Last night I had another playtest game for
.45 Adventure 2nd edition. And I have to say, I think the combat system works marvelously. I had 7 players AND we played on a 6 foot board (I will discuss that in a second).
Here is the table set-up.
And a close shot of some elephants.
I kept the actual scenario simple as I was still playing with mechanics. The goal of the scenario was to find the three markers that showed the path out of the jungle and then exit the board. Players collected victory points for each game animal they bagged and each hostile model that eliminated. After I explained the rules, we had a brief question and answer session and I ran through some examples and situations (because some of the players like to see the mechanics in action without having to do it in game).
After about the third time combat occurred, people had the basics down and all I had to do was remind of modifiers. Things that I liked that became evident in the game. There are 4 different types of combat figure that have emerged in the rules. Two range combat and two close combat. Each of these has one type that can hit hard and one type that can strike more often. As the models in play were all Big Game Hunters, they could hit hard so when shooting at single targets, they could do massive amounts of damage. But when swarmed by hordes of natives, they could be quickly overwhelmed.
And 4 Grade 1s can take down a Grade 3 if players plan for the weaknesses of their opponent. A range combat expert Grade 3 swarmed by 4 close Combat Grade 1s will quickly find the wounds piling up.
Also, though there was some bad dice rolling, the Heroes could be more heroic with the changes. They used Hero Points more often and their abilities allowed them to try things with better chances of success. For example, Dead Shot in 2nd edition allows you to roll 2 dice for Wound location (instead of just adding to a die roll with Hero Points). This meant that the Heroes could pick apart the enemy (or if they accidentally hit a friend, move the wound to a less critical spot).
The Run Action... love it. As long as you have at least one Legs wound available, you can still Run which means that models can stay in the game longer.
Those are my thoughts. And here are some more pictures.
The Grade 3 War Chief as he approaches a second victim.
Closer he draws, step by step, inch by inch. Only to be felled by rifle fire. DOH!
Natives bear down on one of the hunters. They skewered him repeatedly until he fell unconscious and then they went after more prey (he then woke up and snuck off before they could come back).
Ants! Giant friggin' ants! Had to play with some new toys that were sent to me. So Chuck, here are the ants in play.
And three shots of the game animals (some downed by rifle shots) as the players race to get off the board.
Now, I know that I always talk about the small playing area that you can use for the game, but with the changes to the new rules, you can now play on larger boards IF YOU WANT to. The small playing area is not compromised by these changes as I saw in the three previous playtest games I have run using the smaller board. But, for those games where you just need a larger space, you can now do it without having to change rules or make the game drag out incredibly long. We played on this board last night in less than 3 hours. And there was quite a lot of discussion about rules mechanics and such so lots of stopping points along the way.
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April 23, 2024, 09:37:18 AM
June 13, 2010, 09:51:35 PM
