Blast From The Past: Army Of Darkness Card Game

Good. Bad. I'm the one with the gun.

If you haven't seen Army Of Darkness, I suggest you stop reading this review and go do that. And slap yourself upside the head for good measure.

Now that everyone has seen this gem, let's talk about it. Sure, Army Of Darkness was a sequel of a remake of the original Evil Dead (it's complicated). It's one of those cult classic movies that everyone seems to have seen. It's a classic. I mean, Duke Nukem stole one of his lines from Ash. One of the quotes in the All Flesh Must Be Eaten core book is from this movie. Eden Studios even snagged the rights to make a RPG (which I sadly do not own but will acquire if I can find it for cheap).

So, I like the movie. I can't even remember how many times I've seen it. It was common to pop it in during parties when I was in high school. My friends and I used to quote it and discuss how things worked, like the chainsaw hand, the Death Coaster, etc. In short, you could say I'm familiar with the movie. That's why, many years ago, I bought the AoD card game when I happened upon it for $20 at my friendly local game store. Because, why not? My friends and I were fans of the movie, we played board and card games, and it would give us something else to play. Sadly, my friends at the time seemed to enjoy dismissing anything I liked out of hand (why the fuck was I friends with these people? Seriously), I never really got the chance to play it much. In fact, the box was destroyed and my copy of the rules were lost. Thankfully, I found a PDF of the rules and printed them out. I also put the cards in sleeves and then put them in a nice sturdy box.

Recently, I had a chance to play this game with my new group of nerds, so let's talk about it, shall we?

The first thing about this game is that it is most definitely a Munchkin clone. You can attack monsters and other players. In fact, it seems to be expected. Okay, yeah, that makes sense...

To make the game a four player game, they had to give you plenty of characters to use. In addition to Ash, there's Sheila, Arthur, and Henry. The cards double sided, so you have “Ash” and “Evil Ash” with the exact same abilities. Since Arthur and Henry really didn't have the “heel/face turn” that Ash and Sheila did, they just have two different pictures of them. The “Good/Bad” mechanic is actually pretty interesting. Since the obvious goal of the game is to get the Necronomicon, there's different goals for Good and Evil. If you're Good, you need to defeat all of the monsters in front of you and have the book. If you're Evil, you need to have at least five monsters in front of you and have the book. Isn't that fun?

When it comes to the cards, there's only a few: Monster, Item, Ally, and Event. Monsters are to be defeated, Items and Allies give bonuses to combat rolls, and Events are anything else. Each turn you can only play one card, so you have to pick what kind of card you want to play very carefully. One other thing is that Items and Allies can be lost when used or if you lose, so you have to be very careful when using them. You can have more than one in play, but can only have one of each face up at any given time. And you really need to have them to defeat most of the monsters. Defeating the Monsters requires rolling a d6 and getting above the required number. They go as high as 8, which is the same required to defeat another player.

Since you can screw over the other players, you can place monsters in front of any other players. The person playing Henry is about to win because he has the Necromonicon and no monsters? Drop a really tough monster right in front of him. The other thing is that your hand size is also your health. Lose your fight against a monster, or another player, and lose a card. Lose your last card and then you flip your character's card. This can make it harder for someone to win, if you keep making them switch between Good and Evil. Remember, it's inspired by Munchkin.

All in all, the game is pretty simple and can be something fun to place for a change of pace. Or in between other games. However, it's not the best. The wording of the rules and the layout of the cards isn't the greatest. While having your card hand be your health is interesting, it's too easy to have people keep attacking you just to keep you down. Of course, I wasn't the biggest fan of Munchkin. I swear that every time I played, some jerk would go out of his way to target me for no real reason.

If you want to pick this up, it's not a bad choice. It is fun. A little confusing, but fun. Just make sure that everyone is on board for some fuckery...

Deadlands - The Ferner Five: Comin' Around The Mountain

Howdy, muchachos! Are you ready to hear about the Ferner Five's first adventure? I knew you were! Otherwise, you'd be looking at something else...

Before we get too much further, I'd like to make sure that you're aware that I'm going to be dropping some spoilers for this adventure. So, if you're a player, you might want to skip this one until you have your own chance to go through it. For the Marshals in the audience, you might want to take notes for when you run it yourself. And I strongly recommend you use this adventure for the starting point of a new game.

And I have to point out that it's been years since I've played the game I'm talking about, so you'll have to forgive me if I've forgotten the details in the years since. This was also the third time I've run this adventure, so I hope I'm remember the details of the right posse.

