Today we finished wrapping up our Touch of Evil sessions.
We played against the Bog Fiend, and our characters were Karl, the Soldier and Isabella von Took. We were depressed, because we both agreed that both of them are the most overpowered characters in the game, and we both wanted a good challenge.
But, well. We didn't really know what was waiting us.
First of all, Isabella's wound ignoring ability wasn't all that good because mosquito swarms made heroes lose investigation points. And you fight mosquito swarms with Cunning, which isn't the best asset of Karl.
We were self-confident and pompous as Karl managed to find a book that gave him +2 cunning and book of medicine that made him able to heal people even in between showdown fight rounds.
Even when Isabella was possessed by a demon (again...!) it was not big enough a threat for the superman ego of the two overpowered character.
Only when shadow track started to fall rapidly (thanks to The Hour is Late -card) did the heroes think of starting the showdown.
Leisurely they trekked to Covered Bridge and started the showdown (okay, it wasn't all that easy - there was a real hurry, and first attempt at trying to start Showdown was failed because of the remains-in-play card Evil is on the move)
They lobbed blackpowder bombs at the bog fiend and hacked and slashed evil elders down like they were grass, and the bog fiend even with his mighty 13 dice couldn't hack them down.
But.
Neither could heroes kill Bog fiend because of its regeneration ability.
Soon Karl ran out of blackpowder bombs.
Eventually Magistrate Kroft was killed and combat items knocked away.
And Bog fiend just regenerated and regenerated... Most lowest wound count for Bog Fiend was 5, but at that moment Karl was fighting with 5 fight dice and Isabella with 4 or something like that. After that heroes couldn't keep on getting enough wounds in and bog fiend started regenerating more than what was done to it.
So, the mighty pair of Isabella and Karl was slaughtered, never to be said "they will beat anything" again.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Night of the Scarecrow (Touch of Evil)
Next we were against the Scarecrow.
And I learned a thing or two about karma.
We got Captain Hawkins and Eliza, the witch hunter as characters. Which was a filmatic pairing, again. Honorable and noble infantry commander and a cruel "end-justifies-means" inquisitor meet, and though they may not agree about the methods, they have to play along to win this supernatural threat.
Ah well. I said that Scarecrow was a weird villain with powerful abilities, but who seemed to go down way too easily in the end.
I guess Scarecrow got all insulted about this, because within just first few rounds it had got three Remains in Play mystery cards that added to its strenght.
Also, every second Mystery Card was Murder! that happened to spawn crows. And we rolled quite a many times Murder... murder! from the cooperative chart that just happened to spawn crows...
Also Lies and Deceit ran rampant. Until the end of game all town elders got a third secret from Lies and Deceit, so all of their secrets were revealed. Five out of six town elders were on the villain's side, two of them having the Darkest Secret. Only Doctor Manning was cool with us, except even he was a voyerist, drunk coward.
And, on top of all this, our witch hunter of questionable morals was possessed by a demon herself. A bit ironic, really.
We didn't even get to fight in a showdown, because shadow track started to shrink so rapidly, thanks to the Remains in Play card "The Horror".
But in the end we counted that the villain would have fought with 17 fight dice and had 24 wounds.
Never under estimate the villains. Rather, make them underestimate you.
And I learned a thing or two about karma.
We got Captain Hawkins and Eliza, the witch hunter as characters. Which was a filmatic pairing, again. Honorable and noble infantry commander and a cruel "end-justifies-means" inquisitor meet, and though they may not agree about the methods, they have to play along to win this supernatural threat.
Ah well. I said that Scarecrow was a weird villain with powerful abilities, but who seemed to go down way too easily in the end.
I guess Scarecrow got all insulted about this, because within just first few rounds it had got three Remains in Play mystery cards that added to its strenght.
Also, every second Mystery Card was Murder! that happened to spawn crows. And we rolled quite a many times Murder... murder! from the cooperative chart that just happened to spawn crows...
Also Lies and Deceit ran rampant. Until the end of game all town elders got a third secret from Lies and Deceit, so all of their secrets were revealed. Five out of six town elders were on the villain's side, two of them having the Darkest Secret. Only Doctor Manning was cool with us, except even he was a voyerist, drunk coward.
And, on top of all this, our witch hunter of questionable morals was possessed by a demon herself. A bit ironic, really.
We didn't even get to fight in a showdown, because shadow track started to shrink so rapidly, thanks to the Remains in Play card "The Horror".
But in the end we counted that the villain would have fought with 17 fight dice and had 24 wounds.
Never under estimate the villains. Rather, make them underestimate you.
Saving Elaine Bartlett (Touch of Evil)
So now I'm getting in games I guess. I'm visiting my friend at Oulu.
We originally made a bet back in 2009, with the loser needing to visit the winner. The bet was that would Privateer Press change Harbinger's Rebuke. I said no, they http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwouldn't. He said yes, they would. Well, the thought that they would ditch the spell completely didn't come across my mind so... I needed to make a visit.
Paying that debt waited for quite a long time.
Anyway.
Yesterday we played two Touch of Evil games, which were both pretty entertaining.
First we were up against the new web exclusive villain that you can download from Flying Frog's website, The Shadow Witch, ghost of Elaine Bartlett.
