Trial Run

Today, Emre wanted to try out the Rangers of Shadow Deep system before deciding whether it would be a good choice for his birthday game. (We had already created our rangers and their companions yesterday).  Seeing as how it is better to strike while the iron is hot, I quickly agreed -- and scrounged up everything that I have gathered up so far, which wasn't much. A couple of badly painted minis, and some unpainted ones from various other games (e.g., Wildlands) and older ventures that we no longer play (e.g., Reaper Bones versions of Pathfinder iconic heroes to keep track of said heroes in Pathfinder Card Battles). Monster standees from Gloomhaven. A bag of moss and four haystacks from Michael's. And some green felt. That's it. Casting around in a semi-panic, I luckily found some building blocks!

And an abandoned village was born:

Here is the village. We quickly made some hills by putting blocks under the felt.

Roofs, roads, chimneys, walls, and even trees. Yes, they look pretty basic, but, for today, they would do the job. You can see our bands in the middle of the village (where, surprise!, a zombie infestation is apparently going down).

Here is  Emre's band (L to R: El'ron the conjurer, Ronin the Ranger, and Rose the Guardwoman). Note the zombie graffiti on the wall in the background.

And this is my band - Kyung the Fearless is the unpainted white mini in the middle (Pathfinder iconic paladin). She is surrounded by Baldric the tracker (some D&D game), LeRoy the recruit (Wildlands), and Woof the hound (Sword & Sorcery).

We were quickly aware of said zombies and that we did not have much time to explore the village -- we needed to explore 6 clue tokens scattered through the village, including in two of the buildings (which were locked). I am not going to bore you with a blow by blow, but we mainly succeeded. LeRoy was taken down during the scenario, but rolled a close call and will make it to the next scenario. On the other hand, he failed his disease roll. Two reasons why there will be nasty limericks rhyming with his name when we get back to the barracks (if we manage to get back at all, that is).

Here are some closeups of our bands.

El'Ron (Pathfinder Ezren, half painted)

Ronin (Archer from Sword & Sorcery)

Rose (Pathfinder Amiri, badly painted).

You know what? I am not going to post the rest of the closeups. Here are a few more pictures of the action instead:

View from the Inn towards the village center.

Below are pictures from Turn 1. Bunch of Zombies appeared, as well as some Giant Rats (yes, I don't have the correct standees for them. Sue me.)  Also, Devrim, doing his zombie impression. By the way, he rolled the evil die and averaged about 16.5. At some point, he decided that he would no longer roll for the bad guys because he felt bad for us.

Rose and El'Ron fight a rat. That rat almost took Rose down (she was down to 1 hp after this fight.)

In general, we took more damage from Giant Rats than we did from the zombies. In this game, damage done is based on what you roll, not a "damage" stat. Those rats had the dice gods on their side (well, at least Devrim on their side) today. While the zombies -- not so much.

Down to 1 hp, Rose charges back to the other side of the village to help LeRoy. But she is too late. She avenges him by chopping down the zombie who just took him down. Woof helped, too.

Watch out! Here comes another zombie from the house on the hill.

Kyung fights another rat. Rats! Why did it have to be rats?

Towards the end of the game. Near the center, in some bushes, Woof finds the body of the ranger who was sent to this village before us, while Baldric and Ronin shoot at the last zombie at the far edge. El'Ron is about to investigate the last clue marker.

Overall, we had a blast. It's a quick playing, fun game. Combat is a tad wonky and a little too abstract for my tastes, but it may be just right for Emre. I think we will be playing more of this in the coming weeks.