Donnybrook Witchfinder

I've had almost 3 months away from the blog doing 'stuff' but felt compelled to add a random post after yet another top drawer day of gaming at Awdry Towers.

You may remember our last major outing to the Congo – Michael goes all out to construct a gaming table that sucks you into the narrative and builds the tension via email before we even leave home (and yes, we get homework!). It really is a pleasure to take part in one of Michael's adventures.

So he's been going on about doing a Witchfinder game for well over a year now, but things had stalled somewhat. When we managed to get a day booked into the diary back in June for the first Saturday in August, I suggested that Witchfinder might be a welcome change of pace. And so it came to pass.

The gaming table in all its glory

I love the fact that Michael decided to abandon his original plan to use the Witchfinder rules he's purchased and decided to mould his game around the Donnybrook ruleset. That's the sign of a true creative mind!

Now, I'm not a fan of the old blackpowder and flouncy hats era, but Solomon Kane I can buy into, so I took a leap of faith (so to speak). The rules themselves are…odd. They use the now very common practice of using different sided dice to represent different ability levels – D6 being your recruits and D12 being your heroes.

The Witchfinder leads the Poachers

Anyway, Michael had gone full tilt and created a raft of characters and units, very colourful and rather cleverly named, for us to use with their own rules and abilities lifted from the rulebook. Very excellent stuff.

Now, I'm not a fan of the random. I'm a bit of a control freak you see. That comes from being a tournament player for so many years where you tried to eradicate or circumnavigate random events as part of your strategy and tactics. It also comes from writing my own rules – too much random can leave the player with a feeling that they're on a passive ride with no influence on the outcome. Donnybrook flies in the face of wisdom and creates a game that is so random and chaotic you have no choice but to embrace it. You certainly can't have a serious game with these rules because you cannot have any real form of control over the outcome. Balance?…pah!

Activation is determined by drawing cards from a deck containing all of the characters and units taking part – the activation deck if you will. That's all fine, a very good mechanic. However, there is a Turn Over card in there too, and when drawn the deck is reshuffled and you start again. The outcome of this is that a single unit or character can go several times in a row, or in my case, not have a go at all for several turns. This creates an immense amount of imbalance and randomness – and that's before you throw the random event card in there too (which on one occasion sent an entire unit of Bull's troops home because they missed their families)!!

So as you can see the hilarity was never far away. Even when you were on the wrong end of the random you kind of had to smile. The big finale was a great example of this. I had finally beaten Michael's Villagers by the skin of my teeth, his last unit the Angry Mob in full flight towards the table edge. Up pops the Random Event card and attempts to drop a new unit of elite troops emerging on a flank as a relief force for the Villagers – luckily for me Michael didn't have enough models to fulfil the criteria, so it turned out to be travelling performers instead, else I would have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory no doubt.

Evil is coming!!

Needless to say, we had a fab time. We played three games during the day – same scenario – which meant we each got a couple of goes playing as well as a go being the dealer and overall games master.

In the first game my Villagers managed to hold off the advance of Bull's Cultists, despite some early losses. After lunch Michael's Villagers were swept aside by Bull's Cultists, only to be beaten again (only just) by my Cultists. So the Cultists have definitely broken through the outer defences and the village of Muchwhinging could soon become the focal point of the next skirmish.

The Witchfinder and Doxy face off against the evil Gareth of Oldham

We learned a lot about the rules and had them down by the end pretty much. We definitely missed a couple of things out, and we felt the characters were generally underpowered (aside from the doxy's stiletto heel through the chest of my vampire hero!!) but a great time was had by all.

It was such a good day that I've been inspired to create a fully immersive experience of my own for another time – stay tuned for more on that!

Bull has written up a fantastic piece about the day – read it here!

A Zombicide Start To The Weekend

So it turned out there was an Exit guardian!

