Sellswords and Spellslingers from Ganesha (first game)

[Hobgoblin]

I bought the PDF of Sellswords and Spellslingers yesterday, and have been playing through the first scenario with the kids this morning (temporarily interrupted for FaceTime with grandparents).

So far, it's been a blast. It's a cooperative (or solo) game, so each player controls a few characters (two or three, typically). The characters are built on points, so we've got two dwarfs (one with a bow, the other heavily tooled up with armour and axe), three lizardmen (one with a bow) and two mouslings (a samurai and an assassin), respectively.

The monsters - orcs and a troll in the first scenario - are activated by cards drawn from a special deck. The system has a bit of Song of Blades and a bit of Rogue Stars; it uses D20s and difficulty levels, but has the familiar SoBH one to three activations. If you fail an activation, you draw a card, which makes something - usually negative - happen. For example, one monster might activate, or they all might, or new monsters might appear - either from the table edge or from "spawning points" (bushes, under rocks, caverns, whatever).

The first scenario involves having to get off the table; so far, only one PC has escaped, with the others being repeatedly ambushed by orcs and slowed down by their own greed. You can search bodies for treasure, which you use to buy equipment in campaigns, and you can acquire XP to improve your characters. So there's a lot of decision-making built in: use activations to gather loot or look to the main goals first.

What's particularly nice about the campaign aspect is that it requires no forethought: already, our characters have acquired a lot of loot from fallen orcs, which they'll be keen to spend before the next scenario. That means that there's a great RPGish element built in.

Combat is very fast-moving: you either wound or get wounded, so unless armour or shields save you, there's very little stasis. The AI system is neat and simple: monsters do the obvious thing (from their perspective): seizing higher ground, shooting at nearby targets or charging. And there's a nice "horde" feature, whereby low-level monsters form gangs that act as a single, more powerful foe in combat. I can see a lot of potential for using multi-based figures as hordes (to start with), for ease of movement.

The scenarios look interesting, and there's plenty of scope to use a vast amount of the average fantasy miniature collection in an afternoon, through playing successive scenarios. The book included ten scenarios, but designing  more looks very easy - and you could use the monster cards included to create randomly generated opponents. A dungeon-crawling supplement would seem the logical next step ...

[Comsquare]

Nice summary, thanks for that 

Bought the rules yesterday myself but hadn't had the time to read them, but will do so soonish.

[affun]

I'm really looking forward to trying out this game in the new year. I bought it before christmas, but haven't been home since so I haven't been able to either test it or start painting characters.

From my read through and your words and pictures, it looks excellent though.
It's got me thinking of all sorts of characters I want to paint up, and has a lot of inspiration for hobby projects (terrain, baddies, scenarios).

[Hobgoblin]

Well, we played our game to its climax and very much enjoyed it. The continuously spawning monsters makes for a tense game: we ended with both the canny mouslings escaping off the table, one lizardman survivor and two dead dwarfs. That made it two survivors out of seven starting PCs.

A particularly nice (nasty!) touch is that wounded characters are often able to move only slowly, leaving them vulnerable to fresh foes. We tried to operate a "leave no man (dwarf, reptile ...) behind" policy, but had to abandon it as the orcs came swarming after the walking wounded.

It's got me thinking of all sorts of characters I want to paint up, and has a lot of inspiration for hobby projects (terrain, baddies, scenarios).

Likewise! I've just dug out some old dwarfs that I started painting three years ago. This is the perfect cue to get them finished. And various 28mm adventurers that have been kicking around for a while will come to the front of the queue now.

[boneio]

Ditto thanks for the summary, I've been curious about this for a while but I'm waiting until it's available in print to buy it. I don't get lots of gaming time (out of the house that is!) so a good solo game is much wanted

[Schrumpfkopf]

That's the kind f review that makes me buy things. 

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Thanks for that, Hobgoblin.  As always, the miniatures look wonderful.
At the risk of being a bore, I have the same questions for you that I had for Anatoli:
1. Would the rules adapt to a Tolkien setting easily?
2. Would they suit a high fantasy setting with over-powered heroes?
3. Does it play well solo?

Additional questions:
4. Does it suit a campaign?
5. If so, can characters progress?

Cheers.

Happy New Year.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks for that, Hobgoblin.  As always, the miniatures look wonderful.
At the risk of being a bore, I have the same questions for you that I had for Anatoli:
1. Would the rules adapt to a Tolkien setting easily?
2. Would they suit a high fantasy setting with over-powered heroes?
3. Does it play well solo?

