Dracula's America-Shadows of the Colonies

I had my first game of Dracula's America for several months last Friday with Luis. It was the first game in Luis's Canada version of DA. He has put an enormous amount of work into this with different items and several new entities and creatures. It is set in the 18th century. 

I had very little time to put together an idea for a posse (less than 24 hours). I had painted several figures for another ruleset The Devil in the Wilderness and felt it might be cool to use these. This game is focussed on the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century but with a bit of thought I put together a backstory where I could move them to the 18th century.

After the Salem Witch Trials several of the accused fled north into the remote forests of Maine and the Maritimes, beyond the reach of Puritan courts. Living quietly near communities of the Wabanaki Confederacy, their descendants preserved a darker and more secret tradition recorded in a hidden grimoire begun by the original fugitives. Passed from generation to generation, the book contained cryptic symbols, forbidden rites, and whispered accounts of ancient powers tied to the wilderness, including stories drawn from Wabanaki mythology of spirits and shapeshifting beings that could move between human and animal form in the deep northern forests.

I called the posse the Darkwoods Occultists and based them on the Skinwalkers faction but if I had given it more thought I believe the Salem Sisterhood would have been a better fit. I sent my posse list to Luis Friday morning and amazingly enough he generated some beautiful cards for the posse.

Burroughs was the Hero and the Archanist, with Puljinskews, Skadegamute and Alten were the Veterans. Lovecraft cognoscenti will recognise the names of Curwen, Hutchinson, Oren and Nadek. Alden and Pukjinskews are skin walkers and can shapeshift into a Werewolf and a Werebear. The Flying Head (Wendigo) was converted into a Medium Flying Entity. When I vsualise the Wendigo I think of Algernon Blackwood's novella. 

Anyway on to the game, it was a lot of fun. Essentially it was quite simple with the only goal having as many figures as possible within 4" of the centre marker. I thought I had it but in the last move Luis was able to get 2 figures in place so we ended up with a tie. 

I have had some reservations about Dracula's America but I really enjoyed this game. I think that I liked this game as the figures were not complicated with a lot of skills and weapons. This made it much smoother to play. I think I would be happy to play one-off games but maybe less so campaigns.

Dracula's America-Dagon Rising!

 

Myself and Luis had the seventh and final game in our Forbidden Powers campaign set in the Swamplands of the Deep South. We played this as a one-off campaign not in association with the campaigns in Shadows in the West or the Hunting Grounds sourcebooks. I will calculate Destiny Points for this campaign in case we do move on in the future with another Dracula's America campaign. Although it was not really stated at the beginning of the campaign, I would think that Luis's Cultist Posse represents the Alliance of Chaos while my Nephilim represent the Alliance of Order.

To date Luis had won 4 of the previous games and I had won 2, the Infamy accumulated were quite close with Luis have a 2 point margin. Really though the Cultists were trouncing my Nephilim in most of the games. I believe I really only had one significant victory. The Cultists have much more seasoned veterans who are better equipped.

This scenario was set in a dry area in the middle of a swamp, with Dagon's Pool in the middle with monoliths placed around it. Each posse can claim a monolith with a character using an action utilising one of their grit dice. With a successful throw they can claim it, if the Alliance of Chaos claims 3 of the monoliths then a Minor Servitor of Dagon appears. If at the end of turn 8, if the Servitor is on the table then the Chaos Alliance wins the game. The Servitor can appear anytime after turn 3. Simple enough!

Game Summary

In my recent Saga game, I mentioned that I had incredible dice while my opponent was absolutely abandoned by the dice gods. In our last Dracula Americas game the reverse happened to me to a point where even Luis felt sorry for me. Unfortunately, it was very similar in this game, just terrible dice and yet again my Seraphim once on the table is knocked down by some random event and never gets to engage the enemy. But time to stop whining!

We had 10 characters each, I started in the left lower corner (southwest) while Luis was diagonally across for me. Winning the game was dependent on me not letting the Cult capture 3 on the monoliths. Clearly the one next me should be easy enough to get early in the game, so I sent 3 characters to the east and 3 to the north. I kept Astaroth back with Malpas, who was half dead anyway, as well as the Bokor. I also kept Uzza back but advanced him toward the pool so he could make a run for the SE and NW monolith as need be. I also had to consider trying to win the campaign as the margin was just 2, but knowing that Luis was a much more experienced player, I made this secondary.

