With goblins about we took a few minutes to prepare a proper assault on the mansion. We want this house for ourselves, so we have to make sure that we take it quickly and cleanly. We opted to assault the place by going in through the front door - we know the layout inside so we know what to expect.
Our initial approach across the yard space raised the defenders' attention - we came under crossbow fire. Fortunately crossbows are rubbish, so when their first volley missed, we strolled across the intervening space while they reloaded.
We reached the front door and tried to go through - we bounced off. They'd barred it. We gathered around it, safely out of sight of their crossbows, which we think they still hadn't reloaded. Our strongest people, Bob and Redamber, turned their might on the door which gave in with little fuss.
As we flowed into the building, it became clear that they were unready for any assault. I think they were still starting to reload their crossbows, and now they had to swap to their hand-to-hand weapons. We moved out from the doorway to secure the hallway.
Our next objective was to get to the area at the bottom of the tower - this was our strategic goal. The goblins seemed to be running off. We couldn't tell if this was just a tactical retreat, and we pressed on after them as quickly as we could.
We reached the tower base - and their plan was instantly clear. They had retired to a defensive formation. This, it seemed, was a good chance to use the Bernie the wizard's bouncing magic on the dwarf. He cast his magical spell.
In one bound the dwarf ended up right in the middle of the goblins, the other side of their makeshift barrier (the large table), and the rest of us followed up a little more slowly to join the fighting.
The little scuffle was over pretty quickly - and we barely got hurt. We tended to our light wounds and grabbed the few bits of kit that the goblins has scattered around. We think there may have been a few goblins that got away, which is somewhat disappointing. There are six goblin heads when we do the final count up.