This past February I had originally planned to run a Kill Team campaign of sorts. Previous skirmish campaign weekends had been a huge success - like the Shadow War: Armageddon campaign I'd run the previous year, or the Quest for the Skull Sword Frostgrave weekend or the Ronin Campaign I'd run previously. But as the date drew nearer I was losing interest fast - partly due to problems with Kill Team - but also because I'd FINALLY managed to get my hands on Wrath & Glory and was SUPER EXCITED to try that out... so we did... and that was a bit of a mistake... I had nine players lined up for the weekend which would have been great for a marathon weekend role-playing mini-campaign using a system I'd JUST picked up and read... Everyone said they'd had a good time, but I felt like they were just being polite as I'D been pretty disappointed with how it all played out - not at all how I'd envisioned it...
So, that weekend was a bit of a letdown for me. Just to be clear, it wasn't that the players weren't enthusiastic, or did anything "wrong" - I just felt like I had personally failed to run a seamless epic gaming weekend... I know... probably unrealistic expectations... AND around the same time I learned that there wasn't going to be a Tooncon this fall! They are planning on moving the convention from the fall to the spring - I think because there were often conflicts with other conventions going on in the fall (the Saskatoon Entertainment Expo being the big one)...? So, shortly after my game weekend, I started having conversations with a few people about hosting a second game weekend in the fall.
Initially it wasn't Necromunda - it was just a nebulous idea of a gaming weekend of some kind. We'd tossed around possible dates in September or October and, much to my surprise, the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend seemed the most promising for all. (I'd figured Thanksgiving people usually want to spend with family and stuff...?).
Late spring/early summer I picked up necromunda, and shortly after that decided that's what I'd run! Of the seven or eight people I was talking to, a couple were definitely not going to be able to make it, but the remaining "hard maybes"... or "I'd LIKE to"s....It was four months away... I get that it's hard to commit to something so far in advance when there is so much else going on these days... (though it does make me wonder how anyone plans weddings these days - aren't those are generally planned up to a year in advance and RSVPs are expected many months in advance.... and it's the same time registration for ToonCon would have opened...?).
Nevertheless, I forged ahead!
For the last four months I've been painting like a mad bastard. I tracked down and painted up some more Red Redemptionists, and a Cawdor Gang, and a Delaque Gang, and Kal Jericho and Scabs, and some Adeptus Arbites, and some Spyrers, and helped Finnegan paint up some Genestealer Cultists and a Magos and some MORE cultists, and Karloth Valois, and an assortment of Hive Scum and Bounty Hunters and an Escher Gang, and barriers and doors, and then I scratch-built a PILE of 3-D wall sections for the Zone Mortalis boards in the basic box...
Then I ran three different games for the kids and a friend at the end of the summer (two of which were effectively play-tests of scenario ideas for this weekend).
And then I set up the Bronze Gates Campaign for the family - partly to have a game we could play together (as I wasn't running a role-playing game like I'd hoped to this fall) and partly to get some experience/practice at playing both Necromunda itself and the Dominion Campaign system - elements of which I was planning to use this weekend.
In the last few weeks I've been still feverishly cranking out stuff for the campaign weekend....
Desperately trying to finish up John's Vermyn (which he planned to use as Chaos Cultists) and some Old Ratskins (adding to the few I already had) for one of the scenarios... Maybe some more Escher Gangers if I could get some done or some gen-u-ine plague zombie figures I had (it'd be nice to not have to use generic zombies)...
and building a new custom cavern terrain tile (to use with the other cavern terrain tiles) for the aforementioned scenario involving the ratskins...
and ANOTHER huge batch of wall sections (because I'd picked up the Badzone Delta-7 tile set to set up some HUGE Zone Mortalis battlefields!) and some custom player order markers... They're just going to be plain - no time to graffiti these all up!
And I wrote out five 4-6 player scenarios (hoping that really only four would show up, but planning for six...) each with a foe to deal with (Karloth Valois and Zomibes, Kat Jericho and Friends, Spyrers, Rastkins, and Red Redemptionists), and subplots for each potential gang, and... well... you get the idea...
Can anybody guess where this is all going...?
Around mid-September one friend had to bail due to upcoming surgery... Of all the people I invited, he was the one person I had been fairly sure was actually coming (I mean, the dude had booked a B&B!), and, at that point, wasn't really concerned if anyone else was coming because he's super fun to play with and not only puts up with playing with my kids, he seems to genuinely enjoy it! If it had been just him, Amanda and the kids could have joined in and it would have been just a great weekend... But, as I said, in the end he had to bail.
Then, by the end of September, I was noticing it was pretty quiet on the communication front with the other potential players that had suggested they were interested, considering it was only a few weeks away. I thought I'd check to see if anyone was still available... and, one-by-one they eventually all (well, mostly) got back to me... two more dropped out... another never replied... leaving one player still planning on coming.
