Rangers of Shadow Deep; Building the Company part 1

Both Andy and myself really enjoyed our first game of Rangers of Shadow Deep, and we're looking forward to playing more of the campaign. I cobbled together terrain and minis for that first game, but it would be nice (and a spur to get me doing some painting and modelling) if we had a better set of minis and terrain.  So I picked up some Frostgrave sprues to build some dedicated Rangers and Companions at RECON. 

The First Three Builds

Before I plunge into building our Rangers I thought I'd practice on the Companions.

Skegi survived his rat bite and managed to avoid catching a disease. He's a Man-at-Arms, so wears light armour and uses a hand weapon and shield. The book suggests that men-at-arms are drawn from Alladore's army, and I wanted a mini to reflect this. I had planned to use the Frostgrave soldiers sprue for most of the Companions, but the military background got me thinking.  I've plenty of the Oathmark Human Infantry left from my Kingdoms of Men Kings of War Ambush force, suitably military looking if I can match the equipment. The Oathmark sprue does have bows and hand weapons, but no two handed weapons or crossbows, so I looked to the Frostgrave Soldiers sprue for these.  Given that I was using Frostgrave arms I thought about using the heads too, but they don't quite fit the Oathmark torsos.  Nothing a bit of greenstuff couldn't fix, but why make life difficult?

Oathmark torso and Frostgrave arms

Arthur is a Guardsman, essentially the same as a Man-at-Arms, but with a two handed weapon instead of the hand weapon and shield.  Again, the components are a mix of Oathmark and Frostgrave, it took me a while to find the correct left arm on the sprue, but I really like the end result.

Oathmark torso and head with Frostgrave arms

Uli is and archer with the crossbow option.  The arms with the crossbow come from the Frostgrave sprue, and the quiver is a cut down version of one of the quivers on the Frostgrave sprue.  There is a case of bolts on the sprue, but its not obvious what it is, so I went for something that was.

Another Oathmark torso and head, with Frostgrave arms, crossbow and quiver

Apart from the general clean up of parts, I removed the solid base as they will all be mounted on clear bases.  The Frostgrave arms all have a sort of shoulder pad which I shaved off to better fit on the torso.

All three Companions are assembled and are awaiting painting, but I'll get the three women built before I start painting.

L to R Skegi, Uli and Arthur

RECON 2024 End of an Era?

Saturday saw the last RECON show at Pudsey Civic Hall. It's always been one of my favourite shows, and I went to one of the first ones in a church hall in Leeds. The first shows featured a Hordes of the Things tournament, and I was pleased to see that there was still one being played today.

I met up with both Bodvoc and the Settle and District Gamers and T'Other One and had a good browse.

I didn't take any more pictures as my phone was just about out of battery, but there were some great demo games, including a stunning Starship Troopers siege and some large scale 40K stuff. One table was set up as a lovely English village, it even boasted of being the winner of the Britain in Bloom competition, I have the feeling that something nasty was about to happen though.

The Goodies

My haul was pretty limited; a new brush, some non-metallic paint agitators, some pipettes and syringes for adding sealant to textures and some d10s for Warlords of Erehwon.

Minis wise I restricted myself to just some Frostgrave Soldiers and Wizards, in both cases the newer sets. I'm going to be using these for Rangers of Shadow Deep, amongst other games, and I'm already planning how to kitbash Besaria.

I hope RECON continues at another venue, there do seem to be fewer games shows in my area these days. At least Chillcon should be back in Sheffield next year.

Trying Rangers of Shadow Deep; The Deserted Village

Recently I tried Rangers of Shadow Deep. I've owned the book since 2020, it seemed a sensible idea to try a game that could be played solo back then. However, I did very little gaming at all and it got put back on the shelf.

For a while I thought Fistful of Lead would replace my various other skirmish games. I still like it, especially for Star Wars, but playing Frostgrave with Andy and Grim reminded me of how much fun Joseph McCulloch's game engine can be.

When Andy mentioned that he'd be in the area and fancied a game of something, it seemed a great opportunity to finally get RoSD on the table. So here's our first game, with apologies for the rather 'thrown together' look of the terrain and minis.

