It being a school holiday and both my brother and I having our kids we organised a game at our Uncle's house and settled on a good old fashioned Victorian Dinosaur hunt. Having played several before as a much younger person I felt it was a good option. We browsed a couple of rule sets on the morning but finally settled on a slightly modified "Saurian Safari" (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28455/saurian-safari).
After rolling the characters up (the two senior hunters being either woefully bad, or as we decided heavily in the bottom of a lil' brown jug). We set-up the table and prepared to begin.....
"You have been recruited by the rival business UNC (Unified Naturalist Corp) and AUNT (Acquired Uniquity in New Territories) to discover and retrieve seed samples of the relic species local to this remote area. Two of the samples are available from the forested areas close to the ships, however the three remaining surface plants are in the further area across the distant river and the final (the commonly seen rare pink water flower, as opposed to the rarely seen common white variety) is only available in the remote river bank. Both companies have also expressed interest in any other rare commodities that may show themselves on the expedition."
Turn one proved to be rather eventful with our rolling after movement resulting in no dinosaurs, but three events; Giant river leaches accost Christian the Great the Fifths party and Nate the Stout found his path blocked but an almost impassable thicket of thorns and at the same moment saw a mass of huge maggots heading his way. While the Stout party managed to keep it's cool, one of The Great party's bearers was overcome with terror and fled in terror (this became a nasty habit for his bearers).
Nate the stout after many successful turns with no need to chase and reassure his bearers had managed to grab samples of the nearer seeds, but trouble was finally coming his way in the form of a Tyranosaurus Rex
Who of course spotted the Dilophosaurs across the river and headed for them. Resulting in his first paniced party member of the game
Nate senses the chance to harvest some valuable T-rex glands and opens fire, initially stunning and eventually slaying the giant beast after being knocked to the ground with the recoil of the custom made giant dinosaur rifle. However the lone Triceratops bull hears the shot and charges at his party. Christian the Great's party unloads into the 'Tops as it passes and sends it crashing to the ground after an amazing shot to the brain pan. Seizing the chance for priceless dino ivory the hurry toward the downed beast. The Dilophosaurs attracted by the noises charge The Stout's expedition but are slain by some great shooting.
In what seemed to be the ongoing theme of this current game, just as the final Dilo fell to the ground a pack of hunting Deinonychus come rushing up the shallow river. Deciding discretion is the better path of valour Nate and his cohorts leg it in the opposite direction sending a few shots toward them and managing to drop a couple......
Unfortuately.....
The good Dr Archibald freezes in panic.....
.....and is devoured.
Thus began the final nails in both parties coffins, although The Stout managed to salvage something out of the debacle.
Dramas such as Mosasaurus and a man-eating plant resulted in one of The Stout's baggage handlers disappearing into the wilderness and Darwina (The Great) and Ralph the Man (The Stout) becoming fertilizer
In a spot of rare luck the Deinonychus spot the Iguanadon that had appeared earlier and gave chase eventually running it down in a remote out of the way region and managing to run the Triceratops off, which had managed to shake off the shot to the brain and stand up just in time to see them.
Both teams decided it was time to call it a day and began heading for the boats, The Great with a Protoceratops egg and one seed and The Stout with 2 seeds and 1 from the carnivorous plant (Ralph the Man did not die in vain).
However there was one more disaster to strike the UNC expedition......
A Diplodocus came wandering through the river past the berthed riverboats, shattering the UNC boat, crushing The Great's one remaining handler, his seed, his egg and crushing the leg of Terra.
With nothing left to lose he heads to the remaining AUNT ship seeks and gains a ride home.
Final Result :
- Christian the Great the Fifth for UNC : 0 seeds and only 1 badly injured party member remaining.
- Nate the Stout : 2 target seeds and 1 carnivorous plant seed and 1 uninjured party member and 3 hirelings (2 handlers, 1 hunter).
All in all a fairly straight forward system of rules and a whole lot of fun despite the seemingly non-stop string of disasters
