Nightwatch on Its Head - Viking Raid AAR

 Earlier this year I got the itch (no, not that itch!) to paint up some larger miniatures and ended up going in with some 40mm scale Vikings and Saxons. I always like seeing larger models on the tabletop at gaming conventions and thought I needed some of my own. Yesterday (Saturday) most of the Space Cadets +1 put these on the table for their first battles.

I decided early on that Nightwatch would be a nice set of rules to use for these models, focusing on a small group of very capable fighters against a large number of lower-quality opponents. Nightwatch scenarios have strong, clear objectives, meaning obvious winning conditions for a convention-type group of random players. 

 The players in attendance were some of the usuals - David, Ziggy and Mark and we were joined by Mark's 12-year old nephew Luke, who is just starting his miniatures gaming journey. Numerically this was perfect - one Viking per player and I would GM the Saxons per the standard automatic behavior rules. 

That's Mark and Luke there... The first scenario required the Viking to burn the large house and make a break for it.

The Vikings made it to the target easily and the first waves of Saxons arrived in manageable locations.

The end of the game, turns 6 and 7 were a bit tense, with useful arrivals but the Vikings had no trouble completing their objective.

The second mission was to find a steal sheep from the Saxons! This was essentially a find and rescue mission.

We rearranged the tabletop and marked four possible locations that needed to be searched by the Vikings while they searched for the sheep. The locations were the three buildings and the livestock pen. The Vikings enter the tabletop between those hedges. The Saxon entry points were also placed in more useful locations - two were totally useless in the previous game as it was coming to a close.

 

Ziggy's spearman locates the herd. Now, to get out of there - activate SHEPHERD MODE!

 

Things quickly turned to shite for the Vikes as the Saxons immediately began appearing at the most useful spawn points and my Defense rolls were absolutely magnificent.

 

YESSS. The impartial GM loves the chaos as the Vikings completely fall apart. They all try to free Ziggy's spearman so he can get away with the sheep. My dice were hot, making it a tall order for sure.

Turn 7. The shepherd gets SO so close to the goal, a two-inch strip at the edge of the board. A Saxon slinger and an archer are in hot pursuit! A rare Saxon victory! In all fairness, my dice were on fire and the players' dice were hot trash for that game.

There are David and Ziggy!

Next game... this time the Vikings would have to protect their flock from dem teevin' Saxons. A quick re-arrange of the scenery and voila!

The livestock pen was the Saxon objective. They had to break it up to let the sheep loose. The Vikings had to protect it. The Vikings selected two archers for this scenario figuring it would be more useful in a defensive situation.

Not many photos of this game. The dice gods corrected the lines of fate and the Vikings had a tremendous amount of success this time, easily dealing with the early arrivals and being able to stay tight for the impending rush. The last couple of turns were tense but easily managed. I did get a few villagers into contact with the pen but didn't have time to tear it down. Ah well, better that the players win anyway. 

What a blast! A very worth playtest before I take these guys up to Southern Front next month. I'll make some adjustments to spawn locations in the first scenario but otherwise things worked very nicely. The guys were happy with how things worked which is all that really matters.

Good Gaming and Be Well!

Steal Away the Night(watch)

David came over Saturday for a couple games of Nightwatch. He was quite interested when I mentioned it to him a couple weeks ago so what better way to satisfy the curiosity? I put together a new Pact including an Alchemist, Tracker (with Longbow), Blade (1HW + Shield and Heavy Armor), and Mancer. Our Pact also included a d8 Melee Hireling.

I set up a "Recover" scenario in which the Pact had to search four locations for the target item. After locating it, we had to get it back to our table edge to succeed.

David chose the Mancer and Blade, I got the Alchemist and Tracker. We shared the Hireling (Mario).

Those yellow discs are the locations we need to search. The pact is lined up on the left edge.

The Blade makes haste towards the house, as quickly as his stumpy little legs could carry him.

A turn or two in... Johnnie Walker, the Alchemist, is beset by a pack of Ghouls!

The quiet one also has troubles of her own.

But the Mancer has located the target with the assistance of Mario. She takes a deep draught from the Potion of Swiftness in her handbag.

And that's a wrap! Average dice rolls and some bonus movement from the potion made it easy. 

