Review: When Nightmares Come - Osprey Games

[Easy E]

An Osprey Blue Book from the writer of Zona Alfa and other Indie wargames.  The premise is simple enough. This is a cooperative or solo-game about monster hunting and investigation.   I was intrigued by this one for two reasons.  First, I had been slowly working on a similar concept.  Secondly, it seemed to straddle the line between a Role-Playing Game and a Wargame which is an area of great interest to me.  Therefore, I put it on order at my FLGS.

Interestingly enough two things struck me about this book before I got into the review proper:

1. It is 80 pages long.  This looks to be a new thing for the Blue Book Series of 80 pages where they used to by 64 pages.  I am curious if they will ever go back to the smaller size now? 

2. The book only has artwork, no pictures of minis or tabletops.  The lack of "in-action" shots of games was really disappointing to me.  I was left unsure what a typical table looked like for the game.  The art was all urban or inside buildings but at a glance I was unsure how "tabletop friendly" the premise of the game was going to be. 

That said, I was still eager to delve in and see how the game was laid-out.  The lack of versus rules was interesting to me, but Solo and Coop play seem to be the Authors strongpoints.  Plus, the pandemic made these types of rules very popular for a while. I myself have tried my hand at them a few times. 

So, grab a flashlight and your copy of the Malleus Maleficarum and let's dig in!  You can read the full review here on the blog:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/07/review-when-nightmares-come-osprey-games.html

[Sterling Moose]

A fair review.  We are having fun playing the game and highly recommend them but, that being said, have identified a few weak points.  The rulebook contains a few incomplete rule explanations, typos and incorrect cross referencing.  I suspect the cross referencing issue stems from the illustrations being added to the print copy after the fact and throwing out the page numbering.  Kudos to the author, Patrick Todoroff (LAF Handle - Dentatus), if we reach out with a question he is pretty quick getting back to us with the answer.

We are finding the Narrative Phase a little challenging but the Tactical Phase works well.

The overall rule mechanisms work well, we've played 5 games so far and all were enjoyable, though none were challenging.  Some comments and observations from those games were that the Nexus is usually closed at around Turn 3 (each game has a 6 turn maximum before 'the cops arrive') so it is unlikely you'll need 36 figures.  You'll likely be able to get away with 10-15 max.  The re-playability with the same crew of figures is limited too as levelling up is quite easy so going into the next 'Case' could mean you'll have to ramp up the toughness of the enemy to maintain the tension/fun.
 
As noted the rules as written make a great framework on which to hang more depth and a few house rules.  Hopefully they will remain popular in our group.

[Chairface]

As noted the rules as written make a great framework on which to hang more depth and a few house rules.  Hopefully they will remain popular in our group.

I`m having too much fun with Jay and Silent Bob. I`m in no rush to stop

[Freddy]

2. The book only has artwork, no pictures of minis or tabletops.  The lack of "in-action" shots of games was really disappointing to me.  I was left unsure what a typical table looked like for the game. 

Fistful of Kungfu book has a lot of action shots with literally the same 4 figures, i think that is even worse

Apart from the generic hollowness, what kinda setting is this? Zombies? Robots? Ufos? Ghosts? all of them?

[zemjw]

Apart from the generic hollowness, what kinda setting is this? Zombies? Robots? Ufos? Ghosts? all of them?

It's Scooby Do, Buffy, Kolchack the Night Stalker, Ghostbusters, Cthulhu etc. "modern day monster hunting and occult investigations" from the back of the book.

Zombies and Ghosts definitely, but robots and UFOs could work.

The Dark Spawn classes listed in the book are:

Restless - undead, zombies, ghosts, vampires etc
Possessed - creatures operating under a malign influence
Cursed - were-creatures, shapeshifters
Damned - creatures from Hell
Others - Cthulhu type beings

Shoe-horning edge cases in shouldn't be too hard

I agree about the lack of in-game images, but the artwork has grown on me.

[Sunjester]

Although the "offical" setting is a modern urban enviroment, I have set my games in the 1920s. So far we have playing in the deserts of Egypt, the mountains of Croatia and the streets of Venice, all of which have worked well using the rules. You can easily adapt the rules to almost any setting.

[Freddy]

Nice, thank you!  I understood the core concept, but I was curious about how much work the rules need to fit a specific setting. My big favourite in the genre, Perilous Tales gives pretty specific rules for the baddies.