He held up his hand and called out “Halt”. After a brief (not so brief in real time) hesitation, Kühnheit held in his reins and the coach came to a halt behind him.
A challenge followed (“Wolf-boy, dare you face me? Beat me and you'll be free to cross. Or would the witch-huntress like to have a go first? I'd like to spend some time with you, pretty girl!”) and Kühnheit (who could never back down) accepted. The other players and I didn't know at the time that he had seven wounds left and suffered from two previous crits.
Kühnheit threw down his shield and let his sword-belt fall to the ground, got off his horse and unslung his two-handed hammer and unfolded the banner of the white wolf. The chaos warrior readied his long, black rune-blade and yelled “Wolf-boy, I hope that shaggy god of yours isn't busy banging his ***** Shallya or he'll be to distracted by her c**t to watch you die. Help you he cannot!”.
The first blow struck the chaos warrior hard enough break bones and blood leaked between the armor plates. He attacked in wounded frenzy with frightening speed, but Kühnheit held him off and pushed him off with the hammer and came on hard, swinging but the chaos warrior locked his hammer with the rune-blade and shoved the white wolf off balance. “Blood for the blood god!” he yelled and the rune-blade bit deep into Kühnheits skull, killing him. Two crits, seven wounds, another crit for going down to zero wounds... death.
Von Stangel leapt onto the coach, beside Adele and she lashed out with her whip, the coach rolling up the bridge. The beastmen charge after them, arrows being shot from the other side of the bridge. Reinhardt shoots his gun and hand-crossbow, hitting the chaos warrior in the face and sees him topple over the railing. The beastmen try to pull them down from or out of the wagon, but the pc:s hold them off and the coach gains speed. They smash through the marauders and onto the other side of the river at high speed.
End of session.