With the miniatures finally finished, it was time to try PLAYING Crypt Hunters!
Orion came over to play games on Sunday, and after playing a few rounds of Lost Patrol, we decided to try out Crypt Hunters!
Crypt Hunters is an Age of Sigmar reskin of the previously published Lost Patrol... with a few changes, making is considerably lest DEADLY for the Space Marines Stormcast Eternals!
In the game, one player controls a Castigator retinue lead by Orris Suresight! (The models are the same as the Storm of Celestus Warhammer Underworlds warband, but they've been give new names). The Castigators are charged with searching the catacombs below the city of Glymmsforge, in the realm of Shyish, for the Hyshian Illuminator; an ancient artefact with the power to banish the undead with pure light magic, and drive off the Chainrasp Hordes rising up from said catacombs below the city! Before they can activate the Hyshian Illuminator, they have to locate the Winch Room and gain the winch token - when one of the Castigators moves onto the Winch Tile and ends a turn there (presumably cranking said winch to open up the Hyshian Illuminator chamber, wherever that may be!)
The other player controls the invading Chainrasps.
There are some changes to the game. First the other of things is a little different. New tiles are put out before the Stormcast Eternals turn, rather than immediately after the Space Marines turn in Lost Patrol. This means the Stormcast can advance to the end of the line and block a potential entry location for the Chainrasps. Because it happened after the Marines step in Lost Patrol, but before the Genestealers actions, it always meant there was a spot for Genestealers to show up right by the Marines!
After the Stormcast go, tiles are removed. Unlike Lost Patrol, tiles that could not be seem by a Stormcast by moving them ONE hex are removed (whereas tiles in Lost Patrol if they could not be seen by any marines making two moves!) which means out of sight hexes are removed more quickly - which is sometimes very handy for getting rid of a bunch of Chainrasps... but you also have to keep your team a little closer togehter lest hex-tiles in between get removed and stormcast are lost in the catacombs!
The actions of the Chainrasps are a bit different. Where the Genestealers have to use an action to place a new Genestealer and spend futher actions to move any (though, often the Genestealer didn't have to, as they were just placing Genestealers directly onto tiles adjacent to Marines- that were placed immediately after the marines moved!). Then the Genestealers have an assault phase where any individual or groups of Genestealers that are adjacent to any Marines automatically assault!
The Chainrasps automatically place Chainrasps at ANY open passageway, and at either of the Soultrap tile - if they are in play! So a LOT of Chainrasps can show up all at once!! They they have three activations (or four, if the Dreadwarden is on the table) which they can use to move OR attack. Their movement is a little different. They have to spend actions to make attacks on Stormcast, and their attacks are not great (they hit 1/3 of the time) and if they hit the deal a wound... and they Stormcast can take multiple wounds, whereas Marines are instantly dead!
Stormcast, on the other hand, when they attack, they hit 50% of the time and a hit kills a Chainrasp (where marines hit 1/6 of the time they shoot!)
Oh, also there are cards. Each player gets a deck of cards from which they draw three and can play ONE on each round! Each card says when they can be played... but I could not find ANYTHING in the rules that states WHEN new cards are drawn. We just drew a new one any time a card was played... It could be at the beginning of the round...? Doesn't really matter as drawing one immediately after playing one won't mean they could be played any earlier than the next round.... so....
So the game is MUCH LESS DEADLY for the Stormcast.
GAME ONE
For the first game Orion played the Stormcast Eternals. In this first game they got the Winch amongst the initial tiles placed, two tight turns that formed a bit of an alove and three other passaged that the Castigators moved down to explore, blocking any spaces for Chainrasps to enter that first turn!
Before they moved on the Second Round, new tiles were placed out...
And AGAIN they advanced into the new spaces blocking any Chainrasps appearing.
Eventually they left open a space - and a Soultrap tile came out!
Somebody must have moved to the winch at some point... I think we may have allowed the Gryph-Hound to do it (though later realized this was a mistake! One of the Stormcast has to operate the winch to gain the winch token... it doesn't say the same for moving onto the Hyshian Illuminator tile and sparking that up, though!)
Castigators continuing to advance through the catacombs, exploring passages...
I think those first two Chainrasps must have killed Valiant, the Gryph-Hound.
Attacking and killing Chainrasps. A little easier than killing Genestealers!
Tiles removed because they could not be seen by any Stormcast or from any tile that a Stormcast could move to with one action
LOADS of Chainrasps showing up all at once! I think that's all but ONE of them... they still have limited actions, so only a few of them could move and then actually attack!
Two groups moved to attack
Other times I moved Chainrasps and didn't attack, just to move more up and block the Stormcast from moving and having to waste actions trying to kill their way out!
