February Games

I played some games in  February... Here's what I played! 

Saturday, 1 February 2025

Kicking off the month, we FINALLY got back to playing out online Soulbound game... The entire session was the players fighting a Putrid Blightking!! YIKES they are TOUGH! I've basically been using Warhammer Quest: Shadows over Hammerhal... and the room they were in had just one, but after a round or two the north wall was supposed to just crumble revealing TWO MORE!? I decided NOT to do that, as that would have likely ended them! 

This ended up being the ONLY session we managed to play this month (for the Online Campaign). We did meet up one other Saturday, but I'd been having a rough week and we just ended up chatting for a couple hours... Maybe next month. 

Sunday, 2 February 2025

Sunday afternoon Orion returned for a second game in our Fourteen Men in the Solomons campaign (using Five Men at Kursk!). This week the men of First Platoon, Company J, 25th Regiment, 93rd Infantry Division went on a patrol and encountered a sniper!

The full after action report can be read here:

Fourteen Men in the Solomons - Patrol - 23 June 1943

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

This week's Soulbound adventure saw the characters starting the Faltering Light adventure in earnest. They were introduced to the main players, the broken Realm Gate and began to explore the city of Brightspear! 

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

The following evening we were back to playing Warhammer Quest: Cursed City! Initially , Amanda and Finnegan had discussed taking along their newly levelled up 2nd Level heroes... as they would cause others to gain experience faster... but in the end decided to just go with the four remaining Level One characters. Along the way, I noted what the difference in the encounters would have been... and they were glad to have only brought the first level characters. 

you can read all about the adventure here:

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Session Thirteen - Deliverance Journey

Sunday, 9 February 2025

Initially I'd planned to play Fourteen Men in the Solomons with Orion, but Orion had a last minute changed of plans, so I finally tried out FiveCore Pulp Adventure on my own! It was a lot of fun! You can read about the Adventure here:

FiveCore Pulp Adventure - In the Sands of Arabia

Tuesday, 11 February 2025

In the afternoon Orion stopped by to play through the next scenario in our Five Men at Kursk campaign (Fourteen Men in the Solomons) 

You can read the full After Action Report here: 

Fourteen Men in the Solomons - Skirmish at Smith Ridge

Initially, Orion was to return with Nick in the evening to play Soulbound... but I just wasn't feeling it and had FiveCore games on the brain and offered to run a game of FiveCore Pulp Adventure... and initially Orion was interested... but then Nick was feeling sick, so they decided to stay home... 

Somehow I DID convince Amanda and Finnegan to give it a try and I ran a little one-off game for them (maybe...? or maybe it will turn into an occasional campaign!?) 

you can read the full game report here: 

FiveCore Pulp Adventure - Cult of Cthulhu 

Wednesday, 19 February 2025 

We'd missed playing a game of Warhammer Quest: Cursed City the previous week because, after the two games of FiveCore the day before, I was a little gamed out... This week we also missed our Soulbound game because Orion was out of town. 

This week we were back at it!

You can see the whole game report here:

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Session Fourteen - Deliverance Journey

Tuesday, 25 February 2025

After a few weeks off, we were back to playing Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound on Tuesday! This week the party located the guide and began their explorations of the undercity in Brightspear! 

And I forgot to take a picture during the game... AGAIN... I'd even had a sticky note on my GM screen... 

Wednesday, 26 February 2025

This week we finally played the first of the decapitation journeys to take out one of the named characters in Warhammer Quest: Cursed City! 

You can read all about the adventure here:

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Session Fifteen - Shuffling Horrors

Friday, 28 February 2025 

Finally, Friday afternoon, Orion and I tried out our first game of Bolt Action (Third Edition)!? I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive about playing Bolt Action... My general feeling from having played it... a decade ago...? was that it wasn't awesome and I didn't have a lot of fun. Maybe I was just souring on World War Two in general - from having played too much Flames of War (and SO MANY other WW2 games!? Blitzkrieg Commander, Tactical Commander, WRG rules 1925-1950, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, Disposable Heroes, etc, etc, etc...) over the decade before that... Maybe it was just the people I was playing with...? I don't know. I had a LOT of fun playing this and think it has a lot of potential - looking forward to playing MORE! 

You can read all about it here: 

WW2 - Bolt Action: Operation Torch (Part 1?)

Hopefully there will be more in the coming month(s)!? 

And that's it! 

