I also finished up a new game
board – one that doesn’t have fixed terrain, but rather can make use of all the
older terrain bits I have in boxes under the game table.
You “roll up” a team in this
game – though there is a point system if you want to point-buy your warband. I
was a little concerned about the rolling up of teams – as I thought it might be
difficult to find appropriate figures, but I was keen to try so I had the kids
roll up some teams but reserved the right to veto anything they rolled that I
simply could not provide a figure for – as it turned out there was nothing
totally bizarre that came up (oh, maybe someone rolled “two-heads” and I had
them re-roll that one…?)
SCENARIO
We played the Artifact Hunt
scenario. On the game board there were six searchable locations. A model had to
spend two actions to search a location and then rolled a d6 – on a 6 they found
and artifact (yay!) but on a one they found MUTANT TERMITES (that tleport nder
the skin and eat their way to the brain/CPU and eventually destroy the figure!
Yowza!)
Dangerous Weather/Terrain: None
FORCES
Tha Boyz
From left to right; George,
Jacques, Jake, Harold-55, Mr. Simian
Jake – Human – Leader
Q 2+, C 2, Leader, Difficult
Target, 1x Frenzy Drug, 1x Radiation Antidote, 2x Food
Mr. Simian – Mutant Gorilla -
Champion
Q 4+, C 4, Dim-witted, +2
Climbing, Telepathy, 4x Food, (Can Use Hand Weapons!)
George – Mutant Human
Q4+, C 3, Danger Sense,
Telekinetic Push, Slippery
Harold-55 – Android
Q 4+, C 3, Artificial (Power
Cells), Hand to Hand Specialist, Frag Grenade
Jacques – Mutant Human
Q 4+, C 3, Poison, Clinging,
Gunsmith, Sonic Grenade
The Grrrlz
From left to right; Zelda,
Clair, Susan, Bob, Anna
Susan – Human – Leader
Q 2+, C 2, Leader, Power Hand
Weapon, 8 Energy Cells
Bob – Mutant Dog – Champion
Q 4+, C 4, Long Move, Superior
Senses, Tailslap, Dim-witted, 3x Food
Anna – Mutant Human
Q 4+, C 3, Poison, Hand to Hand
Specialist
Zelda – Android
Q 4+, C 3, Artificial (Food),
forester, Pistol (1 clip), Frag Grenade
Clair – Mutant Human
Q 4+, C 3, Phobia (Humans),
Stealth, Plasma Grenade
THE GAME
Amanda played with The Girl - taking control of Anna and Zelda. I just ran the game - playing the Game master/Referee/Look-Up-The-Rules-Guy.
Amanda played with The Girl - taking control of Anna and Zelda. I just ran the game - playing the Game master/Referee/Look-Up-The-Rules-Guy.
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)
Everyone all set up on my new
gameboard (some of that terrain could do with a bit of “sprucing up”) the six
searchable locations are marked with glass beads.
Tha Boyz ready to rumble!
The Grrrlz rush forward to the
first location and Bob the Dog digs up… nothing.
Jake leads the way through the
ruins.
Jake searches the first location
that they come across and finds…. MUTANT TERMITES?! GAH!! So now he has to pass
a Q roll on a single die at the beginning of every turn OR DIE (because the
termites have reached his brain or vital organs… and he’s -1 C because it is
excruciatingly painful – he could be saved with a dose of Stim Drug… but NO ONE
has any! Luckily he’s Q 2+ so he’s not likely to die right away… maybe they can
find some Stim drugs if they search a few more locations…
On the Grrls next turn Bob the
dog Dug up an assault rifle! Zelda moved to another searchable location but
didn’t have enough actions to search it, so she fired at Jacques, but missed.
Jake took his dose of FRENZY
drug – to negate the -1 C and lead his lads out of the way of the shooting
enemy android and towards the next closest searchable location.
Clair took the Assault rifle
from Bob the dog and tried to figure out how it worked and managed to NOT shoot
herself in the head or wreck the weapon in the process… but onlyjust barely.
Zelda, having scared off the rival band of survivors quickly searched the
rubble she was sitting on and found… MORE TERMITES!? No Stim drug will save her
– she is, essentially, DOOMED.
They got there and jake searched
it… but only four MORE mutant Termites. Not really sure if this would cause
jake to be -2 C and have to pass TWO Q rolls at the beginning of each turn…? We
went with it not doing so…
There being only one location
left and it getting well past bed time for the kids… the two teams decided to
face off to end the scenario – perhaps if the Boyz WON they could find a dose
of Stim Drug as an Advance and save Jake!
Zelda failed a Q roll and the
Termites reached her CPU or some other vital mechanism and she shut down for
good…
Meanwhile, Anna faced off
against Harold-55
Bob the Dog searched the last
location and found… nothing…
The only chance remaining to
gain any new supplies would be to win the battle…
Susan Joined the melee and
Knocked down Harold-55.
Harold-55 got back up on his
turn, but got his ass knocked right back down!
At this point Mr. Simian joined
in and used his Telepathing powers to attack Susan – which sent her into a
COMA! (At this point the Grrrlz SHOULD have tested morale… but we kind of
forgot in all the excitement…)
George charged in with his axe
against young clair, but she swept his legs and took him down. While he was
still down, she took him right out of the action with a swift blow to his head.