Heroes were randomised and we got Brother Marcus and Victor Danforth, the playwright, both of them who were boasting with a Combat rating of 1.
Luckily many of Elaine's minions were to be fought against with Spirit, which was pretty high for Victor.
Elaine was nice villain. There seemed to be some kind of story in hunting her, the clues about her past were a really nice touch. Also Solomon, the cat, was telling his own story. The times were countless where Solomon came to watch mysteriously at a space where a hero was standing, but it crossed players only a couple of times. Also Solomon lead the heroes to the Olde Woods, where final confrontation was made.
Anyway, it seemed that Brother Marcus was more efficient in tracking down what really happened. Victor was... ahem... distracted by poetic ambitions.
Shadow track did not move at all for a long, long time. It was pretty curious, actually, how easily the game seemed to progress until all clues were found. Then, suddenly, BOOMF. Two Shadow Spectres were spawned in far-away locations, which meant that three Mystery Cards were drawn every round. Which was way too much.
After an epic battle (I should say that most interesting and epic battle of all current Touch of Evil games - Elaine lost assets as fast as heroes, as there was Sophie, the Midwife in hunting party who removed Remains In Play mystery cards slowly but steadily) the Witch was finally laid to rest and her vengeful spirit calmed down.
But next we were against... Crows. Hitchcock would have loved that.
We originally made a bet back in 2009, with the loser needing to visit the winner. The bet was that would Privateer Press change Harbinger's Rebuke. I said no, they http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwouldn't. He said yes, they would. Well, the thought that they would ditch the spell completely didn't come across my mind so... I needed to make a visit.
Paying that debt waited for quite a long time.
Anyway.
Yesterday we played two Touch of Evil games, which were both pretty entertaining.
First we were up against the new web exclusive villain that you can download from Flying Frog's website, The Shadow Witch, ghost of Elaine Bartlett.
Heroes were randomised and we got Brother Marcus and Victor Danforth, the playwright, both of them who were boasting with a Combat rating of 1.
Luckily many of Elaine's minions were to be fought against with Spirit, which was pretty high for Victor.
Elaine was nice villain. There seemed to be some kind of story in hunting her, the clues about her past were a really nice touch. Also Solomon, the cat, was telling his own story. The times were countless where Solomon came to watch mysteriously at a space where a hero was standing, but it crossed players only a couple of times. Also Solomon lead the heroes to the Olde Woods, where final confrontation was made.
Anyway, it seemed that Brother Marcus was more efficient in tracking down what really happened. Victor was... ahem... distracted by poetic ambitions.
Shadow track did not move at all for a long, long time. It was pretty curious, actually, how easily the game seemed to progress until all clues were found. Then, suddenly, BOOMF. Two Shadow Spectres were spawned in far-away locations, which meant that three Mystery Cards were drawn every round. Which was way too much.
After an epic battle (I should say that most interesting and epic battle of all current Touch of Evil games - Elaine lost assets as fast as heroes, as there was Sophie, the Midwife in hunting party who removed Remains In Play mystery cards slowly but steadily) the Witch was finally laid to rest and her vengeful spirit calmed down.
But next we were against... Crows. Hitchcock would have loved that.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
When Tauloks Come
Okies, today we played another game of When Darkness Comes.
Lately it's been the only game I've been able to play, really. But that should be fixed soon enough as I will have a lot more free time at my disposal.
Anyway, we played the Brain Freeze scenario where the players hunt invisible tauloks that they can see when they have drank enough of Lilly's Special Drink. Go figure.
This scenario was nice in that there was a slight timing pressure from Lilly's drink, which rewarded the Speed stat for a change. But to make Speed stat truly shine we used a home-brew rule for this scenario that followed the 12-sided die I introduced in last game. The idea in using a 12-sided die was that it goes down one number at the end of every round, and once it drops below 1 it is turned back to 12 and something "bad" happens.
In this game, when the die first time drops below 1, dusk/light rain Line of Sight effect takes place. If the die drops a second time below 1, it becomes a full night/heavy rain.
Well, about the game itself.
My team member got the ball rolling real quick - well, her character's lucky number happened to be 4. My lucky number was 6, which was probably the worst lucky number around. In fact, her character had already killed and returned two tauloks all the while my character was trying to climb through windows and open doors with zero victory points.
In fact, had not a lucky WooHoo -table rolled a random item for my character (a knife from the other player) I think I wouldn't have gotten any kills during the whole game.
After getting that, however, my dear little character was able to beat up one measly taulok and return it to Lilly, managing to get just over 10 victory points to get at least a little character advancement.
Next, as the person we've been playing When Darkness Comes with is going to move away in a couple of months, we're going to play the scenario "The Enemy of my Enemy" next where you have to kill both Mega-Adversary and after that dismantle a tough bomb, where the bomb will explode and kill everyone if it's not taken care of soon enough.
That scenario will be a fine ending, and looks like it's challenging enough so that it doesn't need any additional 12-sided die. Maybe.
Ah well, I'm tired and writing erratically. Better go to sleep now.
Lately it's been the only game I've been able to play, really. But that should be fixed soon enough as I will have a lot more free time at my disposal.
Anyway, we played the Brain Freeze scenario where the players hunt invisible tauloks that they can see when they have drank enough of Lilly's Special Drink. Go figure.
