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Sunday, December 29, 2019

Hellboy - Game Two - Perils of the Job

On Boxing Day (after heading to The Dragon's den for their annual Boxing Day sale) we settled down to play a second game of Hellboy: the Board Game. We Played B.P.R.D. Case File #125414 "Perils of the Job". In it the team had received an S.O.S. signal from a fellow agent... who wasn't even supposed to be on a job. The Team had tracked him to a remote and ancient home and somehow figured out he was in the basement...

SPOILER WARNING!

As I mentioned in the PREVIOUS GAME REPORT, the scenarios are sealed and are supposed to be a surprise when you play them... so if you ever plan on playing this and don't like spoilers... STOP READING NOW!!!



This scenario was listed as Challenge Rating: Medium, Duration: Short. (the Previous Game was Easy and Short). The set up was certainly a bit bigger...



Setting up the HQ board. This time we had six ticks of the Doom track before the Confrontation presumably took place. Instead of Insight markers being placed on the Imformation gathered track (to be picked up as the tracker passed over them, there was a marker placed on the third space and at that point and for every space moved along that track an Insight marker was gathered to a maximum of EIGHT (obviously these weren't going to give us universal upgrades... maybe it would be AN upgrade per Insight Marker spent...?)



The layout of the basement we were to search. The two farthest rooms had special specific encounter cards specifically placed in them.



Kicking open that first door - Frog monsters, BIG piece of furniture and a clue... AND the Encounter card said there was a Supernatural Gale blowing through this room and all adjacent rooms giving anyone using a Shoot Action a downgrade! Hadn't seen one of those before!



No matter, Hellboy sauntered in and punched one of the frogs across the room into the other frog - knocking the first one out and injuring the second one.



Rodger moved in and finished off the second one.



Johann then moved in and investigated the Clue Token, moving up the Information Gathered track two spaces.



Liz moved in and kicked open the next door. MORE Frog monsters, a clue token and a frog swarm.I think she shot one of the frogs straight off...

I think it was the first Deck of Doom card flipped said there was an angry Poltergeist in the basement with us... Everytime an Agent moved into an area with a piece of furniture they had to roll an orange die and if a "2" came up the poltergeist would attack and do damage equal to the size of the furniture!  That bookcase was size FOUR - that could be NASTY if the Poltergeist used that to attack! Luckily Liz STARTED in the spot and it's only when ENTERING a spot that we had to check.



One the Enemy Phase the two frogs moved up - the rampaging one moved into Liz's area and attacked. The Venomous one moved up and spat venom at her... She survived both attacks.

On the Agent Phase Liz backed up into the same spot as Hellboy, brining the Frog Monster with her....



... and Hellboy Punched the frog monster INTO the Bookcase - taking out the frog AND the book case!



Everybody else charged into the next rook and took out the frog monster within... Johann followed up and investigated the clue token - moving up the information Gathered track twice - adding two Insight Markers to our pile.



Next Room: MORE frog monsters - and a table... which DIDN'T attack Hellboy!



Moving on into the next room - MORE frog monsters a swarm and.... a POINT OF INTEREST - Points of interest can be "Interacted" with - by spending an action - no check is made (like investigating a clue token), you just have to be there and spend the action (there may have to be no enemies in the room... I forget now...). We represented it as a piece of furniture (that the poltergeist couldn't inhabit!)



People having fun... I think Amanda had made some comment about Rodger's butt. She'd noticed that all he was wearing was a BPRD vest and was kind of wondering what that was all about - she's the only one in the family that HASN'T read any Hellboy books (I have a rather large collection of them, and have read... MOST of them... Keira's read all of them at one point. Finnegan read all of them... and then requested all the ones that I DON'T have from the library and read THOSE!). The kids tried to explain he's a Homunculus... and then when the discovered she had NO IDEA what a Homunculus was, tried to explain that...



Having cleared out the room, Johann went in and Interacted with the Point of Interest... and it revealed a hidden room!



And in that room were more frog monsters, a SPECIAL clue token (that, when investigated, allowed the agent to draw an item from the bottom of the requisition deck), and ANOTHER Size Two Point of Interest. Finnegan guess that the Point of Interest would be the missing agent... which I thought was possible, but odd, as the Point of Interest was Size Two - taking up the space of TWO people...?



In we went... Frog monsters dealt with.. Clue token investigated - and I drew... Bud Waller!? Are Extra Agents supposed to be in the Requisition Deck...? We went with it and just said Bud Waller showed up... Johann also interacted with the Point of Interest and, just as Finnegan had predicted, it was the missing Agent - which we represented as Sidney Leech.

This also triggered The Confrontation!

The Boss turned out to be Rasputin's Ghost!

Keira thought it was odd that we were encountering Rasputin's Ghost when we haven't even encountered LIVE Rasputin and killed him, or anything... Maybe this is taking place AFTER Seed of Destruction - where they first encounter Rasputin... and kill him... but BEFORE he reappears whole again... He's like a bad case of Herpes... 



Anyway, Rasputin's Ghost is NASTY... and CAN'T BE DAMAGED!? The only way to win is to get the missing agent back to the starting space and have no other MINIONS left on the board...

HOWEVER! IF a player expends an insight marker when they make an attack they CAN damage Raputin, he was SUPER tough, though, and hard to take out... and IF he is taken out, he's actually only stunned and returns the following turn at full health... At first I wondered what the point of even attacking him was. But Finnegan figured that if he was taken out and stunned... he couldn't activate - as he spent the turn recovering, and thus a Boss Behaviour card was not flipped... giving the agents a brief reprieve from his wrath!



Johan made a run for it with Sidney and Bud... While the others faced the frog Monsters and Rasputin's Ghost.



Liz left the space with Rodger and Rasputin's Ghost - evading Rasputin and taking a damage point (raising her Living Fire thingie) and taking one Frog Monster with her... then evaded the Frog Monster on her second move, taking more damage...



... and then immolated the Frog Monster with her final action... FOOF!!!

I think Rodger managed to punch out Rasputin's Ghost and moved into the next area to help out Hellboy.



And then the fire spread...



Hellboy and Rodger finished off the last of the Frog Monsters... and the fire spread some MORE!? Yikes!



Liz and Hellboy put out some of the fires in their own areas and made a run for it - as did Rodger.... and then Rasputin stood up...



Amanda, pretty excited about... something...? I think it was the fact that Hellboy survived one of Rasputin's Ranged attacks without so much as a scratch - which are BRUTAL!



Almost out of there...



Johann made it out with the agent before Boss Behaviour cards generated any MORE minions! Whew!

Despite our original plan, we haven't played the last couple days... other things have come up... Not the least being the Good Omens TV series and the final season of Game of Thrones showed up on DVD at the library for me - along with a couple other movies.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Hellboy...? Or maybe a Necromunda game report...? Not really sure what the full plan is for today... Hellboy's been mentioned as a possibility. John has threatened, once again, to darken my doorway and play Necromunda this evening, but I'm at the point where "I'll believe it when I see it..." I guess I should get a game ready - just in case!

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