So many chainrasps.
The Stormcast have a cards called "Playing Dead" which allows the Gryph-Hound to come back, and Orion was able to play it on the last turn and the Gryph-hound bound into the Hyshian Illuminator chamber and fired it up and blasted away all the Chainrasps in the Catacombs!!
The Stormcast Eternals WON!!
GAME TWO
For this game I took the Stormcast Eternals.
Orion having a good laugh at the initial tile placement.
FIVE of the Y-tiles all came out and would end up blocking each other...
Oh, and a Soultrap tile...
Round One and I was already being attacked by Chainrasps!
By Round Two I was being swarmed by them and one of the Castigators was already out of action!
And it kind of went downhill from there...
Lost another Castigator...
But Orris Suresight and his loyal Gryph-Hound, Valiant, got far enough up a straight passage... that all the other passages were out of sight and disappeared (beginning to re-arranged themselves!) and with them went most of the Chainrasps!
Found the Winch Tile at the end of the passage! But there was a Abyssal Tile that slowed them down!
Winch token was gained... but the Gryph-Hound was killed, leaving only the wounded Suresight to complete the mission! He would have to fight his way out of this passage and explore more of the Catacombs on his own in search of the Hyshian Illuminator!
Alas... this was not to be. A solitary Chainrasp finished off the mighty Stormcast...
Stormcast lost... Orion won another game!
GAME THREE
I tried playing the Stormcast again...
Started with the Winch Tile immediately adjacent to the starting tile, so that was handy.
For my first turn (or two...?) I was able to move all of the Stormcast to block all the entryways for the Chainrasps.
Then they tore off in one direction to explore the catecombs and hopefully lose the pursuing Chainrasps.
Chainrasps attack! Astrid the Deliverer was the first of the Stormcast lost!
Chargine the Gryph-hound ahead down long corridors to scout things out...
Eryk Hauntscorn was lost and once again it was just Castigator Prime Orris Suresight and Valiant! They were quickly overcome by the Chainrasps and that was that game done... 2-1 for the Chainrasps and 3-0 for Orion!
GAME FOUR
For Game Four we switched things up again and Orion took the Stromcast again!
The Chairasps took out Astrid pretty quick!
The remaining Stormcast were looking like they could very quickly be overwhelmed!
But Orion is very good at getting fighters to locations where they can't see things...
... and they all just disappear... with all the chainrasps on them!
Valiant Charged ahead to scout out corridors. I used a card that allowed me to pick up two Chainrasps and place them anywhere - cutting the Castigators off from the Gryph-Hound exploring ahead for them!
Pretty sure the Castigators destroyed those two Chainrasps and whistled for the Gryph-hound to come back (the Gryph-hound moves VERY quickly!)
Bringing them all back together into tight twisty passaged where they can't see very far (causing sections of the Catacombs to disappear again!)
This little section was very handy to move back and forth in, finding new passages then moving back into them and letting them disappear.
Eventually it was just Suresight and Valiant! And at this point there was only TWO tiles in the deck - one would be the winch tile and the other the Hyshian Illuminator! both of which were dead end tiles!
But there were only two open ends...
So we had to read and re-read the timing of things - because if the Stormcast are trapped in a corridor with no exits... or something... they lose. I can't remember the exact wording of the timing of things... but we decided the Stormcast would win.
Both Stormcast and Chainrasps won two games... Orion won all four.
After destroying me with the Chainrasps twice in a row, if it had been just luck that she'd won the first game... and, I think there IS a bit of luck involved, in the order the tiles come up... and it IS a dice game and just I could not roll skulls at all this last game!? (the dice that come with the game have three sides with lightning bolts, two with skulls and one that is blank - the lightning bolts are hits for the stormcast when the stormcast player is rolling and the skulls are hits for the Chainrasps when the Nighthaunt player is rolling... and I swear... I rolled SO MANY LIGHTING BOLTS!? It was a little ridiculous.... But Orion is also VERY GOOD and making use of what tiles come up and maneuvering to places that caused lots to disappear which made a lot of Chainrasps disappear with them and minimizing the number of places that new chainrasps could reappear!
I thought it was a very clever fun little game with a surprising amount of depth! While not playing quite AS quickly at Lost Patrol, this does play quick enough! I feel like this (along with Lost Patrol) would be a great little filler game at a convention or tournament. Looking forward to playing it more!
Tuesday evening Finnegan and I played Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal again - I should have a game report of that action soon-ish.
Working hard on getting enough stuff done for Warhammer Quest: Cursed City, so we can start that in a couple of weeks!
On the weekend I expect a few of us will be getting together to try out the new Warhammer Underworlds!
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