This scenario was nice in that there was a slight timing pressure from Lilly's drink, which rewarded the Speed stat for a change. But to make Speed stat truly shine we used a home-brew rule for this scenario that followed the 12-sided die I introduced in last game. The idea in using a 12-sided die was that it goes down one number at the end of every round, and once it drops below 1 it is turned back to 12 and something "bad" happens.
In this game, when the die first time drops below 1, dusk/light rain Line of Sight effect takes place. If the die drops a second time below 1, it becomes a full night/heavy rain.
Well, about the game itself.
My team member got the ball rolling real quick - well, her character's lucky number happened to be 4. My lucky number was 6, which was probably the worst lucky number around. In fact, her character had already killed and returned two tauloks all the while my character was trying to climb through windows and open doors with zero victory points.
In fact, had not a lucky WooHoo -table rolled a random item for my character (a knife from the other player) I think I wouldn't have gotten any kills during the whole game.
After getting that, however, my dear little character was able to beat up one measly taulok and return it to Lilly, managing to get just over 10 victory points to get at least a little character advancement.
Next, as the person we've been playing When Darkness Comes with is going to move away in a couple of months, we're going to play the scenario "The Enemy of my Enemy" next where you have to kill both Mega-Adversary and after that dismantle a tough bomb, where the bomb will explode and kill everyone if it's not taken care of soon enough.
That scenario will be a fine ending, and looks like it's challenging enough so that it doesn't need any additional 12-sided die. Maybe.
Ah well, I'm tired and writing erratically. Better go to sleep now.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
When Skeletons Come
Today I played a game of When Darkness Comes with two players. Same continuum than in couple of earlier WDC posts, too.
Scenario was the Skulls and Bones or something like that, where you need to kill a certain number of skeletons and then dump their remains in the ocean.
Now, this was first time that I used a home brew rule that I've been thinking for quite some time. In every single game report I have complained how WDC lacks pressure and feel of hurry.
This was the home brew rule that I used and I plan to have in every other scenario too (modified to scenario specific needs, of course!):
You have 12-sided die, and at the end of every full round you reduce the face number by one. When it falls below 1 you turn it up again at 12 and place the monsters on the board as if first gun had been found. If the monsters are already on board, move ALL of them their SPD stat closer to Gun Shop. If at the end of those movements enemies have LOS to player characters, resolve combat as usual. If the first gun is found before the die has spawned them, reset the die pointing to 12.
Additionally, when first monster reaches the last row of tiles, every player receives a failure token.
Now, as I have played the game, I think it will be a perfect sense of small hurry if I modify above rule so that you also get a failure token when first time monsters enter the middle row of tiles. Reason for these failure tokens is that the villagers start to slowly wake up and there is always some early bird who sees the walking dead around, which in turn raises suspicion...
Anyway, randomly picked "town" was kinda nice. I tried to take all woods tiles away from randomisation, but I don't know how I still managed to blunder the shuffling so that the shore was behind a cabin and a woods tile. Ah well. At least the mysterious ship was well hidden!
Also, one of the randomly picked adversaries was the Mega-Adversary, and to be honest, all of this summed up (difficult terrain in between the skeleton bodies and ocean, a little bit of hurry and Mega-Adversary) made the game quite entertaining. Though the only real excitement came when all the other adversaries were killed except the Mega one. My playing friend had to move the Mega-Adversary so it got a Line of Sight to my character, after which it obviously charged, not giving us enough time to plan for it and pick our own fight.
It did horribly maul my character, despite her trying to shoot it down with both barrels of a shotgun. She had just one health remaining, when it was other players characters turn to try to save Camomile's already fried arse.
And, well, that he did, though he wasn't as skilled at using shotgun as Camomile was. Fighting the Mega-Adversary cost my character 8 victory points and the other character 7-8, so it was a costly fight.
But after that it was just a race to dump the skeletons to ocean. My character had 14-15 victory points when game ended, and my friend's character had 17. Damn. Her character has now more advanced character than I do.
(By the way, which is another point I have to check a bit. Now these character have played 3 games, which means that there is quite a bit of progress under them. Is the game too "easy" because of that?)
Scenario was the Skulls and Bones or something like that, where you need to kill a certain number of skeletons and then dump their remains in the ocean.
Now, this was first time that I used a home brew rule that I've been thinking for quite some time. In every single game report I have complained how WDC lacks pressure and feel of hurry.
This was the home brew rule that I used and I plan to have in every other scenario too (modified to scenario specific needs, of course!):
You have 12-sided die, and at the end of every full round you reduce the face number by one. When it falls below 1 you turn it up again at 12 and place the monsters on the board as if first gun had been found. If the monsters are already on board, move ALL of them their SPD stat closer to Gun Shop. If at the end of those movements enemies have LOS to player characters, resolve combat as usual. If the first gun is found before the die has spawned them, reset the die pointing to 12.
Additionally, when first monster reaches the last row of tiles, every player receives a failure token.
Now, as I have played the game, I think it will be a perfect sense of small hurry if I modify above rule so that you also get a failure token when first time monsters enter the middle row of tiles. Reason for these failure tokens is that the villagers start to slowly wake up and there is always some early bird who sees the walking dead around, which in turn raises suspicion...