Luis advanced his characters to the same monoliths but more to the SE monolith, so I set up the Undead Drifter there on Lookout while 2 veteran hired guns advanced to claim the monolith. By turn 3, Astaroth had captured the SW monolith and in turn 4 or 5 the SE monolith was captured. I was surprised that Luis did not put capturing the NE monolith high on his list. So essentially more than half way through the game I had 2 monoliths and Luis had zero. In turn 6 and 7, Luis started to turn the tables on me and captured 2 monoliths and near the end of the turn 7 was aggressively trying to capture the 3rd. By now I had lost 5 of my characters, although I had killed a minor entity that Luis had spawned as well as banishing a Shogoth that had spawned.  I believe Luis had lost 2 characters including one with an infamy of 4.

I am not sure if Luis had missed it, but he started Turn 8 with only 2 monoliths, so I had won the game as there was no Servitor on the table. A surprising victory as I had not played that well. But the real shocker came in the post game process, Luis's character Mr T with 4 Infamy was deemed killed. He lost these points so the final Infamy total was 39 for the Nephilim and 36 for the Crossroads Cultists. I had won the Forbidden Powers campaign winning 3 out of 7 scenarios. 

I am not sure when we will play more Draculas America as we are moving on to Pulp Alley next. I did go ahead and made a post game Posse sheet for the Nephilim as who knows when they will appear again. Just is case we play another DA campaign I did calculate the Destiny Points. The Alliance of Chaos has 4 for their 4 victories while the Alliance of Order has 5, 3 victories and 2 extra for a campaign win.

I have to thank Luis for setting up this campaign, he really put terrific tables together and he has an amazing collection of figures. It was a lo of fun. In respect to the ruleset, I do find it difficult to play and I continuously made errors and missed things. There is a lot of moving pieces in this ruleset, I think I also found the swamp terrain difficult to navigate as LOS and cover were never very clear to me, but the terrain did look terrific. Playing 7 games over 13 months was really not enough to keep the rules fresh in my mind. Hopefully the next time we play, I will be able to play more frequently. 

Dracula's America-Heart of Darkness

 

Last Friday myself and Luis got together for the 6th game in our DA Forbidden Powers campaign. There was a long delay to this game so the rules were pretty rusty for me. Have to "Soldier On" though.

This game takes place back in the swamp among some cyclopean ruins, how is that for Lovecraftian. There wrecked the usual deployment rules, but movement was quite restricted after turn 4 as Foul Morass condition were in play and then in turn 6 the swamp became Flooded. Victory was dependent on how many quadrants of the board you occupied at the end of the game. As usual Luis did a terrific job on the terrain.

Posses

The Game

Well it was an interesting game but a terrible game for me. There is not much question that Luis has a much better grasp of the rules than I, but I have to say that at times, the dice gods were just not smiling on me. I withdrew my forces at the end of turn 6, I had survived a Bottle Check at the end of this turn but I really had no chance of winning. The post game process did not favour me as I gained very little money and my only rifle armed main character, Azrael, died. I did, however, gain 2 veterans but it is going to be difficult to find the money to equip them. It looks like I might be having a sale before our next and final game!

Some New Figures for Alternate History Games

The Dreams in the Witch House

Next up are some figures to add to the Alternate History games I play. I have really tried to limit this but I have had a lot of fun with these games and they are quite popular in Montreal. Aside from the games represented below, I also play Pulp Alley but we will see some figures for this game in my next post.

Two Hired Guns for Dracula's America. These are both North Star figures and they painted up quite nicely. Unfortunately I can not use them in my present posse but they were there so I painted them. On the left is a Skinwalker Archanist and on the right is a Carpathian Guard.

I can us this figure now for my Rashaar Gang in Carnevale. The Karcharos is a Hero in this gang. I have left it with gloss varnish as he is a water creature. 