Now, let's set the stage...

Our posse begins on a train running from Denver to The Junkyard, better known as Salt Lake City. Why were they on the train? Well, this is where I dropped a major hint for the later adventures. I won't spoil it now, but what happened was that each member of what would become the posse had received a letter telling them to come to Salt Lake City. Each letter contained information that only someone close to them would know and there might have been a thinly veiled threat for some of them. (I honestly can't wait to tell you who sent this letter, but if you've read the Tale of Phil, you might have a clue.)

Chapter One: Tickets Please!

The adventure starts with the characters already on the train on its way to the Junkyard. As none of them knew each other, and there's a host of NPCs on the train as well, I let them start getting into their characters. In addition to the NPCs provided, the mail order bride, the shyster, the kids described as “Satan's Cabana Boys,” as well as the important Agents, I also dropped in Phil. Allow me my indulgence, but I want to set the scene a bit. I went around and described all of the NPCs and then did Phil “A large, hairy man wearing a plaid shirt and work jeans. He's smoking a cigar and reading a dime novel. While he reads, clearly intent on the story, his tongue starts still out of the corner of his mouth.” I thought it was funny and established his character.

As they sat around, they talked with each other and the NPCs, and they really got into their characters. Heinrich and Penwood found common ground complaining about the uncultured Americans, which brought Kledge and Dieter into the conversation. Before long, everyone was enjoying playing their characters and talking with the NPCs. I made sure that each NPC got some time to make an impression, so they would think that they were all normal people. Which most of them were.

I let this go on long enough for everyone to feel comfortable and lull them into a false sense of security. I rewarded them for roleplaying, as you should. I also knew what was coming next and that they might need a few chips.

Chapter Two: This Is A Stick-up!

Now, for the fun! I tried to drop some hints about what was going on, having the male Agent walk past them, but they ignored it. Which was lucky for me. These folks did seem like the nosy type (this turned out to be wrong, by the way). I guess my attempt to get their guard down might have worked a little too well. But, I am totally okay with that...

As the train continued on, it began moving up hill and slowing down, which would save the lives of the posse and the passengers. Not long before the train slammed on the breaks, the posse heard a massive boom! (I did that because I noticed they were a little too relaxed like I said.) That got their attention. Of course, they didn't have much time to react before the train started to bounce up and down and then finally come to a crashing halt. Thankfully, everyone in the passenger cars and beyond only got bumps and bruises.

Once everyone was able to make sure that their bits and bobs were still attached, it was time to have the bandits attack. If you haven't read the adventure, the reason why the there was an explosion was because some bandits had this clever idea of blowing a bridge before the train crossed it and sending it into the void, where they could pick over the wreck, and collect the goodies without much fuss. Well, somebody screwed up and they blew the bridge too early, and the train was able to stop in time to save the passengers, but the engine went over the edge and into a ravine. Now, the bandits were going to have to do it the hard way. And, oh, was it hard for them.

Since I didn't want to overwhelm the posse, I only put out six bandits. Most of them didn't have their big guns and there was some distance between them. Of course, both sides had cover, so it kind of balanced out.

The bandits didn't even make it past the second turn. Every member of the posse (except Kledge) scored one hell of a hit of the bandit of their choice. I believe Deiter or Penwood scored a hit to someone's noggin, and another bandit took a Serious wound to the left arm. So, they did what cowards do best and skedaddled. Besides, the point of this bandit fight wasn't to hurt the posse, but to give everyone the basics of how combat works in Deadlands. Sure, I could have had some more bandits turn up and give the posse a harder fight, but what's the point? They did a good job at protecting the train and the passengers, so why punish them for that? Besides, what's the line? “Pride cometh before a fall?”

After the bandits were well and gone, the posse went around making sure everyone was okay. Dr. Penwood did what doctors do and patched some wounds, roping Ming into being his orderly. Heinrich had a bit of medical knowledge and patched the few wounds the posse had taken, then moved on the rest of the passengers. Meanwhile, Deiter and Kledge took up spots as lookouts (Kledge had to be prompted to do this, by the way).

That was when everyone noticed the caboose was missing. Now, the way the adventure is written, you've got Laura Giles to prod the posse along. I didn't need that. As soon as Heinrich noticed it was missing, he started running back along the tracks looking for it. Because of his damn laser. The rest of the posse was keen, so they started heading that way, too. But, since I wanted to give them a chance to be prepared for what was coming, I had her insist coming along with them, dragging Phil with her. The posse agreed, but they did start to notice something was up. Finally.

