Lost Relics

During our recent summer trip to New York, I had picked up a copy of Lost Relics, the latest in the Warhammer Quest line of cooperative dungeon-crawlers. Lost Relics is a smaller (and cheaper) game than its celebrated predecessors Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City, and it uses a modified and simplified version of the game engine that the boys and I have come to know and love. Matthew and Nathaniel weren't terribly interested in this one, so I solo-played it in the evenings as a way of getting a little break from my usual Strat-O-Matic fare. Tonight I completed the last scenario in the campaign, as illustrated by this image of the game's final turn.

Here, my hammer-wielding tank has just killed the evil sorcerer who had trapped this warband of heroic Stormcast Eternals in his bizarre vault of relics. The sorcerer and all other adversaries are represented by tokens, unlike the larger and more expensive Warhammer Quest games. I'd prefer to have miniatures for all the characters, but in this case, I think the flat token is quite appropriate for the last combat sequence, wherein my warrior absolutely squashed the sorcerer with two devastating hammer blows.

Victory in Ulfenkarn!

As I predicted, there was considerable deliberation about how to mount our assault. Ultimately, we agreed to take out the initial guardians first, then split up to destroy the four phylacteries that protected the undead soul of Radukar. The vampire-lord would spawn as soon as the first phylactery was destroyed, so we needed weaken him by eliminating these magical vessels as quickly as possible. 

The subordinate vampires and undead ogres were no match for our party's prowess, so we moved into position for a near-simultaneous phylactery smashing. Nathaniel's sturdy dwarf and my nimble swordfighter moved toward the two phylacteries in Radukar's throne room, while Matthew's musket-wielding monster hunter and his stalwart priestess each headed for a phylactery in one of the adjoining wings. (The game requires you to take four heroes on each adventure, so we rotate among a couple of supporting heroes, of whom the priestess is probably the most effective.)

The destruction of the phylacteries went off almost without a hitch, and we were lucky to have Radukar spawn in front of Nathaniel's dwarf, as he was the tank of the party. The unexpected appearance of another undead ogre put the poor dwarf between two powerful foes, but I managed to move my swordfighter into position for a flurry of attacks that took down the vampire-lord and ended the game!

Here's a shot of the final scene, with the two heroes who were in the throne room for that final turn.

Since Nathaniel had been the one to open the mysterious envelope when we completed Blackstone Fortress, this time Matthew got the honor.

What secrets were contained therein? I won't give away any spoilers, but the ending was not altogether positive for the city of Ulfenkarn and its champions. The fight against evil will continue, but for now, we'll put Cursed City aside to focus on other things. It was a great game, perhaps not the novel and wildly fun experience we had with Blackstone, but the character development and legacy mechanics in Cursed City were rather more sophisticated than in its earlier cousin. The boys and I would love to see a new edition of Blackstone that incorporates all the great stuff that Cursed introduced. In any case, they're both magnificent games and we absolutely got our money's worth out of them!

Into the Ebon Citadel!

Over the past few months, other games have gotten in the way of our finishing Cursed City, but now that I've got a nice little week of vacation, I was determined that we were going to complete this game just as we vanquished its spiritual predecessor, Blackstone Fortress. Over the weekend, we did one final mission to level up a couple of our secondary characters and prepare us for our final assault on the Ebon Citadel, home to Radukar the Wolf, vampire-lord of Ulfenkarn. 

Here's a couple pics of the Ebon Citadel map, including (at the top) the throne room of Radukar!

It's hard to see the individual minis, but Radukar himself is not present. He'll show up once we start to cause trouble. In the meantime, we'll have to deal with his undead ogre and vampire minions. 

If we prevail, we'll be able to open the mysterious sealed envelope that was included in the box. As with Blackstone, it no doubt wraps up this first storyline, provides some sort of final reward for the party, and hints at adventures to come.

The attack on Radular's lair begins today, but we'll probably spend a couple of hours arguing over how to approach the mission before we actually get started. That's half the fun! Wish us luck!

It's a Sanguinala Miracle!

I'm not sure which game I like better, Blackstone Fortress or Cursed City. They use the same basic mechanics, but while Blackstone is so perfectly elegant in its simplicity, the more complex Cursed City offers greater opportunity for long-term character development. They're both awesome in their own ways, and the only downside to either of them is that Games Workshop seemed to have abandoned this line earlier this year. They ended any further Blackstone supplements and then, when Cursed City was released this spring, it was abruptly discontinued. Only a lucky few of us -- thank you, Millennium Games! -- managed to snag a copy of this red-boxed beauty. 

Fast-forward to today: CURSED CITY IS COMING BACK!!! Not only is the core game being re-released in 2022, there will be expansion sets to continue the adventure. Huzzah!

Level Up!

