10th November - Across the Dead Earth Game vs The Uncle

Everything went to plan and we got that game in today. The rules played smoothly and we'll hopefully get another couple of games in before the year is over. I really enjoyed the way the event card mechanic read and as we managed to use most of the fun ones during the game it played out as I thought it would. The only thing we didn't really use in this game was the grenades and that was purely as we both forgot we were carrying them in the heat of the moment.

The contended area

We setup the board as a small ramshackle trading settlement. A rather large State convoy had been overwhelmed by a roving horde of Sollus and after the plague victims had moved on our two rival gangs moved in to scavenge the much needed medical supplies from the two medical trucks and hopefully some intel about upcoming State movements from the command car that had crashed through into the settlement.

The Family head in from the North

The Red Claw from the South

The two gangs headed in from opposite sides of the road The Family (The Uncle) and the Red Claws (Myself). The Uncle has yet to paint his AtDE minis so he subbed in some alternates from his collection

You can almost here her saying
"Look at the pretty birdies"

The Uncle won initiative and sent Ezra (Medic) straight up towards the supply filled trucks (We had ruled that looting the trucks/car would take an action for this game signifying rifling through the vehicle or grabbing everything off shelves). My first move sent Shrimp (Scout) round the corner heading towards the command vehicle and saw our first event card "Look Out!" a failed save roll sent Shrimp crashing to the group dazed by some fallen roofing. This caused me to send Topper (Assault) and Shay-man (Medic) over to give her a hand, Topper to cover her and Shay-man ready to try his medical skills on her next turn.

The remainder of the turn saw The Uncle move to control the centre of the table with Drexyl (Sharpshooter) moving to cover the roadway and Adam (Leader) and Reggie (Assault) heading up toward the central objectives and getting into cover. I sent Fatboy (Heavy) over to the wrecked ute and Pyro (Grunt) forwards to attempt to get them into range and try to give The Uncle something to think about before he attempted any wholesale looting of trucks. Ronnie (Leader) moved up and spent his last action ordering Fatboy to get his head down.

The Uncle won initiative for the second round and sent Skylar (Scout) heading for the command vehicle but as she got there it turns out the driver had cleaned out the vehicle and dragged himself into a nearby building (event card "Information Error"). Ezra then looted the centre van and headed for his edge liberating the much needed medical supplies for his family members. Shay-man revived Shrimp after a bit of work. The bulk of this turn saw Fatboy W&W and Ronnie and Pyro moving up slightly. This allowed Reggie to take a shot at Ronnie, he managed a hit but didn't even manage to slow the old warhorse down. This caused Pyro to launch a torrent of abuse at the Family gang member (event card "Taunt") which caused the young man to lose his cool as he settled in to W&W himself.

Another turn and another initiative win for The Uncle. He chose to move Drexyl out to back up Skylar and take a shot at Pyro but his shot went wild. Shrimp moved in and engaged Skylar but didn't have the impetus to get a decent swing in. Skylar then began the melee but failed to penetrate Shrimp's defenses, sensing an opening Shrimp swung back mightily with her axe and knocked Skylar to the ground. 

 As we'd agreed that the trucks had to be looted from the back The Uncle moved Adam to the back of the un-looted van. After a quick thought Fatboy opted to use his W&W to take a shot at the opposing gang leader leaving Pyro to deal with Reggie's impending uncontrollable charge and scores a hit putting him out for a while. Ronnie then took the opportunity to W&W, just before Reggie responded to the previous turns taunt. The young man then charged Pyro and was clipped by Ronnie's SMG but his momentum kept him upright and he engaged with the flamethrower toting gang member. Sensing a chance at overwhelming odds Fatboy then charged to the rear and put Reggie down with some well timed knife work. Pyro then ran over to get Drexyl into range of his flamer and bathed the sharpshooter with deadly fire (rolled an eleven!!), but Drexyl must have been tipped off and was wearing some flame retardant clothing (the double ones that were the only roll that would save him).

Finally initiative comes my way. Pyro decides that he missed due to range and moves closer but Drexyl out draws him (event card "Quick Draw") and put him down. He then decides it's time to regroup with the others and heads back toward the convoy. Topper then loots the drivers corpse and heads back toward the Red Claw meeting point. Fatboy leans down grinning and tilts Reggie's head back ready to finish the boy off but finds a pale grinning visage looking straight at him with a pin between his teeth, Boom!! (event card "Sacrifice") Both men are taken out of action. Ronnie skirts around the edge of the trucks and takes a shot at Drexyl putting him down. He looks over and spots Pyro lying in his own blood and calls out for Shay-man to come running (event card "Medic!!") Shay-man quickly stabilizes him and then ducks into the nearby cover of the ramshackle building. Shrimp attempts to take Skylar out but is unable to finish the down gang member off.

That pretty much ended the game, the last few turns saw Pyro practically set himself alight trying to take Drexyl out, but then my gang members finally worked out which end of the knife to use to take people out of action. It was on the sixth turn that Ronnie put Ezra down the loyal medic unwilling to leave his fallen leader behind.

We'll probably have another couple of games with the sample gangs from the rulebook before we roll up our own starting gangs and we're going to look at organising some multiple story buildings and a bit more scatter terrain. I've started painting up my Family gang minis so I can get a game in with The Daughters or The Wife sometime soon, though my new three points of Vikings for Saga will hit the painting table after that I'd say.