Into the Shadow Deep... and some Strontium Dogs!

On Tuesday, myself, my long-time gaming partner J, and our club friends K and P assembled at P's house to enter the Shadow Deep together. Here is a short and picture-heavy account of Mission 1, Scenarios 1 and 2:

Rangers and Companions:

Daedalus and Nyx the Recruit - J
Petal and Iorek the bloodhound - me
Vicar and Ingvar the Recruit (scribe) - P
Lorcan and Big Mac the Recruit (I think) - K


Mission 1, Scenario 1: The Deserted Village

The rangers and their companions enter the village looking for their missing fellow Ranger, Aventine, only to be surrounded by shambling corpses!

Setup. Rangers in the centre around the trees. Barn to the north, outhouses to the east, dilapidated shed to the south, big house to the west. Undead at the NE, SE, SW and NW points. Giant rats by the barn and the big house. Clues in white, with extra tokens inside the big house and the outhouses. The clue on top of the big house would be moved closer by Lorcan, K's Ranger, before the start of Turn 1.

End Turn 1 - Iorek has eaten his first giant rat and Farmer Fred, found by Petal, has scythed down one of the shambling dead. Vicar and Big Mac are struggling with one of the ex-villagers, while Daedalus and Nyx have their hands full with a giant rat and one of the undead.

End Turn 2 - Nyx has been knocked out by a heavy blow from the undead, Daedalus has been injured by the rat. Fred fails to open the door to the big house (he's lost his keys), while Big Mac has put down two of the walking corpses. The barn has collapsed, and Lorcan has narrowly avoided injury! Ingvar continues to note everything down. Petal and Iorek raced to the aid of Daedalus, with Iorek tearing apart the zombie that took out Nyx.

End Turn 3 - More shamblers have appeared, and Farmer Fred has uncovered a corpse with tracks he recognises inside the big house. Petal casts heal on Daedalus. Vicar is attempting to get into the outhouse to check the clue there, while Daedalus has uncovered the body of Aventine and helped himself to his magic sword...

End Turn 4 - The clue that Big Mac checked turned out to be a corpse that wasn't quite dead yet, and he is badly injured by its surprise attack. More of the villagers stagger, blindly, towards the Rangers. Petal has dispatched one with her bow and arrow, while Lorcan struggles with another.

End Turn 5 - all seems quiet, now, with no more foes (or clues!) on the field (Petal having shot a zombie) - but wait! from the pigsty comes another ex-villager! And from the same directions as before stagger yet more! And a giant rat ambushes Lorcan! (we decided to pull all three remaining events at once to give us more to do)

End Turn 6 - Iorek bounds over to the nearest villager's rotting body and savages it, while Petal adds another zombie to her tally with the bow. Daedalus's magic sword saves his life in combat while Lorcan and Vicar hack the giant rat and a zombie apart.

End Turn 7 - The last zombie villager on the field is beaten back by Daedalus, but he can't quite get the killing blow in...

End Turn 8, End Scenario - ...so Petal races back and finishes it off for him.

Final tally: 3 dead giant rats, 14 dead zombies, Nyx made a full recovery, all six clues uncovered (including Aventine and his sword), and all signs pointed to some deadly creatures in the nearby woods.


Mission 1, Scenario 2: The Infected Woods

Setup - the nesting trees on the north-eastern side of the board, running from north to east. The Rangers and their companions line up from west to south. In front of them are scattered cocoons and the chittering and rustling of giant spiders.

End Turn 1 - A general advance. A zombie lurches out of one web cocoon and attacks Nyx and Daedalus, and another tears and bites at Big Mac and Lorcan. Two giant spiders race towards Vicar.
A survivor, however, is saved from the encasing cocoon by Petal - Wendy the washerwoman.

End Turn 2 - the zombies are put down easily, and Iorek gets a nasty surprise when a giant spider bites him, the venom running through him causing the stout hound some pain.  Vicar and Ingvar finish off the giant spiders in the middle. Petal finds a dead body in the second cocoon she searches.

End Turn 3 - Petal casts heal on Iorek, who finishes off the spider. Wendy moves up to the hound, and ruffles his fur. More spider nests are identified, and Nyx stumbles into a web!

End Turn 4 - Three of the nests are torched, and some treasure is found. The spiders are conspicuous by their absence.Petal finds another corpse.

(No photo!)
End Turn 5, End Scenario - the remaining nests were easily torched and the wood cleansed of the spiders that had caused such devastation to the little village nearby.

Final tally - Iorek ate a giant spider, and the others did for two zombies and four more giant spiders.


Overall jolly fun game. We burned through the two scenarios pretty quick, starting at around 7ish and finishing about 9:30pm. There were a couple of dicey moments but by and large the four rangers and their companions were on top of things throughout, which led us to have a quick discussion about there not being enough enemies. However we agreed to try out the next Mission with no tweaks to the number of enemies as if the dice had come up a bit different we could all have been killed quite quickly indeed.

In painting land, I've been procrastinating on my High Elves by painting some more of the figures from The Good, The Bad, And The Mutie set:

 It's Wulf Sternhammer and the Gronk!

I really like these figures, and am super pleased with how the Gronk turned out.

Painting Points:
Today (well, Tuesday actually): 2
This Week: 3
2019: 27