Guards of Traitor’s Toll

 

I am delighted that I got to work with Graham on this, and it started with playtesting and building up figures and scenery before the game was released.  This project appealed to me because it wouldn’t be a town without a civilian population and that’s a great excuse for new stuff hahahaha.

I used Blog posts to detail how things were going in the early days, this page was reserved for figures and terrain, but now that the game has been released I will also add details of games as I play them.

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This first section then is about stuff I did during the playtesting phase, before the game was released.

First up a bunch of metal figures from Gripping Beast, starting with a Bear Tamer and his very tame (almost teddybear like) brown bear.  Below is a set of traders and their trade goods based for scatter.

Then there’s a couple of ponies and a nice little hand cart.

In my 5LB campaign, Gunnar is set a series of quests by the local Monastery, so it seems like the clergy will be in this town too.  These are Asgard 3D prints.

I was also inspired to use my Alchemist lab and Blacksmith forge in the town so these finally got based up, with the lovely little portable forge based separately.  The bases are thinly rolled Sculpey polymer clay, textured with a special roller, baked and painted.  The metal figures are on  Renedra bases with two part putty round the built in stands, and a bit of sculpting before they set and were painted.

Next up, Gripping Beast Hexenjagers as the Night Watch of this dangerous town.

And this pony cart is the last of the batch of Gripping Beast stuff

Scenery plays a huge part, so here’s a couple of scratch built archways

Then some more things for ‘scatter’, this time some metal sculpts from Midlam Miniatures

I need a lot of civilian characters for this game, so next up were more metal figures, also from Midlam.  The game uses a mechanism where you select a figure based on what they are holding, so these really work.

I scratch made five buildings from polystyrene packing, XPS foam, foam board, thin cardboard, lolly sticks, matchsticks, and stick on mirrors - town house, a church, a tavern, a building with a front balcony, and a building with side balconies

Forgot I hadn’t copied these over from the post about them, really enjoyed painting these 3D prints, and I have ravens and cats popping up around the town.  These are Vesna designs.

I have also added more Merchants, some Rogues, and some casualty markers.  All 3D prints, Duncan “Shadow” Louca designs this time.

Another bit of ‘scenery’, the town likes to remind travellers what will happen if they don’t pay the tolls!  3D print off Amazon, wife had to make the nooses as my banana fingers were not up to it!

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At this point the game is now launched and Graham sent me a set (thanks!) so now for the ‘official’ miniatures.  

First up the Guards.  The solo rules have a quick start setup where you have a Captain, two Guards with missile weapons, and a further seven Guards with melee weapons.

The game has details for four different patrons all with their own colour scheme and these work for Lady Merron and are identified by the quartered design of blue and white.

In game terms an open hand is more use than multiple weapons or a shield. 

There is also an option for a guard to have some kind of animal patrolling with them, and since the 0200 Hours kit has these lovely guard dogs it just had to be done.

Also on the guards sprue is a goose, and there’s a plot card that ties in, so…

Some of the plots need specific figures.  I keep these in reserve, when the Plot comes up, I identify then as per the rules but then replace the selected figure with this one so I don’t have to keep remembering who they are.

Loving the mix of parts on the sprues, lots of fun putting figures together to fill in gaps in the identification of civilians that turn into suspects, some special characters from the missions, plus a few like the executioner and the blacksmith that just go nicely with terrain already pictured above.

In the end I made these last two just for fun as I had the animals from the Otherworld familiars set.

And here’s the full set of figures:

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This third section is for game reports as I play my first official games, which will of course be solo  and played through in order (but skipping the Training Mission).  It should also be noted that I will play with 10 Plot cards as standard, Graham scaled it back after launch as people seemed to  want fast games but I was happy as it was!

So here we go, first I worked up the full squad of a Captain, Sergeant, two Missile armed, and six others to match the figures I made and painted. I drew five trait cards randomly and used them to modify the most obvious. The Roughnecks are ready to go on patrol for our Lady Merron.

Mission 1 - Patrol Duty

I picked the Gang of Pickpockets Major Plot and got the table set up with a large central area on purpose.

The archways are the guardhouse entrances, the signposts are the other side-street markers, there are two on each side). A guard will start at each side-street, with the Captain, Sergeant, and two missile troops ready to reinforce them.

With nothing to do yet, the first Guard moves were towards the 3 clue tokens on the table and a successful investigation of one triggered shouts from the middle of the town square, where three geese had gotten loose.

But no sooner had Guards started heading in to round them up than they were alerted to a gang of three pickpockets working the same area!

This had the so far inefficient Guards wandering over the square chasing geese and hunting pickpockets, with Turn 1 ending at 4 Discontent and no Gold.

Spike tried to grab a goose but it dodged from his grasp, just before shouts of someone else being robbed, and apparently not by one of the pickpockets.

Then there was more enraged shouting as some hapless novice wizard fired off an ice storm, thankfully down an empty alleyway.  Doc was on hand and tried to apprehend them, but frankly he’s more of a thinker than a do-er and bungled it.

Gopher and Chubs both managed to spot pickpockets but by now they were really annoying the townsfolk.

Turn 2 ended with 7 Discontent and still no Gold.

Time to call in the Reserves!  First Barrett goes for a pickpocket, who dodges her, but then Gopher follows up and knocks him to the ground, then Jules gets in on the act and our suspect starts to bleed!

Doc tries again to subdue the rogue wizard, but he really is hopeless, I think he’s going to need some help!

Then some lowlife takes the opportunity of the Guards smacking around the pickpocket to stab an unsuspecting monk!

