Let's Review: Reign In Hell

What is it?:

Reign In Hell is a “miniatures agnostic” skirmish game created by two YouTube guys for 2-4 players. You probably already know that...

 The setting:

As the name implies, you take control of a group of demons or devils in Hell. However, Hell has had some problems. Some time ago, Hell was invaded by some demon-hunters who were able to destroy the portal to the mortal realm, and the leaders of Hell were toppled. In this power vacuum, different group with different ways of looking at how to solve the problems (or not, for some).

 

The system:

For the most part, the game uses pools of d12s or d6s to decide things. Initiative is using d12s, rolling one for each model you have and assigning it to a model when it comes up. Combat is resolved by comparing the Combat stats and rolling d6s equal to the Combat stats of the models involved to attack and defend. That means that models only have a few stats, really just the ones you need: Move, Combat, and Life. All in all, the system is fairly simple and doesn’t require too much math.

When it comes to making your Cabal (crew, group, team, etc), you pick a Philosophy out from the list. The Philosophy will give your leader a special ability (or two) and determine what your Devout (second in command) will be. The leader is the most complex model in your cabal, as they get powers from the Philosophy, pick one of three different types of Leaders, pick one Relic, and one Essence. This actually creates a lot of customization for your team. Once you get the leader sorted, you pick a model for the Devout, who aren’t nearly as customizable as the Leader but you want to make sure that you’re taking the Philosophy that matches your play style. Then, you can take another eight lesser demons (for most types of games). But, you’re not going to be able to. You see, you get 100 Souls to spend on these lesser demons but they’re so oddly priced, you’re going not going to able to spend 100 even. The lesser demons vary in points from 16 to 22, so good luck with that. Even if you can swing 100 on the nose, you’re not going to hit the ten model cap. However, as you’re probably seeing the comparisons to FrostGrave and the like, your minions DO level up in a campaign.

Speaking of the campaign, the game is really trying to make it be rewarding. There’s tons of stuff to roll for, charts for causalities that don’t let them just drop dead (but you can dismiss them if you want to), and titles you can get by meeting conditions over the course of the campaign. It’s actually pretty cool. There’s a lot of things going on here. But, that does bring us to a small problem: there’s only ten scenarios. Which isn’t terrible but it isn’t a whole lot if you’re going for a long campaign to get all of the toys. I think when there are expansions, they’ll probably be including more scenarios.

The last note about rules and combat is that each model can take “stance” during its activations. It also looks like models can ONLY fight, but movement is rolled into that. I think. I do have to say that the phrasing in this game is more vague then it should be. Anyway. These stances allow you to pick how each model fights as you pick each turn, meaning you’re not locked into one mode for the whole game. Each demon will have bonuses for what stance they’ve taken or when they’re attacked (or even when they die). One important thing about combat is that it’s all close combat, no ranged combat. Which is kind of sad. I was hoping that Leaders (at the very least) would be able to blast someone from across the board. And the boards are going to be KillTeam/WarCry sized. I don’t know why they selected that size. I mean, you could use a 3x3 board if you wanted to but with how movement and combat works, you probably want to stick with the 22x30 board size.

All in all, the game is very fun and unique. I like what I’ve seen however… However, it’s not completely balanced. When you get down to it, numbers and speed are going to be what you want in your minions. I find that to be a little disappointing as it’s going to lead to spam of one type of minion. I also think there’s a bit of a lack of minions for learning and campaign games. There’s only one flying minion and it’s not very powerful in the lesser demon list. I would have liked a few more options for flying minions. That’s partly because I have a handful of succubi that aren’t really useful for this game because of that. Yes, I could just make them Mephits (the flying minions) but I feel like something a little more powerful with flying would be cool. They don’t even need anything extra, just flying. They have talked about some expansions here and there but don’t count on it.

 

Is it worth it?:

Yes. The PDF version is $10 and that’s a fair price of it. If you’ve got anything demon related, and aren’t too particular about what is what, it’s a nice little thing to have. The print copy includes the PDF for free. With shipping, the hard copy cost me less than $20, and gave me the PDF. I think that’s a fair price.

