Devilry Afoot - first games

[fred]

I might be a bit late to the DA party - but I got the book for my birthday last month, and managed to get a couple of solo games in over this weekend.

Due to figure (and terrain) availability I've moved forward to Victorian times (at least visually, I've not changed any rules at this stage for the move to cartridge weapons over ball and powder ones). I am largely hoping to do this as a game with existing figures - and perhaps as a way of getting some of the lead mountain painted.

The Dance Macabre

I picked this scenario simply as it was the second one in the book, and I didn't think I had the witch figures for the first scenario. In retrospect this wasn't a great first scenario!

I'd drafted up a group of Hunters during the week - as with any new game it took a little while to work through the various options and how they interact. I went with
Corto - A Gentleman
Mr Jones - A Scholar
Preacher Ted - A Religious
The Commander - A Soldier

The scenario was based around a burial ground which the hunters needed to un-curse by quoting scripture in the centre three times. This was complicated by the presence of a Revenant and a Spectre. Which doesn't sound too bad, but each time the Revenant activated it had a 30% chance of triggering another Revenant to appear...



A couple of turns in - and a second Revenant has been summoned.  Mr Jones and the Commander are advancing from the top, whilst Corto, his follower and Preacher Ted are moving in from the centre left. Preacher Ted was effective at Quoting Scripture at the Spectre and causing damage to it. The Revenants tended to move very slowly


A couple of turns later, Jones and the Commander are engaged in an ineffectual melee with one Revenant. Corto's nameless follower has been taken out, whilst Corto is now engaged with a second Revenant after getting successful shots off at the first one to take it out.

3 more revenants have been summoned!

And by this stage their were so many that the unpainted ones needed to be used 

Preacher Ted has made it to the centre of the burial ground to start Quoting Scripture (he is particularly good at this due is class, his Theology Skill and his Bible) - which is good as QS normally requires an activation test at -4 so a 7 or 8+ on a d10. Ted knocks this down to a -1, and gets to roll twice. So needing a 4+ on 1 of 2 d10 for a succes.

The 5th turn was poor for the Hunters, Corto fled from the spectre's intimidation, Preacher Ted failed to QS (despite his good chances!), the melee continued. More revenants arrived - but at least the existing ones only shuffled forwards


Last turn - Corto and The Commander are both taken out by Revenants - who rolled very high on their wound rolls. Fortunately Preacher Ted cleanses the burial ground before him and Mr Jones are swarmed by the horde of Revenants.

Phew!

There was a lot going on in this game - the number of Revenants rapidly became too many. Not helped by poor melee rolls by the Hunters.

I'd missed that an opportunity attack can be conducted if an attacker fails to hit - which might have helped the Hunters.

And when writing this up I've seen that Revenants cause -1 to activations if within 4" which really wouldn't have helped them.

In the post game rolls - disaster both Corto and the Commander expired from their wounds!

And due to only killing 1 revenant the bounty was quite low (but at least not spread between that many Hunters!)

It was a good game - but with any new game a lot of bits to get my head around, and with playing solo there wasn't anyone to spot and correct some of my mistakes!

A question from the game

The Commander had Witch as his Secret. What I'm not sure about is what (if anything) is the negative outcome of this if the other Hunters find out? I assume as he must summon his familiar whilst out of LoS there is something?

[Malamute]

Great stuff.

[fred]

Thank you - I will endeavour to get the second game written up.

[mikedemana]

Hey, be impressed your Hunters officially won this scenario by cleansing the burial ground. I've seen a YouTube video or two that says this one is a toughie. So, you did well (even without your Opportunity Attacks  ).

I will move my games to the 1700s in frontier America, as I have a boatload of F&I War figures. Go with what you got!

Thanks for posting the AAR...

Mike Demana

[fred]

Thanks - I choose to end the game the moment the graveyard was cleansed. Otherwise the remaining hunters would have been in trouble too.

The only downside to going with Victorian period is finding an excuse for firearms to need to take reload actions, when they were often revolvers or magazine rifles.

[Spinal Tap]

Thanks - I choose to end the game the moment the graveyard was cleansed. Otherwise the remaining hunters would have been in trouble too.

The only downside to going with Victorian period is finding an excuse for firearms to need to take reload actions, when they were often revolvers or magazine rifles.

Great report.

Regarding muskets to rifles adaptation, albeit with a different game system, I allowed a second shot to replace the loading action but at a huge penalty so it barely ever hit (but it was so sweet when it did).

[fred]

Thanks - a second shot penalty might be a good idea - then players are more likely to take the concentrate to give a +2 on the first shot, rather than risking a second shot.


Does anyone have any views on how the Secret Witch rule works for Hunters? Is there a risk of being discovered? Or does it just mean the Secret Witch needs to start on their own to be able to summon their familiar?