I haven't played ZOmbicide Black Plague in some time. We reckon it's probably been at least six months which, considering it's our go-to game, is strange. I haven't played Green Horde since it arrived at Christmas, I only opened the box to get a look at the models up close.

That all changed this weekend.

Friday at work, being the last Friday of the month, was Free Project Friday and Team Social Afternoon. We ended up playing Zombicide Black Plague in the meeting room – an 8-player mash-up with many first timers and all the big monsters. It was fun, took a while and realised I'd forgotten a lot of the details in my absence from the game. There was lots of cheating in the end to ensure we won, but it won over a couple more admirers so no doubt more gaming in the future.

An opening win with Green Horde, by the skin of our teeth

To be honest that was the warm up, because the morning after myself and Bull travelled to the now very shiny Awdry Towers to get our first taste of Zombicide Green Horde. I'd heard lots of tales about how the new version plays but you never know for sure till you try it yourself.

We managed to get through the first game with a win, but it was touch and go at the end. The game felt claustrophobic and the swaggering confidence often seen when playing Black Plague was gone. The hedge and water mechanics were good additions – don't end the game in the water end of a map, it's a nightmare. The trebuchet was awesome, though it didn't see any action in our opening game.

Game 2 was a challenge indeed. So much so we had to press the restart button after a few turns in as we had made some fatal mistakes in our early strategies. Take 2 was going swimmingly. We had got to the trebuchet and were pretty much owning the board. However, as we confidently headed towards a second victory, fate stepped in to slap us in the face. We ran out of runner models, meaning all runners on the board get a second go – combined with a 'runners get an extra go' card flip we were wiped out in a single turn within reach of the finish line.

Our problem was two-fold. We were using just the contents of the Green Horde starter box, so no fancy weapons and limited zombie models. It meant we didn't have the volume of dice when attacking to clear out the masses of zombie models coming at us. The majority of weapons were only hitting on a 4+ at best, so even a handful of dice was only going to get you so far.

Needless to say we all had fun and thoroughly enjoyed a re-introduction to Zombicide.
There will be more to come!

Imperial Assault – 3 Player Battle

Thursday this week saw a reintroduction to Imperial Assault, as Ryan and I showed Rich the ropes –He took to it like a duck to water!

We hastily put together three Skirmish armies – Imperials, Rebels and Scum (sorry, mercenaries). Using the 4-player Hoth board layout, we lazily chose the deployment areas nearest to our seats. We were concerned that Rich would be piggy in the middle and get battered on both sides, but we needn't have been concerned – he just went gunning for Ryan who realised he'd chosen an awful deployment zone and was boxed in completely.

Rich got the honour of using the newly acquired Boba Fett mini for the first time. He was one of the stand out characters of the game, able to inflict a lot of damage and heal himself quite nicely too. The Wampa and Nexu also proved to be intimidating, even if the former was something of a one-hit wonder – Fugs taking it down with prejudice after it scored its first kill.

The Nexu on the other hand was having a whale of a time, actively looking to Cleave as many Rebels as he could. The Rebels were gradually losing number under a devastating assault by the Mercs – Fugs just couldn't get out of his deployment zone and ended up retreating to where he started.

In the meantime the Imperials, led by the simply awesome Vader, marched slowly from the opposite end of the board. Rich had left a couple of Tusken Raiders to hold a console in his deployment zone, and these were both dispatched by Vader in a single attack.

The Mercs were getting low on numbers now, after the Rebels rallied. But just as Fugs thought he could see some light the Imperials arrived, strolling past Boba Fett to take up the fight with the Rebels. Seeing that things were about to go south quickly, Fett took the opportunity the fall back and ensure he would at least survive the game.

The Imperials had been nicking the points along the way, finishing off units that were already on the ropes. As such it didn't take long to Vader to claim victory, with the Rebels on around 18 points and the Mercs on a misrepresented 6.

It was a great way back into Imperial Assault, all in preparation for us starting a campaign game next week. Stay tuned!