Directly from Ghyrrshyld himself:

I played a game of Warmachine today at local gaming shop.

I knew I would be facing Retribution, so I thought it'd be a nice and ironic thing to bring Goreshade the Bastard to the field.

Here was my list (50 pointer, scenario plain caster kill):

Goreshade the Bastard
- Malice
- Nightmare
- Ripjaw

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 1 Brute Thralls
Necrosurgeon & Scrap Thralls
Cephalyx Overlords
Bane Lord Tartarus
2x Warwitch Sirens
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Gorman diWulfe
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw

And opponent had:

Kaelyssa
- Discordia
- Phoenix

Maximum unit of Houseguard Halberdiers + Unit Attachment

Maximum unit of Mage Hunter Strike Force + Unit Attachment
2x Arcanists
Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen
2x Mage Hunter Assassins
Epic Eiryss
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios
Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker

And if I'm not forgetting something it seems my opponent played with two points down. Well, more glory for him, then.

Opponent won the starting roll and went first. I was left with the board side with a river. How did I miss Ghost Walk... Anyway. First picture is taken from the end of my first turn. Banishing Ward had been cast on Halberdiers and Phantom Hunter was on Kaelyssa herself. Looked like I would be doing little else except for Shadowmancer.

I had picked up Discordia to be Nightmare's prey.

Next turn opponent backed up a little and used Kaelyssa's feat, obviously waiting for me to close in. Which I did. I did try to have enough "counters" for possible charges, like having all of my sprays close by and mechanithralls within charge distance of anything that tries to engage Nightmare.

If only things were that simple!

Mage Hunter Assassins charge Nightmare. First one misses. Second one does 20 points of damage and cripples both of its arms. Well, I still have Necrotech, I thought. Well, then Kaelyssa shoots the 'tech. Halberdiers advance in shield wall and reform closer so they're engaging both Nightmare and Malice.

Discordia fried my Gorman, which was an insult to injury. More often than not Gorman defies all fate and probabilities and whatever and stays on board. Now he died to first shot ever made against him.

Bane Lord Tartarus (who luckily survived a boosted spray from Discordia), what was left of Nightmare and two Venom casting Warwitches later halberdiers had been mostly beaten down, and the only one who didn't suffer from corrosion was the standard bearer.

Cephalyx overlords managed to kill Narn. Good.

But then, this was about all I did with my turn. All three halberdiers suffering from corrosion died at the start of opponents next turn.

When I was uploading pictures I had to double check if the following picture has only opponents next turn included and not, for example, one complete round in between.

Nope.

If you take a close look, Goreshade hasn't moved a bit and is camping same amount of focus. Can't have missed any turns.

Well, it was a bit brutal to lose 10 mechanithralls + brute thrall, Necrosurgeon + 3 scrap thralls, Nightmare, Bane Lord Tartarus and a Warwitch Siren during a course of just one turn.

All of my heavy hitters gone. Really, this called for desperate measures next turn. I didn't expect THIS heavy losses, though it was obviously to be expected that it would be a turn that could hurt. But 24 points?

No time to cry any longer. No tears left.

I tried some kind of an assasination and did some funny shenanigans.

First, Cephalyx Overlords use Influence on Skeryth Issyan, who kills the houseguard halberdier.

Next, Warwitch Siren comes over and seduces Skeryth Issyen, who walks up and tries to skewer the mage hunter assassin that was close to Malice. Sadly the attack misses. Would have been so awesome to kill two enemy models with their own solo in one turn. Ripjaw then walks to the back arc of mage hunter assassin and kills her off.

Now Malice is freed from melee and is loaded up with souls. It charges Phoenix and beats it around and eventually possesses it. It walks up and tries to kill Eiryss (though misses), but is now within charge distance of Snapjaw. Snapjaw comes and wrecks the jack.

So the morale of the story is that if you lose all of your army, use enemy models. Oh, and if it still doesn't work, pull models out of thin air.

