Hi all
I had my first games of Sellswords and Spellslingers as a solo game. First I created my party and tried the “Through the Badlands” scenario
The PartyHeinz the Paladin
Fighter:2 Handed Sword, Strong, Leader, Armour 1, Impetous
Yiggi the Magican
Club (Staff), Spellcaster, Fireball, Weak, Smart
Soren the monk
Fighter:2 Handed Mace, Strong, Heal, Heavy Drinker
Jyn the Ranger
Archery:Bow, Forester, Keen Senses
The MonstersI used Reaper Bones Bugbears as they are large and my Troll was not painted! The Orcs are all old Grenadier 25mm figures.
The gameI rolled the monster deployment and all of them were in my half of the table! Soren checked and he was sober.
Setup Turn 1Heinz activated twice and charged the Orc Brute. He did 2 HPs but it didn’t drop the Orc
Next Yiggi went and successfully cast 2 fireball causing 4 HPs killing a different Orc Brute.
Then Soren rolled 2 activation’s (but only got one) and moved to the Brutes body. The event card was a Mana flux
Jyn rolled 2 20’s! and a 4. She cancelled the failures and attacked the other orc brute finishing him off. So far so good!
Turn 2Buoyed by their great start, Heinz again rolled 3 dice and got 3 successes. He rushed towards the Giant Bugbear (Troll) and scored 2 hits and dealt out 4HP. Yiggi rolled a 20 and a failure, so she cancelled the failure and did nothing. Soren searched the dead Orc and then moved to the action. Jyn also searched the other Orc and then joined the fight against the Bugbear.
Turn 3 A change of fortunes!First Heinz failed a couple of activations and a monster activation card came up. The Bugbear attacked Heinz but his armour saved him. The Bugbear also regenerated a wound just to make things worse. Yiggi also failed her activations and a wandering monster in the form another Bugbear appeared right behind her, and charged. It whacked her causing a loss of 2 HP. Soren also had bad luck and failed his 2 activations. A monster activation card came up and attacked Heinz but his armour saved him again. Meanwhile Jyn the Ranger rolled 2 successes and attacked the Troll twice. But instead the monster hit her twice and she dropped to 0HP and was out of action.
Turn 4 Bad to worseHeinz attacked the Bugbear but all he got was a nasty headache as his armour saved him again. Yiggi decided to try something risky as fighting the Bugbear was not going well. She rolled 2 successes and disengaged without a taking hit. She loosened off a fireball but her aim was shaken by the frightening experience she just had.
Soren again failed to activate and got another Mana flux and a Wandering monster card. This time is was an Orc brute who again came on right behind him, then and charged Soren. Luckily the Orc missed and took 2 HP.
Turn 5Heinz again missed with his armour saving him. A horde move card came up and one of the orcs moved closer to Jyn. Yiggi rolled 2 dice and failed one. She drew a loss of Balance card and slipped over! She tried a fireball from the ground but missed. Clearly she was shaken!
Soren killed the Orc but got 2HP of damage for his troubles!
Turn 6Heinz missed his attacks and got killed in return. Also another Wandering Monster (Bugbear) arrived from the western edge. Yiggi activated, failed and got a Monster Frenzy card. One of the Bugbears finished off Yiggi as she lay on the ground. Meanwhile Soren was busy researching healing spells, but then he realised he was the only party member left standing, so he took off.
That was an appropriate card to end the game with.
AfterthoughtsThe initial deployment was tough with all the monsters close.
I was probably rolling too many activation dice, giving the monster too many actions. Coming from SoBH you tend to roll more dice when the action heats up, but this was not a great approach with SS&SS and turning events cards over.
My party needs more armour/shields! The Bugbears and Brutes each dish out 2 HP of damage, so each PC is dead after 2 hits. The PCs with armour got hammered!
Combat is brutal if you roll bad against tough monsters.
I played the spells slightly wrong and also missed a activation when I rolled a 20, but I don’t think either affected the outcome of the game!
Also I didn't read the Troll card very well and missed the random movement. I could have avoided the first Troll.
Conclusion
A great game system which really works well and it feels more RPGish than the SoBH rules. I like games which are not predictable and this is very good for solo play. It seemed like a tough day for the party so I will have to try again and hope for some better luck.