Monday, March 16, 2020

Blood Moon

OK, so the whole point of Rollin' With My Homies is to discuss gaming with my friends... but between my own poor health for the last six weeks and the sudden outbreak of a global pandemic, I am going to be posting my non-Nordic Weasel solo gaming endeavours here as well (because, really, this is a better idea than a new blog titled Playing With Myself.) So, without further ado, here is a report of a solo game.

Rangers Of The Shadow Deep is a nice solo gaming offering from Joseph McCollough, the mastermind behind Frostgrave. It is, essentially, a lower-powered version of that game designed for either single player or a cooperative group of two to four. The rulebook includes four sets of missions, and there is another available for free called Blood Moon. I've played through the first mission, The Missing, from the rulebook three times now and I really wanted to give Blood Moon a try with a starting Ranger. My solo games of Rangers use papercraft standees instead of full three dimensional miniatures, so building a warband and all the involved creatures is quick and easy, unless I forget a few and need to keep printing more stuff. Building the terrain required for the missions can take a bit longer.

Deployment

In any case, I spent a couple weeks working on the terrain for the scenario, and when I was finally ready I set about playing out the mission. In addition to the terrain called for by the rules, I added a couple of dead trees and two fields for some ambience. The fields counted as open terrain for this game.

Our Heroes (isn't that what I always call my own forces?)
The first couple of turns were mostly movement, although the special companion Orla dispatched a wolf in the first turn with a lucky shot. It was a short-lived victory, however, as another wolf arrived in a corner.

The end of Turn 1
Turn three saw the attack of two giant rats against the Conjuror and Turtle Power the Ranger on the boat in the pond, as well as the discovery of the first clue. Those rats really hurt Turtle Power! Orla dispatched the second wolf, the Giant Fly that had arrived at the end of Turn 2 chewed up Covin and the Turtle-At-Arms pretty hard, and finally a Swamp Zombie pulled itself out of the pond into the boat to attack Turtle Power. Over by the barn, the Swordsturtle and Seb hacked their way through the three Giant Flies. And then a blood chilling howl was heard...

The end of Turn 3
Turn four saw only Turtle Power and the Conjuror having two actions, everyone else was frightened by the howling and only had one action each. It took the combined might of Turtle Power and the Conjuror to defeat the Swamp Zombie The Swordsturtle revealed the second clue, with Seb and Nicolan rushing towards the manor house. The Giant Fly killed Covin, and it took both Orla and the Turtle-At Arms to bring it down. And then... more howling, more terror...

The end of Turn 4

Now, in Turn 5, things got interesting. Turtle Power found an Old Man hiding in the woods, the Conjuror found more Werewolf evidence in the cart, and Nicolan was revealed to be a Werewolf himself upon finding a clue about himself. Nicolan the Werewolf then charged at Seb while everyone rushed towards the manor house...

The end of Turn 5

While Turtle Power, the Conjuror, and the Old Man struggled to unlock the door on side of the manor house, Seb, the Turtle-At-Arms, the Swordsturtle, and Orla all struggled against Nicolan the Werewolf. And while they had hurt him, he was far from out of the fight. And then, to add insult to injury, another Werewolf was revealed in the manor house...

Werewolves unite! The end of Turn 6

A blurry end to a fine game...
The Conjuror unlocked the door. Turtle Power rushed in to attack the Werewolf, but was smited (smitten?) by the furry ball of fangs and claws. The Old Man attacked as well, but did little damage. Nicolan the Werewolf killed Seb, but Orla dispatched him with another lucky shot. The Turtle-At Arms then rushed the remaining werewolf and dispatched him with a mighty blow! Our Heroes were victorious! And then the Swordsturtle found a little girl hiding under a blanket...

The <insert profanity here> cat laid down on my cart! And squished it! Bad kitty! Bad! Bad!
After the game, survival was confirmed for Turtle Power, and she also was determined to be free of any lycanthropy (which is a bit of a bummer, because a turtle werewolf would be hilarious!) Seb was determined to be quite dead. And then Turtle Power received a total of 96 experience points. And then an interesting thing happened. I was re-reading the rules, trying to figure out if there was any special treasure in this mission, and I realized I had a mistake: auxiliary companions are not allowed to interact with clue markers, and so Nicolan would not have turned himself into a Werewolf upon finding the clue! I am going to keep the results of the game as they are, but I will be better informed when I next play through this mission with my friends.

Onwards to The Missing (again!) after I finish just a few more terrain pieces for the mission...

Rangers Of The Shadow Deep, Blood Moon, and associated products can be here.


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