Because then Deathwalker runs close to Eiryss and Goreshade charges the elf mage hunter. He barely hits Eiryss and kills her and then uses Dark Summons, calling bane thralls to the field. Four of them charge Kaelyssa, one charges arcanist and one charges Discordia.

However, first he needed to use all remaining focus to shoot off Sylys Wyshnalyrr, who was standing in a wrong place. That meant no Shadowmancer this turn.

Despite needing 10+ to hit, two of the charging bane thralls score a hit. First rolls extremely poorly with 4 dice, dealing only four points in though it was rolling 4d6 with only dice -2 (she was boosting power field with one focus)

Second hit went a bit better and scored 8 points in, but still way below average. And now Kaelyssa was left with two points of health, and Goreshade was... uh, without stealt, within 12" of 11 mage hunter strike force members and one heavy warjack who had not lost any weapon systems yet.

But still it took everything opponent had to bring the bastard down. Strike force shot him down to 2 hit boxes. Hey, what's that noise? Is it karma or something? Anyway...

Discordia walks to Goreshade and rolls absurdly high damage roll for first attack. Deathwalker restores Goreshade and Discordia has one final initial attack left.

Hits and scores a few points in when Goreshade has only one.

Damn tough and exciting game and a perfect example how you always have a change even if you lose 47% of your army in one go. This time applying more banes didn't solve the problem, but if the game was this exciting I don't think it's an actual loss anywhere else except in my statistics! :P

Oh dear. Did I actually use a smiley? Must be the first time ever in this blog.

"But... this wasn't supposed to be out yet!" (Talisman)

Whoa.

Just before I went to watch Dark Shadows (good enough movie, by the way, though some things in it hurt like a ballpoint pencil through your frontal lobe) I went to local gaming shop.

There it was, The Blood Moon expansion for Talisman.

I didn't exactly have the money right now, but I still had to buy it.

I'm not sure if it was all the currency, but it looks like a nice change of game. Not as huge as Dragon, but not as lame as Ice Queen or Sacred Pool.

I'd also rate it to be a little bit better than Reaper, because it's a lot more common to face Werewolf even in just two player games.

A big complain, however, comes from the fact that there isn't big enough drawback of being a lycanthrope. You have to attack another player instead of encountering space when you enter a space where already is a player. Bonus being that, pretty much in all intent and purposes, you fight any enemy during day. Even if it's night.

I only quickly skimmed through spells and didn't actually even look at adventure cards.

Miniatures, again, get a big plus. They look very indeed when considered they're for a board game and made from cheap plastic.

When Explosion Comes

Today I played a game of When Darkness Comes.

It was a grand ending of scenarios from The Awakening. We played the last scenario, The Enemy of My Enemy, where heroes need to first kill Dubois, the Mega-Adversary and after that find a bomb he has set up to blow the entire town to bits.

For this scenario I hadn't made any changes in the form of D12, because the scenario looked challenging enough. And for two players I think it was, all things considered.

The game had an easy start when heroes raided the Gun Shop and got pistol and both shotguns. This time around it looked like my character would win here big time. She totaled an amazing amount of zombies with the new ranged attack rules from second expansion.

When things had gone to the point that the bomb was found and my character was going in to library to blast Dubois to smithereens, but then some unexpected things happened.

For starters, Dubois in fact blasted my character. She was killed. Absolutely.

And then... then it was left to the other hero to kill both Dubois and then, in two turns, actually "find" the bomb and then dismantle it. This character had less victory points than I did, and he was less proficient with ranged weapons than my character had been.

And he killed Dubois, though all this had resulted in two damage points to him.

So, bleeding as he was he ran to next building next turn where the bomb was and succeeded to find it (needed 3 straight). Then next turn, which was last turn, he succeeded to dismantle it (needed 4K to dismantle it).

All of this pretty much drained all of his victory points, but still. He managed to do it, despite the permanent injury from my characters death.

This was somewhat funny, as the player is moving out of town soonish. Good ending, I think

The End of Everblight (as we know it)

A couple of days ago I played a game of Warmachine.

