On Father’s Day, one child fell asleep early and the other wanted mummy for bed, so I quickly pulled together the bits I needed for a sneaky game!
I decided to play on a 2.5 x 2.5 table rather than 3 foot square, mostly because it fits on my dining room table without overhanging:
I did set the pool 1.5 feet away from my starting edge rather than central though, so it’s still as far away as it would be if I were playing on a 3 foot table (plus, it’s not like there’s anyone coming from the other edge to race me to it).
Like the Tabletop Engineer in his solo campaign, I rolled for monsters for the three edges other than the one my band was starting on. I like the Tabletop Engineer, I didn’t limit it to a specific column of the table, and so ended up staring down a wraith and three ghouls.
And so begins the adventure of Tim the necromancer deciding to stop off at a magic drinking fountain to power up as he’s been having issues getting his spells off.
(Although before we start - after the last game, Tim added an apothecary and a man at arms to his group, losing a thug and a thief to do so)
The ghouls shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but the wraith is a bit of a worry - the only way Tim has to deal with that is a Grenade spell, bonking it with his staff of power, or the Captain (potentially using up an irreplaceable magic arrow if she doesn’t want to risk getting close enough to fight it with her magic sword).
Before the game, both Tim and his apprentice attempt to brew a potion (to stock up on healing potions), but both fail (coincidentally both only rolling a 9 on the dice).
As the game begins proper, the thief runs ahead, and Tim attempts to cast Leap on her to give her a good head start on grabbing some treasure… and fails the casting roll by 8. Some things never change, eh?
As they bundle up the centre, the apprentice’s group (nicknamed team non-magical murder, and thus deployed far away from the scary wraith) start their assault on the ghouls to the right - the tracker shoots an arrow and scores a hit, but not tellingly enough to tell one of them.
The Apprentice briefly considers casting Strength on the barbarian (which would turn them into even more of a wrecking ball), then changes his mind when he realised that he could just about manage a cheeky Grenade spell on the ghouls. Using his gloves of casting, he’d need to roll an 11 on the dice to succeed - which he makes exactly!
The unwounded ghoul of the pair unfortunately rolls a 20 when seeing if they’re harmed, but the previously wounded one suffers a blast powerful enough that it would have taken it out of action even if it had been at full health!
In the Creature phase, the ghoul that survived the explosion heads towards the tracker, only to change their mind as he comes round the corner and finds himself face to face with an angry barbarian:
Seeing this, the Captain claims a vantage point and looses one of her precious magic arrows - and hits, thanks to the +1 magic of the arrow, and kills the wraith in one shot! That wasn’t so scary after all…
At the end of the first turn, I realised that I hadn’t actually decided what I was going to do about additional monsters coming on during the game, so I quickly watched a tabletop engineer video in fast forward on YouTube to see what he did! I rolled for it, and rolled an 11, which caused a skeleton to wander on where the wraith had previously been.
Turn 2, I realised that I’d made a tactical mistake, as the barbarian was too far away from the apprentice to activate in his phase before the ghoul would get a chance to attack - ahh well, she’s pretty tough (and also in hindsight, it doesn’t matter, as she was planning on fighting anyway, so it doesn’t make a difference who’s activation they do it in!)
As the thief and man at arms move forwards to attempt to secure some treasure, Tim moves up to the well…
Figuring it will still be there next turn, Tim decides to use his second action to attempt a spell (and potentially reap some more XP too), and tried to cast Leap. Which he fails by 4 points. Dammit Tim! He uses his staff of power and 3 points of health to turn it into a successful casting instead (for the extra XP as much as anything else) and sends the treasure laden man at arms flying off towards the edge of the board.
The apprentice, meanwhile, casts Strength on the barbarian, and although he fails by one point, cuts to turn it into a success. That ghoul isn’t looking quite so scary now!
In the creature phase, the ghoul swings at the barbarian but fumbles! Due to their own low roll, the barbarian only manages to do 4 points of damage to the ghoul, most of the work in this combat being done by their two handed weapon. The knight then bundles in to support the barbarian, and wipes the ghoul off of the map, much to the barbarian’s annoyance.
The Tracker attempts to snap a shot off at the skeleton that is now bearing down on the Captain, but misses in his haste.
The Bullywug thug is torn - does he bundle the skeleton to support the Captain, or should he move up and try to lure away the ghoul just ahead of him to give the thief a clear path to some treasure?
Seeing the Captain brandishing their magic sword, he opts for the latter… which is fair enough, as the Captain almost effortlessly smashed the skeleton to splinters.
At the end of turn 2, a spider scuttles onto the board, directly between the treasure laden man at arms and the exit…
Turn 3, Tim takes a handful of water and sups it. It tastes… slightly chlorinated? Bemused, he summons a zombie to help carry treasure.