[fred]

Game 2 - Lost in the Woods

Preacher Ted and Mr Jones sought out two new Hunters to return their numbers to 4. They were joined by Old Archie, a Goodman, equipped with a blunderbus and holy water, and The Hunter an enigmatic Soldier equipped with a sword and a couple of monster wards (an Elf bolt and a sprig of wolfsbane).

Preacher Ted traded in his blunderbus and club for a Dragon heavy pistol with silver shot and a sword. Mr Jones added a sword and several rounds of silver shot for his current pistol.

Hopefully this group would be less fated!

The scenario is Lost in the Woods - 2 innocents are lost in some fairly open woodland, there is an area of rough ground, and an area of Hungry Grass (hungry grass can cause humans to fall asleep and be lost to the fairy realm). There were just two bogeymen as monsters - due to figure availability one was a green zombie-esque figure they other more ghost like. All of these were randomly located, with both bogeymen turning up on the same side of the table.

Finally there was a pact devil in the bottom right corner - who would lure the innocents towards him



The hunters deployed at the top of the map. The innocents in the centre. The monsters to the right. Despite the sunniness of these photos it should be remembered these games are set at night with fairly limited visibility.

Mr Jones and The Hunter engaged the green bogeyman in melee - and despite suffering -2 on dice rolls due to its malevolence still managed to cause 2 wounds.

Preacher Ted advanced and quoted scripture at the other bogeyman scaring him off.
The innocents headed towards the pact devil.



Turn 2 - Old Archie throws his holy water on The Hunter to help him resist the bogeyman. The Hunter wounds the bogeyman again (the -2 on dice rolls has kept the BM in the fight). The BM then flees and intimidates the too closest hunters.

The innocents are now close to the other BM and therefore flee from it - this is good news as it takes them away from the monsters. This BM drifts around not doing much (monster activation is by dice rolls on tables - BM have quite an unusual table with quite a few different options possible).



Turn 3
Old Archie blasts the central BM with his blunderbus - and misses.

Preacher Ted who is closest to this BM fails to activate due to its malevolent aura

Mr Jones shoots the green BM and kills it - just causing a wound due to his silver shot.

Turn 4
The Hunter advances, Jones and Archie reload. Ted fails to activate (again) the -2 from the BM is significant.

But the BM does little, drifting around and attempting to intimidate, but the hunters resist.
This allows the innocents to escape off the table.

Turn 5
The remaining BM is forced to flee by Preacher Ted quoting scripture.

The Hunter decides to engage with the Pact Devil - gaining +1 to his attack value, but picks up the Drunkard secret.

The Hunters gain 70 shillings bounty.

This was a much more straightforward game than the first one - no respawning revanants to start with!

The bogeymen with their -2 dice modifier were very tough to engage in melee. What I found funny was that the two BM actually played to the style of their figures. With the stumpy green one getting involved in melee straight off. And the ghost like one, drifting around! A strange intersection of figures and dice rolls.

As the hunt was successful and the innocents were saved lots of experience all round. Preacher Ted and Mr Jones both gained enough experience for an upgrade. Mr Jones added to his shooting skill - perhaps having learned from taking out the BM.

Preacher Ted gains the Physician skill - given the problems after the first game with the effects of wounds. Not entirely sure of the narrative here - most of the scholarly skills feel a bit unlikely to be picked up after a game - but perhaps having seen two of his associates pass away he was driven to gain knowledge in this area...

This game was good fun - I was more sure of more of the gameplay so it flowed better. Though I still think I missed a few things - definitely the downside to solo games is remembering all the various modifiers that come into play at a point in time. But I'd rather the game keeps flowing then spending time double checking everything.

[mikedemana]

Sounds fun! Definitely randomness going on with the tables. I'd seen that in the YouTube videos I'd watched of game plays. Thanks for posting the pics and the battle report.

Mike Demana

[fred]

I've not looked at all the monster tables yet - but the ones I have seen have nice differences to them.

The Revanant's are very single minded, move towards the hunters, attack them. Though they are somewhat thwarted by their 1d10-3 move.

The Bogemen have a much more varied set of responses and whilst Attack is the most common when close to hunters, the ghost like one managed to roll the flee result a couple of times. On most of the tables Flee is the response for rolls of 1 or less, and as you subtract wounds from this it feels right as the monsters get more battered, they are more likely to withdraw.

As with all of this type of games it's about weaving some narrative into the dice rolls.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

It seems it's been a little while since I dropped in! Great to see you enjoying the game, and no really reason you couldn't bring it into the 19th century - as indeed we have done multiple times.

The secret witch is just about the best 'flaw' you can roll for your hunter. The only downside is that sometimes they don't get experience if the hunters are successful. That is written into some of the scenarios, and I'd recommend applying it in custom scenarios as well.

Happy hunting!

[fred]

Thanks for clarifying Nic

Not managed to fit in any more games since those first two

[majorsmith]

I’ve got the rules, still need to get a first game in !