I had decided it was time for me to awaken Venethrax from his slumber, and thus my 35 point list came to be:

Venethrax
- Harrower
- Cankerworm
- Ripjaw

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Withershadow Combine
Gorman diWulfe
Warwitch Siren

And, as I arrived to my friend place I learned soon enough that I was facing epic Thagrosh. Well, usually I've only lost to him, but this time I had brought Cryx's premiere Hordes and Legion warcaster with me.

So, his list was:

Thagrosh the Messiah

- Carnivean
- Typhon
- Shredder

Maximum unit of Warspears
Warmonger Chieftain
Spell Martyr
Shepherd

So it was time to slay some soulless dragons, because there wasn't too much actual souls to cull for Venethrax.

I won the starting roll and first picture is from the end of opponents first turn. I had placed Dragon Slayer on Venethrax, though I was pondering if I could get some mileage out of Lamentation. But I decided not. My warcasters as of late have died enough to random assassinations from afar, so I decided to focus on armor.

On my next turn I just moved forward. I dared to push my troops forward, because I had the necrosurgeon going on. I figured that I would lose a couple of critical points from my army, but hopefully not all. And if I could take one or two beasts in the following turn, all the better.

There is one war spear too much in the picture, though. Venethrax killed it with his last focus after taking the picture, since I was sure that def 17 arm 18 warcaster wouldn't die, not this time.

Opponent then used Thagrosh's feat. Warspears charged Harrower and did small damage. Typhon, on the other hand, sprayed Harrower so badly that with combined efforts from all sides Harrower had one box in cortex and two boxes in movement left (or the other way around) at the end of opponents turn. By the way, I just have to mention this. Gorman took all the three sprays from Typhon, but just laughed maniacally because of his immunity to fire.

And feat movement + attack dealt something like 12-14 damage to Cankerworm, but no systems went down.

Now, Thagrosh also cast Scourge on a nearby mechanithrall via Spell Martyr, knocking down Ripjaw. Then Carnivean assaulted and sprayed Ripjaw down to one point left in head and two points left in cortex. Also, the spray took down Necrosurgeon and three bile thralls and whatnot. Advance from feat was used to bring Carnivean back to safety so my remaining mechanitralls wouldn't just butcher it to pieces.

So.

On my next turn I decided to pull of Venethrax's feat just for laughs.

I allocated two focus for Harrower and two focus for Cankerworm.

Gorman advanced and threw black oil on the thick war spear formation.

Ripjaw stood up and walked to the water. I needed to get it out of the way of one bile thrall purge. As it came ou

t, I couldn't get Ripjaw away from the purge, so it melted into the little pond. Kids, don't swim in that water!

Venethrax did nothing else except advanced and used his feat, turning every model that dies into a cloud effect even Eyeless Sight cannot see through.

Then Harrower showed what it can do with all weapon systems broken.

It killed 3 models and damaged one.

Granted, they well all blind, but still pretty good achievement from a model with mat 6+1d6 and damage 16+1d6. Shows again how well Harrower can perform, though it costs equal to many of other factions' character jacks or beasts.

Mechanithralls charged, one reached Carnivean, one reached Shredder and two went into melee with a war spear that was engaging Harrower. Shredder died to a single lucky combo-strike and the war spear bit the dust too.

Cankerworm bit Typhon and performed well; they dealt damage to each other pretty much equally. I don't remember the roll any more, but I think it did 12-14 damage to Typhon back with an armor piercing attack. Took off Typhon's Spirit, if memory serves. That was promptly healed by shepherd, though.

It looks like I'm missing a picture from opponents next turn here.

But what happened was that Typhon destroyed both Cankerworm and Harrower and even did some damage to the big guy himself, Venethrax.

Carnivean sprayed down a whole swath of mechanithralls, a bile thrall and Tremulus. So suddenly I was without warjacks and only a handful of def 12/arm 12 models by Venethrax's side.

But I had Gorman diWulfe. 'Nuff said.

First Venethrax charges Typhon (and misses the charge attack. Whee. Go, go, dragon slayer!), but brutally murders it with two attacks. He reaves, and is back on full focus again.