Uli, Portus Fell, Skegi, Arthur, Besaria and Ellen

Rangers of the Shadow Deep is a solo/co-op game that plays through a series of written missions telling the struggle of the kingdom of Alladore after it's neighbour Lorenthia is consumed by a mystical darkness, The Shadow Deep. We played the first scenario of the first mission; our Rangers and their companions were investigating and eerie abandoned village where Aventine, a fellow ranger, had gone missing. As we stood in the village centre pondering what to do, groans and moans announced the arrival of the undead.

The Rangers and Companions explore the village 

"It's too quiet, where is everyone?" "Wait, what's that sound?"

The Opening Moves 

Portus Fell Enchanted her sword in preparation for the dangers ahead and Ellen shot at an approaching zombie but missed.

Besaria used her deeper understanding of magic to Enchant both her and Portus' armour. Uli cranked back his crossbow and skewered a second zombie, dropping it to the ground.

The zombies shuffled forwards, some seemed more interested in the buildings than the Rangers.

In response, Arthur moved up ready and Skegi, spotting an ugly rat, charged it. Sadly, he missed it completely. It flew at him in a frenzy and the poor chap fell screaming to the ground.

Still, one zombie down, but then the rangers spied four more closing in on the village.

Portus ran to the house to see what was attracting the zombie. Inside she found a villager huddled in a corner. "Come with me if you want to live" she called. 

Besaria investigated the rough looking inn. Inside was a body. A quick inspection revealed bite marks; she had an idea what might have caused them, perhaps that was behind the mystery of the village. Did it also explain Avantine's disappearance? 

The zombies shuffled closer, some moving towards what looked like bodies in the woods, others towards the rangers and their companions.

Ellen loosed at another zombie, missing again, and then retreated back to the well in the village centre. Uli showed her how it was done, dropping that zombie too. The villager moved to the relative safety of the well and Ellen's protection and Arthur squashed the rat, vengeance for Skegi.

Two zombies and a rat down, but further moans announced the arrival of two more zombies.

Skegi falls to a rat.  The ignominy

The Main Phase 

Portus charged a zombie on the edge of the village. Despite her superior swordplay, she was unable to damage it. 

Arthur moved round to investigate a body. Sadly there was nothing to be done for the unfortunate, but he was able to identify the strange tracks around the body.

Besaria ran out of the inn and hacked at an approaching zombie. Like Portus she easily beat it, but couldn't hurt it. Still she forced it away. Taking advantage of this, Uli shot it, his bolt smashing through it's skull (a critical hit!).

Ellen once more failed to hit any of the undead, and two more were approaching.

Besaria conjured a Fireball, burning a couple of zombies to a crisp. Uli took aim at another, but missed.

Portus investigated another body. This poor villager was dead, but ironically was clutching a bunch of Healing Herbs. 

Arthur was charged by a zombie that gave him a nasty wound.

Two more zombies shambled forwards to contact Ellen and Besaria.

Arthur struck back, beating his opponent away, while Ellen took out her zombie, then moved back.

The poor villager, overcome with the horrors he was witnessing, froze in place by the well.

Besaria beat back her zombie and Uli shot another, but couldn't quite finish it off.

Portus took advantage of the injured zombie's confusion to put another arrow in it, bringing it down.

A rat made a surprise appearance (we missed it, hidden away by the side of a building), charging into Ellen and felling her.

Arthur fared better and led a couple of zombies a merry dance away from the village.  He hoped to outpace them and investigate a couple more bodies he had seen. 

Unseen by the rangers and their companions, a couple of diseased rats snuck out of the buildings.

Mopping Up

Portus Fell charged into another zombie, chopping it down, but taking a wound in exchange.

Besaria uses her arcane training to recall the details of the Fireball spell, and launches it at the newly appeared rats and an encroaching zombie.  Both rats are incinerated, but the badly burnt undead stagers on. Seeing the danger to the villager frozen in fear, she then moves up to stand between him and the enemies.  It was fortunate she did, as a rat and then the still burning zombie moved in.  She was able to despatch both enemies.

Arthur, outrunning his undead pursuers, found the body of the missing Ranger, Aventine (sadly he didn't recognise the importance of the sword).

