The Silver Bayonet - The Ruined Chapel

Having barely escaped the ravenous wolves, our heroes press on into the deep, dark forrest. Led only by Dulles' intuitive sense of direction and a crude map the previous party had sketched out for them - to show where they were headed, in case they did not make it back - they pressed ever onward. When the long, overgraown pathways led them to the deepest, darkest heard of the wood, they came upon a clearing. So dense was the wood, here, that it seemed almost night, though it was clearly mid-day. In the middle of the small clearing stood the remains of a small chapel. Surrounding it, and spreading off into the wood that consumed it, was an extensive graveyard. Among the silent stone grave markers, something stirred. Something sinister, that could no longer be considered human... 

Carrying on the campaign we started with The Wolf Pack, Finnegan and I played the second scenario in the short solo/co-op campaign in The Silver Bayonet. 

FORCES

Mister Collins' Crew - Finnegan

• The Reverend Mister Collins
• Private Graham - Highlander (-3 Health due to injury in previous game) 
• Mister Farrer - Swordsman

Dulles' Rifles - Tim

• Lieutenant Richard Dulles' - Officer
• Sergeant Grabbe - Rifleman
• Rifleman Coyle - Rifleman

The Enemy

• Vampires
• Revenants (zombies) 

THE GAME

Ruined Chapel in the middle of the deep, dark woods. 

I did find my box of trees! You'll have to imagine, as we did, that they are MUCH larger and more ominous looking... and less like a Xmas Tree Farm. 

Our Heroes approach the Ruined Chapel!

Something stirs within the overgrown graveyard!

ROUND ONE

Finnegan won the initiative and Mr. Collins charged forward and tried to bash in the skull of one of the Revenants. He dealt it a serious blow, to be sure (7 damage!), but the Revenant fought back and dealt Mister Collins some pretty serious damage as well (8 DAMAGE!) 

Yikes! 

Not a great start!

Private Graham went next, moving up the pathway and blasting at the revenant, but missing...

Mister Ferrars came to the rescue, charging in and finishing off the damaged Revenant! 

This did not bode well - three attacks to take down ONE of the revenants... of which there were six on the board... and a new one appearing EVERY turn!? 

On the Monsters Activation Phase, another Revenant shambled up to Mister Collins and attacked. This one failed to 

the rest of the Revenants shambled towards the group.

Lieutenant Dulles charged in and slashed at one of the revenants, but didn't seem to slow it down. Despite their slow shambolic gait, their attacks were more ferocious than one would expect and it was all he could to to parry and turn aside its attacks.

Sergeant Grabbe and Riflemen Coyle also moved up. 

And that's when the Vampire appeared!

ROUND TWO

This time Dulles' Rifles took the initiative and Sergeant Grabbe shot at a revenant, but his bullet passed right through it. He followed up the show with a charge and damaged it severely with a few jabs of his bayonet and bashed with the butt of his rifle (dealing 8 damage!) 

Lieutenant Dulles attacked the revenant again... and again was just barely able to hold off it's counterattacks. 

Riflemen Coyle dashed past them both into the ruined chapel in hopes of searching it and finding what it was they came for! 

The Revenant Sergeant Grabbe has been fighting redoubled it's own efforts and injured Sergeant Grabbe (5 Damage!). The sergeant was unable to deal any back in kind. 

As Rifleman Coyle was about to search a pile of rubble in the Chapel, a revenant stumbled in through the doorway and set upon him. Coyle got the upper-hand, though and knocked on of its arms clean off at the shoulder... of course the horrid thing just picked up the arm with the other hand and proceeded to swing it around like a club!

The Revenant attacking Lt Dulles finally landed a blow, causing him to bleed profusely from his arm. (9 Damage!) But Dulles found an opening and was able to cut a good chunk out of the relentless attacker. 

The vampire drew ever closer. 

More revenants came stumbling up to join the others. 

Mr Collins Shouted "there's too many of them, we need to find what we're looking for and get out of here" Then he burst into the ruined chapel and, rushing to Rifleman Coyle's aid, stove in the Revenant's head with his hefty silver cross. 

Private Graham followed his leader, sprinting into the chapel to look for the sacred artifacts. 

Mr. Ferrars came to the aid or Lt. Dulles, finishing off the Revenant that had been attacking him. 

ROUND THREE

Mr. Collins' Crew once again took the initiative.