Meanwhile geese and suspects are wandering about and Basher spots the remaining pickpocket.  Turn 3 ends with another 2 Discontent in play, but still no Gold.

Turn 3 starts with Gopher finally getting his man, but frankly with two other Guards and the suspect on the ground bleeding, it would have needed a shockingly bad roll not to! In addition he’s learnt how to Bash suspects.

This left Barrett free to take a shot at the miscreant stabber, getting a clean shot the suspect failed to dodge, and he’s bleeding.  So Sergeant Jules, goes in with her sword and as she has been drilled in the ability to lunge she gets a critical hit and cuts him down, which is fine because the townsfolk are not going to be unhappy given he stabbed a monk!  However, the Landlord of the Vulgar Unicorn saw the part that Barrett played and will be her Ally going forward.

In another part of the Square, Basher tries to apprehend another pickpocket, but can’t quite seize him. Chuck comes over to try with Basher assisting, as the locals look on a refuse to help.  He gets a hand on him but the wily thief dodges away.

Remember the three geese that started this all?  Well one wanders into the path of our illustrious Captain Rico, who grabs it up with no trouble at all, I guess that’s why he is the Captain?  

Doc tries yet again to seize the wizard and nearly does but they dodge out his grasp, never fear though as help is arriving.  Harrison was already moving in but a barked order from Rico spurs him on and he grabs the hapless wizard and throws her to the ground.

The turn ends but things are looking up with just 5 Discontent now and 3 Gold.

It’s about now that the third pickpocket manages to steal from someone else causing the townsfolk more discontent.  Basher has a go at the one he has trapped between him and Chuck, they dodge his attempt but that just leaved them open to Chuck who bashes him with his mace, putting him on the ground and bleeding.  All the nearby civilians make themselves scarce.

Doc is assisted by Harrison and gets hands on the wizard who fails to dodge this time, but then fails to subdue her so again Harrison has to wade in and make good on the arrest.

Meanwhile back outside the church, the monk has been patched up, the dead culprit taken away and the pickpocket escorted back to the guardhouse, so all seems quiet.  Until that is some fool starts yelling about a monster in the sewers!

Barrett heads for the fool and seizes but fails to subdue.  At which point a cart blocks the gatehouse exit, at least the suspect won’t be able to get away!

Back to the centre of the action and Captain Rico orders Chuck to “stop messing around and arrest that pickpocket already!”, which he just manages to do [six dice and he only gets 3 Swords] and he successfully subdues him.

Two down, but one still at large, and Spike manages to spot her in the crowd, just before the turn ends.  This was Turn 4 and the Guards stand at 7 Discontent and 4 Gold.

Barrett makes another attempt to seize the suspect causing the disturbance near the blocked gateway, but the dodge his attempt, leaving Gopher to also have a go.  He grabs her easily and renders her subdued and bleeding thanks to his new Bash skill.

Down the other end of the square, Chuck is escorting away the second pickpocket and the novice wizard.  On his way out he meets Sergeant Jules, who owing to the blocked gateway has had to walk back from the guardhouse to the other end of square.  She immediately tries to emulate her Captain and grab a goose wander by, but doesn’t have the knack apparently.

At this point a very loud wailing is heard, it seems a small child is stuck in a building!  The nearest Guard is Harrison but before he can do anything the nearby citizens voice their discontent, and one of them gives him a piece of her mind [ Spoiler alert - this is the first “Secret” coming into play].

While this is going on, two other things are happening.  Firstly the miscreant that stole something very early on sneaks away out of the Square, the cards have now failed that task. Secondly Spike with the aid of Basher tried to arrest the third pickpocket but they dodged the attempt.

Right, back to the poor trapped little girl.  Harrison is having none of this, he barges past the enraged civilian, thankfully not knocking her to the ground, and attempts to kick in the door of the house.  He fails the first attempt but feels energised by the threat to the little girl [he rolled three Crowns] and is successful on his next attempt.  Hurrah, the urchin is saved! It also seems that Harrison has learnt how to make Veiled Threats in the process, heaven knows what he said to that woman!  

I guess that Jester nearby heard him though as he starts shouting about injustice in the city something about “Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!” As he blunders into Captain Rico who decides he can worry about arresting him later and make things easier by a good lunge with his sword and draws blood.

Then he tries to arrest him [Captains get two actions, one can be to order someone else but they can use it themselves like now] but actual just knocks him to the ground.  Turn 5 ends at 6 Discontent and 6 Gold.

Harrison emboldened by the rescue of the wee waif, joins Spike and Basher and arrests the third and final pickpocket!

This in turn gives Spike the idea to check out the clue marker near the well, upon which he realises the snake charmer is acting as a draw for a cutpurse, but Basher is attentive and the Snake Charmer packs up for the day.

Doc then uncovers the third and final clue, and spots The Seer wandering in the crowd, she’ll trade for help knowing what is going to happen next if you barter with her.  That’s the last of the Plots, time for the Guards to clear up the Square of remaining problems.

Captain Rico deals with the not so funny Jester, managing to subdue him without further bloodshed.  Sergeant Jules grabs one goose and Chuck returns back from Escort duty to grab the other.

At the other end of the square, Barrett moves on the cart and that exit is thankfully clear again.

That’s it, all done!  Final tally is 12 Gold and just the 1 Discontent from the thief that got away.  With 8 Advances and all that Discontentment cleared, Lady Merron grants a further 4 Gold as our Patron [we failed the third task as only one Dangerous suspect was in play].  That’s a “Solid Victory” for The Roughnecks, and they all came back without injuries.

Join us next time, for Mission 2!