I assembled my core miniatures this evening. for a plastic starter set they are very good indeed. Very few gaps to fill, good dynamic poses and although not the most intuitively simple models, when you put the pieces in the right place they go together very nicely.
A good second session of the first campaign last night. We started with an Ambush on a level 1 White Lion.
The Showdown went well and if memory serves me correctly all survivors returned. We realised at this point our Settlement has not constructed the Catarium which give access to some very nice Lion armour and weapons. We took the chance to manufacture some better gear and left feeling confident about hunting another level 1 Lion.
The hunt was notable for one bizarre event in paricular. Finding some White Lion poo one of the survivors decided to eat it! A brave act for the individual concerned, but hence forth this survivor had to be renamed ‘Scat Man’ – yes, this was an official rule from the book! In the Showdown the survivors did well but poor old Scat Man had one of his legs chewed off by the Lion, so he became the One Legged Scat Man……..
Returning to the settlement more armour and weapons were made including a Cat Gut Bow so One Legged Scat Man could still participate in the imminent Nemesis Showdown with the Butcher.
Despite being veterans of White Lion slaying the prospect of taking on a new enemy filled the Survivors with apprehension. The Butcher did not disappoint! His AI cards portrayed him as a whirling dervish of death knocking the survivors all over the board along with lots of warrior-like posturing, screaming and occasionally an onslaught of viscious attacks. As the Showdown progressed the incessant screaming led to the survivors going into frenzied insanity but the butcher sapped their strength away with his lanterns. It was a desperate psychological battle as well as a brutal physical struggle. Slowly it dawned on us that if could hang in there long enough the Butcher’s debuffs would go leaving the Survivors still frenzied but capable of great damage. In the meantime the Butcher had inflicted multiple wounds on the One Legged Scat Man leaving him to bleed to death, and another survivor had lost a leg and suffered a horrible death. The two remaining Survivors decided enough was enough and backed away throwing their carefully treasured Founding Stones to give the Butcher the last two wounds needed to slay him.
Phew! It was a close one but the Settlement avoided being ransacked by the Butcher and we gathered his Cleaver and a number of broken lanterns, both of which are likely to be significant later in the campaign.
A very good session – lots of dark fun to be had. Having fought a number of Lions it was good to see how different the Butcher was. His AI cards portrayed him brilliantly – it really felt like fighting a tsunami of destruction. Looking forward to the next session and possibly fighting the Screaming Antelope…..
I had a bit of hobby time today so decided to spruce up some League of Shadows minis I acquired second hand a while ago. Very simple and quick to paint with a dry brush of Adeptus Grey and a wash of black paint. A little work on the flesh, hair and weapons and a decent tabletop standard gang was ready to rock ‘n roll.
We played 300 points and scenario 5. I took the League of Shadows starter plus Talia and across the table Batman, Alfred and Gordon starter. As is often the case the first turn was spent running into position.
It wasn’t long before Talia was scrapping it out with Gordon a big moshpit was forming in the centre of the board between Batman, Raas and some ninjas.
Talia didn’t have too much difficulty in seeing off Gordon and the SWAT guy. She is not a heavy hitter but has a good number of attacks and with Handy and Sharp she can dish out a decent amount of blood damage over a couple of turns with her Katana.
I had high hopes for the Raas vs. Batman showdown. However both bosses were able to put up a sterling defence so actual damage dealt was limited. Despite having Raas and two ninjas on the Batman I was not able to put a single damage marker on the big guy. It has to be said my dice were shocking but even so it shows just how durable he is. After a couple of turns the cops got involved and I decided to mix things up a bit as I was getting nowhere with Batman. Meanwhile VPs were accumulating slowly for both sides although casaulties amongst the cops and Gordon meant Raas was edging ahead.
With a couple of turns to go we called it a day as most of the cops were down and the League had built up a reasonable lead on VP.
It was a good game and I enjoyed the change in tact that came with the League of Shadows. The melee heavy approach was fun but I was disappointed not to have taken out Batman with Raas. In hindsight I didn’t allocate my tokens very well and I should have relied on his defence of 5 and given more counters to attack and Deadly Strike. A few other points worth remembering for future games include ‘Just a scratch’ which means ranged attack hits inflict a stun if they fail to damage, I failed to use Rapid Fire for the ninja named Lotus – three shuriken attacks per round would have made more dangerous, and finally I forgot to use Inspire to get the ninja henchmen attacking together. That may have helped resolve the moshpit in the centre in my favour and allowed me to at least damaged Batman once or twice!