Then Gorman diWulfe throws black oil on Carnivean and resulting 4 combo strikes with charge bonus kill the beast. I think it was Maelovus that killed the shepherd. So next turn Thagrosh was all alone against what was left of Venethrax's forces.

Thagrosh did pretty well, though.

It shows every model alive (or, well, active) on the field in the last picture. One mechanithrall, two withershadow member and Gorman diWulfe. Plus Venethrax, obviously.

So, it all boiled down to if Venethrax (armor 25) could take a headlong charge from epic Thagrosh with full fury.

I guess chances were statistically on Venethrax's side, but good rolls with p+s 18 could actually hurt a model with that high armor.

Well, the dice weren't on the blighted ogrun's side.

Next round Venethrax skewers the Messiah.

So I guess Venethrax can come back to the Cryxian islands, his work on main continent is done.

One-Way Ticket to Ride

So, I was off to go painting with a friend this day.

As an added bonus we played a three player Ticket to Ride there.

I have never played Ticket to Ride before, actually. But I should have known I could not avoid it forever, heh.

Anyway, it was a fun game where you build up these railroads all across North America.

Gameplay has striking similarities to Thurn und Taxis - I can only guess that Thurn und Taxis has "borrowed" a couple of elements to its mechanics from the success of Ticket to Ride. For example, there is always cards on the board and cards in the deck and you can choose if you draw cards from the ones visible on table, or if you prefer to take a chance and draw blind cards from deck.

I think I like Ticket to Ride more, since there is more player interaction than in Thurn und Taxis. In Thurn und Taxis you can only try to take the cards you think your opponents need. In Ticket to Ride you also compete from the actual routes, and building your companys railroad to a wrong place can really mess up other player's game.

So, all in all, Ticket to Ride was a good experience. I can totally understand why it has become such a hit. It's fun and light enough for a little game now and then, when you got the spare time.

The winner scored something above 130 points, second player was somewhere in between 110 and 120 and me, the newbie, had 94 or 97 points, don't remember which.

Rest of write-ups on Chronicles testing

So, I have two full tests on the first adventure of Chronicles.

Smaller one was done with 3 party members again.

This time I wanted to test a full ranged attack party with no adventurer who can survive in melee almost forever.

So, my party was:

Flame Wizard + Improved Fireball

Elf Hunter + Sword Fighter

Cleric + Smiting Words.

First scenario with basic rules:

Flame Wizard used 7 skill points in first scenario and got 26 gold.

Elf Hunter took 1 damage but didn't need to use skill points. Got 25 gold.

Cleric was damaged by 6 and used 7 skill points. Got 25 gold.

Tresure rolled was 30 gold coins. All in all, scenario was rather easy, but still the adventurers took a couple of damage.

First scenario with 1 point archers:

Flame Wizard used 4 skill points, got 15 gold and found potion of strenght.

Elf Hunter used 4 skill points, got 15 gold.

Cleric was damaged by 4 and used 4 skill points. Got 15 gold.

Attack rolls by adventurers were quite good in this game, so they didn't need to use much skill points. The one extra goblin didn't seem to make any actualy difference here.


Second scenario

Flame Wizard: 0 damage, used 5 skill points. Total gold 38, got blue potion and found copper amulet. Didn't use red potion.

Elf Hunter: 5 damage, used 3 skill points. Didn't use red potion. Got gem worth 10 gold. Total gold: 27.

Cleric: 0 damage, used 8 skill points. Didn't use red potion, total gold: 37.

Wasn't much of an effort this time, though Elf Hunter took a couple of nasty hits from goblin shaman. Good healing rolls compensated for that, though.

Second scenario with 1 point goblin archers

Flame Wizard: 1 damage, used 11 skill points. Found 10 gold gem from shaman and didn't use either red potion or potion of strenght. Total gold: 20.

Elf Hunter: 1 damage, used 3 skill points. Used Red Potion. Total gold: 25.

Cleric: 5 damage, used 9 skill points. Didn't use red potion. Found Copper Amulet. Total gold: 25.