1. Yes -  it would certainly handle all Tolkien's baddies fine. And the tone is certainly heroic: we must have left around 50 dead orcs behind us today.
2. Yes - "minion" monsters are generally dispatched in a single blow, and heroes have several "lives" and the possibility of recovery if downed. A PC death is a significant event.
3 Yes, at least as far as I can tell. The AI is pretty tight and is the same whether there is one player or six.

Additional questions:
4. Does it suit a campaign?
5. If so, can characters progress?

4. Yes - indeed, the campaign approach is heavily baked in to the system. If you play the successive scenarios out of the book with the same party, you'll get a thoroughly satisfying campaign, I reckon
5. Yes - that's at the heart of the system. Your initial PCs are built with a number of XP and gain XP with each scenario they "win" and/or goal they achieve. So they can add abilities and equipment before each game. The increases in power can be quite significant. For example, a fighter with two levels of sword, bow and armour would cost around half the points of a typical player's starting hand, but could go up to five levels in each of those before adding lots of other skills - from pickpocketing to using a shield to magic.

Happy New Year.

And to you!

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Thanks Hobgoblin.
You are a true gentleman.  Always quick with your replies.  It is much appreciated, especially as I now see you answered all that in your initial post

[DavyJones]

Nice review. 

[DivisMal]

Thank you so much. I hadn’t heard of this set though I’m pretty much a Ganesha fanboy.

Now I’m pretty much hooked and will definitely go to buy it, but first I’d like to ask a couple of questions:

1. Is there the possibility to create your own monsters? I’d love to use it for Conan and Greek Mythology.
2. how well does it combine with the Song of ... series?
3. Does it feature a „point“-system or how do you create heroes?

A happy New Year to you all and thanks in advance for answering,
Florian

[Hobgoblin]

1. Is there the possibility to create your own monsters? I’d love to use it for Conan and Greek Mythology.

It looks easy enough. The only explicitly Greek monster in the starting set of monster cards is the minotaur, but it would be simple to "re-skin" existing monsters or just design your own. Monsters are determined by the scenario, not points, and are largely represented by a single number ("danger level"), along with hit points, damage and other bolt-on attributes. So you could easily make a hydra, for example, with a high DL, lots of hit points, the plague trait from the ratmen profile (for poison) and the troll's regeneration ability for extra heads. Or, perhaps better still, you could have a reasonably low DL to start with, along with lots of hit points, and then increase the DL every time the monster takes damage.

The spawning mechanism would be great for warriors sown from the dragon's teeth. Centaurs could be adapted from the mounted Black Knight profile, and the bear profile gives you a good starting point for lions and bears. There's a giant profile already.

For Conan, there are a few different types of human adversary in the monster cards, along with a demon profile and a couple of sorcerer types. And of course orcs and hobgoblin profiles could be used for other human(oid) types.

2. how well does it combine with the Song of ... series?

It's quite different, apart from the activation system for PCs and some of the traits. There's more detail for the PCs, though. It would make a good alternative to Tales of Blades and Heroes, I think, as the character advancement is more nuanced or "granular".

3. Does it feature a „point“-system or how do you create heroes?

Yes, there's a point system - XP. Each player typically has 60XP to build one or more starting PCs. These are constrained in level, but can advance by acquiring more XP in each scenario. If they survive the opening scenario we played yesterday, most PCs will have 4 to 6 more XP to improve or add abilities. Because of the D20 system, you can add up to five levels in each skill. And there are lots of other traits you can amass. 

A happy New Year to you all and thanks in advance for answering,
Florian

And to you!

[DivisMal]

Thanks. Just checked Wargamesvault, and I haven’t found it there, yet. It’s on the Ganesha site, but I’m a bit hesitant to buy it there due to their 5 downloads per purchase-rule.

From the preview it looks like the game is very much suitable for (A)D&D and Warhammer - which is pretty good!

[Longstrider]

Thanks for the review. Sounds perfect for the various Deep Cuts minis I've been picking up. Just bought it now; looking forward to the read through.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks. Just checked Wargamesvault, and I haven’t found it there, yet. It’s on the Ganesha site, but I’m a bit hesitant to buy it there due to their 5 downloads per purchase-rule.

I think you get more than that: I just checked, and my Ganesha account shows 14 remaining downloads for S&S.