Nightwatch - when the skeletons spawn endlessly

[Burgundavia]

We tried out Nightwatch today - a coop horror/monster hunting skirmish game by Patrick Todoroff (Zona Alfa writer). It was brutal and fun - the dice pool mechanic and the actions you can take are a lot of fun, but OMG do the bad guys ramp up quickly. The game is alternating turns, with an escalating number of foes spawning each turn before they act.

Our mission was the first of the intro scenarios - escorting the last of an attack on  wagon train across the map. We had one fighter, one shooter and one alchemist and this ended up being a nice combo, but without the melee hireling who bought it halfway through, not sure it would have worked. The last photo shows just how close it was - we escaped right as we were about to be swarmed under.

Overall, we quite like the ruleset and will play it again, but the rules definitely need another edit pass. Key things are scattered throughout the rulebook and the order it is laid out isn't great.

[Sunjester]

Interesting, I have looked at this but as I am already invested in Sellswords & Spellslingers, I decided they were too similar in genre (fantasy co-op vs monsters games).

How do you think Nightwatch holds up against Sellswords?

[Spinal Tap]

Interesting, I have looked at this but as I am already invested in Sellswords & Spellslingers, I decided they were too similar in genre (fantasy co-op vs monsters games).

How do you think Nightwatch holds up against Sellswords?

I'm of the same mind Graham. I've bought Insurgent Earth by Patrick instead as I'm more in need of a solo Sci Fi than Fantasy.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Interesting.

I believe it shares mechanics with "When Nightmares Come".

[Burgundavia]

Interesting, I have looked at this but as I am already invested in Sellswords & Spellslingers, I decided they were too similar in genre (fantasy co-op vs monsters games).

How do you think Nightwatch holds up against Sellswords?

I'm of the same mind Graham. I've bought Insurgent Earth by Patrick instead as I'm more in need of a solo Sci Fi than Fantasy.

There are things we liked and disliked about it.
- I'm not overly keen on "monsters roll' aspect for most games, nor the IGOUGO method of gaming. Sellswords cards handle monster activation much more cleanly and much more randomly, which is what is liked
- Sean quite liked the weapons abilities and the big weapon classes that give those abilities (one handed, two handed heavy, etc.)
- The monsters are just described with die types and have no other abilities
- I really like the different die types to activate - it gives players another tactical choice each turn, rather than just rolling a d20 3 times
- The game has a very specific feeling of getting in and then getting out. It has a 7 turn limit, which we didn't realize
- Alchemist bomb-thrower is a nice class, chucking things like smoke bombs and generally causing havoc
- I liked how injuries matter and have long been thinking about bringing a similar system into my scifi ruleset (you get as many dice as you have wounds, essentially)

Is it going to replace Sellswords? Probably not, but we'll give the first scenario set a try. It wouldn't take much work to retrofit the whole idea into Sellswords for that matter. I am already dreaming up how to rework the Sellswords fighting rules to bring in some of the ideas from Nightwatch, such as having a fighter class that gives you combat abilities. You'd need an Alchemist set of rules (which sort of already exist), plus some rules around requiping PCs between missions. I have a half-written module called "Prelude to Madness" which is designed to feed into Count Carilis' Curse. Could easily expand that into a full-on monster hunt.

[Burgundavia]

Interesting.

I believe it shares mechanics with "When Nightmares Come".

I believe so. And also Hardwired, the punk game

[Dentatus]

Yes, Hardwired I mean Exploit Zero, Insurgent Earth, Nightwatch Terror and Treasure, the 2e/recent NW Blood and Bone, and now When Nightmares Come all share common dice mechanics.