The best laid plans....

Our D&D 3.5 group gathered for the October installment on saturday night. The gang assembled minus Ken (where are you dude?) and discovered that its latest task was the most hazardous yet. Despite the hazards, Splinter somehow managed to avoid getting clobbered. Instead it fell to "Soak" Amra the barbarian to absorb the misfortune that rained down on us.

The task was fairly clear from the start. A hobgoblin champion was attempting to infiltrate the wizard tower and alter the course of history. The whole was complicated by an apparent temporal shift. Just as the gang had gotten used to fighting in the future, we were suddenly transported back into the ethereal past as a result of our meddlings in the Wizard's Tower. Our band of mercenraies, assisted by a cadre of inexperienced troopers and war mages, was tasked with stopping the champion in his tracks.

In truth we had only to steal the hobgoblin's amulet and return it to our wizard contact. The hobgoblin was not in an especially cooperative mood however, forcing us to take it from his dead, lifeless hands. Sort of. DM Rob actually managed the complexity of a mass melee in a format that was both logical and less tedious. The mobs of troopers squared off against mobs of enemy warriors leaving the individual combat to the PCs and a select few enemy combatants. This enabled us to experience the fear and uncertain of large scale combat without hundreds of tedious die rolls between the NPC forces.

Our plan fell apart almost from the begining. We had initially decided to purloin some uniforms from the enemy dead. Doing so on an open plain with magical might arrayed on both sides was not helping things. Homer, aka Splinter, was acually able to acquire a uniform with little fanfare. Josh, aka Amra, was not so lucky. Dordo's plan to pretend Amra was an enemy combatant by shooting at him failed. the barbarian failed to understand the plan and simply exposed both he and Amra to withering arrow fire from both sides of the battlefield.

Splinter managed to return to the town sporting his new enemy uniform. This was in itself a problem as the guards promptly assumed he was a spy. "At least we know it works," Homer declared. he managed to talk his way out of imprisonment but the remainder of the party was not so lucky. We had a good night's sleep in the maximum security stockade before we managed to escape and formulate a new plan. Since sneaking into the enemy camp and assassinating the hobgoblin was no longer an option, we had to take the direct route.

The enemy forces advanced en masse and our little band was tasked to identify and take down the champion. The wizard cadre accepted the direction of our resident Sorceress, played by Angela, and used their magic to help divine the location of our foe. having spotted him and his legions, we moved to intercept. Dordo's unparalelled longbowmanship harried the advancing hordes. Angela managed a well-timed volley of magic missiles that disperesed the enemy's peasant levies as Beth, aka Noname, and Amra moved forward to bolster the front rank of swordsmen. Our elation proved short lived. The hobgoblin's crack troops surged forward to engage our troopers.

Amra was a beast on the battlefield swinging his axe to terrible effect. Enemy soldiers died by the dozens as Dordoand the sorceress provided covering fire. The invisible Splinter slithered forward with the goal of stealing the amulet. Noname also moved forward to engage the champion hoping that her flanking would help her and Splinter eliminate the champion once and for all. Splinter, however, had a different plan in mind. With a well-executed snatch, he pulled the amulet away from the hobgoblin even as Noname struck.

Soon enemy soldiers rushed to their commander's aid, surrounding Noname on all sides. In a rare moment of bravado, Splinter struck and delivered an awesome blow to the champion. Coupled with the wounds the hobgoblin suffered from a final magic missile assault, Dordo's continuious rain of fire (in spite of using the doomed eight-sided d4) and Noname's attack, the champion fell. Splinter sent up the signal flare and the elven cavalry surged forward to scatter the demoralized enemy troops.

Having emerged victorious on the battlefield, we returned the amulet to our contact only to find the boundaries of time shift once more. As the gaming session wound to a close the party found itself transported into a desert valley. Our journey into the dreaded Canyon of the Yellow Sun was only begining....