Well, otherwise there would have been nothing exceptional here, but during one exceptional turn goblins brought the elf hunter down to only 3 hit points remaining, which was by then the closest call ever of a character death. This required for the elf hunter to run out of sight of goblins with Cleric trying to heal whatever he might.

Third Scenario (with Captain with 0-level gear)

Flame Wizard: 0 damage, used 10 skill points. Red Potion. 45 total gold. Used blue potion. Has Copper Amulet.

Elf Hunter: 6 damage, used 3 skill points. Red Potion. 44 total gold.

Cleric: 2 damage, used 9 skill points. Red Potion. 45 total gold.

Captain took 7 damage. All in all, there was no challenge to speak of even with a party who has no DEF to speak of.

Third Scenario (with Captain with 0-level gear, 1 point archers and goblin leader)

Flame Wizard: 3 damage, used 12 skill points (all!), still has potion of strenght & red potion. Total gold: 38

Elf Hunter: (I seem to have forgotten to mark damage/used skill points to my notes :/) total gold: 33.

Cleric: 7 damage, used 9 skill points. Still has red potion and copper amulet. Total gold: 33.

Captain took a beating this time, losing 12 hit points. Granted, here was a lot bad luck on adventurer's behalf, when against the odds goblins developed a knack of remaining alive with only one hit point. I was too afraid of getting anyone to actually help Captain, so there he was, stranded and alone when adventurers themselves tried to get the remaining few damages in.


Game 2:

Now I wanted to try how the game scales up with more players.

I used a party of 4, and now again without a healer.

Party included:

Flame Wizard + Swordsman of Fire (I wanted to try that, if Swordsman could actually give any bonuses worth anything.) And Very Lucky defining trait.

Elf Hunter + Sword Fighter.

Dwarf Warrior + Ancestral Armor + Very Strong defining trait.

Swordsman + Defensive Stance.

All of these meant a party of 26 points.

Scenario 1 with normal rules:

Flame Wizard: used 4 skill points. Found a gem worth 90 gold and 10 gold.

Elf Hunter: 10 damage, used 4 skill points. Got 18 gold.

Dwarf Warrior: 2 damage, used 6 skill points. Got 18 gold.

Human Swordsman: 2 damage, used 6 skill points. Had to spend 2 SP to run to go and help Elf Hunter! Found 18 gold.

Well, the only excitement here was when the poor Elf Hunter thought he could actually survive in melee when goblins scored a couple of nasty hits on the elf. It was bad choice from me to try and rush with the elf forward, when the melee monsters a little back were lucky enough to miss a couple of hits I had counted on.

I didn't actually play more than first scenario with normal rules, because I felt like I had seen enough game balance there.

Scenario 1 with 1 point goblin archers:

Flame Wizard: 2 damage, used 11 skill points. Gold: 17.

Elf Hunter: 5 damage, used 6 skill points. Found potion of strenght. Gold: 17.

Dwarf Warrior: 3 damage, used 1 skill point. Gold: 16.

Swordsman: 4 damage, used 4 skill points. Gold: 16.

With second try with a 4 member party, it felt that the difficulty raises a bit with more characters. There just isn't enough ranged attacks available to kill enough goblins so they can't effectively swamp. However, it only meant that every adventurer took a couple of damage.

Scenario 2 with 1 point goblin archers:

Flame Wizard: 1 damage, used 5 skill points. 26 gold, 2x red potions (found one extra as a treasure)

Elf Hunter: 7 damage, used 2 skill points. Potion of Strenght. Total gold: 25. Elf Hunter used the red potion.

Dwarf: 6 damage, used 2 skill points. Total gold 24. Skill points were used for running so goblin shaman wouldn't cast yet another devastating fireball!

Swordsman: 4 damage, used 1 skill points. Total gold 16. Still has red potion. Found a gem worth 40 gold, and miraculously got Copper Necklace.

Now, this scenario was a blast. It required a lot more effort now the place was swarming with goblins and it was difficult to carve a path to kill goblin shaman fast enough. This meant that both dwarf and elf had to drink their red potions not to risk anything, especially when there was no chance of rest before next fight. Difficulty seemed to be okayish.