As recommend, I had the posse roll and tried to keep them on edge as they made their way through the forest. Since Kledge had the Cat's Eyes power, he kept trying to see things that weren't there. Okay, I'm going to go on a tangent for a while and I'm sorry. If you are a player and you have a nifty ability, don't assume it does everything you THINK it can do. Don't argue with the guy running the game about what it can do. And don't try to use it every single time you can. It's annoying and some GM/DM/etc will just kill your character because you, the player, annoyed them. Understand?

Now, back to our story.

The posse slowly made their way to the missing caboose, trying to get there in the settling gloom. As I mentioned, I had them making rolls and dropped some hints about wolf howls as the sun finally set. When they reached the caboose, they made all the rolls required and had a good idea that something terrible had happened before the train had been attacked. They talked about what might have happened, suspecting the bandits or something more sinister. While they were looking around, one of them happened across Ms. Giles and caught her taking her Gattling pistol out of her luggage. They were finally suspicious and called her on it. She ended up telling them a bit about the Husker and what she was worried would happen.

What's the Husker, you ask? Good question. In short, it's an evil abomination that looks like a cross between a bug and a spider with a dozen eyes and probably came from some of your nightmares. Or just mine. It was found in Denver and was being transferred to a lab in Fort 51 to be studied (I know, I'm changing the stuff in the adventure as written, but it had to fit with what I was running).

Now that Ms. (or should I say Agent) Giles has filled the posse in on the monster, she asks them to go out and find the critter before it finds the other survivors from the wreck. Her and Phil would wait for them at the caboose.

Chapter Three: Night On Cold Mountain

For those Marshals among you, you're probably aware that we're going a little faster than the adventure says. And I'm okay with that. You have to do what the party wants and find a pace that works for them. I could have slowed it down to the pace in the adventure and kept the fear high, but I knew my posse fairly well and knew they would lose interest if I didn't go fast enough. So, I thought it was better to go faster.

So, where were we? The Huster. Right. Our brave “heroes” set out into the night to find the monster and put a lot of holes into it. Since they were all well armed now, I wasn't too worried about putting a hurt on them. Of course, no one had Trackin' so they had to rely on Kledge's Cat's Eyes to find and follow the trail the monster left. I might have fudged these rolls. Just a bit...

Eventually, they found a small clearing and the trail ended in an area of disturbed soil. While they took a minute to discuss what to do, the first rotting hand broke from the ground and was soon followed by several more! I had the posse roll those Fear Checks and everyone passed. Because I told them how important Spirit and Guts were.

While they drew their guns and readied themselves, the “walkin' dead” had pulled themselves free from their shallow graves and the battle was joined. In one of the first hits, one of the posse (possibly Deiter) blew the head of one of them clean off. And it kept coming. So, they started blasting and kept blasting until the “walkin' dead” were dead for a second time. During the battle, one of Kledge's blades had taken a chunk off of one of the bodies and everyone could see the hard carapace under the rotten body. Having a doctor and some curious folks, they took some time to cut the bodies open and poke around. They soon discovered that the bodies were not much more than hollow shells that covered the body of some kind of insect. Of course, I had them make some more Guts checks, as that might be more than a little frightening...

After reloading their guns, bandaging the few wounds suffered, and taking a few snorts of whiskey, the posse soldiered on. They were still able to follow the tracks they found on the other side of the clearing and soon found they led to a small cave in a hill. The posse looked at one another, cocked their guns, and filed in to the darkness, single file.

Now, Marshals, here's a tip: find out what the marching order of the group is when they're entering the cave. Then, assign a number to each member and roll a die. Guess who gets a glob of acid in the face?
That's right, the Husker is waiting for the posse in the cave, but on the ceiling. Right when they reach the middle of the narrow path in the rock, it spits some acid in a unlucky cowpoke's face, and then tries to get away.

In this case, I believe Heinrich got a face full of burning. While he dropped to the ground, Penwood rendered aid. Ming, with his railroad tie full of spikes, hit the critter hard. Deiter put a bullet into it. Kledge threw a blade. The Husker, seeing it was out matched, ran for it. The posse followed, firing a few more rounds, and tried to find it in the night.

But, since they didn't have Trackin', one of their members was temporarily blinded, it was hauling ass, and the night was black as pitch, they didn't have a snowball's chance in a blast furnace of catching it.