In retrospect, we'd have done well to milk the clock and get a few extra kills because we didn't get much loot at all for that mission. Because it went so quickly, we played a second scenario. The tabletop was left as it was and we chose the Escort scenario.

The mission was simple - escort the princess from one corner of the battlefield to the other and keep her intact!

It wasn't long before we had hordes of ghouls coming at us from all directions.

And one portal had a double-spawn later into the proceedings! Fortunately for us, it was behind us and that lot wouldn't be blocking our travels.

Nevertheless, Johnnie Walker got some good results from a Stun grenade, putting the brakes on a group of attackers.

Our hireling Mario seemed to be pretty impressed with the light show.

A skeletal archer caught him napping!

It took no time for the unholy beasts to identify the weak and wounded; poor Mario was lost! Eighteen silver pieces, down the drain and there's no fixing his damaged armor. Dang.

The Dwarf warrior was still reveling in the joy of combat, though the odds were stacking up against him!

But escorting the princess / dancing girl was the important thing and Hermione had taken that in hand. Another successful mission!

Two more very enjoyable rounds of Nightwatch. We played two movement-based missions and found them to be pretty easy compared to the first one I played with my wife in which we had to hold tight and defend an item in the center of the table. A great afternoon of gaming. Thanks David!

Yeah Yeah Yeah, Nightwatchin'

 I picked up Nightwatch very early Tuesday morning during a major software upgrade at work. In all fairness, we were waiting for a backup to complete and 1:00AM has a funny way of encouraging impulse buys. Nightwatch is a cooperative fantasy skirmish game system from System7. A quick perusal of the rules and I was quite delighted with the pickup. My bride and I put together a Pact, a group of monster hunters, and Saturday gave it a go.

Our pact consisted of:

    Blondie - Tracker with a Crossbow and a One-handed melee weapon

    Griff - Blade with a Heavy Two Handed Axe and Throwing Axes

    Esmerelda - Alchemist with a One-handed melee weapon

    Greta - Mancer with a Long two-handed staff

We didn't hire any assistants in the interest of simplicity. We did learn how valuable they'd have been.

My wife's two witches

My high fantasy stereotypes

I set up the terrain before selecting a mission. It became clear that the destroy / defend mission would be suitable so the witches' cauldron was placed in the near center and became the item we needed to defend from the rampaging undead horde.

Today's battlefield. A graveyard is always cozy, right? Certainly suitable for the enemy we'd soon be facing.

Griff has taken an oath to desecrate twelve monster entry portals over the course of six games. He of course pauses to pass wind over this one.

And proceeds to engage some recently arrived ghouls!

Greta and Blondie take responsibility for the far side of the graveyard as more nasties begin to arrive.

Meanwhile, Esmerelda covers the kettle.

Griff and the ghouls come to blows. The ghouls prove to be very dangerous opponents as the fates hastily abandon our heroes and favor the forces of darkness.

The monstrous horde takes a strong interest in the cauldron. Sort of a mixed blessing, at least our heroes aren't being overwhelmed!

The ghouls continue their streak of successful defense rolls. Esmerelda heaves a Stun potion at the monsters nearest the cauldron to prevent them from attacking it on the next turn. At least it affects one of the beasts!

Griff was still struggling with one stinkin' ghoul when a real horde appeared.

Five more baddies on the north edge too! Things have officially gotten bad.

At least they rushed the cauldron and not the heroes!

And just in time, our dice woke up and the dice of darkness showed some hint or normality. Esmerelda and Greta went haywire and blasted the horde with arcane energies.

But there's more where those came from! Griff gets swamped.

As do Blondie and Greta. Esmerelda downed an invisibility potion at just the right time, ensuring she wouldn't be targeted by the monsters.

A healing potion and Griff's back up to fighting form, dispatching two assailants.

Blondie and the witches use all their available emergency gear to remove themselves from their jams. The horde damages the cauldron, but it holds. The sun begins to appear in the east and with that, the night watch ends.

Ooh, that was tense. That was a lot of fun. Simple mechanics, wonderful escalating tension. Yeah, we'll be playing this again for sure. We did a couple things wrong, some benefiting the heroes and some the bad guys so I'd say it evened out. A hireling or two would have been most useful.. next time. We didn't determine treasure or any of that and there is an advancement / campaign system so we have a little work to do before the next Nightwatch. This was a great buy for nine bucks on Wargamevault. I really recommend it. Be well!