The price is right and it seemed up my alley - a quick game on a small board. I picked it up and decided to give it a go.
Set Up
I rolled randomly for items of impassable terrain.
I decided to play the ambush scenario. A gang of thugs (black Meeples) surround and attack my hero, Sir Grey.
Sir Grey's objective is to defeat all the bad guys.
The Fight
The thugs activate first. One thug advances and attacks. Sir Grey takes a wound. Fortunately, he can take 6 wounds.The thugs keep winning initiative, but their attacks fail. They are not as hardy as Sir Grey. Soon, a pile of bodies grows at Sir Grey's feet.
I enjoyed the game. It was quick and simple.
I like that the bad guys are weak (they take 1 wound) while the hero has a lot of health (6 wounds). This allows the hero to plow through a horde of enemies and still win.
I did not care for the card activation system. I must admit that I did not feel like searching for a pack of cards so I substituted a die roll. As a result, I skipped over some nuances. For example, the Ace of Hearts allows the hero to regain 1 health.
My big issue is that the side that activates gets to do stuff while the other side just sits there. For example, for several turns, Sir Grey just stood in the middle of the field while enemies rushed him one at a time. For future games, I'll probably change the activation system.
Hurray for Meeples
One problem I have with using miniatures for fantasy skirmishes is that I have difficulties finding just the right figures. This even applies to tokens. For example, I wanted to try out today's skirmish using the counters from THW's Warrior Heroes of Talomir Quick Play. After a few minutes of digging through the pile looking for 6 orcs, I gave up. What I like about my Meeples is the black ones can stand in as any humanoid enemy.
Thanks for the tip Kevin.
ReplyDeleteI really like the concept of a quick, solitaire friendly game on a small tabletop/battlefield - so far this ticks a fair few “positive” boxes.
I do, however, have some reservations about the game. If the bad guys are soooo weak then attacking the hero one-on-one makes no sense. Why not rush the hero, so he has to face multiple attackers from different directions? And surely if they’ve just seen, say, 3+ fellow baddies chopped down then I’d have expected the survivors would be running for the hills (and not hanging around to, presumably, face the same fate as their fellow baddies). Still, add a fair few house rules and the game might be more of a challenge.
I’m still very much of a figure gamer.
Cheers,
Geoff
The activation mechanism only allows one baddie to activate at a time, so attacks will naturally be piecemeal. Which is another reason I may dabble with activation. As you say, it could also use a morale mechanism. Hmmm.
DeleteHello, I am glad that you liked my little game. Of course there is much room for modifications (and I think there will be some expansions in the future). For example, about the activation mechanism, if you want to add multiple fighting, you could roll for how many Villains are activated in their turn. Add rules for morale, if you like (in one of the scenarios there is such a thing). I made that only one Villain is activated at a time, to make things simpler and also because very often, it's how the baddies do in the movies! Using pawns instead of miniatures is a good alternative, anyway the Villains don't need to be of the same type (your Sir Grey can meet one ork, two goblins and one skeleton, for example, if you don't have enough orks). Cheers and happy gaming!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely going to play around with it a bit when I get a chance!
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