First few turns

 

Well I just couldn’t wait to finish painting the ‘bad guys’ and so the Squad had it’s first game against some Napoleonic Riflemen (see the 5 Klicks page for details) funny that the bad guys had access to those uniforms 😉.

I’m playing as the rules currently stand, with all the second edition changes, so might need to manipulate the odd roll to make sure I can test everything.  I thought that was going to happen early on as after rolling through one turn that didn’t generate a battle (will have to keep an eye on that, a few are okay, but it shouldn’t happen lots) and then a straightforward Meeting style battle (which was the only type in the original edition), I wanted to try the new ‘monster’ battles I added.

So I was pretty surprised when I rolled a 96 on the updated Settlement Events table and that put me straight through to a Monstrosity.  The roll for the thing itself threw up a Giant Snarler, basically a big cat, all teeth and claws!  Again I haven’t started sourcing appropriate minis yet so I’m afraid the Squad had to take down Aslan (from my Narnian army), a Bad Squiddo Lion.

In this photo the Spiders are Monstrosity markers and Skulls are Suspicious Activity markers.

 

I can’t over-stress the importance of play-testing.  This did throw up a couple of tweeks needed to the Monstrosity rules, though I admit it’s a much different feel play-testing your own rules than looking at someone else’s.  When I playtest for someone else, I am very careful to play to the letter of the rules.  If that throws up a concern I report it as is, I may offer up a suggestion if I think I understand the original intent and can therefore see how to clarify it, but otherwise it might be a simple “not sure what this meant”, or “did you intend x”.  

When you play your own you are usually pretty clear on what the intent was (hopefully anyway) so need to be careful to play as written, not as you might have intended.  For example, Monstrosities mostly turn up on their own or in a small group.  So they are going to immediately be the target of any Squad member that can draw a bead on them.  As I had written it, despite these having more “wounds” I had left it that a good shot could make them a casualty on its own, this made it too likely any of these things would go down before acting, purely from the level of fire coming their way!  A few tweaks and I think I have it.