Mr. Collins quickly searched the and found a strange candelabra - one of the items he believed the previous group has been sent here to recover. 

Private Graham also made a quick search of the corner of the ruins he was in and discovered a Jewel- Encrusted Silver Cross - the other item they were on the lookout for! He shouted out to Mister Collins "I've found it, sir!"

Mr. Collins bellowed for all to hear; "WE HAVE SECURED THE ITEMS, CLEAR A WAY AND LET US DEPART THIS ACCURSED PLACE!' 

Mr Ferrars shot his pistol at (missing) and then charged another Revenant, cutting it' head clean off with his sword! Huzzah! 

The Revenant fighting Sergeant Grabbe landed another blow (leaving him with only ONE HEALTH!?), But with a final burst of effort, Sergeant Grabbe knocked the thing apart with series of furious blows from his rifle. 

Another Revenant stumbled over the corpse of the one Mr. Ferrars had just finished off an injured the preacher, who was unable to deal any damage back. 

Vampire surging forward towards Sergeant Grabbe! 

Sergeant Grabbe decided the discretion was, in fact, the better part of valour... and scarpered! That's supposed to be smoke trailing him from his discharged block powder rifle... but it could also be, in part, dust kicked up as he tore off down the trail! 

Lt. Dulles decided to stay in the fight, hoping to clear a way for Mr. Collins and Private Graham to get clear of the tussle. 

Rifleman Coyle gave up on his idea of searching the Chapel and lead the way out... spotting the vampire charing towards them, he aimed his rifle and blew a hole clear through it's chest with his silver shot (9 Damage)! The blow clearly staggered the monster, but it quickly recovered and continued to charge towards him! 

Another Revenant clawed it's way out of the earth next to a grave marker nearby. 

ROUND FOUR

Mr. Collins' Crew seized the initiative, again and sped off down the road after Sergeant Grabbe! 

The Vampire charged poor Rifleman Coyle. The usually steadfast Rifleman froze as the vampire cut him with it's sword! 

A Revenant attacked Lt. Dulles again and overpowered him and knocked him to the ground.... (Out of Action!)  



The newly-raised-from-the-earth Revenant attacked the terrified Rifleman Coyle and it was just too much for him to bear... he ran screaming off into the woods. 

(he was also taken out-of-action... but, as we discovered later in the post-game sequence, he turned out to have received only flesh wounds, it makes sense that he just fled in terror....) 

Sergeant Grabbe decided to take up the rear and hold off the monsters as best he could to give the others a chance to distance themselves. He reloaded his rifle, took aim and shot at the Vampire.... but missed. 

ROUND FIVE

Mr Collins' Crew made good their escape and exited the scene, pursued by... well.. the undead. 

The legions of the damned bore down on Sergeant Grabbe. He briefly considered reloading his Rifle and trying to finish off the Vampire... but there was no real purpose in it and he followed Mr. Collins and his fellows down the pathway through the dark heart of the forest! 

POST GAME

Checking on Lieutenant Dulles and Rifleman Coyle, Dulles received a permanent injury and Coyle's injuries were mere flesh wounds. Dulles permanent injury reduced his Courage by -1! I guess something about facing vampire shook him to his very core. We said he pushed the revenant off of him and rolled to the side. 

The Revenant had been temporarily distracted by Rifleman Coyle running past, screaming, and that gave the injured Lt. Dulles a moment of reprieve - long enough to crawl into the woods and hide for a moment and then sneak off when some of the Revenants had cleared away. 

I never saw Dulles +3 Courage  as actual COURAGE, more of a supreme arrogance, overconfidence and the utmost disdain for others he perceived of being at a lower station than himself (anyone less than nobility, all foreigners, and monsters). Something about the revenants they faced or the cold-dead stare of the vampire he briefly glanced, broke that impenetrable armour of contempt. 

Experience

I like that experience (which, I think, kind of also double as victory points for determining the victor in a head-to-head/competitive scenario..?) isn't solely tied to killing the enemy. You can gain quite a bit from accomplishing the scenarios objectives - which aren't always KILL THE THINGS! In this one the rewards were:

• +1 XP if the unit investigates three or more clue markers
• +1 XP if the unit Kill five or more Revenants
• +1 XP for each Vampire Killed by the unit
• +1 XP if at least four soldiers exit the table
• +2 XP if a solder exits the table carrying the Silver Cross
• +2 XP if a solder exits the table carrying the Candelabra

We killed six Revenants, More than four soldiers exited the table in relatively good order, and they were carrying both the Silver Cross and the Candelabra, for a total of SIX extra Experience Points - the maximum we could have gained. 