Scenario 3 with... something completely different!

Okay, so I have been in contact with the developer and he told how he just slapped 2 skill points to every and all goblins. So before I started to write these things up I decided to play again the last scenario with this party of 4 and use following rules:

-Captain with no upgrades.
-2 point goblin archers (I thought that adding of 2 SP would make them a lot more powerful)
-Goblin Leader
-2 skill points on every goblin.

And here are the results:

Flame Wizard: 6 damage, used 8 skill points (had to run to get goblin leader into line of sight) Total gold: 34, 2x red potions

Elf Hunter: 11 damage, had to defend a few turns in melee because everyone else was too tied up to help! Used 4 skill points. Potion of Strenght. Total gold: 33.

Dwarf: Took a whopping 12 damage and used 5 skill points. Total gold: 33.

Swordsman: 6 damage, used 5 skill points. Total gold: 64. Red potion, Copper Necklace.

Captain... Captain took 17 damage. With no upgrades he was barely left alive with only 3 hit points remaining. Adding 2 skill points to every goblin had a huge impact on their effectiveness, and I feel this is the way to go, not lowering the point cost of archers. It brings a lot more choices to the game, when you can priorise your targets for example on the fact have they used their skill points or not.

This was also the first time ever I had to resort to using the Defending action in combat not to get elf hunter killed.

Some playtesting of Chronicles

I'm not exactly sure how I managed to trick myself into doing some playtesting for Chronicles tabletop RPG system.

Anyway.

I made a map in Vassal so it's fast and easy to make some practice runs of the first three scenarios.

"House Rules" I used were:

- You cannot save yourself from a critical fail with skill points.
- You cannot modify enemy rolls with skill points.
- You cannot modify damage rolls with skill points.

So, after my first run of the starting adventure I noticed that goblin archers are, well, nothing. They can punch out unexpected damage out at times, but it doesn't happen in every game. So, I made full runs of the first scenarios with groups of adventurers where in one goblin archers cost 1 point and gave 1 gold as loot.

Also, since the last scenario proved to be boring as hell and the Captain ally is way too powerful there, I did a third set of test in last scenario. There goblin archers cost 1 point and Captain has level 0 gear, but other stats remain the same.

I'll break down the scenarios to how much damage the characters had at the end of scenario and how many skill points and potions were used. Then I'll also write up each characters loot (kinda character progress), and other mentionable things.

Let's start!


First: The DPS party
Team was built for maximum damage output, as that too can often break games.

Swordsman + Offensive Stance, running/jumping as past experiences.
Dwarf Warrior + Ancestral Weapon
Cleric + Smiting Words.

Scenario 1:
Swordsman: Took 3 damage. Used 0 skill points. Gained 16 gold & Potion of Strenght.
Dwarf: Took 4 damage. Used 1 skill point. Gained 15 gold.
Cleric: Took 0 damage. Used 8 skill points. Gained 15 gold.

So, heavily armored warriors took only a couple of damage points. Cleric didn't need to heal and used Smiting Words four times with horrific results. The spell is obviously way too powerful.

Scenario 1 with 1 point goblin archers:
Swordsman: Took 0 damage. Used 0 skill points. Gained 17 gold.
Dwarf: Took 1 damage. Used 1 skill point. Gained 10 gold + gem worth 10 gold coins.
Cleric: Took 0 damage. Used 8 skill points. Gained 18 gold.

A little bit tougher fight, though statistics don't show it. Cleric had to heal twice and used smiting words three times, but this was just because goblins dared to roll like dice gods.

Scenario 2:
Swordsman: Took 5 damage. Used 0 skill points. Didn't use Red Potion that was given. Got another Potion of Strenght. Total gold: 30.
Dwarf: Took 1 damage. Used 0 skill point. Didn't use Red Potion that was given. Got gem from shaman, worth 20 gold coins. Also found the Copper Necklace. Total 15 gold.
Cleric: Took 0 damage. Used 7 skill points. Didn't use Red Potion that was given. Got Blue Potion from shaman. Total gold: 28.