As the Rangers looked around they breathed a sigh of relief.  Only one zombie could be seen, shambling after Arthur.  Then with a crash, the Rough Inn collapsed, fortunately, no one was near enough to suffer damage.

Seeing Uli bleeding profusely, Besaria used her healing magic to help him.  Portus inspected another body, only to have it spring up and attack.  Fortunately, she quickly swung her sword, beheading it (another critical hit!).  Arthur turned to face the oncoming zombie and smashed it with his warhammer (another critical hit!).

Portus is just about to move, allowing Besaria to Fireball the rats and zombie near the building

Another view of the village centre just before the second Fireball, the last few rats and zombies were soon despatched 

Summing up

This was a great fun game. There were times, especially early on when I lost Skegi, that we thought we wouldn't survive. The event cards gave us lots of zombies in the first few turns, but that did mean that, once they were dealt with, the pressure slacked off in the last couple of turns, not that they were any less exciting!

The system works really well and our familiarity with Frostgrave helped a lot.  There is a good sense of following a story, but with enough choice and random elements to keep it fresh. We are both looking forward to playing the next scenario in the mission, where we confront the source of the zombies and find what made those tracks.

If you like the sound of RoSD, its available as a pdf from Drive Thru RPG.

A Note On Terrain and Minis

I put this game together in a bit of a rush.  Of course I plan to have a set of dedicated RoSD minis and terrain, all matched to missions.  Eventually.

For this I grabbed a couple of 'ranger-y' minis and used my Oldhammer dwarves for the Companions.  The zombies and rats came from my Frostgrave collection.

I scavenged through several terrain boxes for trees, and was surprised at just how many I found.  Some of them need a bit of attention though, better and more consistent basing for a start.  

You may recognise the Bake House from the Great British Terrain Build-Off.  The remaining buildings were built decades ago based on card buildings in various Warhammer Fantasy Battle Scenario packs (and reprinted in the Village Pack).  I think the tall building is from Terror of the Lichemaster, the wooden planked building is the Rough Inn from The Tragedy of McDeath, and the small cottage is, I think, from one of the early Citadel journals.  I'm pleased with how well they stand up (not just physically, but in comparison to the Bake House).  Someday I'll get around to basing them and doing bits of repair work to bring them up to match my current terrain builds.

Camel Up; MEGAforce Board Game Night

After a virus that seems to have robbed me of nearly a month, I can finally get back to gaming and hobby stuff.

The most recent MEGAforce meeting was my first evening out in ages.

Grim brought along a game called Camel Up. A game where the idea is to make the most money betting on camel races in a desert. 

The game is simple enough, although the instructions seemed to overcomplicate it a bit. As is often the case, a quick skim of the rules helped, but actually playing was the best way to learn*.

The game is played over a series of legs and finishes when the first camel crosses the finish line. Players have the opportunity to bet on each leg as well as the final result. They can also use the dice to move camel(s) and there are oasis hazards that generate money and move camels back or forwards.

There are a couple of features that make Camel Up great fun. Movement is controlled by five different coloured dice (corresponding to the camels). A cardboard pyramid holds these dice and is inverted to roll one when the camels are moved. Once all five dice have been rolled, that particular leg is done. The race carrys on, with the camels continuing from where they are, but there's a chance to gain or lose money depending on what bets have been placed during that leg.

The other fun feature is The Stack. Camels sharing the same space are stacked, and the meeples are designed so they easily do so. Camel Up indeed! Stacks are moved as a unit, meaning some camels can end up being moved several times in a leg. 

The game at the finish. White wins! Both white and yellow are top of a stack. My money was on blue at the back (which did get me a small payout).

Overall, another great fun game that deserves placing in A tier.

Play time was a bit under an hour, it's sure to speed up now we know the rules, and I'd happily play again.

There are betting strategies that we were just getting the hang of, and Grim's placement of his oasis raked in a lot of cash for him.

It's also taught me that I probably should keep my betting to imaginary races rather than real life.

*We made one small mistake regarding movement of stacks combined with an oasis. The proper rules look to be even more fun.