Anyway, randomly picked "town" was kinda nice. I tried to take all woods tiles away from randomisation, but I don't know how I still managed to blunder the shuffling so that the shore was behind a cabin and a woods tile. Ah well. At least the mysterious ship was well hidden!
Also, one of the randomly picked adversaries was the Mega-Adversary, and to be honest, all of this summed up (difficult terrain in between the skeleton bodies and ocean, a little bit of hurry and Mega-Adversary) made the game quite entertaining. Though the only real excitement came when all the other adversaries were killed except the Mega one. My playing friend had to move the Mega-Adversary so it got a Line of Sight to my character, after which it obviously charged, not giving us enough time to plan for it and pick our own fight.
It did horribly maul my character, despite her trying to shoot it down with both barrels of a shotgun. She had just one health remaining, when it was other players characters turn to try to save Camomile's already fried arse.
And, well, that he did, though he wasn't as skilled at using shotgun as Camomile was. Fighting the Mega-Adversary cost my character 8 victory points and the other character 7-8, so it was a costly fight.
But after that it was just a race to dump the skeletons to ocean. My character had 14-15 victory points when game ended, and my friend's character had 17. Damn. Her character has now more advanced character than I do.
(By the way, which is another point I have to check a bit. Now these character have played 3 games, which means that there is quite a bit of progress under them. Is the game too "easy" because of that?)
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Gimme more 'shroom!
I was visiting a couple of friends... or a friend couple... or what they should be called? Anyway, the point here is that I was visiting friends and because I'm writing here, it means we played some sort of a board game.
Well, I thought we were going to play Smallworld, so I had taken the Tales and Legends event expansion set with me, trying to have a bit less to carry.
But as it turned out, the residing game was Smallworld: Underground.
I was sorely disappointed with this. I mean, I had made some sort of a promise that I wouldn't buy myself the Underground version of Smallworld. But now I had to witness all the nifty cool little extra things over the base game. After this it would take at least twice as much effort to resist the urge to buy Underground.
Enough complaining, about the game itself.
We had three players and decided to use Tales and Legends.
In turn order, race combos chosen were:
Vengeful Iron Dwarves & Their Silver Hammers, Immortal Lizardmen and Stone Drow.
Cards that were in effect at given turns were:
2. Greedy Gob
3. Bling-Bling
4. Blood Brothers
5. Wizened and Old
6. Barbarian Invasions
7. Wheel of Misfortune
8. Mercenaries
9. Baby Boom
10. Forbidden (mushroom) Forest
Vengeful Iron Dwarves proved to be a nasty combo, because other races seemed to be afraid of attacking them because of Vengeance tokens.
To put an insult to injury, Iron Dwarves found a tame Balrog for them to control. Suddenly Lizardmen weren't all that immortal any longer.
On 3rd round the Drow, harassed by Iron Dwarves that were just sitting peacefully at their borders, went in decline. On 4th round they emerged again as Vampire Will o' Wisps, when Blood Brothers were in effect.
4th round was where Iron Dwarves decided to fall in decline too.
On 5th round Iron Dwarves were exchanged for Reborn Mudmen that tried to do as much casualty on Vampire Will o' Wisps, because, really. They had the Killer Bunny's Sword, Stinky Troll's Socks and Flying Doormat at their disposal. And the Vampire -special ability.
Damage done was good enough so that Will o' Wisps went in decline, along with immortal lizardmen. Next round there was the Barbarian Invasions card in effect, meaning three extra race tokens in conquests for new races.
So Fisher Shrooms and Martyr Krakens carved a nice little empire. However, then we knew that next round there would be Wheel of Misfortune coming up, where every player needed to give their race combo to the person on their left.
So:
- Iron Dwarves/Reborn Mudmen player received Martyr Krakens
- Immortal Lizardmen/Fisher Shrooms player received Reborn Mudmen
- Stone Drow/Vampire Will o' the Wisp/Martyr Krakens player received Fisher Shrooms
Last turns there was a hilarious war trend between Reborn Mudmen and Martyr Krakens. They threw the stinky socks of a troll over their borders. Then the other player conquered back the region where the socks were and threw them to neighboring region.
Anyway, final scoreboard was:
Vengeful Iron Dwarves/Reborn Mudmen -> Martyr Krakens: 107
Stone Drow/Vampire Will o' Wisps/Martyr Krakens -> Fisher Shrooms: 81
Immortal Lizardmen/Fisher Shrooms -> Reborn Mudmen: 78
I think the Stone Drow player went in decline with 'Shrooms on 9th round and beat up stuff with a fresh race in the last round, but I have forgotten which race combo it might have been.
Well, I thought we were going to play Smallworld, so I had taken the Tales and Legends event expansion set with me, trying to have a bit less to carry.
But as it turned out, the residing game was Smallworld: Underground.
I was sorely disappointed with this. I mean, I had made some sort of a promise that I wouldn't buy myself the Underground version of Smallworld. But now I had to witness all the nifty cool little extra things over the base game. After this it would take at least twice as much effort to resist the urge to buy Underground.
Enough complaining, about the game itself.
We had three players and decided to use Tales and Legends.
