This past weekend my good friend PenDull came over and we played a two-game mini-campaign.
We set up two 1000 credit gangs made from the Book of Iron for the Orlocks and the Book of Blades for the Escher. We played a straight-up Dominion Campaign from the main rule book and decided we would just play as many missions as we could.
As usually happens we got in fewer games than we probably could have, but catching up with old friends is priceless and neither of us wanted to hurry through the day just to get more games in.
We both used the House Favors and House Sub-Plots from our respective House books. For this first mission I rolled a 7, giving me the "Guns and Ammo" result. I rolled 6 which multiplied by ten gave me 60 extra credits to spend on weapons and equipment which I had to spend before the battle. I decided to give my Road Sergeant Radd Gruffhouse a suspensor.
PenDull got the same result and upgraded some of his Eschers with better equipment as well.
For the Sub-Plots, I rolled a 6 or "Take a Beating" which I decided I really didn't want to try and accomplish because it would mean that I would have to win the battle with only one fighter remaining on the battlefield to get the bonus and I prefer to keep my fighters safe if possible and not risk unnecessary injury.
The territory we were fighting over was the "Toll Crossing" a very flavorful and important territory for the Orlocks, I knew I had to win this one.
For the first scenario we rolled "Sabotage" and I was the attacker. Here is the battlefield we set up after using the rules in the main rulebook for setting up a table.
I set up on the edge at the bottom of the picture above. He set up 4 fighters scattered around the battlefield before I did. He did not know which edge I was going to take.
Turn one, the Arms Master, Bull MacFee opens fire on the Wild Runner, and the Orlock Wrecker Fio Tuffnow charges into the Wild Runner eventually killing her but also raising the alarm.
Now that the alarm was raised the Eschers start to immediately show up.
The Grenade Launcher Champion of the Escher Gang arrives and immediately fires her Grenade Launcher, making a huge cloud of smoke obscuring the objective from the Orlock's perspective.
The Escher's Leader somehow got confused and ended up on the wrong side of the battlefield when she arrived from reserve.
The one Escher arriving from reserve who did find their way to the perfect spot was the Death Maiden.
She immediately showed up behind the Orlocks and charged into Radd Gruffhouse, taking him out of action. The Orlocks then surrounded her and shot everything they could at her to eliminate the threat.
After surrounding the Death Maiden and firing everything they had at her the Orlocks had hurt her but she wasn't done. She then attacked the Wrecker, Fio Tuffnow and took her out of action.
At this point Angelica Tuffnow, leader of the Iron Angels Orlock crew turned her attention to the Death Maiden and also ordered the rest of her gang to do the same.
The Death Maiden was enveloped in a hail of high velocity solid projectiles from everyone in the Iron Angels until there was nothing left but a bloody mass on the pavement.
Only the Escher Leader remained, all the other Eschers fled the battlefield. Angelica turned her attention back to the objective, firing her autogun at the car, the bullets unfortunately pinged off it harmlessly.
The Escher leader then fled the battlefield and the mission ended, it was a victory for the Orlocks, but it was a very costly victory.
Both Fio Tuffnow and Radd Gruffhouse succumbed to their injuries before they could get to a Doc.
After collecting income, the Orlocks were able to recruit a new member, Bum Gruffhouse, Radd's son.
Bum was only able to afford an autogun and had no armor, but he was a welcome addition to the depleted gang.
For game two we rolled up "Stand-Off" and the territory we fought over was an Escher specific territoy.
The House Boon I got was "Hard Times". I got free weapons but they were limited and unstable. It made me very hesitant to use them during the game. Not a great boon.
My House Sub-Plot was "Hardman", another sub-plot that I figured would be very difficult to accomplish.
I was able to use the Orlock specific boon from my Toll Crossing Territory I won to have the initative on turn one in this scenario.
I deployed first and picked a fortified corner of the battlefield which gave my gunners some elevation for nice line-of-sight.
At this point its just Angelica remaining. The rest of her crew has been taken out of action and they have bottled. She refuses to give up. Earlier in the battle I used a tactics card giving her an extra action which allowed her to get into range to charge and coup de grace an enemy fighter, the turn after that she used her Bullet Lord Name ability to fire her autogun three times and kill another Escher ganger.
She had done much but now she was alone, left to fend for herself and try to survive the onslaught.
The next sequence of events would make her legendary, if only someone would have survived to tell the tale.
It was late and we didn't bother to do the post-actions. PenDull had won one game and I had won one game. It had been a great evening of gaming after too long of a break.
Looking back at the games it seems I underestimated the Death Maidens and maybe over estimated my Orlocks' shooting.
Angelica and the Iron Angels will be back for a summer campaign starting soon. I will report on it here. I am going to build and paint some more models for the gang, maybe make new champions with different equipment. I want to use the Wreckers more too, I only had a few turns with the one wrecker I had.
I am going to start the new campaign with a larger gang, I think. Hopefully more guns will be more valuable. I also want to re-evaluate the skills and Legendary Names. I think I picked some interesting ones but I may change them up a lot for the new campaign.
I hope you enjoyed reading this, I enjoyed playing the games. Hopefully this is the summer we pull out of the morass that has been the last 12+ months of COVID and more gaming and hanging out with friends and family can happen.
Until next time....
These games really helped me understand the pre-battle sequences much better and I really liked them. I also had very hard sub-plots and boons: one of them demanded that I take four fighters out of action with a single model. That was a little difficult without the Death Maiden! That's alright, I suppose they are meant to be difficult.
ReplyDeleteUsing my leader's whip was pretty fun, its a good time getting three attacks at a 3" range, I don't think she ever used her laspistol at all. I was also surprised by the Death Maiden, no wonder competitive players (what are they doing playing this game???) sometimes take two of them.
I was surprised by the Wyld Runner's performance, she got very lucky in close combat. That was the only thing she really did besides miss with her bow and take her cat for a walk.
I enjoyed how the house favors gave me a free fighter with equipment- even though she was the first one to get shot (the one with the chem thrower) and then got the coup de gras. It has inspired me to build some models just in case something like that happens again (hellooo heavy stubber).
I had a great time playing the games. Thank you for hosting. It was great.