Last Night On Earth; MEGAforce Board Game Night

While editing my recent post about Hanabi and Sushi Go, I realised that I forgot to post this regarding the previous MEGAforce meeting, so here it is.

The most recent MEGAforce meeting was the closest to Halloween that we'll get, so T'Other One suggested a game of Last Night on Earth, which seemed appropriate.

The game usually plays with one player running the zombies and the rest are the survivors. Unlike Zombies! which we played a while ago, the survivors are working together to achieve an objective.

For this particular scenario there were two zombie players, and Grim and I ran a couple of survivors each. The goal was to keep the manor house in the centre of the board as free from zombies as possible. The zombie players were trying to have nine or more zombies in the manor house at daybreak.

Now I'm not a great zombie fan, and a lot of the references, tropes and in jokes pass me by. I am a fan of good games though, and Last Night On Earth IS pretty good. 

Game Play

The cards all feature photos of the game designers and friends either as survivors or made up as zombies. Items are photos of those things. The minis are well done and are instantly recognisable from the cards and T'Other One has done a great job of painting the survivors to match the artwork.

Game play is straightforward, with the chance to search locations (draw cards), move, and, of course, fight zombies.

Fighting zombies is risky. The survivor rolls 2d6 against the zombie's 1d6. Merely beating the zombie only drives it back; to destroy it, the survivor must also roll doubles. The secret is in getting equipment to help.

Zombies and Survivors have their own event decks, which can give the survivors equipment, or can be played to help or hinder.

The game does give the feeling of being beleaguered, those zombies just don't stop, and can be nasty, especially in numbers.

At sunrise we'd managed to keep the zombie numbers in the manor below nine, but this was at the cost of three out of the four survivors. We ended up drawing out the zombies (they have to move up to survivors in adjacent spaces), but only the nurse survived.

If I were a bigger fan of the Undead, Last Night on Earth might squeeze into S tier, but since I'm not, and most of the references are lost on me, I'll stick it in A tier due to the great game play, atmosphere and the great touch of using photographs of the designers.

Hanabi and Sushi Go; MEGAforce Board Game Night

We played a couple of different card based games recently, Hanabi, by Antoine Bauza and Sushi Go by Phil Walker-Harding.

Hanabi 

We played on 4th of November, so Hanabi was very appropriate. It's a cooperative game involving a group of firework manufacturers putting on a display.

Unfortunately, all the labels have been lost, so we have to rely on clues from each other, and hope to get the display ready before an oncoming storm.

This works by each player having a hand of five cards, but players never see their own hands. All the other players do, and this is how they can give hints. The cards are one of five colours (white, red, blue, yellow and green) and one of five numbers. The fireworks must be built up in numerical order, must be a single colour and there can only be one of each colour.

On their turn, players can give a hint to another player by telling them which of their cards are a particular colour or number, or discard one of their own cards, or play one of their cards. The number of hints are limited, but can be bought back by discarding, and playing a wrong card brings the storm closer.

We played a couple of games, scoring 14 the first time, and 18 the second, out of a maximum of 25.

Endgame, apparently this score is 'Excellent; the crowd are delighted'

A great fun game, with a straight forward mechanic, but requiring a good bit of thought (and, apparently, a better short term memory than I possess). 

Definitely A tier.

Sushi Go

A fast, fun card game where the object is to build a meal over three rounds, making sure you have enough puddings at the end of course.

We've played Sushi Go quite a few times now, and it's a good one to have handy to fill in ten to twenty minutes at the end of an evening.

When I first played, this was my first experience of 'pick and pass', where the players swap hands each turn. Thus you know what each hand is after a while, and strategies can be built around denying players cards that might benefit them.

Some dishes are worth points on their own, some are worth more in combinations, and some require other cards.

Puddings are played through all three rounds, but are only applied at the very end, gaining or loosing points for having most or least puddings.

While I don't like Sushi, I really enjoy this game. Part of this is the speed of play, there always seems to be time to squeeze in a quick game. Partly for this reason it earns a solid A.

Two good A tier games*. Hanabi is great for getting the mind working. Sushi Go for a quick game.

Both games are available from various online retailers, and at least one chain of UK booksellers stocks Shushi Go.