I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel at that point... but Amanda stepped in, knowing how distract I was about this, and she and the kids could play - that would make four players. The kids were lukewarm to the idea, but she pointed out they didn't actually have any other plans and that it's be like the other game weekends (like, we'd be eating out most of the weekend - which we rarely ever do otherwise).
Thursday morning the last player bailed...
ugh....
I think the kids, upon hearing this news, were most concerned that if I just cancelled altogether we wouldn't be eating/ordering out...
I had only a few things left to prepare for the weekend - a handful of figures to finish painting, touch-ups on the wall sections, and filling out a few cards for the antagonists... I could have gotten it done and played with the family, they'd have done that for me, even if it wasn't their favourite thing... but I fell into a bit of a malaise and kind of just stopped working on it all...
11 October 2019 - Friday Evening
Come Friday evening Amanda decided to stay late at work... since, y'know, there was now no rush to come home...
The kids and I DID order out, though (from Seasoned Fusion!). Apparently they don't deliver anymore, however, so I had to ride downtown on my bike to pick it all up. It was just above freezing. The food was lukewarm by the time I got home - but it was still delicious!
Afterwards we DID get in a few games... but not Necromunda...
Amanda, Finnegan and I played Race for the Galaxy - with the Xeno Invasion expansion. I started with the Anti-Xeno Defence Post, but by the end had a pretty solid Genes/Uplift theme going - honestly, I love having a solid theme better than winning the game... but I did actually win this one! Finnegan started with Old Earth and just started getting a mining engine up and running... when I ended the game. Amanda started with Epsilon Eridani and a mosh-mash of other cards... At least this time she participated in the war a bit, instead of cherry-picking and taking double VP every round (Finnegan learned that lesson from the last game and only had a military power of +1 by the end of the game and a HUGE pile of double victory tokens... which got him second place!)
My tableau at the end of the game. 49VP.
Afterwards we all played a round of Unstable Unicorns...
Amanda beat us pretty soundly with EIGHT unicorns in her stable at the end of the game!!
12 October 2019 - Saturday
As we weren't playing Necromunda, Amanda took the opportunity to head downtown with Keira and pick out some new glasses and do some other shopping. She also picked up tickets for the play at Persephone Theatre (which we had already seen earlier) for the kids to go to in the evening. They got back around four and we had a couple hours before the kids had to head out to the play, so we got in a few games...
First, we played a couple of games of Centruy: Golem Edition.
I was ON FIRE and totally rocked the first round - winning with 90 points!? WOO!
We played a second round, and this time Amanda kicked our butts...
I only gained 50 points...
After that we played a game of Splendor.
It was a super close game - I ended with 14 points.
Amanda had 15 and Keira had 13. Keira was pretty disappointed - she was SO CLOSE - she's never won a game of Splendor and had started to think this might be the first time! not-so-much...
13 October 2019 - Sunday
Okay... Sunday we DID actually play some Necromunda!
I HAD planned to play one game with each family member through out the day - these would all be games for our Bronze Gates Campaign...
First I challenged Finnegan for control of the Bronze Gates - the Toll crossing that gives it's name to the entire Region. I let Finnegan pick the scenario and he chose Zone Mortalis Scenario 2: The Trap. I'm not sure who was trapping whom... It went poorly for the Delaque Gangers...
afterwards I had hoped to play a game with Keira, but Finnegan and I didn't get started early enough and went longer than expected, so we didn't have time before the kids were off to my folks for the night.
while they were out, however, I played a game with Amanda!
We tried one of the scenarios in the Arbitrators section of the main rulebook - Escort Mission! A Guild Agent with close ties to how Cawdor and the Redptionists said if they would escort her out of the Bronze Gates, she would petition House Cawdor to have the One-Eyed Red Snakes maintain control of the Shrine of the Sinners Past (Bone Shrine) as there were no representatives of House Cawdor residing in the Bronze Gates at this time.
I actually WON a game and took control of the Bone Shrine!
14 October 2019 - Monday
On Monday I'd originally planned to run a larger 3-player game (one of the scenarios I'd originally planned for the weekend). But then Amanda was keen to play a Rescue Mission to retrieve the ganger she'd lost to me in the previous evening's game... I Thought maybe we'd get that done quickly and still have time to play a larger game afterwards.
We didn't get started with that until well after noon and by the time we were done it was supper time and no one was interested in playing games after supper - Keira is sick with a cold and Amanda had work to do on a costume she's supposed to bring along to dance class tomorrow evening... so... here I am writing game reports...
Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:
I am working on reports for those three games of Necromunda - they should be up soonish...
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You could kind of seen it coming as you read the post ,but still pretty rubbish,at least you're family rallied around and gosh! Your gang won a game!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
It all worked out well enough in the end. thanks!
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