Jacques also charged in and exchanged blows with Anna.
Harold-55 got up and, with the
aid of Jacques, knocked down Anna.
Recognizing the danger in the
pint-sized mutant, Mr. Simian also put Clair into a coma. At that point the
Grrlz had lost more than half of her band so they did a morale test. Anna
failed – being knocked down in contact with enemies she begged for mercy , but
all her pleas got her was a kick in the face which knocked her out. Bob the dog
also fled one move and at that point The Girl decided it was time to call it a
game.
In the post game The boyz looted
the bodies of their opponents and collected a plasma grenade, a frag grenade, a
pistol, an assault rifle, a power hand weapon, and 8 energy cells. For their
advance The Boy thought he’d try for extra equipment – hoping to get a dose of
Stim that could save Jake. He DID actually roll a dose of one drug and a food
point, but when he rolled for the drug he got Genetic Booster… so Jake died a
horribly painful death as the Mutant Termites slowly ate him from within….
Checkign on the status of George, the boy rolled two successes and so George
would be available for the next game but -1 on Q rolls.
We weren’t sure what was
supposed to happen with models in a coma from a telepathic attack – in the
rules is says if their side wins they are assumed to recover between battles… I
decided to treat them as anyone else taken out of action in a battle and The
Girl rolled for survival for them. Susan fully recovered and would be back in
action for the next battle – less her powered hand weapon and bag of energy
cells…. Anna and Clair both rolled two successes and so would be able to return
to action – but with a -1 to Q… bob the dog survived intact. Unfortunately Bob
only had three food points in his stash; so one model would be going hungry next
game.
Strangely, no one tried to use
their grenades during the game…?
Everyone thought it was pretty
fun. Though I tried to convince them that we should try and continue a short
campaign (and maybe Amanda and I could make up bands of survivors for ourselves)
The Boy didn’t seem interested in carrying on with THIS particular warband… I
wasn’t really sure why. Later he said he’d be more interested in building
warbands based on points… I can see the reasoning behind that – it certainly
could be easier (and possibly funner?) to pick out cool some cool models with a
distinct theme behind them and build them based on points – rather than being
at the mercy of the dice and trying to find figures to fit whatever has been
rolled up. But I also really like the idea of just rolling stuff up.
The tricky bit in the game is
that I could see characters quickly switching up weapons as some are broken or
lost and others are found, looted or otherwise gained and trying to find
figures that match (to keep things all WYSIWYG) – while being somewhat
consistent in the look of the character – could be challenging…
We will definitely be playing
this again... at some point…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
I’m not really sure what’s coming up soon. I haven’t been
doing a lot of painting and I’m not really sure where we’re going game-wise.
I would like to get some sort of skirmish campaign going for
the fall – but I’m not really sure what that might be – could be song of Song
of Blades and Heroes/Song
of Deeds and Glory, as I had originally planned, or now there’s the
possibly of running a Mutants
and Death Ray Guns campaign.
I’m also hoping to still run a Song
of Shadows and Dust in the new year!
I was also thinking I should
read Fear
and Faith and Kooky
Teenage Monster Hunters (which I picked up from Saber’s Edge a month
or so ago) so I could run a big game on Halloween!
I would like to get back to
painting, but have been having trouble carving out time to do so. The next
couple weeks seem like they will be insanely busy – cleaning up the yard before
it snows, making Halloween costumes, building a bunch of bookshelves… Perhaps
I’ll find some time to do more painting in November!? The Girl has a pack of Female
Zombie Survivors she’s excited to get working on to use as a Mutants
and Death Ray Guns warband…
Posts
They're a good set of rules. I've used them before for Star Wars games and they suit that kind of heroic SF setting. Must dig them out again...
ReplyDeleteStar Wars? Cool! I hadn't thought of that - but I do have a pile of old Grenadier/West End Games Star WArs figures - I could easily throw down a game for the kids with them!
DeleteI had been thinking they might work well for a Firefly/Serenity-type Wild sWest/Sci-fi setting.
Looks like a lot of fun was had. I've tried point-building bands for MDRG and it works well. I put together Predators, zombies, Terminator robots and Aliens. I ran a few head-to-head games, as well as a four-player free-for-all. Both methods of making warbands can certainly work with those rules. I'd have like to try out the campaign rules too, but it's really tough getting folks to stick with anything for very long any more .
ReplyDeleteWe will probably use the point-building system at some point. I don't mind using them when building around a theme and using the points to put a limit on what you can bring out... but I'm worried The Boy is already falling into the "I MUST BUILD A SUPER AWESOME KILLER WARBAND THAT NO ONE CAN DEFEAT" type of thinking - which I can not stand...
DeleteI had been thinking I might try running it as a pseudo-role-playing tabletop adventure game which pits the player/survivors against GM driven baddies - the players are a band of human survivors after the machines/zombies have taken over...
I know what you mean about it being tough getting folks to stick with anything. Actually I tend to flit about from thing to thing, but it's not so much that I have a lack of attention - it's more I can't get people to commit and show up to games - even when I'M the one supplying all the figures!? I plan a campaign, of four people I had hoped would show up only one does... a week after I'd originally planned to start the campaign... we play one game... and because there is a lack of enthusiasm to carry it forward, I end up looking for other things...