In turn order, race combos chosen were:
Vengeful Iron Dwarves & Their Silver Hammers, Immortal Lizardmen and Stone Drow.
Cards that were in effect at given turns were:
2. Greedy Gob
3. Bling-Bling
4. Blood Brothers
5. Wizened and Old
6. Barbarian Invasions
7. Wheel of Misfortune
8. Mercenaries
9. Baby Boom
10. Forbidden (mushroom) Forest
Vengeful Iron Dwarves proved to be a nasty combo, because other races seemed to be afraid of attacking them because of Vengeance tokens.
To put an insult to injury, Iron Dwarves found a tame Balrog for them to control. Suddenly Lizardmen weren't all that immortal any longer.
On 3rd round the Drow, harassed by Iron Dwarves that were just sitting peacefully at their borders, went in decline. On 4th round they emerged again as Vampire Will o' Wisps, when Blood Brothers were in effect.
4th round was where Iron Dwarves decided to fall in decline too.
On 5th round Iron Dwarves were exchanged for Reborn Mudmen that tried to do as much casualty on Vampire Will o' Wisps, because, really. They had the Killer Bunny's Sword, Stinky Troll's Socks and Flying Doormat at their disposal. And the Vampire -special ability.
Damage done was good enough so that Will o' Wisps went in decline, along with immortal lizardmen. Next round there was the Barbarian Invasions card in effect, meaning three extra race tokens in conquests for new races.
So Fisher Shrooms and Martyr Krakens carved a nice little empire. However, then we knew that next round there would be Wheel of Misfortune coming up, where every player needed to give their race combo to the person on their left.
So:
- Iron Dwarves/Reborn Mudmen player received Martyr Krakens
- Immortal Lizardmen/Fisher Shrooms player received Reborn Mudmen
- Stone Drow/Vampire Will o' the Wisp/Martyr Krakens player received Fisher Shrooms
Last turns there was a hilarious war trend between Reborn Mudmen and Martyr Krakens. They threw the stinky socks of a troll over their borders. Then the other player conquered back the region where the socks were and threw them to neighboring region.
Anyway, final scoreboard was:
Vengeful Iron Dwarves/Reborn Mudmen -> Martyr Krakens: 107
Stone Drow/Vampire Will o' Wisps/Martyr Krakens -> Fisher Shrooms: 81
Immortal Lizardmen/Fisher Shrooms -> Reborn Mudmen: 78
I think the Stone Drow player went in decline with 'Shrooms on 9th round and beat up stuff with a fresh race in the last round, but I have forgotten which race combo it might have been.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
When Mummy Comes
Today I got to play a two-player When Darkness Comes.
As the two of us had earlier played the introductionish scenario where you kill five zombies, it was time for something new.
Scenario was the one where players hunted the mummy.
And it was a totally lame scenario.
First, there were no real enemies around, except for the mummy itself. And once a lucky "Woo Hoo!" -table roll revealed the building it was in, the players could avoid going there and focus on getting the students & mummy's orb to school instead.
Well, maybe scenario was less thrilling because of our characters. Both had lousy dexterity, which meant that it was a pain to get into buildings. Other attributes were okayish, but again the same thing happened that I complain about every time.
There was no hurry anywhere.
Because of crappy rolls the "heroes" spent 4-5 rounds trying to pick one doors lock, and eventually they had to resort in kicking down the door. It was a bit ridiculous, really.
So, as with the vampire hunt scenario, the mummy scenario requires more suspension to work out.
Anyway, I had shuffled some of the Nameless Mist security disks into the scenario, and they worked really fine. They brought some variety to encounters that the scenario lacked anyway.
About the game itself, it was quite entertaining at least.
My character seemed like the obvious winner for a long time, mostly because the other player had poor luck and collected a good share of Failure tokens and had to spend fortune to get rid of them.
However, if something good is to be said of the scenario, it must be the fact that it was really stingy on victory points. My character, who earlier had a lot more victory points, found the orb and almost all of the students. But still when the game ended she had only 14 victory points, which translated to only one skillpoint.
The other player, however, managed to snatch the victory at the last possible moment, really. When my character had found the last student, opposing player convinced that it was better to hang with her character. Then she rolled an additional turn from Woo Hoo! -table and ran way past for my character to persuade the student back to me.
Once opponents character dropped off the student at the high school, her character had 17 victory points.
After being frustrated enough at the vain attempts of lockpicking, she raised Dexterity of her character. Wise choise, really.
As the two of us had earlier played the introductionish scenario where you kill five zombies, it was time for something new.
Scenario was the one where players hunted the mummy.
And it was a totally lame scenario.
First, there were no real enemies around, except for the mummy itself. And once a lucky "Woo Hoo!" -table roll revealed the building it was in, the players could avoid going there and focus on getting the students & mummy's orb to school instead.
Well, maybe scenario was less thrilling because of our characters. Both had lousy dexterity, which meant that it was a pain to get into buildings. Other attributes were okayish, but again the same thing happened that I complain about every time.
There was no hurry anywhere.
Because of crappy rolls the "heroes" spent 4-5 rounds trying to pick one doors lock, and eventually they had to resort in kicking down the door. It was a bit ridiculous, really.