This weekend in Cursed City, our heroes scoured the ruined manor house of my character, Glaurio, in search of loot to fund our resistance movement against the city's vampiric overlord, Radukar the Wolf. (Along the way, we discovered a mysterious and obviously very important tapestry, but I guess that's something that will be explained later!) When we finished the mission, our three main characters all leveled up. It's awesome to have a (non-Gloomhaven) a board game that allows you to play a character who grows and evolves over the course of the campaign, just like a real RPG. 

The only wrinkle is that our shared characters -- we started with one in order to get us to the requisite four-character party, but added another one this weekend -- haven't leveled up yet, so we'll need to undertake more missions over the course of the campaign in order for them to keep pace with the three main heroes. To the boys, however, that's a feature, not a defect, because it gives us more playing time -- it felt like we finished Blackstone Fortress far too quickly!

Ready Or Not, Ulfenkarn, Here We Come!

With a couple of days off coming up, now's the time for us to jump into Cursed City. Sadly, I'm not well prepared; I've painted four of the eight playable heroes -- just barely enough to field a full party -- and I've only skimmed the rulebook. The game mechanics are similar enough to Blackstone Fortress that I think the boys and I should pick it up quickly, but there are a number of small differences that may well cause confusion. Even so, I'm excited to get started after carting this game all the way back to Nevada from Millennium Games. Expect to see regular updates on our progress as we attempt to eradicate the scourge of the undead from the shadowy streets of Ulfenkarn!

One Giant Headache

The boys and I switched back to D&D after completing Blackstone Fortress, looking to move our Shattered Realm campaign forward prior to taking another hiatus when we begin Cursed City later this month.

When last we left our intrepid Shattered Realm heroes, they had just liberated that eponymous realm from the grip of hostile invaders from the Empire of Letavia. The heroes then worked with the disparate communities of the realm to forge a new, unified country -- hey, it's no longer a shattered realm! -- and Nathaniel's sagacious druid Vabaran was elected as one of the fledgling nation's leaders.

We picked up the storyline a year later (in game time) with the arrival of a Letavian ambassador requesting that the heroes come to their capital city and meet face-to-face with their new queen, the eight-year-old daughter of the king whom the heroes had defeated and captured the previous year. Although suspicious, the heroes journeyed to distant Letavia and negotiated a non-aggression treaty with young Queen Aveta, but they remained steadfast in their refusal to return her imprisoned father because of their concerns about the empire's warlike culture and bloody history. Among other things, they had learned that much of Letavia's wealth came from a civilization of giants whom the Letavians had annhilated centuries earlier. 

Despite lingering doubts about the long-term prospects for peace with imperialistic Letavia, Nathaniel was pleased that he had led these efforts to broker a pact between the two nations. Of course, since I'm the DM and I love a good plot twist, it can't be that easy. 

During a brief coda to the aforementioned adventure, the heroes visited a cloud giant to whom Matthew's rogue Sisen owed a debt for inadvertently damaging her cloudtop palace (it's a long story, and, yes, magic beans were involved). While paying off the debt, the heroes happened to mention that Letavia was now in a weakened state and ruled by a child. This cloud giant, old enough to remember the harm inflicted upon her people by Letavia ages ago, immediately vowed to rally her fellow giants and embark upon a war of revenge against Letavia.

What now? Will the heroes help their former (and possibly future) enemies, even if it means risking the wrath of the giants and putting their own young nation at risk?

The Hidden Vault

It's been a long and harrowing journey, but our intrepid heroes of the 41st millennium at last reached the inner sanctum of the mysterious Blackstone Fortress, a place called the Hidden Vault. Although our luck hasn't always been great -- due to an inauspicious draw from the Legacy deck, for instance, we'd been hounded by the leader of the villains since very early in the campaign -- the Emperor was truly with us when we entered the Vault, because out of four possible enemy groups, only two of them actually spawned. 

We knew that enemy reinforcements would arrive soon enough, so we spent our first turn hustling across the map to take up a defensive position around our objective, an ancient computer terminal that must be accessed three times on three different rounds; at that point, we would earn the right to open the game's sealed envelope and learn what happens next. 

It was incredibly fortunate that we were able to get to the computer and access it on the very first turn of the game. Below is a snapshot of the board at the end of that turn. The long pinkish line represents the deadly beam of a rotating laser turret that destroys anything it hits.

The second round was largely uneventful; we dealt with a handful of foes and waited for more to show up. We then accessed the computer a second time, leaving just one more activation to go.

Next round, we continued to hold our position as negavolt cultists and traitor guardsmen rushed in toward us. We cut down our enemies in droves, and only one lasgun-wielding trooper remained standing when the round came to a close. We accessed the computer for a third and final time, with Nathaniel's character Pious Vorne -- the flamer-wielding acolyte -- pressing the final button.

We were now allowed to open the sealed envelope that was included in the box and has been tantalizing us since we began our journey. Nathaniel, as the biggest 40k fan in our family, was given the honor of tearing into it.