Scenario 2 with 1 point archers:
Swordsman: Took 5 damage. Used 0 skill points. Total 40 gold.
Dwarf: Took 4 damage. Used 1 skill point. Didn't use Red Potion that was given. Total 43 gold.
Cleric: Took 1 damage. Used 8 skill points. Didn't use Red Potion that was given. Got gem worth 10 gold coins. Total 27 gold.

This time elite crack team didn't reach goblin shaman soon enough and it drank blue potion away. Rolled 30 gold from treasure table. Shaman was flinging spells like crazy at the Swordsman, which made the scenario somewhat interesting. Swordsman had to even use his red potion, just in case.

Scenario 3 with Captain with 0 level gear.
Swordsman: Took 2 damage. Used 0 skill points. Still has Red Potion, 2x Potion of Strenght. Total gold: 35.
Dwarf: Took 2 damage. Used 0 skill point. Still has Red Potion. Has Copper Necklace. Total 40 gold.
Cleric: Took 0 damage. Used 7 skill points. Still has Red Potion, but used Blue Potion. Total gold: 34.

There was absolutely no challenge at all. Even with lowered gear Captain takes more than 1 point of damage only if goblin rolls 6 for damage and Captain 1 for defense.

Scenario 3 with Captain with 0 level gear & goblin archers costing 1 points:
Swordsman: Took 4 damage. Used 0 skill points. Total 45 gold.
Dwarf: Took 4 damage. Used 1 skill point. Still has Red Potion. Total 48 gold.
Cleric: Took 2 damage. Used 9 skill points. Still has Red Potion and Copper Necklace. Total 42 gold.

Well, this time Captain took damage even less. Only 2 points. Still no challenge. Scenario wasn't fun to play.

Scenario 3 with Captain with 0 level gear & goblin archers costing 1 points & Goblin Leader:
As I was thinking earlier, the last scenario might need a bit more something than two types of goblins we've seen already quite a bit. I wanted to add some new type of goblin to the board, and came up with this:

Goblin Leader
Cost 2, Loot 3 gold.
FS 4/8/12, MOV 5
ATT 1, HP 7
STR: 1+1d3
DEF: 1, M.DEF: 1

Special: Other goblins gain +1 FS & +1 to their STR score in melee when within 3" of Goblin Leader.

So, what I wanted to do here was that Captain wouldn't hit goblins on 4+ and that there would be a slight chance for goblins to actually damage the Captain a bit more. So, statistics:

Swordsman: Took 5 damage. Used 0 skill points. Total 46 gold.
Dwarf: Took 6 damage. Used 2 skill point. Still has Red Potion. Total 49 gold.
Cleric: Took 1 damage. Used 9 skill points. Still has Red Potion and Copper Necklace. Total 43 gold.

Now, hear hear. Captain took a whopping 12 points of damage, but if we're completely honest, that's because adventurers this time around rolled dice like crap. Usually goblins were left alive with only 1 hit point. Captain also rolled enough of 5's, which earlier would have hit but now were a miss. I didn't use any skill points on Captain, by the way. Just to keep things interesting and to speed up decision I thought that maybe it'd be good if Allies could use skill points only for, well, skills.

But it's starting to be a little late, I need to leave the write-up for second adventuring party for a later time.

Chronicles test run

Well, now.

Since the main developer of Chronicles actually had the time and interest to dig up my little blog thingy here, it inspired me to give a solo test run of the introductory adventure. It's actually rather easy with the aid of Vassal and the Warmachine & Hordes module I already had.

So, I created a three member party with following details:

Human Flame Wizard (with Improved Fireball) & Performer
Elf Hunter (with Sword Fighter)
Human Swordsman (with Defensive Stance)

Points: 16

Oh, and here was the first "judgement call" I had to make. Defensive Stance reads "You gain +2 to your FS value when defending", but the problem is that "defending" is also a game term meaning that you make no attack and gain defense bonuses. The other choice, offensive stance, on the other hand gives +2 FS when attacking. What you should always be doing anyway. I'm quite sure that for balance reasons Defensive Stance should give +2 FS when being attacked by an enemy in melee.

