The adventures of Tim the Necromancer: Dark Alchemy 3

The one benefit to having a mild dose of the covid I’ve found is that I’ve been able to get a bunch of solo gaming in, as I managed to also complete the third and final scenario of the Dark Alchemy campaign this week.

I set up the 3x3 board with plenty of rubble and broken walls:

And selected some appropriate miniatures for the scenario specified foes, the Fire Flingers:

Normally, I’d want to make and paint a specific miniature for the required creatures for a scenario, potentially delaying getting to play for weeks, but this week I’ve just cracked on and played with what I’ve got. So, robots! The same can be said for the fire templates - after looking online, considering building some, I had my daughter colour me some instead:

This scenario started off much stronger than the previous two, as I was actually able to successfully Leap my Thief over to some treasure, but then normality resumed as I repeatedly failed to cast easy spells like Bone Dart throughout. Rather than standing there getting set on fire after another unsuccessful spell, Tim decided he’d rather get up close and personal with a robot, and promptly battered it:

On the other side of the board things were going much the same - the Thief ran to grab as much treasure as she could, dashing between two advancing defenders, while the Apprentice raised a zombie to draw the fire of the three robots bearing down on them:

Even using the gloves of casting he still had to cut to get the spell off, but if he hadn’t he and the Thief had just walked straight into a crossfire between three enemies…

Unfortunately things went less to plan when the first shot absolutely vaporised the zombie, but luckily ducking and diving prevents the Thief from taking any damage (while it turns out I can only roll low numbers for my gang when attacking, when defending I apparently am on fire this game).

As Tim reduces his opponent to a pile of scrap metal, he and his Apprentice resume their attempts to Bone Dart their foes. Unsuccessfully. I took Bone Dart because I had so much success with the first time I played at Salute, but given how little success I’m having with it now I wonder if it’s success was more nostalgia than memory!

Spurred on by his master’s success using martial rather than mystical arts, the Apprentice decided to try his hand at combat rather than getting blasted with fire:

Again, in a shocking turn of events he actually managed to land a mighty blow on the robot.

While all this is going on, the Thief is taking advantage of all of the enemies being distracted to hoover up treasure tokens:

Even if it was slightly hair-raising dodging between fire templates, hoping that we didn’t get unlucky enough for them to move and potentially hit the Thief, as if they got taken out I imagine the spill of Treasure Tokens would have been much like Sonic the Hedgehog spilling rings when he gets hit…

The Tracker at this point is now the main target for the robots’ ire, but much like the Thief seems to be successfully dodging every fireball (the dice were on my side this game when it came to defence - I think the only damage any of my models took all game was from unsuccessful spell casting). The Tracker continues to play hide and seek, popping out from behind walls to ineffectually plink arrows at the Fire Flingers.

 

Tim, not wanting to venture too far from the edge of the board for fear of being caught in the room when it exploded, goes to grab the second to last treasure. ‘Wait a second, I’m a wizard, I’ll raise a zombie to carry that for me’ he thinks, only to fail to do so on his first attempt. The next turn he succeeds though, and bravely (foolishly?) ventures towards the centre of the room to see if he can farm some more xp make the area safer by destroying some hazardous robots.

The Apprentice, seeing that time is running out, finally manages to blast the robot that he’s spent pretty much the whole game tangling with, and beats a hasty retreat out of the room, as do the Thief and Tracker, practically jingling with the amount of treasure that they have accrued. 

Tim attempts to destroy the last enemy at range, but unfortunately isn’t able to bring it down in one hit, and so has to leave the lone slightly confused robot as the room explodes.

So, much more successful than previous games, with no casualties and a decent haul of treasure! Alas no magic items or weapons this time, but I did get some more potions, and between the gold I found and what I made from selling a agrimonies that I found of a spell I already new (Control Undead) I have plenty of options for the future! 

So, what does the future hold? I’m a specialist down with the death of my Crossbow, and should probably hire an apothecary to get at least a little bit of healing into the warband, plus I want to hire a Captain, probably playing through the ‘Alone in the Crypt’ scenario with them before they can link up with the group…