No, actually they really, really, really, suck or rather my die rolling does!!
Way back on 31 July I put out a post on World Friendship Day. One of the comments was from Azazel:
“We do have a good little loose circle of people here. I just wish there was some way that we could have regular games with one another, but even those of us who live relatively close to one another actually live quite some way in practical terms!”
Well you know how speed dating works, one thing led to another and after finally having our diaries coincide yesterday we finally caught up for a chat and a game. The conversation covered everything from work, painting techniques, games systems we like, bemoaning a lack of time, the cosmos and the meaning of life (oh and cats and housing when SWMBO was around!). Having solved all of the world’s problems we had a few turns of Fistful of Lead’s “Tales of Horror” from Wiley Games before lunch.
The Vampire coven of Alabaster Darkmore had been terrorising the ruined streets of one of London’s slums and Scotland Yards finest had called in their consulting detectives Sherwood Hollows and Professor Matson to try and capture or eliminate the Coven.
The Vampire coven of Alabaster Darkmore
The Coven consisted of Vampire Count Alabaster Darkmore, his confidant Diamanda Von Stein, and two fledgling vampires Bludwan Shadowsoul and Colton Sanguine. The coven was accompanied by the three Cossack Guards of Count Darkmore.
The Coven had been tracked down to an old ruined cemetery.
The Scotland Yard squad team consisted of the consulting detectives Sherwood Hollows and Professor Matson, Inspector Sorse, Sergeant Heston and three Bobbies.
The chase started with the bobbies rushing between the buildings on their right flank.
One of the cossacks, located in a ruined tower could just make out one of the Bobbies through the intervening windows and fired a long range shot but missed.
The two fledglings ran towards the Inspector and Sergeant in search of refreshment!
An other Cossack could see a second Bobby clearly outlined in the window and took a shot but again the Bobbies luck held out. The Bobbies fired back and inflicted at first one shock,
and then another.
The Cossack attempted to rally but routed of the table, never to be seen of again.
After lunch the “game was a foot” in earnest as the vampires started closing in on the Detective and Sergeant. Hollows and Matson were trying to redeploy as quickly as possible to meet this threat.
Two shock were inflicted on both Inspector Sorse and Bludwand Shadowsoul.
The Bobbies advanced as Matson scampered to assist Sorse.
A long range shot by one of the Bobbies hit its mark and the Cossack was no more. needed an 8 on a D8 and then another high dice roll to take the Cossack down but his firearms training had really paid of. At this stage despite the loss of two Cossacks the Vampires were into close combat and were going to be in their element!
The third Cossack tried to redeploy and ran through the graveyard but was spotted by the Bobbies and taken out. This was a mistake on my part as it meant the loss of an activation card which Azazel was quick to jump on.
The melee going on (top left) whilst the Bobbies take out the last Cossack (middle right).
Diamanda Von Stein charges into fight Hollows, who promptly puts a stake through her heart despite being outnumbered three to one!
He then turns to fight Vampire Colton Sanguine and puts the “Yard” to shame with another wooden stake piercing the third vampires heart.
With only one activation card Alabaster Darkmore draws the King of Spades (the highest activation card, and decides to settle the matter once and for all. Sherwood Hollows passes his fear test to fight the Vampire Count and takes out his fourth vampire in succession!
I repeat, Vampires really, really, really suck!
This was a great fun game played in between lunch and lots of discussion. The “Yard” rolled quite well against the vampires whose strength is when they win a fight as they have a number of pluses on the wound table allowing them to take opponents out easily. Unfortunately this only works if you win the fight!
Sherwood Hollows is a really mean dude with several pluses on combat dice.
A great day and one that we will repeat towards the end of the year.
Thanks to Azazel for the game and the horde of toys he brought to give me. He said he had some Deadzone figures – well this was almost all of the first Deadzone Kickstarter, plus the Deadball game, and the majority of the Reaper Kickstarter set!
It has taken me most of the day to sort out!
Thanks Azazel…….. I think!
I will share a large proportion of it with friends.
The lesson from today was:
Back to Azazel’s quote “We do have a good little loose circle of people here. I just wish there was some way that we could have regular games with one another, but even those of us who live relatively close to one another actually live quite some way in practical terms!”
Great that you had the chance to get together for a chinwag and a game and nice to see your new scenery getting used! 🙂
Thanks John. Great time just catching up the game was great but not the most important thing and not just because I well and truly had my rear end kicked. I picked up a few painting tips which you will see in the next few days as well.
This was great on so many levels Dave, and great that two bloggers actually got to meet up and game
It was good. It was just a matter of finally getting of or backsides and getting to it!
Good to see these figures and especially the terrain, long 8n the making, I; action at last.
Thanks. it was a good game and more importantly great to finally meet each other.
How very cool that a couple of great hobbyists/bloggers got to get together. As always, great looking board, scenery, and figures.
Speaking of friendship among hobbyists, my email has been wonky but wanted to make sure I thanked you for the samurai sprues. There are some choice bits on there that I’ll be incorporating into the next squad!
It was great to catch up and happy to help with the sprues.
Great to see you’ve got a game with him in.
Love the table set up too.
Cheers,
Pete.
Thanks Pete. It was good to catch up and use the terrain I had been working on for a while.
I thought I felt a disturbance in the force, as if two juggernauts of the hobby had collided! this must have been it!😁
Cheers Roger.
You are absolutely right! One of the topics of discussion was our diets and the weight we had lost since the Covid lard retention!
Thanks to both yourself and SWMBO for a great day and a delicious lunch! The table was great and a lot of fun to play on with some bloody nicely painted figures!
I’ve since had some thoughts on the game and mechanics:
I thought I was going to get creamed with only 1 model (initially) that could hurt the Vamps, and then the addition of Stake-launcher guy. If Holmes had been taken out, I’d have been toast!
Which leads me to my second thought – the use of D8/10/12s really leads to a “spiky” and somewhat unpredictable set of rolls – this made Holmes’ reroll ability into a game-changer where in other systems (d6 especially) it’s a nice thing to have – here it became the biggest influence on the game. I also felt like my dice rolls were on the extremes – a lot of 1s, but then several 12s and 8s as well – in a system like this though, a 1 is pretty much the same as a 4 or 5 a lot of the time, so the extremes worked out a lot more useful than a game with many more mid-rolls.
The +1 is nice, but that re-roll was a (the) real killer!
Definitely a lot of fun and a game I’d be more than happy to play again. I may have to build and paint a warband or two, but which era or genre is the question…
It was great to host you and great to catch up.
Likewise!