The apprentice then tried cunning rather than brute force, and casts Slow on the spider, hoping that will buy enough time for the knight to intercept it and let the man at arms escape with the loot.
The remaining ghoul takes the bait, and stumbles towards the Bullywug thug, while the slowed spider scuttles into contact with the knight. Finally, my plans seem to be coming together!
As the Captain strips the wraith’s corpse of wraith dust (as I figured I’d use the rules from Spellcaster magazine for harvesting body parts - the downside to which is using those XP tables meant I got a bunch less XP than I would have done using the generic amount from the scenario, but that wouldn’t have made a huge difference truth be told) I suddenly realised that Tim could have cast Control Undead on it instead of fighting it, and had a near invincible soldier on his side. Ah well, you live and learn…
Over on the other side of the board, the tracker bundles over to support the knight fighting the spider, and since they draw gets bitten and poisoned by it even as he smashes it with his staff.
The thief considers leaping in to gang up on the ghoul with the Bullywug thug, but seeing the barbarian rushing up behind her decides to stick to the original plan and focus on grabbing the furthermost treasure token. The Bullywug thug then managed to land a glancing blow on the ghoul he was fighting, dealing 3 damage to it, but not able to put it down.
At the end of the turn, 4 giant rats scrabble onto the board near the Captain:
The Apprentice then drinks from the well, and is equally disappointed that there is no Highlander style bolt of lightning from the sky. He then attempts to Leap the thief and their treasure towards the edge of the board, but fails by 6 points, taking 1 point of damage.
The ghoul flubs his attack against the Bullywug thug, and is struck down for his temerity.
Rolling randomly to see which rat was the pack leader, as there were two options as to what they would do depending on which end of the group the leader was - left round the wall if the leader was at the Bullywug end, or right for the Captain end. And it was the Captain end.
The man at arms manages to get off the board with his treasure token, while the zombie picks up another and begins the slow march to the edge of the board, while the knight and tracker move to intercept him, potentially to hand off the treasure and run it off the board, potentially just to shield him from any future encroaching monsters.
While the thief likewise attempts to make their escape, the Bullywug thug and barbarian rush to the aid of the outnumbered Captain, who uses her Furious Attack skill to counteract the weight of numbers she’s facing and jacks a rat apart.
For the first time all game, I roll low enough at the end of the turn that no new monsters appear on the board.
Tim repositions to launch a Grenade spell over the Captain’s head to catch 3 rats in it’s blast. He fails his casting roll by 1, so cuts to turn it into a success, and the apothecary feeds him a potion to take him back up to full health. Despite some spectacularly poor rolls on my part, due to rats having terrible armour (who knew?) Tim still manages to blast two of them apart.
The Apprentice tries using the old faithful spell Bone Dart to snipe the last rat, but fails badly enough that he hurts himself. The rat, incensed at this affront, attacks the Captain - but rolls a 1, and is promptly dispatched.
The zombie hands off his treasure token to the tracker, who promptly sprints it off the board, as does the thief with hers.
At this point, it’s all over, as everyone is now one move away from getting off the board except Tim, who would then be able to leave the turn after. I rolled to see where the next wandering monster would enter, and whether that would be a position to stop him freely leaving, but they would have appeared on the opposite side of the board to the one he was heading off so I called time on the game.
In the post game, the Captain gained a chunk of XP, but not enough to gain another level. Tim, however, gained 355 XP - rounded down to 300, as the maxim you can gain from a single game. He gained a point of health (he needs that for spellcasting, it seems!), improved his ability to cast the spell Brew Potion (as he never seems to get it off, and I’d feel more comfortable with a stash of free health potions rattling around in his belt pouches). I then had to bank the third 100XP, as I didn’t have any grimoires to learn new spells from!
The three treasure tokens turned out to be some money, a magic item (a ring of transference), and a Grimoire - featuring the Leap spell, which Tim already knows, so he sold that off. After this Captain takes her cut, that leaves Tim with an additional 340 gold for his coffers! At which point I remembered that his home base is a treasury, so I rolled to see what they found - no magic items, alas, but they did find another 15 gold in a previously thought emptied vault.
And so, Tim and the gang return to their base in suitable style:
What next for Tim? I might roll on the black market to see what items are on offer (as I could really use a grumpier or two, and maybe some magic weapons so that any future wraiths aren’t quite so scary). That, or maybe some upgrades for his base - maybe a doghouse?
[edit- I rolled on the black market tables to see what I could buy immediately after publishing this post, and it was a pair of useless scrolls, a grimoire of combat awareness (which seems to be functionally similar to strength, which Tim already knows) and a rather tasty looking magic cloak… which I can’t afford]
Your game reports are always enjoyable! Tense and exciting till the very end, hehe. Keep them going!
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