We COULD have stuck around and tried to finish off the Vampire... but then more would likely have been taken out of action and we'd have lost the XP for not getting more guys off the table...? Or if we killed the Vampire AND still gotten 4+ off... we would have simply lost the additional XP as soldiers can only gain a maximum of one bonus XP per scenario.... (in addition to the one they get for surviving) 

This meant everyone gained two Experience Points (one for surviving, and one bonus point) 

Normally a soldier will gain one or two experience points (rarely, if it's stated in a scenario, you an potentially gain a third... but it's rare and it would only be the one soldier that did that one thing... and I haven't actually found a reference to this happening in any of the scenarios in the book that I have read!?) 

You need five Experience Points to get to Tier One and gain some sort of benefit (+1 Courage - some benefits are fixed, at other tiers there is a choice). That's going to be at least three games, under normal circumstances. It requires TEN experience to get to Tier Two, EIGHTEEN to get to Tier Three... Tier Seven needs a HUNDRED experience points... so, under normal circumstances, that would be fifty to a hundred games you've have to play - with the SAME UNIT!? It lists up to Tier Nine - which would require TWO HUNDRED EXPERIENCE POINTS (requiring 100-200 games played!?). 

It's been a while since I played Frostgrave, but I remember wizards going up MULTIPLE levels in ONE good game. I guess there were a LOT more things that COULD be improved in Frostgrave (casting numbers for 8+ spells, learning new spells, etc).

I am currently leaning towards using The Silver Bayonet for my weekend campaign in February. If so, I think I will change the experience requirements of the Tiers to be two per tier (i.e. Tier One requires only 2 Experience Points, Tier Two requires four, Three requires six, etc...) - so the participants can actually see their characters improve over the very limited campaign of six scenarios over the weekend... 

Given my mercurial attention span for games, I may have to do this for our regular campaigns as well!? 

Revenants are HARD TO KILL! They have 10 heath, so are very hard to take out with a single blow - meaning two to three of your unit have to attack one, generally in melee (as they have damage reduction against shooty weapons), to take it down... They also have a defence of 12, so you're generally only going to hit them about 50-55% of the time. I can see making them a bit tougher. But I would have at least made them easier to HIT!  

Revenants are basically zombies, and I feel like zombies should be totally easy to hit... maybe a bit harder to actually take down their strength should be in overwhelming numbers and their ability to take some hits and keep going, not their ability to dodge blows. Might change their defence to ten...? 

Also, I still can't help thinking this book is a little on the sparse side... 

Frostgrave, a hard cover book that is the same price as The Silver Bayonet, has 222 pages to the Silver Bayonet's 160 pages. 

There are fifteen different soldiers for hire to The Silver Bayonet's twenty four (but convenient table summarizing them!?). 

The Silver Bayonet has thirty-six "attributes" - of which, seventeen may be selected by officers or soldiers the rest describe things monster special abilities. By contrast, Frostgrave has EIGHTY spells (ten colleges, 8 spell each - in the core book) and twenty-nine different traits/special abilities for monsters... 

Speaking of Monster, for a game that's about hunting monsters, there are only nineteen different ones (including bandits and cultists) in The Silver Bayonet, to TWENTY-SEVEN in Frostgrave!? 

The Frostgrave core book - in addition to the "Standard" set-up-terrain-and-treasure-and-go scenario, it has TWENTY different special scenarios... The Silver Bayonet has ten scenarios... plus the four for solo/co-op play (which you will have to play over and over, many times if you want to get beyond Tier Two). There are some very general guidelines for making your own scenarios in The Silver Bayonet... but no simple, straightforward "Standard" scenario, like there is in Frostgrave. 

There are PILES of treasure tables in Frostgrave and about fifty different potions and magic items (not including grimoires and scrolls of the aforementioned EIGHTY spells or multitude of different +X to hit and/or damage magic weapons). The Silver Bayonet's seven "Special Armoury" items.... 

Also for campaigning in Frostgrave - you can set up a base of operations and add all sorts of fun stuff to your base that can give you in-game and out-of-game bonuses... there is nothing of the sort in The Silver Bayonet. 