If you don’t have a lot of demons, this might not be worth it. Unless you just want to proxy in random models. I mean, you could use any fantasy minis if you want to. And if you’ve been looking for an excuse to pick up random demons, here it is.

 

Battle Report: Last Days, Old West - Calhoon Clan VS Jay's Baddies

 

In the Old West, the dead don’t rest easy…

Been a while since I’ve had a chance to play something and it’s going to be Last Days again. With Jay. Again. BUT! We decided to try out the Old West rules from BLASTER Volume 1.

For this game, I brought a group I call the Calhoon Clan (based on the Ferner Five, the Deadlands posse of legend). Let’s take a quick look at who we have and what they’re packing:

Nona “Cookie” Calhoon (Leader, Selfless), armed with a LeMat and knife.
Phil Calhoon, Fire Fighter, armed with an axe and revolver.
Dr. Ashleigh “Penny” Penwood, a Sawbones, with a magnum and “heavy blade.”
Running Bear, a Survivor, with a bow, tomahawk, and a spear.
Little White Dove, another Survivor, also with bow, tomahawk, and spear.
Victoria, a Gunfighter, with a pair of sixguns and knife. 

 

For Jay, he made a list with:

Selfish Leader with LeMat and Heavy Blade, Soldier with hunting rifle and spear, Goon with shotgun and heavy club, Tough Guy with revolver and club, Gang Member with a knife, and a dog. (no one had a name as he made it here after he got here.)

 

When it came to setting up the game, we decided to throw down a mix of my stuff and his, not even bothering to roll for deployment, just using the edges we were sitting closest to. I deployed with a split force, Phil, Nona, and Penny set up near a bridge in cover, while Running Bear, White Dove, and Victoria were on the board edge. Jay also split up his forces but not as far apart as mine were.

Once we had everyone on the board, we slapped down my three Reaper Zombie Miners. Jay had really good rolls early on, winning placement, first turn initiative, and the like. I was behind from the start.

As the game progressed, my forces got waylaid by zombies. Little Running Bear, White Dove, and Victoria were locked down on and off in the early game because of zombies. In addition, due to Phil blocking the bridge while trying to put down his zombie, Nona and Penwood had to slog through the water.

Meanwhile, Jay had free rein to go after the tokens and do what he wanted. He was able to get rid of his zombie problem as easily as I did but he was in better position than I was, with his crew.

Things came to a head when he decided to switch from going for the tokens to trying to take me down. I lost Victoria, then Running Bear, and then Phil. After I lost Phil, I started going after him. One of the more interesting moments was when Jay’s dog charged Penny and Nona. We had a bit of a heated debate, as he pointed out that there was no direct rule against it, and I was of the opinion that it shouldn’t be allowed because it normally isn’t in other games. We agreed to let it go in his favor but I posted in the Facebook group. I’m yet to get a large response to it. Anyway. While this did allow him to lock them up in close combat, it also prevented him from shooting them. I did manage to take out the guy who killed Phil, and two others of his crew. So, we had both lost three members and started having to roll for Breaking. He lost.

 

So, it was a slight victory for me. Could I have won in the end? Maybe. Jay’s rifleman was locking me down really hard but I did have Nona out there, with her shot tube still loaded. And, while both of our rolls were terrible at the start of the game, mine were starting to get better as the game went on. It was really anyone’s game at the end. 

And that’s where we’re at. It was a fun game and I think we really liked how it went. We did discuss some changes to the Break Tests for one-off games and we’re talking about doing a campaign in the future, after we have the rules down better. Keep your eyes out for it...

Let's Review: StarGrave

What is it?:

Stargrave is a 25mm/30mm scale skirmish game using science fiction miniatures and setting by the creator of FrostGrave and Ghost Archipelago.

