Play Test – 30th May – Grimwolden Games

Hello and welcome back to another exciting play test run through, this time we see the first use of the Exploration Deck and the latest incarnation of the Fate Deck.

Once again we used our pre-set gangs for a quicker start to the testing, this time though we also pre-assigned equipment to each gang member. This removed another fiddly bit, which while important in the full game is a tad of a hindrance for speedy testing.

The gang’s cards all laid out and ready to roll.

The Pup and One Horn look out across the field at the start of the game.

On to the game itself, we quickly set out the terrain and studied the newly written scenario: Dusk Light Searching

With the dusk light waning on the horizon the expedition party knows it must soon retire to the camp, but off in the distance they spot what must be a rival expedition. They cannot let these heathens collect any of the precious relics! With precious few moments to spare before night falls, the gang fans out for a final search.

The scenario as it currently stands is a turned limited game where the gang with the most loot or relics secured at their home token at the end of the game wins. They find loot by exploring an area for 1 action, they then draw from the Exploration Deck and see what their luck holds. Not all the cards in the Exploration Deck are good for you, sometimes you can find nothing at all, other times you could find traps, creatures or even freak weather events.

We quickly focused on fanning our gang out as far as possible to get better searching odds (the further from your Home Token / spawn point, the better the searching odds become). It was really fun to not have to focus on killing the enemy and it felt like a brand new side of the game.

Peregrine hiding behind the building while the Sarcos explores behind the wall

Layout of the field on the first turn…before the mayhem.

Simon took the early lead making some lucky searches and getting them back to his Home Token quick smart. I was going well but a bad break searching the Exploration Deck left me fending off two creepy crawlers which removed one of my models and delayed the other one returning back to the Home Token. In losing my model we were at least able to test the Fate Deck, but unfortunately I wasn’t very lucky and ended up with 1 armed, 1 legged, One Horn who was out of the game. The fate deck this time felt like it was adding to the game rather than just being tacked on, it was a final save against doom and gave me hope that I might just survive this attack if I just turn up the right card.

The large green killin’ machine tries to sneak down the side of the table.

But alas it was not to be, Simon ended up finding some sweet ‘Miracle-ade’ which gave a ton of bonus stats to the Wou, who proceeded to go on a shooting spree. While my valiant Shelonian Elder attempted to shield my gang and take the lead but only ended up shooting the breeze as he couldn’t hit anything. With the end of the 6th turn Simon took the win with 4 victory points and 3 models left to my 1 victory point and 1 model left. Even though I lost the match was great fun and we learned a lot more about how we want the game to feel.