In total, this month I have played: 

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound x3 (one online, two in-person)
• Warhammer Quest: Cursed City x3
• FiveCore Pulp Adventure x2 (one solo, one game-mastered) 
• Five Men at Kursk WW2 Skirmish Warfare x2
• Bolt Action (Third Edition) x1

So far this year, I've played: 

• Warhammer Quest: Cursed City x8
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound x7
• Five Men at Kursk WW2 Skirmish Warfare x3
• FiveCore Pulp Adventure x2
• Five Men in Normandy .30 Cal edition x2
• Patchwork x2
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Crypt Hunters x2
• Lost Patrol x1
• Warhammer Age Of Sigmar (Fourth Edition): Core Rules x1
• Bolt Action (Third Edition) x1

I DID get a LOT painted this month... 

Foot:

• 3x Arabs
• 9x WW2 British
• 2x South Pacific Coast Watchers
• 4x Pulp Adventure Ex-Military Types
• 24x WW2 Italians
  
• 10x WW2 Italian X Arditi 
• 16x Deutsches Afrikakorps Panzer-Grenadiers
• 21x WW2 Italian Infantry
• 10x WW2 Italian Colonial Infantry Squad
• 8x WW2 Soviet Scouts

Vehicles:

• 1x Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium Tank
• 1x Autoblinda AB41
• 1x Carro Armato M13/40
• 2x CV33

FIVE Vehicles and over ONE HUNDRED foot miniatures!? (a LOT of those were started BEFORE February... this is just when I happened to finish them off!). So far my total for the year is 152 foot! Not bad... Not at all what I was PLANNING to paint this year... but not bad... 

The best part is, I've only bought 42 foot and three vehicles!

(I did receive another 49 in trade, but in the process got rid of nearly 100 foot and two vehicles!!)

FiveCore Pulp Adventure - Cult of Cthulhu

I played this game of FiveCore Pulp Adventures over a week ago now. I ran Amanda and Finnegan through a game on a Tuesday evening when we would regularly have been playing Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound... but I was feeling wildly unprepared and had these rules on the brain and had been dreaming up countless scenarios and adventures for the game since I'd played my first solo game two days days earlier (also, i'd just played a game of Five Men at Kursk earlier in the day!) 

Will THIS become ANOTHER campaign!? I'm not sure... both said they had fun and would play again... but we're already playing Soulbound and Warhammer Quest - WEEKLY - which already seems like a bit much, sometimes... perhaps some other night when I'm not feeling like running Soulbound...? 

Situation

New Orleans, Louisiana, 1930

The group of heroes, summoned to Louisiana by Inspector Legrasse, as investigations into local cultist activity have led him to believe there might be  another incident like the one he witnessed back in 1907...

Scenario

For this game I let Amanda and Finnegan pick out a Hero and an adventurers for them each to play (and had them name the characters)... 

Amanda's hero(ine) was Helen Rogers 

her Adventurer was Ivan McDowell

Finnegan's Hero was Edmund

and his adventurer was Sister Yvanne

Accompanying them were Inspector Legrasse, Constable Johns, Constable Smith,   Constable West - all of whom were Followers, and then there was Harvey Holden a reporter from the local newspaper - a Hanger-On! 

In the scenario there were worshipers around a monolith and three pairs of other cultists patrolling between three patrol points - the small campfire, the smaller idol, and the brick shithouse. (I was using the Stealth/Commando operations rules from Five Men at Kursk.) 

Ma and Pa, the owners of the land - who were just as mad as the cultists - kept a keen eye out for interlopers that might disturb their friends ritual. 

Ma and Pa were static Sentries that could attempt to spot anyone that moved within line of sight. 

inside the cabin were their sons Judd and Jethro.

At the beginning of each Patrol Phase - on a roll of ONE - one random member of the family would decided they needed to go use the shithouse and would walk out towards it - much like a sentry moving towards a patrol point and would stay in the biffy, until the alarm was raised or another one was rolled, then they'd head back to the cabin. 

another veiw showing relative positions of cabin and worshiping cultists. 

After a number of turns of these cultists are chanting... something nasty would be summoned! 

The Game

All set up and ready to go...

I gave the option of approaching stealthily or just go in guns-a-blazing! They chose stealth.. and then IMMEDIATELY decided that was taking too long and started doing full moves, putting out noise markers and drawing the attention of the Patroling cultists!? 

The heroes and police approach the cultists ritual site - chanting can be heard in the distance. 

Cutlists chanting away... 

There was about a turn of attempting to be stealthy... but that was too slow and the heroes (or... their players...) got impatient. 

Edmund, crashing throught he woods, made noise and drew the attention of the Patrolling Cultists, but they did now spot him. 

Another turn of crashing through the forest...

More cultists turned to investigate. 

The everybody was rushing through the woods making noise... Cultists were drawn into the woods to investigate...

Ivan Mcdowell charged forth and attacked one of the Cultists! 

Killing one with a swift, silent blow, he turned to the other patrolling with the first... 

And took her out silently, without alerting other sentries or raising the alarm! 

Yeah... I probably need to make proper cultist casualty figures/markers... looks little weird using these... looks like he punched them right out of their cultist robes!