 

The setting:

The game takes place after the Last War, galactic conflict that seems to have collapsed all of civilization, leaving pirate fleets as the only real authority left. These fleets are keen to keep everyone else ground down so they can loot and pillage as much as they desire. How much sense this makes is up to you. The forces players bring to the game are smaller crews of freebooters and independents looking to find interesting, or at least valuable, things back from places most others don’t go. However, they have to worry about the beasts of the various planets they visit and attracting the attention of the pirates.

 

The system:

Like all of the games based on FrostGrave, you will build a leader, second in command, and a crew of varying power. Unlike the original FG, this game has much customization. When you pick your captain, you pick a background from a list, with things like Mystic, Veteran, Biomorph, and the like. From there, you get to pick some powers from the listed ones, and then a few more from the complete list, but they’re not as easy to use. These powers have a “casting” difficulty and might cost you health to use, depending on how powerful they are. Your First mate can choose the same background, or another of your choice, so you can mix and match, finding the best combination that works for you. Afre powers, these two get to select gear, using only slots to limit your choices. No money or the like, just X slots for gear, with some gear taking up multiple slots. Once your have the CO (Commanding Officer/Captain) and XO (Executive Officer/First Officer) figured out, it’s time to get your crew. There’s two different types of crew: Basic and Specialist. You get some Credits to spend on both, and can take up to four Specialists, like in Ghost Archipelago. However, there’s a lot of choices for you in the Basic section, like Medics, that will cost you but you aren’t capped by the Specialist limit, making them easier to get and replace. One other thing to note is that you can replace up to four of your crew with robots, which are something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, they can be upgraded with certain Powers, and have some advantages when it comes to combat, but can also be taken over by another player if they have the right Powers. Something to think about.

The rest of the system is almost exactly like what you’ve seen in the other games created by the same guy, you’ve got d20 rolls for everything, the same stat lines, some Powers that are very useful and some that aren’t, and a lot of random tables. A few changes that we see to familiar tables is that when your CO and XO are messed up and make the rolls, they don’t automatically die if you roll the same results twice (except losing your eyes), as well as not being as crippling, but they’re still not great. They’ve made the usually optional rules for being wounded a requirement, and added in some new status effects and conditions you’re going to need to manage. Poisoned, Shaken, and Wounded are going to need tokens. They’ve also included templates for things like grenades and flamethrowers. But, if you’ve played the other games, you’re going to pick it up really quickly.

The last thing is the random monster tables. Instead of the pages and pages of random monsters that you need to proxy or buy, the list is much, much smaller, but still contains some rather unique entries. The major change now is that you’re going to be dealing with random pirates and ruffians. This might be easy for you to do, if you’ve got a large enough 40k or minis collection but might also be harder to match exactly. If you don’t have a ton of Imperial Guard minis laying around (like I do), just pick up some IMEF or Nova Corps guys from Reaper’s Bones line (there’s also Cyber Reavers, too) and slap them down. You can also use them to make crews, too. Personally, I’m planning to finally paint up the two IMEF squads I got way back in the first Kickstarter to use for example crews and bring along some Nova guys to use as pirates.

I have to say that this version of the system is bay far my favorite. While FrostGrave is interesting and kind of opened the door, the game requires a lot of time before you start, managing money for weapons and crew, as well as picking spells from the lists, and calculating the casting requirement for them; I’m also not a huge fan of losing health for failing a roll, it feels like punishment for bad luck. I do like the way Ghost Archipelago works a lot more, more freedom when making your crew and picking your Powers. But, those are fantasy, which isn’t my bag anymore. Having a sci-fi game that’s skirmish scale and won’t really require spending more money on minis is very appealing to me and this game is right in the sweet spot for me. Once The Plague has started to fade, I look forward to playing a campaign of this with a group of friends.

Is it worth it?:

If you already have some sci-fi minis, this is an easy “Yes.” The crews can be built using 40k stuff, random Reaper stuff, whatever you’ve got laying around. Since they use sci-fi weapons, you could probably get away with filling your ranks with even modern minis. Or using them for some wandering monsters.