So, as with the vampire hunt scenario, the mummy scenario requires more suspension to work out.
Anyway, I had shuffled some of the Nameless Mist security disks into the scenario, and they worked really fine. They brought some variety to encounters that the scenario lacked anyway.
About the game itself, it was quite entertaining at least.
My character seemed like the obvious winner for a long time, mostly because the other player had poor luck and collected a good share of Failure tokens and had to spend fortune to get rid of them.
However, if something good is to be said of the scenario, it must be the fact that it was really stingy on victory points. My character, who earlier had a lot more victory points, found the orb and almost all of the students. But still when the game ended she had only 14 victory points, which translated to only one skillpoint.
The other player, however, managed to snatch the victory at the last possible moment, really. When my character had found the last student, opposing player convinced that it was better to hang with her character. Then she rolled an additional turn from Woo Hoo! -table and ran way past for my character to persuade the student back to me.
Once opponents character dropped off the student at the high school, her character had 17 victory points.
After being frustrated enough at the vain attempts of lockpicking, she raised Dexterity of her character. Wise choise, really.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Smell of Hammered Fat
Last night I had a special treat of getting to play Warmachine twice against different factions. (Woohoo?)
Both games were a 35 point game.
Anyway, after having Scaverous fail me so badly I wanted to try out my Skorne now that I had some new painted models for them.
First I was against Protectorate of Menoth.
My list in both games was:
Dominar Rasheth
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
- Rhinodon
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Paingiver Beast Handlers
Venator Flayer Cannon
Extoller Soulward
Ancestral Guardian
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor
Opponent had about following list:
Scrutator Severius
- Crusader
- Revenger
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant
Rarely enough, I won the starting roll.
It is somewhat of a custom that Bloodrunner Master Tormentor dies first. This game was no exception. Opponent sacrificed one Flameguard to cast Ashes to Ashes on him. And thus was the master tormentor dead again.
On my next turn I, in turn, sacrificed one of my Praetorian Swordman to black rituals to kill four flameguard members with a Breath of Corruption.
I didn't want another Ashes to Ashes anymore, so Rasheth cast Castigate too. It was funny to notice how Castigate was a good spell against this particular waracaster. Usually the spell is "nice" against Cryx and not much else.
Well, then it was opponents turn. Two bastions were in charge range to Rhinodon and took off most of its damage boxes. Exemplar Errants ran to engage my basilisk Drake. Temple Flameguard attempted pretty much the same, except one tried to be a sacrificial lamb to another Ashes to Ashes. But here Castigate saved a whole lot of my Praetorians.
Then the slaughter began.
Cyclops Shaman crafted a talisman for Rasheth, providing him with +2" range to spells. Then Rasheth spammed Influence on the farthest Bastion, who killed one of his comrades and a exemplar errant close by. Castigate was cast again.
Flayer Cannon killed a couple of errants and Ancestral Guardian came to help in trying to dislodge Basilisk Drake from melee. But really. Errants are an excellent "tarpit" in that if you want to engage something in melee, you can be pretty sure that it stays engaged. So it happened that Drake had to bite the last errant himself, meaning no 8" POW 14 spray this round for me.
Swordsmen used their minifeat and rampaged through opponents lines. Actual casualties were a bit on the low side, but praetorians nearly engaged Severius himself, so they should be at least a little headache for opponent.
Rhinodon tried to be cool, but failed miserably. All it ever did was to destroy one of the Bastions, and rest of the attacks missed or did little damage to the last Bastion, who survived.
Then it was opponents turn, and I got to taste how it feels like to receive an Ashes to Ashes in middle of your infantry with 6 secondary attacks.
Suddenly I wasn't all that self-confident any more, when six of my infantry models got killed. One survived just because it was officer and got damage boxes.
Crusader destroyed Rhinodon and Revenger finished the praetorian officer.
I guess that if I had not had Extoller Soulward and Ancestral Guardian on full souls there at the moment, I would have struggled to survive.
I skipped one turn in pictures, but what happened off-screen was that Rasheth cast Blood Mark on Crusader and Basilisk Krea was killed.
Now, when already pretty mauled Crusader came and tried to beat up Basilisk Drake, all my remaining models about ganged up on it. Extoller Soulward did pretty impressive job with a couple of souls she had, as well as Ancestral Guardian. In the picture the Crusader is beaten to a pulp, but Revenger is still standing.
Rasheth had not used his feat yet, so next turn it was time to unleash Plague Wind.
Basilisk Drake tried to spray the choir members out of Ancestral Guardians charge lane, but failed to do that. However, it did succeed in getting 8 points in to Severius.
Cyclops Shaman took an aiming bonus and stared Severius down.
And then game 2:
Because of a little bit of a hurry I played with same list (maybe it was good too, to see how exactly same list works against a totally different warcaster?)
Rasheth was now against Khador with following list:
Epic Vlad
- Marauder
Maximum unit of Man-O-War Bombardiers
Maximum unit of Man-O-War Demolition Corps
Minimum unit of Iron Fang Uhlans
Widowmakers
Sylys Wyshnalyrr the Seeker
And damn was it a brutal game.
I won the starting roll. That's right, second time in a row!