And what was in the envelope? Sorry, no spoilers! I won't reveal anything specific, just that a double-sided card provided the game's concluding narrative as well as our reward for conquering the Hidden Vault.

And what about Pious Vorne, the hero who accessed the computer on the third turn? Well, she was sucked into the...oh, right, spoilers!

Anyway, we all agreed that the game's ending was a bit abrupt and anticlimactic from a narrative standpoint, but we thoroughly enjoyed the game and look forward to jumping into its spiritual successor, Cursed City.

Cursed City

We made a cross-country drive last week for less-than-great reasons, but one upshot of this journey was that the boys and I got to spend a pleasant hour perusing the amply laden shelves of Millennium Games. We all came away with new goodies, but I'm especially pleased to have landed a copy of the hard-to-find Cursed City, a spiritual successor to Blackstone Fortress (in that it uses the same game engine) but taking place in the setting of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

I cannot wait to dig into this beast of a box! The boys and I are nearing completion of Blackstone, so it will be awesome to have a similar game to jump into once we're finished.

Hammer Time!

I'm enjoying some time off and the opportunity to delve further into Blackstone Fortress with the boys. We're working our way through the ancient, labyrinthine space station in the hope of uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Vault. Tonight we squared off against a Chaos Space Marines captain called Obsidius Mallex, our chief rival in the quest for the Vault. 

Here's the moment we lured Mallex away from his flunkies and into a trap-filled choke point, blasted him to smithereens, and claimed his precious Thunder Hammer!

Below is a better view of the current party. I haven't had the time to paint the villains, but I did paint the heroes we're using. Sadly, my best paint job of the lof them was the flamer-wielding adept who wasn't part of this particular mission. 

I estimate we're about halfway through the game. Loving every minute of it!

Into the Fortress!

Between work, school starting back up, ever-present COVID, and California fires that continue to dump smoke into our valley, I think we all needed a bit of a pick-me-up. On a smokey Saturday afternoon, then, the boys and I made our first foray into the Blackstone Fortress of, well, Blackstone Fortress. We followed that up with a return trip on Sunday. 

How did it go? This is the game we wanted Gloomhaven to be. Granted, Blackstone Fortress can't top Gloomhaven's richly unfolding storyline or the players' ability to shape the world around them, but all that cool stuff doesn't matter if the game is lousy. Gloomhaven takes forever to set up and the mechanics are ridiculous, forcing players to abandon smart dungeon-crawler tactics due to the game's oppressive timer.  I've covered all this ground before. In contrast, Blackstone Fortress is rather lighter on story but the gameplay is slick and fun. There's a lot you can do on your own turn, and the generous overwatch rules keep you motivated to pay attention even when it's not your turn. The boys and I all found characters we liked, and so far our experience is that the characters play very differently; Matthew gets his mobile damage dealer, Nathaniel gets his tank, and I get my jack-of-all-trades. It's rare indeed that all three of us enjoy the same board game, so I think we've got a winner on our hands with Blackstone, and I'm pretty sure we'll stick with this game long enough to make it all the way to the hidden vault!

Malaise

Work has felt rather more stressful of late, with setbacks that continue to nag me even after I leave the office. Between that stuff and the ongoing complexities of life in COVID times, I haven't had quite the same energy for game stuff. To wit, I've paused my Strat-O-Matic baseball league at the halfway point of Season 6 (the Blue Legs and Resolutes are neck-in-neck in a tight pennant race) and I even gave up on landing a copy of that new Gargoyles board game after my local Target twice indicated it was in stock but then didn't have it when I showed up. I did manage to grab the new Warhammer Age of Sigmar starter set for a bit of building and painting fun on the side, and at some point I'd like to try Blackstone Fortress with the boys. It's out of print now, but I grabbed a copy from an Amazon third-party seller and it seems like it will provide the great co-op gaming experience that we thought we'd get with Gloomhaven. I'm looking forward to some time off around Labor Day and hoping I can learn the rules by then so that the boys and I can jump right in.

Dare We Take the Plunge?

As I had scheduled a little time off to spend with the boys during their last week of summer vacation, I thought it would be fun for us to get into a big, meaty new game. My first though was Blackstone Fortress, a cooperative dungeon-crawler set in the world of Warhammer 40k. Even if we didn't enjoy the game, we'd get a lot of use out of the minis, whether for 40k itself or for our futuristic Shattered Realm campaign. Alas, the supply chain gods did not smile upon us, as it appeared that the game would not arrive at our remote desert outpost until after I was back at work and the kids were back in school. 

Fallback plan? Gloomhaven. I've been reluctant to take the plunge despite the overwhelming number of great reviews. I'm not sure why. I do love coop board/strategy games, and this one features a legacy system (i.e., players' choices in and between scenarios impact how the game's narrative unfolds over course of the campaign), which should be right up my alley. Maybe I'll be more excited once I see the box -- it's quite a box, as I understand it.