Am I regretting picking up The Silver Bayonet? Not at all... Am I feeling a LITTLE BIT disappointed and like there COULD have been so much MORE in here... Oh, yes... 

On one hand I really hope they were holding stuff back so they'd have material to put into expansions with loads more scenarios. On the other hand... seriously, you could have given us a bit more in this book and STILL had PLENTY to put into future expansions. Especially if it ends up NOT being popular enough that Osprey decides not to make any future expansions!? 

I would LOVE to see campaign book expansions for this game. A couple of the off-the-top-of-my-head obvious ones could include:

Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign could introduce the Ottomans and a whole pile of new monsters based on North African and Middle East myth (Mummies, Djinn, etc.)

Maybe a War or 1812 book adding options for Americans and more monsters based on First Nations legends (Wendigo, Sasquatch, etc - I mean, they already got the minis in the Dracula's America line!) 

The Peninsular Campaign? The Russian Campaign?! Both could have a bunch of scenarios linked into a campaign that skirts the actual campaigns of the historical armies... 

The Silver Bayonet - Wolf Pack

Thursday afternoon, Finnegan and I tried out The Silver Bayonet - a new skirmish wargame of gothic horror set during the Napoleonic Wars, by Joseph McCullough. I pre-ordered the book AGES ago and had almost forgotten about it until I'd gotten a notice it had shipped and then arrived on my doorstep last week some time!? 

I left it for a day or two as I was busy with other stuff but over the weekend had a look and got very excited and started trying to find stuff I could make use of. It ended up with me needing to rebase a pile of Wolves - that were originally based on large, mulit-figure, square bases for Hordes of the Things... and... since I was rebasing those and brining them up to current basing standards I pretty much HAD to rebase a few of the others I found that I figured might be useful... 

Despite my initial plan of just trying to find some miniatures I already had painted to use... I ended up painting most of the two special units I put together!? 

The game includes rules for Solo and Co-op Play and four solo scenarios. This is what we decided to try out - the first solo scenario played with the co-op rules. I took members of Dulles' Rifles (Lt. Dicky Dulles, Sergeant Grabbe, and Private Coyle) and Finnegan took part of Mister Collins' Crew (Mister Collins, and the two highlanders; Private Ripley and Private Graham). 

Background

Another Special Unit was sent off into a deep dark wood to find recover some special artifact from a ruined chapel. They have not been heard of for some time and a new team has been assembled to locate them, and, if necessary, complete their mission. 

It took some days of tracking to locate the party, but locate them they did. The group had apparently gotten lost in the woods for a spell and then had clearly been attacked. The scene they encountered was one of total carnage! A chill ran down Lieutenant Dulles' spine as the scene of slaughter was all too reminiscent of what had happened to his old company! 

As they entered the campsite in the middle of a small clearing a series of wolf cries emanated from the woods all around them! 

Scenario

There are 6 clue markers spread around the battlefield that should be investigated. Ideally they should try to find the previous unit's orders, so they can carry them out - or any other things they might have that are handy. 

There really isn't "victory points" per se... but there were certain things the group would gain experience points for - which are distributed afterwards. It really is designed for Campaign Play! 

The Game

You will have to excuse the rather sad and sparse looking woods... I have a lot more, better looking trees... SOMEWHERE, but they were shoved in a box before all the renovations began... like two years ago... and i have yet to locate them... 

The brown areas on the board were treated as woods and Difficult Ground and anyone withing them was considered to have cover. If we'd thought about it a bit more, I might have further suggested that anyone with more than 6" or 8" distance through woods could not even be seen.  

All set up and ready to go! 

Our intrepid Heroes arrive at the capsite. 

Slaughter and carnage is all around. Wolves cry out! 

ROUND ONE

Finnegan got the initiative, so his group got to go first, followed by the monsters, followed by all of mine! 

Mister Collins started things off by running (Move+Sprint action) to get to one of the fallen. 

Private Ripley and Private Graham both moved up in support and fired off their Muskets at the flanking wolves in the woods... but both missed! 

Then it was the monsters turn! 

One Wolf charged Private Ripley! 

So... interesting feature of this game... Attacking it not an action, but merely a thing that happens after moving into contact with an enemy. One thing that WASN'T 100% clear was if you could do a SPRINT action into combat... there wasn't anything that specifically said you could NOT... But it also says that combat takes place after a Move to Attack action (a Move action that brings you into contact with an enemy model)... and Sprinting specifically mentions is is a "special" action that takes place AFTER a Move action...? We decided though it is a "special" move, it is still a Move and so a Sprint could be a Move to Attack... 

