Our niece came to visit for the weekend with her young man, Jack. We had met him a few times before, but always in family situations, Christmas etc, so we didn't feel we had had the opportunity to talk properly. This was a chance to get to know him better, as well as spending some time with Lizzie. Jack is an avid GW gamer/painter (mostly AoS) who admitted he has had no real exposure to other rulesets, so I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce him to some alternative gaming systems. I decided to go for Ganesha Games systems as they had simple mechanics and would be quick to pick up.
All the girlies went out for a walk into town on Saturday afternoon, so we managed to get three games in, two using Fear and Faith and the third using Mutants and Death Ray Guns.
For the Fear and Faith scenario, the leader need to perform a ritual to extract mystical power from a sacred pool. To successfully conduct the ritual they needed to spend three uninterrupted activations in the same turn, on the steps of the pool.
My warband, a vampire and his cossack thralls. The scenario was set around dawn, so the first few turns of darkness would give the vampire a big advantage. After sunrise he would be far more vulnerable and also as rick of crumbling into dust if he rolled too many 1s for his activations.
Jack's warband, a warlock, aided by a Hungarian vampire hunter and a bunch of angry villagers.
The opening moves, as the two warbands close in on each other.
A cossack with a musket took position behind a wall and fired on one of the villagers, missing him. In response the villager rushed forward with his axe and struck at the cossack.
Unfortunately, the cossack dodged the blow and crushed the villager's skull with his musket butt.
On the far side of the table, a cossack and a villager dodged around the standing stones, trying to get a clear line of sight on the other. The villager fired first and the cossack hit the ground.
Shielded by his thralls, the vampire moved towards the pool.
While the warlock hung back, encouraging the vampire hunter forward.
The vampire transformed into bat form, which would allow him to cross the obstacles more easily.
A couple more turns saw the rest of the cossacks being cut down by some incredibly lucky dice rolls, leaving the vampire alone, just as the sun rose.
The vampire made a last ditch attempt to conduct the ritual but was forced back by the vampire hunter. The vampire turned into gaseous form to escape.
Now the warlock stepped up to conduct the ritual...
...but the vampire reformed and seized his foe.
Somehow the warlock fought him off as his followers rushed to his aid. Th hunstman too careful aim with his crossbow...
...and put a wooden bolt through the vamipre's heart, killing him!
First win to Jack!
We played again, using the same scenario but I swapped warbands. Jack stayed with the warlock as he had gotten a handle on how they operated.
My new warband, a witch with her animated scarecrows. These operated like zombies, they were had to activate, but is close together could activate together as a mod. I would need to keep the witch close to use her leadership to stand much chance of keeping them moving.
In the first turn they barely moved which allowed Jack to get close to the pool unopposed.
However, he got overconfident and rushed the vampire hunted forward, then rolled two failed activations, which ended the rest of his go.
This left the vampire hunter rather exposed!
In the next turn I rolled good activations and swarmed him with my scarecrows.
He was a powerful fighter and held them off at first, pushing one back and knocking another down.
But sheer numbers told and he died bravely.
Now the scarecrows turned their attention to the villagers.
The fighting was intense, with melees breaking out all over the place.
By keeping the witch up close to the scarecrows I was able to keep them activated.
One by one the villagers fell.
The huntsman shot, but his wooden bolts were not a effective as they had been to the vampire!
Slowly, but steadily, the scarecrows cut the warlock's warband down.
The musketeer fired again, killing a scarecrow, but it was too late.
the warlock and the last villager were killed, leaving the witch able to conduct the ritual at her leisure.
One all!
To ring the changes, we now played a game of Mutants and Death Ray Guns. This uses the same mechanisms, but different traits and weapons makes it feel quite a different game. Jack's shooting was deadly and he swiftly score his second win of the day.
Being absorbed in playing we had sort of lost track of time, and now wondered why we had been allowed to play on for so long? We soon found out, the girls had gone to our favourite Italian deli, where Mick had an open bottle of prosecco from lunchtime. So they had spent their time drinking fizz and eating marinaded Italian olives!
Jack seemed to enjoy trying something new and went off thinking of what AoS models he could use to create a warband for our next game!
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