After the initial foray into the KOD we decided to embark on a longer series of games this evening. After defeating the first lion at the expense of a single survivor, we named our settlement ‘The Love Shack’ (and why ever not!?). We then tooled up with basic armour and weapons before starting our hunt for a second lion.
The hunt was cut short when the survivors found a lion cub which they chose to slay and attracted the attention of its father. A bloody battle followed which saw a second survivor slain but the remaining three cornered the lion and were able to defeat it. The survivors gratefully harvested resources and decided to continue investing in better armour and weapons, particularly body and head protection. The option to hunt the Screaming Antelope was opened up but the survivors left searching for a 3rd lion.
During the hunt the survivors nearly lost the plot when three of the band who were insane became convinced the world was ending. Luckily the one sane member of the group pulled them back from the brink. Not long after the party found the scent of their quarry and were able to set up an ambush. We closed the session at this point looking forward to the show-down next time.
I’m very impressed with KOD. It plays a bit like a self-running roleplay game and the cooperative element makes it different to the usual gaming experience. Lots of laughs with a grim tongue-in-cheek style. Looking forward to more.
A game of Batman this evening. A three way clash using scenario 1 at 200 points. The bosses were Ivy, Bane and Batman.
A friend supplied the buildings this evening and very nice and functional they were too. In the first turn the gangs got themselves into position; nothing too exciting but Bane failed to nail a cop that really would expect him too.
I was able to get Ivy onto a loot counter and Catwoman grabbed one too. In the next turn the forces continued to close but the action didn’t really warm up until mid-game.
By this point Ivy and Loony were scoring heavily on Loot and Ammo objectives. Batman was perched high above the table with a SWAT guy and Bane was closing ominously on Ivy. It was time for Ivy to mix things up with some control pheromones. She took control of Bane and sent him toward Batman!
Unfortunately Bane was not able to make an impression on Batman and Batman retaliated knocking Bane out. It was a simple job for a cop to come along and arrest the big guy!
In the late game there was a bit of a moshpit in the centre of the board. The game was very close on objectives but Batman and his GCPD allies were looking strong as they had barely been scratched during the game. In the final moments Batman and Catwoman put the hurt on Ivy and she went down. The cop who arrested Bane did the same trick on Ivy and it was all over.
I didn’t take a final tally of points but Batman would have won by a few. It was a close game that started slowly and built to a tense climax. Ivy did very well in the initial stages securing and camping objectives, but the lack of genuine offense meant that Batman and the cops eventually got the better of her. Batman was very effective in this game. When used well he is manoeuvreable, resilient and dangerous on the attack – just as he should be. Catwoman was also good as was the cheap cop shadowing Batman and arresting the villans.
Played a first game of KOD this evening. I had previously had a quick solo game and the first thing I would say is that there a lot of cards to organise before you can play. We had not managed to assemble the minis for the game apart from the Lion but it didn’t matter too much.
I made up and laminated some survivor cards and a settlement card as there is a fair amount of changeable info to record. It didn’t take too long and we were ready for the 1st show-down with a White Lion.
In the show-down the survivors got off to a good start and had little trouble beating the Lion up. To be honest I think we were a bit lucky and it did take sometime to get the final wound on the Lion. Nonetheless it was a relatively easy win with no survivior casaulties.
The survivors harvested the Lion of resources and made their settlement. Crude armour and weapons soon followed and it was not long before the survivors were departing to hunt a 2nd Lion.
The survivors had a slightly bump quest to find the Lion mainly due to one survivor becoming a straggler who went insane damaging the others. When we found the second Lion we were petty confident of a win.
However, the Lion was having none of it and made short work of three of the survivors. The final survivor had seen enough and made a run for it narrowly escaping back to the settlement.
By now 3 very enjoyable hours had passed and we decided to scrub the game and put it down to experience. I must say this really is a super game. Very immersive, simpleish gameplay and seemingly infinite variations for replayabiliiy. We had a good session and were keen for more. It’s amazing to think we have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities and I’m really looking forward to more of this soon. 🙂
Well it finally happened. Kingdom of Death is here!
Seriously big and sexy box.
Contents look very nice. More miniatures than I had anticipated.
Board looks nice too. It’s big 🙂
Can’t wait to play this…..
Nurgleonbass 