WHEN NIGHTMARES COME - Balkans Case 1920s Game 3

 We managed to fit in our third game in the campaign quite quickly.

Scenario Three: Moonlit in Venice

The team have followed the evidence they gathered from the standing stone in the Croatian forests, which led them to the city of Venice.

Location: A small piazza in the backstreets of Venice with a few streetlights.

Time: Night – Lighting conditions are Dark (ranged attacks limited to 6”).  Streetlights provide illumination for 6” radius (anything within 6” of a streetlights count as well-lit).

Deployment: As the party have arrived together, deploy all Hunters on same edge.

DARK SPAWN DEPLOYMENT

Turn 1: 2 Cultists.

Turn 2: 4 Cultists

Turn 3: 2 Reanimated Corpses 

Turn 4: 2 Reanimated Corpses

Turn 5 1 Werewolf and 1 Reanimated Corpse

Turn 6 1 Werewolf and 1 Reanimated Corpse

The table set-up, the little red flashes are POIs and the yellow/green flames are portals. The Hunters will enter from the gondola at the bottom of the picture.

Turn One: Pip rushes forward to the nearest POI and finds a clue and Penfold runs further forward to the next POI. Roberto moves up to the POI nearest him and finds a second clue, while Sophia runs the length of the canal-side to reach the right-hand portal. Two cultists enter from the far portals, one is armed with a pistol and moves forward then fires at Penfold, but misses. The other charges into Roberto and stikes with his dagger, but Roberto successfully dodges the blow.

Turn Two: Pip guns down the pistol armed cultist and Penfold searches the POI, finding a third clue and triggering the appearance of the Nexus. Unfortunately it materialises back on the canal-side, close to where the team started, right next to a portal. Sophia runs towards the Nexus, as Roberto struggles with the cultist, eventually killing him. Four more cultists appear from the two far portals and move forward, those with guns firing at Penfold and Roberto, who is wounded by a lucky shot.

Turn Three: Pip returns fire, killing the gun wielding cultist on their side of the table, as he and Penfold move back towards the Nexus. Sophie reaches the Nexus and extracts some Arcana. Roberto quickly administers first aid, then returns fire but misses the cultist. The cultist shot also misses the mark, then the second cultist charges Roberto, wounding him. Two resurrected corpses enter from the far portals and move forward.

Turn Four: Roberto kills the cultist attacking him, fires at the pistol armed cultist, but misses, then moves towards the portal, intending to put himself between Sophia and the advancing resurrected corpse. Sophia casts a heal spell on Roberto, then concentrates on closing the Nexus with two auto successes. Pip shoots the last cultist on his side of the table, as Penfold moves to join Sophia and extracts Arcana from the Nexus. The last cultist dodges into cover then fires at Roberto, who narrowly dodges the shot. The two resurrected corpses rush forward. (At this point we paused for a discussion, technically Roberto was the closest target for one of the resurrected corpses, but we decided that keeping the Nexus open would be the priority for the Dark Spawn and move it towards Sophia and Penfold. Two more resurrected corpses appear, one by the footbridge and one (finally) comes through the portal next to the Nexus. All the corpses rush forward, triggering Terror tests, then Penfold, Sophia and Pip all find themselves locked in melee. Penfold is wounded, as was Pip, who used his Granite's Fealty esoterica to ward off the blow. Sophia managed to fend off her attacker. 

Turn Five: Penfold drops a Snare, then attacks his undead opponent but fails to wound him (Colin temporarily forgot that he had failed a Terror test in the previous turn, so only had two actions this turn!) Pip aims a blow at his foes head, crushing it's skull, then moves back to help Penfold. Roberto charges into the fray, killing the corpse attacking Sophia. Sophia takes advantage of the opportunity to close the Nexus, also shutting down the portals before a werewolf could join the action.

Turn Six: Technically we had won the game at this point, but as Hunters were still in melee with Dark Spawn, we decided to play the last turn. Sophia cast a Shockwave spell, which knocked the resurrected corpse off it's feet, unfortunately doing the same to Pip and Penfold. She then moved so that she could use her last magical energy to cast a Heal spell on Penfold, restoring him to full health. Roberto moved back to get a clear aim at the unengaged resurrected corpse, blowing the creature's head off. Pip leapt to his feet and a killed the last resurrected corpse, whilst Penfold climbed back on his feet. This left the final cultist. As he was in the shadows where he could not be seen, he was more likely to skulk off and report to his masters, rather than move closer to engage the Hunters.

Another great time with these rules. By turn 3 it was looking as if it would be an easy walk in the park to achieve the objectives, but the game took a sudden turn and we found the Hunters desperately fighting for their lives. We were certainly lucky that only one Dark Spawn entered through the portal next to the Nexus. Giving Sophia the Weaver Skill that allowed her to automatically succeed in rolls to close portals and Nexus has been a great help.

The more we play WNC, the more we are enjoying the rules, as we start to grasp the subtleties of the system and get a handle on the best tactics. Which is just as well as foes get even tougher from now on.