Opponent had everything run forward. Enough forward so that Flayer Cannon could try and shoot down the approaching cavalry. Cannon did actually hit once and did some damage in, but not enough to bring down those crazy horses.
One praetorian swordmen had to sacrifice himself for Rasheth to get off a Breath of Corruption, which killed two of Uhlans. Cyclops Shaman tried to come and stare down the last horse, but was more interested in a seagull that flew over the board and missed his Evil Eye attack.
On opponents turn the Uhlan promptly charged in, but not before Vlad himself had activated. As Vlad had Seeker with him, he had +2" spell range.
He actually cast Razor Wind on Cyclops Shaman with the Seeker's guidance buff. Damage roll came out as 6, 6, 6, 1, with the 1 discarded. Ouch.
And then it was time for the uhlan to finish up the brave beast who had his single eye fixed to an already distant bird.
And then the brutality began.
Blood Mark was cast on Marauder, that was then nailed with as many shots as Flayer Cannon could produce.
Praetorians killed the lone brave Uhlan, and after that enraged Rhinodon with Amuck on charged into the middle of opponents lines. Two Man-o-Wars laid dead on their tracks and one was at one health box, but there was a slight problem after Rhinodon had been pounding on Marauder. It was almost broken, but still had both weapon systems alright, as well as cortex.
Drake sprayed one Demo Corp dead and walked then into melee. It had used its animus. Bloodrunner Master Tormentor killed the Demo Corp in question and sprinted to engage the last surviving member of the unit.
Then Krea charged to the Marauder, hoping to destroy it. Which didn't happen. But Krea managed to bite its cortex off, which was a good start.
On opponents turn Vlad himself charged to the Rhinodon and used his feat too. He nearly slaughtered uninjured Rhinodon just by himself - Rhinodon had only something like five damage boxes left. Juggling with Hand of Fate and other spells Rhinodon was combo-slammed to Basilisk Drake, who took some little damage in. But Rhinidon was killed.
Feat had been used on Man-o-War Bombardiers, who did their best to beat up the Basilisk Krea. They couldn't charge though, so Krea just didn't bite the dust. Yet.
On my turn it looked like I had to finish Vlad now.
After trying to kill Marauder with Venator Cannon Blood Mark was switched to Vlad himself, and Rasheth used his feat.
Basilisk Drake took aiming bonus and sprayed Vlad, dealing whopping 15 points in. Vlad was camping one focus here.
Not wanting to risk 4x free strikes with Krea, the other basilisk tried to scrape at what was left of Marauder. Damage roll was almost as excessive as it had been with Vlad, and so the Marauder was wrecked.
As Vlad had 3 health boxes left and had Blood Mark on, I guess I would've had the game safely under my belt, was it not for the newest rulings on Blood Mark.
Vlad started running away and the rest of his army beat up what was left of my army.
I lost all of my warbeasts and troops the next turn, except for one beast handler and Venator Cannon without a marksman. But there were enough keys for victory there.
The lone beast handler ran as much forwards as possible, and using Black Rituals Rasheth cast Sunder Spirit on Vlad.
Rasheth did hit and dealt two damage points in.
Two.
Yes, I'm a little bit bitter about that. But for every warmachineplayer out there - just camping one focus can save your arse and bring you the victory. Here is the sad last picture:
Both games were a 35 point game.
Anyway, after having Scaverous fail me so badly I wanted to try out my Skorne now that I had some new painted models for them.
First I was against Protectorate of Menoth.
My list in both games was:
Dominar Rasheth
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
- Rhinodon
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Paingiver Beast Handlers
Venator Flayer Cannon
Extoller Soulward
Ancestral Guardian
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor
Opponent had about following list:
Scrutator Severius
- Crusader
- Revenger
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant
Rarely enough, I won the starting roll.
It is somewhat of a custom that Bloodrunner Master Tormentor dies first. This game was no exception. Opponent sacrificed one Flameguard to cast Ashes to Ashes on him. And thus was the master tormentor dead again.
On my next turn I, in turn, sacrificed one of my Praetorian Swordman to black rituals to kill four flameguard members with a Breath of Corruption.
I didn't want another Ashes to Ashes anymore, so Rasheth cast Castigate too. It was funny to notice how Castigate was a good spell against this particular waracaster. Usually the spell is "nice" against Cryx and not much else.
Well, then it was opponents turn. Two bastions were in charge range to Rhinodon and took off most of its damage boxes. Exemplar Errants ran to engage my basilisk Drake. Temple Flameguard attempted pretty much the same, except one tried to be a sacrificial lamb to another Ashes to Ashes. But here Castigate saved a whole lot of my Praetorians.
Then the slaughter began.
Cyclops Shaman crafted a talisman for Rasheth, providing him with +2" range to spells. Then Rasheth spammed Influence on the farthest Bastion, who killed one of his comrades and a exemplar errant close by. Castigate was cast again.
Flayer Cannon killed a couple of errants and Ancestral Guardian came to help in trying to dislodge Basilisk Drake from melee. But really. Errants are an excellent "tarpit" in that if you want to engage something in melee, you can be pretty sure that it stays engaged. So it happened that Drake had to bite the last errant himself, meaning no 8" POW 14 spray this round for me.