The wolves furiously snapping jaws could not find purchase on the highlander! (If the target of a melee attack survives, they have the option of Striking Back or Backing Off... well... Obviously PRivate Ripley wasn't about to just run off!) 

Private Ripley stabbed the wolf with his bayonet and deal four damage! The Wolf was then obliged to back off 2"...

Another Wolf attacked Mister Collins and bit him quite nastily! (Dealing 9 Damage! YIKES!) 

Mister Collins was not one to back down from a fight, however, and struck the wolf back, dealing 6 damage! 

The Wolves (and Werewolf) spread around the table also sprinted towards the Riflemen in the middle of the clearing... 

Lieutenant Dulles fired one of his pistols at the Werewolf, missing, and then ran off in the opposite direction, charging one of the wolves.  

The other two Riflemen discharged their muskets and ran to aid the others. Rifleman Coyle killed one of the wolves bearing down on Private Ripely - much to Ripley's relief! 

Somebody seriously injured one of the wolves... I can't remember if that was Dulles Charge or the Sergeant's shooting...? 

At the end of the turn we rolled on the Wolf Pack Event Table - so see if more arrived. Luckily, no other wolves (or WEREWOLVES!) arrived! 

ROUND TWO

this time I won the initiative, so Dulles' Rifles went first. 

 The Sergeant Reloaded his musket with his action and then Moved to Attack the injured wolf. It's true that injured animals are very dangerous! The sergeant failed to finish off the wolf and the wolf bit back dealing 5 damage! Ouch! 

Lieutenant Dulles moved into contact with one of the Clue Markers and Investigated the Clue! He found a silver blade which made all of his melee attacks for the rest of the game "silver"... which didn't help much as he already had a silver inlaid fencing sword... 

Riflemen Coyle also reloaded his musket and then charged... he missed, but the wolf did not! 

It seems an odd thing to do... reload a musket, only to charge.... ehhhh... I tried to think of it all as a blended action from the previous turn - they fired their muskets at wolves coming from one direction and then ran off 

The injured wolf that had been attacking Private Ripley rounded and charged again (remember what I said about injured animals being dangerous?) This time it savaged  Private Ripley, dealing TEN DAMAGE - Luckily, Highlanders are made of sterner stuff and have 11 Health, and so Private Ripley kept on fighting... Though he failed to deal the wolf any further damage when he struck back.  

Another Wolf charged Rifleman Coyle and scored a critical hit (10 on both d10 dice) and that that took him out of the fight - blood gushing from an open wound, he was obliged to crawl off into the woods and staunch the wound as best he could... 

Another wolf attacked Lt. Dulles and dealt him ten damage! 

The Wolf that the Sergeant had fought earlier in the round attacked back and this time the SErgeant finished him off. 

Unfortunately another followed on his heals and finished him off.. 

Poor Private Ripley was just not having a great day... the WErewolf charged him... and that was the end of Private Ripley... 

This turn... Not going well for our heroes! 

Finally, what was left of Collins' Crew could activate. Mister Collins spent his action investigating the Clue... Drawing a card it turned out to be... 

ANOTHER WEREWOLF! 

Now the card reulsts state, "Replace the clue marker with a Werewolf"... so we weren't entirely sure what to do then... Melee attacks are clearly stated to take place after a Move to Attack... There is nothing that states that this counts as a Move to Attack - it just suddenly appears, in contact, with whoever was in contact with the clue token... We decided it DOES "count as" a Move to Attack, and that the Active Character (Mister Collins) was the attacker and went first. He injured it severely - dealing ten damage! Teh werewolf missed and Mr Collins Backed off. 

Private Graham reloaded his musket and... charged the closest wolf - killing it! 

For a second turn in a row, NO MORE WOLVES SHOWED UP! 

ROUND THREE

Collins' Crew went first, starting with Mr. Collins - who charged the Weerewolf, neither did any damage and Mr. Collins was obliged to retire. 

Private Graham went next and also charged the Werewolf! despite not having any silver weapons, he managed to finish the big beastie off! 

Then the monsters went...

A Wolf charged Mister Collins and dragged him down to the grown, mauling him with tooth and claw. 

Another wolf charged Private Graham and failed to land a bite. Graham was so busy parrying the ferocious attack, he was not able to land any blows either. 