*Don't let that put you off, both are very highly recommended, but they don't quite provide the gaming experience that I get from, say, Moon.

ORCTOBER - Challenge Compete (Just)

At the beginning of October I set myself the challenge of painting up 500 points of orcs for Fantastic Battles using my old 6mm Irregular Miniatures collection.  Bodvoc agreed to join in with elves, as he has quite a few.

To make it easy on myself I chose to use my already painted minis and see if they were worth salvaging.  With a bit of a wash and some extra highlighting they turned out fine.  

I did have a bit of a setback with the samples I tried first.  When I last showed them they had had an initial wash to deal with the rather bright and flat painting.  

But then I gave them my standard 'orc wash' of 50:50 Army Painter Soft tone and Strong tone washes.  This gave a far darker effect than I was looking for, but a bit more highlighting helped rescue them.

As I was working through my already painted stuff, I knew that I wasn't going to produce a particularly effective army.  I was able to look at most of the painted stuff and see how I could use it, giving me something I can add to in the future.

The Finished Army 

So here it is, my 6mm orc force.  Using the traits I'm experimenting with, it works out at 673 points.  This is, of course, subject to change as I try them in battle.

Characters, the larger 20mm diameter base is the Warlord, the middle sized base (actually a button) are is a captain on wolf, and the single minis are two rogues, one orc and one warg.

Warriors, these five companies are made up of strips and part strips from the orc command, archers, warriors and spearmen.

Wolves, these two companies are wolves I painted ages ago.  Their strips are wider than most of the infantry, so have been cut up to allow repositioning and to provide the lone warg 'rogue'. I now paint my wolves/wargs much darker using a palette of greys, as seen in my 10mm LotR Mordor army.  I may repaint these at a later date (this is also why I didn't get the wolf riders ready, I wasn't sure if I should repaint the wolves.

Artillery, these companies were previously painted, I simply gave them a wash and added a few highlights. I do want to revisit these to add some ammunition (boulders and giant bolts) to the bases.

Chariots, one of these four companies was already painted.  I retouched the paintwork and painted up the other three from scratch, can you tell which one was the original?

Trolls, these were painted up from scratch, and are done more in the style of my larger scale minis.  They have a lot of character, and I can't decide what the little orc riding the trolls' shoulders is doing.  Is that helmet some sort of control device?  I have to admit that the reason I did these was to garner some easy points in the challenge.

Terrain Too

The challenge included producing a piece of themed terrain.  I struggled with this, partly because 6mm themed terrain doesn't always work well when the minis are based in companies.  Forts with battlements look odd with a 25mm wide wall walk.  I'm also short of any 6mm terrain, so it seemed a bit indulgent to work on something that only one army would get to use.

But then another root through my box of 6mm stuff turned up 4 huts.  I'd painted these years ago, but I've completely repainted them and they'll do nicely as an orc village.  I haven't based them yet as I want some slightly bigger bases to add a bit of extra decoration, like looted standards and other trophies. 

Future Additions?

Initially I planned to rescue some orc archers for a company of bows, but I decided to include them in small numbers among the warriors to represent the irregular nature of the orcs and explain the minor short range shooting attack they have.  I will rescue more of the archers and base up some dedicated companies of bows.  I also have a couple of companies of wolf riders which I never finished, they will have to wait for now.

I've also got some of the Man-Orc range, which make suitably impressive 'elite'.  None of these are painted yet, but they'll make great Formed Companies of slightly better quality troops, and I can take advantage of the different weapons options rather than just lumping lots of different types in an irregular company.

I've got a lot of 6mm goblins which are already painted. When I did my dwarves I also based these up as an opposing force. While they are well enough painted, the strips are difficult to cut up to give an irregular look. I'm not sure if they should be a separate army or a part of the orc army.

So that's another Orctober challenge done, and it's got me well on my way to having another Fantastic Battles army. It also makes inroads into the Lead Mountain and helps me decide what to keep and what to move on. Like the dwarves, I'll probably aim for 1000 points, perhaps with a few options. I've certainly got sufficient 6mm fantasy stuff for this, and I've several more armies to start too.

If you want to see how Bodvoc did, his elves are on his blog.