Swordsmen used their minifeat and rampaged through opponents lines. Actual casualties were a bit on the low side, but praetorians nearly engaged Severius himself, so they should be at least a little headache for opponent.
Rhinodon tried to be cool, but failed miserably. All it ever did was to destroy one of the Bastions, and rest of the attacks missed or did little damage to the last Bastion, who survived.
Then it was opponents turn, and I got to taste how it feels like to receive an Ashes to Ashes in middle of your infantry with 6 secondary attacks.
Suddenly I wasn't all that self-confident any more, when six of my infantry models got killed. One survived just because it was officer and got damage boxes.
Crusader destroyed Rhinodon and Revenger finished the praetorian officer.
I guess that if I had not had Extoller Soulward and Ancestral Guardian on full souls there at the moment, I would have struggled to survive.
I skipped one turn in pictures, but what happened off-screen was that Rasheth cast Blood Mark on Crusader and Basilisk Krea was killed.
Now, when already pretty mauled Crusader came and tried to beat up Basilisk Drake, all my remaining models about ganged up on it. Extoller Soulward did pretty impressive job with a couple of souls she had, as well as Ancestral Guardian. In the picture the Crusader is beaten to a pulp, but Revenger is still standing.
Rasheth had not used his feat yet, so next turn it was time to unleash Plague Wind.
Basilisk Drake tried to spray the choir members out of Ancestral Guardians charge lane, but failed to do that. However, it did succeed in getting 8 points in to Severius.
Cyclops Shaman took an aiming bonus and stared Severius down.
And then game 2:
Because of a little bit of a hurry I played with same list (maybe it was good too, to see how exactly same list works against a totally different warcaster?)
Rasheth was now against Khador with following list:
Epic Vlad
- Marauder
Maximum unit of Man-O-War Bombardiers
Maximum unit of Man-O-War Demolition Corps
Minimum unit of Iron Fang Uhlans
Widowmakers
Sylys Wyshnalyrr the Seeker
And damn was it a brutal game.
I won the starting roll. That's right, second time in a row!
Opponent had everything run forward. Enough forward so that Flayer Cannon could try and shoot down the approaching cavalry. Cannon did actually hit once and did some damage in, but not enough to bring down those crazy horses.
One praetorian swordmen had to sacrifice himself for Rasheth to get off a Breath of Corruption, which killed two of Uhlans. Cyclops Shaman tried to come and stare down the last horse, but was more interested in a seagull that flew over the board and missed his Evil Eye attack.
On opponents turn the Uhlan promptly charged in, but not before Vlad himself had activated. As Vlad had Seeker with him, he had +2" spell range.
He actually cast Razor Wind on Cyclops Shaman with the Seeker's guidance buff. Damage roll came out as 6, 6, 6, 1, with the 1 discarded. Ouch.
And then it was time for the uhlan to finish up the brave beast who had his single eye fixed to an already distant bird.
And then the brutality began.
Blood Mark was cast on Marauder, that was then nailed with as many shots as Flayer Cannon could produce.
Praetorians killed the lone brave Uhlan, and after that enraged Rhinodon with Amuck on charged into the middle of opponents lines. Two Man-o-Wars laid dead on their tracks and one was at one health box, but there was a slight problem after Rhinodon had been pounding on Marauder. It was almost broken, but still had both weapon systems alright, as well as cortex.
Drake sprayed one Demo Corp dead and walked then into melee. It had used its animus. Bloodrunner Master Tormentor killed the Demo Corp in question and sprinted to engage the last surviving member of the unit.
Then Krea charged to the Marauder, hoping to destroy it. Which didn't happen. But Krea managed to bite its cortex off, which was a good start.
On opponents turn Vlad himself charged to the Rhinodon and used his feat too. He nearly slaughtered uninjured Rhinodon just by himself - Rhinodon had only something like five damage boxes left. Juggling with Hand of Fate and other spells Rhinodon was combo-slammed to Basilisk Drake, who took some little damage in. But Rhinidon was killed.
Feat had been used on Man-o-War Bombardiers, who did their best to beat up the Basilisk Krea. They couldn't charge though, so Krea just didn't bite the dust. Yet.
On my turn it looked like I had to finish Vlad now.
After trying to kill Marauder with Venator Cannon Blood Mark was switched to Vlad himself, and Rasheth used his feat.
Basilisk Drake took aiming bonus and sprayed Vlad, dealing whopping 15 points in. Vlad was camping one focus here.
Not wanting to risk 4x free strikes with Krea, the other basilisk tried to scrape at what was left of Marauder. Damage roll was almost as excessive as it had been with Vlad, and so the Marauder was wrecked.
As Vlad had 3 health boxes left and had Blood Mark on, I guess I would've had the game safely under my belt, was it not for the newest rulings on Blood Mark.
Vlad started running away and the rest of his army beat up what was left of my army.
I lost all of my warbeasts and troops the next turn, except for one beast handler and Venator Cannon without a marksman. But there were enough keys for victory there.
The lone beast handler ran as much forwards as possible, and using Black Rituals Rasheth cast Sunder Spirit on Vlad.
Rasheth did hit and dealt two damage points in.
Two.
Yes, I'm a little bit bitter about that. But for every warmachineplayer out there - just camping one focus can save your arse and bring you the victory. Here is the sad last picture:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)