The White Wolf charged Dulles, who deftly turned it away. 

A second wolf charged Dulles. This one Dulles killed, taking it's entire head off with his sword. 

The Werewolf charged Graham dealing 9 damage! 

Dulles was the last to activate and his pulled his second pistol and shot down the still reeling White Wolf! 

Dulles ran for it - sprinting around some woods, hoping to get to one more clue marker and possibly finding the orders and making it off the table before any more wolves fell upon him! 

Finally two more wolves showed up. Fortunately, they arrived in the opposite corner to where Lt. Dulles was! 

ROUND FOUR

Dulles went first and sprinted again to try and get to one of the fallen members of the slaughtered team. 

Wolves surrounded Private Graham... one wolf charged, and he stuck it through with his bayonet, killing the beast.  

Then a second wolf charged in, which he was able to turn away... but this relentless assault was tiring him quickly. When the werewolf finally attacked, Private Graham was done... 

Another Wolf arrived, from the same corner... 

ROUND FIVE

Dulles moved into the Clue Marker and investigated... but only found a bag of silver shot... again... something he already had! 

The Wolves all moved and got a little too close for comfort! 

ANOTHER wolf arrived on the table. Once again from the same corner! 

ROUND SIX

Dulles decided to call it a day, he ran off the table, making as much noise as he could to try and draw the wolves away and hopefully giving his wounded comrades a chance to crawl away to safety... 

Post Game

After killing a few more of the wolves chasing him, the rest broke off their assault and Dulles made his way back to the clearing. Mister Collins, Sergeant Grabbe, and Rifleman Coyles wounds, it turned out, were relatively minor and they would be able to fight on... Private Grahams wounds were a bit more severe (he will start next game with -3 Health) and Private Ripley died of his wounds... They removed his head - to prevent him from returning as a werewolf or revenant or some such, and buried him in a shallow grave in the clearing, along with the rest of the fallen soldiers. 

All of the survivors received one Experience Point, just for showing up and not dying.. Three more experience points were gained - one for investigating at least three Clue Tokens, one for killing at least five Dark Wolves, and one more for killing a Werewolf! These were distributed to Lt. Dulles, Mr Collins, and Private Graham. 

Initial Thoughts

I DO LIKE IT! 

I could totally see running a campaign. Either a co-op campaign with Finnegan. I could possibly even drag Amanda into it... If I could find some appropriate female figures (she does like her ass-kicking women-folk in any game!). 

I've even had ideas for on-going campaigns or a weekend campaign with multiple warbands... It could start off competitive - historical belligerents bumping into each other while on the same mission, assuming the enemy is up to no good and in league with the supernatural evil... but over time maybe realize they're after the same thing and start co-operating - if begrudgingly... 

Or I could see running it as a convention game... Either as a multi-player co-op with four players each playing and Officer/Character with one or two soldiers... or possibly semi co-op/teams maybe... British and French Teams - two players each - each player gets an officer and 40 Requisition Points... They are competing for points... but there are a PILE of monsters to deal with... 

Yeah, this seems like there is a lot of potential for a lot of fun. 

There are a few bits in the rules that could have been a touch tighter - mostly stuff I mentioned in the report - Can a Move to Attack be a Sprint action? Can you really Reload as an action, then Move to Attack? Do Monsters sprint? Maybe these things ARE obvious to everyone else and I'm just a blockhead...? Nothing seems utterly broken, though. 

Rereading the A.I. flowchart/conditions that control monsters... I'm not sure if they CAN even sprint... it says "It will move it's full speed stat..." doesn't say anything about sprinting...? Maybe that's why things went quite so poorly for us... We were having them sprint. 

Also, I SUPER appreciate the rules for solo/co-op play... I just wish that had been considered when devising attributes. One I can think of that I came across was the Monster Expert attribute that the Supernatural Investigator has - it adds an additional Monster die to the Fate Pool... except that Monster dice aren't used at all in solo/co-op play, so this attribute kind of useless, and the soldier that gets it (which otherwise seems like a really cool character) a little overpriced...

I do hope that, like Frostgrave and Stargrave and Dracula's America, Osprey follows this up with expansions - adding new monsters and scenarios and artifacts and soldiers with new attributes and weapons... I think the game has a lot of potential! 

Looking forward to playing again! There are four Solo Scenarios that form a bit of a narrative arc. I do hope we can find time to play it again next week!