Slowly and carefully, they made their way back to the caboose. And almost got shot by Giles and Phil. They'd heard the gunshots earlier and were very much on edge. There was also the chance that the bandits from earlier might have come back. Thankfully, they were smart and didn't get plugged full of lead. They explained what happened and Giles started yelling at them. But, they did point out that she wasn't there and if she wanted to, she was more than welcome to go out in the dark and look for it herself. While she wasn't happy, she also wasn't suicidial.

Together, the posse, Agent Giles, and Phil made their way back to the survivors. They brought blankets and other supplies, and the group bedded down for the night. I think they set a watch, just in case the Husker would come back for another round... Lucky for them, it found discretion was the better part of valor and was making its way very far away from them.

And that ends the first adventure of the Ferner Five! Next time, we visit the small town of Baracho!

Gaslands: The PIT Crew - Gaslands Refueled

Welcome back to the Gaslands PIT Crew! Today we're going to be talking about the new edition of Gaslands, Gaslands: Refueled!

First Impression:

Okay, just looking at the book itself, it looks really well done. Hardback, high quality magazine paper... Yeah. My first copy of the rules got wet, so I'm happy to see this better quality product here. It looks like they did a good job of including everything from the Time Extendeds done so far. Oh, new Sponsors! Looks very well laid out... Okay, maybe not. They're still doing the “basic” and “advanced” nonsense that annoys me. It makes it really hard to refer back to stuff that you need. And having to remember if the vehicle or weapon is “basic” or “advanced” is not something conducive to easy play.

What's New?

There's two new (totally new) scenarios. One involves giant bugs and lizards and the other is a bunch of helicopters duking it out in the ruins of London.

There's a bunch of new sponsors, which had been mentioned. Here's a brief list and some thoughts:

Verney -

I get the feeling that this sponsor is inspired by the Death Race remake version of Frankenstein. It looks like the sponsor is for folks who want tough, strong vehicles that aren't easy to take out. Probably looking at trucks and the like.

Maxxine -

At the core, it looks like a variation of Miyazaki's style of play, maybe with a dash of Slime. Not sure what to make of them quite yet, I'm going to need to play a game or two with this sponsor before I can nail them down.

The Order of the Inferno -

This appears to be an off-shoot of the Cult of Speed, but with all the fire, all of the time. I made some “fire crew” teams a while back, but I'm thinking that these guys might be more in line with that concept now. It's all about fire here. Being on fire. Other vehicles of fire. Staying on fire. Yeah.

Beverly -

I like this concept because I've been wanting to pick up a Ghost Rider car for shits and giggles, but now I can actually build a list around that car. Beyond, you know, it looking cool. The core of this group has one real car and a bunch of ghost cars. The ghost cars can't be harmed, and I don't think they can harm other cars, but they can collect Soul Tokens that can passed to the real car and help repair it. So, a really cool idea. Not sure if it's going to work in practice.

Rusty's -

A bunch of hillbillies with War Rigs and trailers. That's it. I mean, there is more to it, as they have a bunch of different trailers they can hook up to Middle and Heavy vehicles, but there's not much more to them.

Of course, where there's new Sponsors, there's new Perk classes. Let's break them down:

Built -

This one seems to be for... Well, I have no idea, really. These Perks are all over the place, with no real theme. Some seem to be for big vehicles, others for fast ones, and so on. Very situational stuff.

Horror -

This one seems to be about taking damage to deal damage, mostly fire damage.

Reckless -

Hazard Tokens galore! And fire.

There's a pair of new weapons, a new dropped Napalm template weapon and the Wall of Amplifiers. That one is clearly a reference to Fury Road and I'm okay with it. They also added the Roll Cage as an upgrade, which I was looking at doing myself. I'm not sure I agree with the point cost, I think it's a little expensive, but at least I don't have to worry about it anymore.

The most important thing is rules for ramps! Finally! They're pretty simple, but they're there, which is what a lot of people have been asking for.

What's Gone?

First thing I found that disappointed me was the lost of the APC. I liked that unit. I had a few and now I don't know what I'm going to do. I suppose I can remake them using Heavy Trucks...

Jeeps are also gone, which is a shame. They were great for Rutherford lists, both thematically and mechanically.

Most everything else seems to be there, even if a few things have minor tweaks and changes. 

What's Changed?

There's a quick list in the Gaslands design blog, but one of the big ones is that rockets no longer have Blast. The Experimental Nuclear Engine and Experimental Teleporter are now upgrades, so there's some changes to the Technology Perks list. Speed also got some changes as well. The only sponsor with major changes is Slime, who's almost completely redone.

