Hellboy - Game One - Eviction Notice

Yesterday we had our first crack at Hellboy: The Board Game from Mantic Games. We kickstarted the game over a year ago and kind of went ALL IN! We said it would be our collective gift to ourselves this holiday season and that we'd spend the week playing a "campaign" of it. There isn't REALY a "campaign" system, per se. So we're just planning to play a game a day all week.

SPOILERS!!!

The missions included in the game are in sealed packs and the rulebooks insists that these are to remain sealed and not opened until you are about to play and they they are to be put on the board without looking at or changing the order of the cards and just revealing them as the game progresses - so that it's all a "BIG SURPRISE" - so if you DON'T want the surprised RUINED - READ NO FURTHER!!!

(although the rulebook also insists that despite the fact that secrecy is vital... they are still "VERY REPLAYABLE"!?)

To start with we played the first introductory mission Case File # 126779 "Eviction Notice"

Our team had apparently cornered a large frog monster and had to chase it down into an underground crypt...



All set up and ready to go. Amanda played Hellboy, Keira was playing Liz Sherman, Finnegan played Rodger (technically from one of the expansions, but I'd painted him and his bust, so....) and I played Johann Kraus.



The HQ board all set up to play - Target Priority set up (the busts), Doom and Information Gathered markers at their starting points. A marker was placed on the V section of the Doom Track - which would trigger one of the IN PLAY mission cards to be flipped - presumably triggering the end game. There were Insight Markers on 2, 4, and 8 on the Information Gathered track - We had NO IDEA how very imprtant these could be!?



Starting Round One - opened that first door to find... Three frog monsters, a frog swarm and TWO clue tokens!



Hellboy stepped in first and, using his Big Rig Hook, punched one of the Frog Monsters across the room into one of the others at the other end of the room, seriously damaging both!

Yeah... this game is going to be AWESOME!



Liz entered the room. I think she just shot one of them...? She's a really good shot with the pistol and her flame isn't super awesome at the start and... well...starts FIRES - which can be really bad!



Rodger moved in and punched the lights out of a few froggies. He's pretty hard hitting to start, but his attacks get weaker - he is still a tank though - and can take a lot of damage before he gets hurt... I guess when you're magically animated mud and straw and have not respiratory system or vital organs... (He's a Homunculus)



Two froggies finished off, Johann wandered in and did some investigating of the two clues in the room.



Took down the last two rooms - and ended an Agent Phase with no enemies on the board so we took time - which would advance the doom track to where it would trigger The Confrontation. but it gave us a chance to investigate the last clue - giving us the last insight token - and for everyone else to heal up and charge up and to reorganize into one place.

This almost broke the game... as we were ALL in the same place - along with a piece of furniture that was size two, there was, literally - according to the rules, no room of any enemies to enter the space. Of course The Confrontation said the Boss (a Giant Frog Monster) was to appear in the same space as the current lead investigator... um... but... so we decided to just put it in the next one. Flipped a few Boss behaviour that didn't apply and got to one that said the boss tried to move into the space with the lead investigator - and if there were too many people in there, he would HURL investigators OUT of the space until there WAS space!

Turns out Investigating and Insight Markers are SUPER USEFUL!!! For each on we gathered (and eventually placed on the confrontation board) we got a die upgrade every time we made an attack on the Boss - Johann had gathered ALL THREE! Three upgrades is HUGE!!!



This was looking bad... Giant frog Monster on a rampage - all four of us stunned...



But Hellboy got up and gave the Giant Frog Monster a couple of hard-hitting punched with his Big Right Fist (of DOOM!)...



and down went the giant-assed frog! Even punched him into another space to knock down some other Frogs.



To deal with the last bunch Rodger ran into the next room and took two with him - to draw them off the rest of us... and they actually knocked him unconscious... but they were all in one place, so Hellboy chucked his grenade in there and finished them ALL off! WOO!

Fun game. Pretty simple and straightforward. Plays quick. Interested to try out the other scenarios...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hellboy - Game Two!