Another pair of Sentries were drawn in the direction of Edmund... HE'D actually attempted to be stealthy that turn... but the cultists were drawn towards the noise markers made by others! One failed to spot Edmund, but the other drew closer and got close enough to automatically spot him and raised the alarm! So Edmund blasted the shouting cultist with his shot gun! 

Helen Rogers also started blazing away with her rifle! 

Edmund shot another cultist, as did Constable Smith. 

The partner of the cultists shot by Smith, charged Smith. 

Smith fled the melee, and the cultist, feeling rather sure of himself charged into attack Ivan McDowell... that went less well! 

Helen Rogers maneuvered around to start taking shots at the leader of the Cultists! 

Constable West, blundering through the woods, came to the edge of the woods and found himself face-to-face with Ma! BLAM! He shot her point blank with his shot gun and she went down! 

In the distance, Jethro, witnessing the shooting let out a cry of distress and then started shooting at the copper in the woods. Constable West flinched and fell back into the woods to take cover 

Pa and Judd made their way up to the Brick Shithouse to further investigate the disturbance on their property! 

One of the worshipping cultists, after being shot at by Edmund, turned to return fire... or throw daggers... or... whatever the 12" shooting attack of the cultists represents!? (we imagined it was daggers they were throwing!) 

and TOOK RDMUND OUT!? 

Helen Rogers was also downed by one of the Cultists who turned away from workshipping to defend his master! 

Then Imspector Legrasse was taken out of action! Things were not looking well for our heroes! 

Constable West and Pa exchanged shots, after Pa had wandered back into the woods to see what was going on... 

West gunned down Pa, just like he did his wife! 

Constable Johns exchanged fire with Judd.. 

Jethro rushed up to check on his Ma and shot Constable West! 

Upon investigating Ma, he discovered she, too, was out of action! 

Sister Yvanne was injured and downed by a Cultist...

who also injured Constable Johns! 

Constable Smith and Ivan McDowell had fled combats and just could not rally!? 

Eventually Ivan McDowell rallied... just in time for Jethro to rush forward and shoot at him with his rifle. 

Jethro missed. McDowell returned fire and he did not miss... 

Constable Smith also rallied and moved forward with McDowell under cover. Judd had also taken cover and was shooting at them. 

One of the cultists had moved in to try and finish off Sister Yvanne and that did not work out for him... she rolled over and filled him full of lead and retreated to the cover of woods! 

Sister Yvanne checked on the downed Helen Rogers and got her patched up and back into action.

and then snuck forward and started shooting at the Cultist Leader. 

It was Helen Rogers that finally put a bullet through hin and stopped his chanting.. 

But the other cultists continued their chanting!!

Judd continued shooting at Ivan McDowell and Constable Smith. 

Ivan eventually decided he'd had enough and charged out of the treeline, across the open and cut Judd down with his machete! 

One final cultists continued chanting on his own! 

He was briefly halted when bullets got a little too close! 

But then quickly rallied and finished off the incantation... 

a monsterous beast from beyond space and time appeared... and ate the cultist! 

Ivan McDowell was terrified by its sudden appearance and once again fled into the woods! 

Sister Yvanne and Helen Rogers started blazing away at it with their firearms... 

Ivan McDowell rallied and joined them! 

The trio spread out and kept blazing away! 

It was Helen Rogers that finally put it down! 

In the end, it was discovered that Inspector Legrasse and Constable West has been killed in the exchange! Constable Johns recovered from his injuries... but was never quite the same... 

Edmund was found alive but quite injured by the Cultists throwing knife! He will have to sit out the next adventure (should we play one!) 

The bodies of Ma, Jethro, and Judd were also recovered... Pa was nowhere to be found. A blood trail and drag marks lead off into the Bayou and it was assumed that 'gators had got him! 

If I did it again, I would make it WAY HARDER to damage the shoggoth... but maybe gave it less lives... Perhaps any time it got injured by a kill die, I'd roll a kill die of my own and could take the lesser 

Eleven of the Cultists had died in the fight, only one was arrested. The leader, however, seemed to have slipped off in the confusion of the battle with the otherworldly beast! 

I realized AFTER the game we'd forgotten a number of things... REACTIONS, somehow!? And In-Game Events... Ah well... 

The spoils from the adventure only yielded Two Fistfulls of Dollars... It did turn up one Lead! 

If we did play again, I'd let them recruit a new group of Followers and Hangers-On. 

I did choose Harvey Holden, news reporter, to roll and see if he "graduated"... He did not... He will remain a Hanger-On... for now... 

If we DID continue with these. I might be tempted to dig out the many, MANY Call of Cthulhu adventures I have and use them as plots foe the campaign, just read through those and find ways to turn them into tabletop encounters!