Finally up are two figures from my Devil in the Wilderness game, I have not had much success in introducing this game in Montreal. It was locally developed and I think it is quite interesting and a lot of fun, but there are some gaps in the rules that require further development. I am told this will happen but I am not so sure.  More about the game here. I am a Lovecraft fan so I could not resist these 2 figures from Dreams in the Witch House: Keziah Mason and her familiar Brown Jenkin.

Dracula's America-Panic in the Streets

I have a lot of reports to catch upon!

About 10 days ago myself and Luis met up at his place to have the next turn in our Dracula's America campaign.  As you know from previous reports, Luis was up 3 to 1 in games and ahead by 4 infamy points. So I was going into our fifth game facing behind significantly. 

We have been playing the Forbidden Powers campaign, and we now are suffering the effects of the author, P Sheridan Thomas's unlocking the Necronomicon. He starts to read and suddenly a deafening sound is heard and a strange vortex opens and expels Eldritch terrors in the middle of Streetwater! 

The scenario expels a Eldritch monster in the middle of the terrain for each turn. Around this vortex are the citizens of Sweetwater, trying to escape death. Both posses have been tasked with escorting the Streetwaterians to Safety. Points are gained for this as well as for the destruction of the Eldritch Entity and the opposing posse.

As usual I took very few photos as the game was quite intense. 

Another great terrain

A very nasty Eldritch Entity in the Vortex.

We played 7 turns as it initially appeared that the Cult had out-played the Nephilim but subsequently it was discovered that half of the Cultist posse was missing which required a Bottle Check, this was a one dice test as the Leader of the Cult had been taken off the board and they failed handing the game to the Nephilim.

The post-game process was initiated and as usual the dice favoured the Cultists but the Nephilim were finally able to recruit a Veteran to join Astaroth. This will even up thing for our sixth game which hopefully will take place within 2-3 weeks. 

Dracula's America-Hunt for the Necronomicon

 

Friday week, myself and Luis got together for the next instalment in Dracula's America campaign. It has been enormous fun and I feel I am finally getting a grasp on the rules.

This was game 4 in the campaign "Hunt for the Necronomicon". The scenario was set on the edge of the swamp. At the end of the last scenario both the Cultists and the Nephilim discovered that one of the men captured by the DeepFolk in the swamp was an author who was in search for this forbidden book. Both posses raced back to Sweetwater in order to track down this tome.

As you can see in the below photo, Luis has set up another superb table for this game.

The Nephilim started out in the left corner while the Cultists started out in the right.  This game was scored a little differently with no points for killing your opponent or any of the entities that might appear. The Necronomicon was hidden in one of the 3 building up the centre and victory would be to the side who had the most characters in or within 1" of the building at the end of the game. 

I had added a Kris Knife to Azrael's weapon, which made it quite useful in summoning the Seraphim who easily took out this entity!

Most of the action was around the centre building with Cultists controlling the far building and Nephilim controlling the building on the swamp edge. 

We got in the full 8 turns but at the end the Cultists had 4 characters controlling the building with the Nephilim having 3. Third victory to Luis...Well done.

Another great game, again quite close. I made a couple of errors that could have left a draw, but on to the next game which I am hoping to play next Tuesday week.

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.

Dracula's America The Spawning Pools

 

Last Sunday we got together at Luis's to play the second game in our Dracula's America Forbidden Powers campaign. In our first game Swamp Ambush, I won but Luis really did well in the post game which is quite an important aspect of the campaign. I went with the same posse as the first game without adding any Nephilim or Guns for Hire but Luis stocked his up with some new Cultists.

In this game there were Deep Ones spawning at 5 areas in the swamp, all classed as veterans. Victory points were achieved by killing Deep Ones and Destroying their spawning pools. As is usual Luis set out a terrific table. 

Well unlike our last game I got slaughtered losing half my posse in the first 3-4 turns including my boss. Unlike the last game though I did quite well in the post game process recovering all my posse and ending up with just one extra wound. Luis played quite a good game and here is his posse for the next game already set. As you can see he has 3 veterans now which will give him a distinct advantage.

I have yet to select any new items or posse members for our next game but here is where I stand after this game.

Wish me luck in the next game, I will need it but I have lots of money to spend!