Blackstone Fortress - 2nd Play

A few days ago most of the collective gathered at the Tiger King’s for a game. He was recovering from an operation to remove some metal from his legs. DK had gone down earlier to play one of the Tiger-King’s many Kickstarters - some like a It’s a Wonderful Kingdom. Anyway they were still on turn 1 when Steedo and I arrived due to discussing the escalating conflict in the Ukraine. So we watched as DK won by the use of giant rats. Also around the same time Snake-eyes arrived to participate in the main event - Blackstone Fortress. 

With 5 of us I was playing the hostiles - we were also playing the stand alone version, so people have a grasp of the rules for when the campaign starts properly (next game. Snake-eyes was the Rogue Trader, DK was the ratling  twins, Steedo the eldar ranger and Tiger-King was the robot UR-2501. 

The first exploration card was a challenge which the team breezed through with Janus Draik getting 10 of the 12 points needed. 4 clues and 1 piece of archotech collected - might be a quick game.

The next card was an Ambush combat card - eek!

Unfortunately for the team I managed a succession of very good dice rolls - putting 3 critical hits on Snake-eye character and at least one on most of the other characters … this became a run for survival very little collection of objectives - although I think Steedo managed to pick up some archotech. The team staggered to the mag-lift and escaped. I had even forgotten to do the reinforcement rolls …

Around this time there was a break for dinner cooked by Tiger-King’s better half, of chicken, veggie curry and a dal. Accompanied with rice and naan bread. Very good it was too. 

Then we returned to the Fortress - would the team be able to get back from the brink. 

The simple answer was No. Unfortunately the hostiles were too hostile … the restrictions due to critical hits meant that the team simply didn’t have enough activation dice to deal enough damage to the critters of the Fortress. I also started roll well again and remembered the reinforcement rolls. A good job it was a practice game otherwise some of the characters might not have been available. 

I think that campaign system will add to the game as characters can get “tooled up” and the consequences of actions have a long term effect. 

As we finished Blackstone Fortress more quickly than expected, we had a go with Masquerade - this was a tense bluffing game, where you might not be who you think you are …. It was eventually won by Steedo, with DK annoyed that in my attempt to win, I allowed Steedo to win … rather than do something which might have allowed him (DK) win … we do seem to have a mentality one occasions of focusing on stopping others winning rather than go for the win ourselves. 

On Saturday I went for a wander around the moor. 

Lovely day - still managing a full pack!

Morts