Another Aelkwaffer Adventure

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I managed a cooperative game recently with my nephew from the Netherlands.   Used the standard rules with no modifications.  I think he liked it, but it was very slow as he tended to over think and played with excessive caution.
Back to a solo game today as the weather is too bad to do anything else.

Aelkwaffer and his band have had quite a few upgrades and and now rather deadly.  It is hard to make up scenarios now without them being too easy or too hard.
This one ended up being of midling difficulty, thanks to a run of good dice.  Despite that, the game was still enjoyable, and I think this is down to the narrative nature of the game and the randomness afforded by the cards.  You can still have a strategy - it's not that random - but you have to adjust that plan (quite a lot) as the game goes along.

For once Gloria didn't lose all her magical power (this occurs on rolling a 1 on a d20 when casting a spell) and didn't recurrently muff her activations.  As such, she was a monster killing machine with several well-placed fireballs doing real damage. 
Two characters went down, one left severely wounded and required assistance to get off the table (and therefore needed a change in strategy), the other dead as a dodo.

In this game the characters are being pursued by quite considerable enemy forces.  They have to hold off enemy who get too close, kill the monsters holding the bridge (safety lies on the other side) and escape the main pack that is after them.


Ah, yeh.... Just don't roll a one when trying to heal a downed character.




Another snag right at the end.  Dire Brian, the rear guard, has escape in sight when he fails all three activations.  Aelkwaffer has to return to the bridge to make sure Brian will escape unharmed.




Wargs and "orcs" close in on the bridge.




A final fireball only toasts one orc, but the bridge is set on fire and pursuit ends.




The shade of Chrispin Davis will forever roam the woods as his body could not be saved.  Most of my characters are loosely named after some of friends.  I have now killed two good friends and my wife's boss (who is/was a very nice chap).  Perhaps I need to start naming characters after people I don't like!




I believe Aelkwaffer and his friends may be running out of time as their doom now approaches.  Soon, a new band of heroes will arise (even if they are only partially painted so far).

[Aesthete]

Do you even need them as cards? Could you just  roll a suitable die, d20, d100 excluding numbers that aren't needed and make up a reference chart?

Here's the table I set up for the event cards - roll a d6 and a d8. Some cards instruct you to remove them from the stack once they're drawn, in which case I'll just reroll if it comes up again. It's worked well enough for me so far.

[beefcake]

Another nice battle.
I'd advise against naming them after people you don't like. Two reasons, 1, you may rush them headlong at enemies in order to get them killed. 2, if they end up turning into an epic calendar you will still hate them due to the name associated with them 

Here's the table I set up for the event cards - roll a d6 and a d8. Some cards instruct you to remove them from the stack once they're drawn, in which case I'll just reroll if it comes up again. It's worked well enough for me so far.

Thanks for that. I'll make a copy if you don't mind.

[Argonor]

Splendid games, and I really like how you improvises terrain when you need some, and multi-purpose elements.

I did not get around to discussing your houserules with my gaming buddy last Saturday, as our game took quite longer to finish than anticipated, but I still have it on my to-do list (as also my Campaign Activity Period for my own party).

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Splendid games, and I really like how you improvises terrain when you need some, and multi-purpose elements.

I did not get around to discussing your houserules with my gaming buddy last Saturday, as our game took quite longer to finish than anticipated, but I still have it on my to-do list (as also my Campaign Activity Period for my own party).

Most of my past gaming was at 15 and 6mm, so I lack a good range of stuff for 28mm.  I need a decent bridge, or perhaps two - one standard rustic stone, and another more refined and elvish. 

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I decided to play a quick game to try out some rules.  The whole thing got bogged down with repeated multiple failures to activate.  The characters never moved more than 8" from the starting point after about 10 rounds of play.  One enemy figure (a werewolf moving at 6") moved 30" and engaged in several rounds of combat in the same time. I gave up.  The first time I abandoned a game of SS&SS.

Just how many creatures can fight against one character.
Two characters had three open sides.  To their front were a large werewolf and a troll.  Coming from their front and one flank were two groups of orcs, totaling another 8 figures.  Are the orcs going to swarm around the troll and werewolf to also engage?

To make matters worse, this was a low magic game - more Tolkienish use of magic.  So no fire balls to thin the ranks.  Clearly, gaming in a Tolkien setting means reducing the number of enemies and not having too many powerful creatures.

Edit:
Now I have completely given up for the day.  Last few dice rolls: 6,4,6,1,2,2,2,6.

[Argonor]

Change your dice!