Also, a word about my adventuring party. Since I dislike "autoincludes" very highly regardless of a gaming system I wanted to test out a party without a healer. If game cannot be reasonably played without a dedicated healer, something's wrong.

That's why I chose defensive stance and sword fighter with elf hunter, to give them better survivability.

Anyway.

First scenario in "A New Start" was a piece of cake.

Only Swordsman took damage (8 - and even that was a result of nasty critical hit) and flame wizard had to use 7 skill points and elf hunter 5. Treasure rolled from d6 table was 10 gold pieces.

I did this "AI" to goblins that archers always shot the nearest target and as many goblins ganged up in melee as possible against one single target, because they seemed to me like things cliché fantasy goblins would do.

I was re-reading the rules for skill points now, and noticed that even damage rolls could be modified with skill points. I don't like that at all, so I decided to skip it in this test run entirely. Modifying dice rolls is heck of a powerful ability, and at least after the first scenario modifying damage rolls seemed too big of a help for players.

Story continues to village of Alden Crossing, where flame wizard rolls 25 gold coins for him with Performer defining trait. I guess the small community hadn't seen much magic lately.

Well, then the party entered second scenario with the Goblin Shaman as a boss.

This one was actually entertaining match!

I used same AI for goblin warriors and archers, but for shaman I decided that if it could see a model with no magic defense, it would shoot at it. Otherwise just the closest target.

This time swordsman had to use healing potion (well, the goblin shaman scored a critical against him...) and still took 10 points of damage. Hunter had to spend 5 skill points and took 6 damage. Flame wizard used a whopping 11 skill points, as he needed to shoot the goblin shaman with improved fireball a lot.

Treasure rolled was a red potion, which was allocated to swordsman.

Gem that was goblin shaman's treasure was 30 coins worth. I split gold so that I randomised the one who got the gem and divided other loot with rest two party members.

The search for copper necklace I handled so that everyone rolled search & detection and the item was randomised between all who succeeded. Flame wizard got the thing, and frankly he needed it the most.

The reason why I'm randomising some of these things is that I'm not playing a role playing game here - I'm playing a tabletop game that has heavy RPG influences. Randomising acts for me as some sort of simulated selfishness and character for player characters.

Now, when I continued storyline, next scenario looked like fun as my adventuring party had used most of their resources during last fight. There was no chance to rest, it looked like.

However, it was a fast and not-so-exciting battle. Captain is way too powerful ally, since he hits goblins on 4+ and kills them if he rolls at least 2+ on 1d6. And even if he rolls 1 for damage, the goblin survives with 1 hit point only if it rolls a 3 for defense on 1d3. There was no challenge whatsoever in this battle scene. Maybe that was because Captain is actually a 13 point character, but was listed as a 5 point ally. That would have meant 4 goblin warriors more.

My suggestion here would be that this scenario has a third type of enemy and maybe a little harsher penalty for losing running/jumping check. Maybe not being able to make attacks during first turn.

Anyway, after scenario ended Elf Hunter had taken 3 damage (used one potion) and used 5 skill points. Captain had taken two damage points. Swordsman had taken six damage (used one potion) and flame wizard had used 10 skill points (had drunk the blue potion he got from last scenario's shaman boss)

After getting back to town two characters had enough gold to take advantage of Captains generous offer. Swordsman took Shield Block and Flame Wizard trained Wall of Fire.

Then adventures got a free night and feast for saving up the village. Swordsman didn't have a good nights sleep I guess, because he rolled only 3 for healing.

Next adventures would be made with a 19 point party, then.

Now, what can I say.

At least that much that the rule system has a lot of potential. There seems to be a little bit too much "kiddie gloves" built into the system, which is good enough if you aim for a survival of the characters and getting immersed in their personality and, well, playing their "role". But when you look into that with the eyes of a tabletop gamer, being able to modify damage roll after rolling the dice and being able to save yourself from a critical fail by just spending skill points does seem "too easy".