Dracula's America-The Nameless Ritual

A little over a week ago myself and Luis got together at his place to play our third game in our DA's Forbidden Powers campaign. I was quite looking forward to the game, as I had lost the last game and I had built up my posse of Nephilim to take on Luis's Cultists.

We are playing the scenarios in order from the source book and in this scenario a cult (we presume a different cult than Luis's, maybe something like the cult in Inspector Legrasse's adventure in the Louisiana swamps in 1908)  has seized some villagers and are keeping them in an abandoned church in the middle of the swamp. There are 5 villagers and 6 cultists. If a posse can save them they are worth 4VP, but if one delays they end up being killed by the cult.

As usual Luis put forward an excellent terrain, here is the ruined church with the cultists and the villagers

I started my posse in the lower left while Luis started in the upper right

Before I could do much, a Shoggoth showed up on my side of the table, I had put Loki and Azrael in a boat so I could move them rapidly to the house south of the church so they could set up a firing position looking at the church to cover the rescue party. I also sent out my Bokor to harass Luis's characters as they tried to rescue the villagers. Best laid plans! I had to turn the boat around and rapidly retreat from the Shoggoth. By now I had sent in Malpas to be the first of my posse to try to bring back a villager. By turn 3, the cultists had focused their attention almost exclusively on Luis posse, but I had to deal with the Shoggoth. Surprisingly, on his second try, Astaroth was able to summon the Seraphim to try to kill the the Shoggoth. This was almost an impossible task.

By now, my posse had rescued 2 of the hostages while Luis was in the process of rescuing 2 as well. I gave up trying to kill the Shoggoth with the summoned Seraphim, but I was able to get Astaroth close enough to cast a Banish spell and the Shoggoth was gone. The game was quite close now, as Luis had also gained points by killing a creature himself and was on his way out with the 5th and final hostage......

......but I had a plan, I sent in the Seraphim to kill Luis's posse member who was escorting the villager. They were still in the church just moving out, but what Luis had done was to put Mr T on Lookout. I moved in, and with great dice rolling and an abysmal save roll on behalf of the Seraphim...he was killed! Victory to the Luis's Cultists.

This was the best DA game I have played to date, it was a lot of fun and up until Turn 6 it could have been any one's game. I look forward to the next.

Serafimovich- Game 3 Bobrovsky

Ten days ago myself and Dan got together to play our next game in our Battle of the Sunflowers campaign set in July-August of 1942 during the German Fall Blau operation. We cannot use the same platoon in consecutive games. Dan decided to go with a fresh platoon, I used the platoon from my first game, this was a new table which replicates the Assault on Bobrovsky on July 30, 1942.

Italian Attackers- 3rd Bersaglieri (FM 10)

Bersaglieri Autoportati Platone #3 (Superior Regulars FR -1)

1 Senior Leader

3 Squadras of 13 men, lead by a JL (3 man Breda LMG w/ rifleman team, 8 man Rifle team)

Supports 13

2 x Semovente 47/32

Extra Squad

SMG's

Soviet Defenders-154th Rifle Division (FM 11)

Platoon #1 (Regulars FR 0)

1 Senior Leader

4 sections of 11 men, lead by a JL  (no teams, LMG with 3 crew and 7 rifles)-less 3 men

Supports 6

MMG Team

M1937 45mm ATG w/JL

The Game

Soviets on the left

Attack and Defend Scenario

Italian Approach

Patrol Markers, I believe I finally got the better of Dan for the first time in 3 games.

Italian JOP's

Soviet JOP's

I deduced to make this farm with stom=ne walls my main line of defence

Dan advanced into this house but my second line of defence as seen below gave him quite a lot of grief both getting in there and one he was in....

Hard to stand up to a section, a MMG team as well as a 47mm ATG

Dan also tried to advance through the forest into the fields but 2 sections in the farmhouse compound were able to thwart that attempt. Dan's 2 tanks advance barely but in the open. My 47mm ATG took quite awhile to zero in but were able to eventually cause both tank teams to bail out. As you can also quite a bit of shock was accumulated all round on the Italians and their FM fell to 3 at which point Dan wisely chose to withdraw.

Well, a much better game played by the Soviets but I have to say that this was a much easier table to defend on. We are hoping to play our next game at Dan's so same scenario but a different looking terrain. It should be interesting.

The Butcher's Bill

Italian Platoon #3 (FM 3)

21 figures lost + JL

10 dead, 6 missing

CO -1

MO -3

Outlook Thoughtful

Soviet Platoon #1  (FM 9)

2 figures lost

1 dead, 1 missing (2 dead in this platoon, 1 missing for next game)

CO +2

MO +4

Outlook Cheerful

Muskets & Tomahawks-King Philip's War

Last Wednesday week, myself and Graham got together at the Abyss to have a game of Musket's and Tomahawks. Graham is putting on this game at Historicon in July and he wants to test run the scenario. Most of his gaming with M&T had been with V1 of the ruleset so he wants to get up to speed with V2. 

I believe we had around 600 point armies and played the Battle scenario on both sides. I have to admit that I have not played a lot of M&T recently so I was a little rusty. The book is quite nice but sometimes it is difficult to find answers to questions we had. This is characterised by no clear set up rules in the main text, but they actually exist in the scenario section. I suppose this is reasonable but we were quite confused about something as basic as do the units start on the table on come on when there card is played. We eventually had most of our questions answered post game with the help of some of our club members on our Discord, so I suppose we are now ok. 

Anyway, we did have a fun game with frequent utilisation of the Command Abilities and dramatic card play. We played the scenario out, and I believe it is pretty balanced. The scenario is going to get another test run at the Club Games Day next Saturday, so I suspect it will be well polished before the troops take off to Pennsylvania. Anyway here are a few photos of Graham's terrain and figures.

Pulp Alley-The Lost Keys

Last Tuesday week, myself and PY got together for a gaming session in Lachine. I believe we both have missed playing Pulp Alley and it is quick to set up so we went with that. I have been getting trounced recently so I decided to go with a new league. I like my Nephilim figures so I put together a new league. I have a slightly better understanding of league construction now, and as a result you can see this is quite a different take, with more reliance on Perks than characters.

I had not realised it but this was somewhat similar to the Cultist league that PY uses but I really had not realised this when I was putting the league together. 

We diced for scenarios and ended up with scenario 2 from the main rulebook. I do not remember either of us getting a lot from the pre-game action so on to the game. PY set up a suburban terrain which looked quite nice.

On to the game, well I got wiped out pretty quickly. My dice were not too bad but I did not have much luck with the cards. PY had one attribute which allowed him to get a card every time he became the director and played them skilfully. I also did not manage my league that well, especially the abilities, missing many opportunities, so a victory to the Followers of the Eye. I will leave you with some photos.

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