Most of the rest of the stuff is minor, so I'm going to point you again to the Update entry on the Design Blog for Gaslands.

From what I've seen so far, most of the changes made to the rules are purely clarifications and streamlining. And these are good changes. I don't know how many times, per games, I've been confused by the wording. I had the HARDEST time figuring out how collisions worked until I sat down and played the game.

Miniguns appear to have dropped a point from 6 to 5.

One important thing is you can now Evade explosions. That kind of sucks, as my Drag Racer rolling bombs don't work as well, but I do think this is a good change.

In Conclusion:

I'm not happy about having to print out and glue down another half dozen sets of Dashboards. However, the new Dashboards are much more condensed and won't waste as much paper. And also include the basic rules for the type of vehicle, as well as space at the top to give them names.

Everything else? I'm okay with it. The tweaks and changes needed to happen. The new sponsors and perks are good, or so it looks right now, and having everything in one book is nice.

If you've been playing Gaslands, you'll want to pick this up.

Let's Review: Frostgrave

What is it?:

Frostgrave is a 28mm fantasy genre skirmish miniatures game produced by Osprey Games.

The setting:

Frostgrave is an ancient city that's been covered in ice for a thousand years. Once the capital of a vast magical empire, there are many riches to be had, if you're crazy enough to explore the ruins and brave the horrors found within.

The players take over the role of a wizard and their warband; seeking treasures, eventually building a lair and expanding their warband.

The expansion of the game, Ghost Archipelago, takes place in a jungle and islands. Or something, I haven't checked it out yet.

The system:

The basic system of the game is pretty simple: roll a d20, add your stat, and beat the other player rolling or the difficulty number. There's only a few stats (Fight, Shoot, Will) as well as health. The amount you beat the other model's roll by is the amount of damage you do, after you subtract the model's Armor. So, it all comes down to the one roll, which keeps the game going fast.

The game is centered around your wizard and his/her band of cutthroats and thieves. First, you build your wizard. You pick one of ten schools of magic, be it Necromancy, Chronomancy, Elementalism, Enchantment, and so on. Most of these spells are going to be used in the game, by dealing damage, boosting or penalizing models, or controlling things. However, there are a handful that are suppose to use outside the game. If you make the roll, you get a boost for the game or an item you can use.

You get to take three spells from your school with no casting penalty. Then you get to take one spell from each of the three “related” schools, so you can get some things to compliment your main choice, but keep in mind that these spells have a minor casting penalty. Lastly, you get two spells from the “Neutral Schools” to fill your spells out, but these have a hefty penalty. Of course, there's an opposing school that's almost impossible to use.

Next you build your Apprentice. You don't have to, as it does cost gold, but you probably should. The apprentice can also use magic, but isn't as powerful as your wizard. He also uses the same spells as you wizard, so you have to really think about the spells and how you're going to use them in the game.

After that, you grab some cannon fodder to fill out your ranks. You can get archers, fighters, war hounds, and the like. Each one has a cost, but the better ones are more expensive.

There's also stuff for items like weapons, potions, and scrolls. Those seem to be acquired by getting treasure.

How do you get treasure? You collect treasure during the scenarios. In the main book, there's ten scenarios, which is a really good start for a game you want to play again and again so your wizard can level up. That's right, your main character gains levels as you keep playing. The game is designed to be played in campaigns. To keep things fresh, they sell PDF mini-campaigns for $3 on the website, in addition to the other supplements they've put out. As your wizard gains level and treasure, they can increase their warbands, expand their knowledge of magic, and become more badass.

During the scenarios, you can have random monsters appear, like skeletons, ghouls, werewolves, vampires, gorillas, ice spiders, and so on. Without a spell, these creatures attack the nearest model whenever possible and aren't under control of any player.

Is it worth it?:

Yes.

The game only really requires a D20, some fantasy minis, and terrain. If you bought the Reaper Kickstarter stuff, and play any sort of minis game and/or RPG, you probably have everything you need laying around. Even if you only have minis and dice, you can print out or make some cheap terrain. Since the Bones line from Reaper is cheap, you can easily get into the game if you don't have any minis. I would say it's a fun little game to pick up for anyone who plays RPGs or any sort of minis game.

While the core book is a little expensive (roughly $20 for a PDF copy), it is nice to have to give you something to do when game night is canceled because of no-shows. Or, it can be something you play on the side, in between game sessions. If you have a group of roleplayers that want to learn how to play miniature games, this would be a good one to use.