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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Dwarven God

Just thought I'd share. I played a game with the Dwarf last night. I used the Productive Dwarf rules, which allows the Dwarf to get the same number of phases as anyone else, but must pay an extra MOVE for every non-cave clearing. This appropriately punishes the Dwarf for having short legs, but does not penalize his ability to do non-move things, like resting, and searching. I did notice that there is a problem with getting the Dwarf to move from a Cave clearing, and into a Mountain clearing: since you only get 2 basic phases for being in a cave, and the Mountain costs 3 to enter, he's stuck. The only workaround is to run from the cave clearing during combat, so that he's outside during Birdsong, but that ends up costing two days to do, and really hurts the Dwarf speed. Another workaround is to simply have the Dwarf follow another character, but that doesn't help in a solo game...

ANYWAY, I got distracted. The reason I'm posting, is the amazing luck I had with this little guy. He had just finished killing a Bat and two heavy trolls (love that Duck T3!!), when he discovered the Vault. He opened it, and immediately scored the Garb of Speed. This thing is a sweet treasure to have when you are a heavy fighter like the Dwarf. If you don't remember:

    ** = Speed 3
    * = Speed 4
    - = Speed 5

The conversion of his chits is phenominal:
Move H6 => Move H5
Fight H6 => Fight H5
Duck T3* => Duck T4*
Fight H5* => Fight H4*
Move H5* => Move H4*
Move T6* => Move T4*
Fight T6* => Fight T4*
Fight H4** => Fight H3**
Fight H4** => Fight H3**
Move T5** => Move T3**
Fight T5** => Fight T3**
Fight T5** => Fight T3**

The only chit that suffers, is the Duck T3* chit, which loses a point of speed, but all in all this is a pretty nice setup. The Dwarf ends up with 2 Fight T3** chits, which can just about undercut anything on his sheet, and he has plenty of asterisks to fatigue, especially since he doesn't really need the Fight H3** chits.

A bit more searching in the Vault yielded a couple more amazing treasures: Battle Bracelets (replace Fight over 4), and the Golden Arm Band (M armor vs Swing). Since the last two treasures of the Vault were now a bit too hard to aquire, the Dwarf moved onto the caves, where he found the Pool. After dispatching a Tremendous Troll, another Bat, and couple of Flying Heavy Dragons, the Dwarf went to work looting the Pool.

Feeling rather powerful already, the Dwarf made a rash decision to skip hiding, and simply do two loot actions in the Pool The first two treasures he found were the Power Boots (an asterisk free Move H4), and the Elusive Cloak (replace Move over 4). Laughing with all the power I had in my hands, I noticed for the first time the monster die roll: I had rolled a 3. The Octopus was coming out, along with 6 axe goblins……. and I’m unhidden.

Not giving up, I put the Octopus in the first red box, and then divided the goblins between the other two. I targeted the Octopus with a Fight T4* (unalerted axe, of course), and played the Power Boots as my maneuver. The Octopus lined up, and died right away, but the other two boxes changed tactics. Now I’m looking at some particularly nasty goblins. Rounds 2 and 3 brought down two of the angry goblins (thank you Fight T3**), but also demolished the last bit of armor the Dwarf had. Round 4 delivered enough wounds to leave the Dwarf in a very broken state, and despite a hard fought combat, left him dead in round 5. Dang it!

I probably could have played that better. Getting slaughtered in the caves by a bunch of Goblins was NOT how I wanted to go, but at least I got to play with some neat treasures.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like fun.
I just had a good White Knight run.
I traded in my sword and armor for a morning star and warhorse at the Order, then walked into the Borderland, where I found some insignificant treasure and some monsters. Pack of goblins is no match for a guy on a warhorse (basic combat rules).
I fought several nifty battles, like 2H and 1T trolls. I got lucky like you and killed the troll round 1 unalerted.
I then decided to take on the T dragon, 2 flying dragons and a heavy dragon. Bad news, the Tdragon killed my warhorse. No biggie with the rest of them, what with speed 3 attack every other round, but still not fun.
Then I tried to get back to the Order and got attacked by bats.
That's right, the weapon won't undercut them and I have no horse or armor.
I got lucky and killed one bat the first round so I was only taking 2 wounds per round until I killed another bat and finally, when I had nothing left but a fight chit, I killed the last bat.
I used my bonus rest phase to recover my move H6 then moved, one hide per turn, one bonus rest per turn, and had just enough time to get back to the Chapel and sell my stuff with 1 trade and end with a 29 score.

DewKid said...

I love the White Knight/Morningstar combo. Makes the WK very formidible. I hadn't thought about selling the armor and getting a Warhorse, but that sounds like a good way to go.

You got lucky with those Bats: I can't count how many times I've been taken down by that one monster! That must have been glorious when that last bat went down. :-)

Anonymous said...

After reading Vincent's AAR on the Realmspeak blog, I decided to try the White Knight again, too. I played single board, seasons/weather, all advanced rules, all optional rules (except 5.4), double prowling, all revised rules, and watchful natives. VP's were 3 Fame and 2 Notoriety. My plan was to be honorable, kill monsters, and use treasure to hire like-minded warriors to help meet my goals.

I had quite a run, too, but I must confess to HEAVY use of autosave and restore. :-(

I started at the Chapel and meant to trade my armor and weapon for a morningstar and warhorse. Alas, I was so eager to venture out that I completely forgot and headed out with my suit of armor and great sword.

The Chapel was located at Dark Valley 5, and High Pass 2 was the next clearing over. In the other direction, Bad Valley 2 was the connector. Continuing on, Borderland 1 was ahead. This turned out to be the scope of my Realm.

Looking for quick action, I headed for the mountains to the east, and eventually found the Altar at High Pass 1, killing some stinking trolls along the way. While looting the Altar, I came across a lost party that needed escorting back to the Chapel.

Between the Altar and the stink in the air, and some hiding, I was able to head back to the Order with something to show for myself. One treasure that proved especially useful was the Lucky Charm, which I would keep.

With the gold I was paid for escorting the party and selling the treasure I had found, I sold my armor and sword and bought a morning star and warhorse. With the remainder, I also hired two members of the Order. As luck would have it, the Lancers came to pray with us and I was able to convince them to join us on our next adventure.

I now had two weeks ahead of me and a small holy army of followers at my command.

Heading west, we slyly advanced through the haunted Bad Valley until we camped in Borderland 1. Borderland was home to the Lost City, which contained the Pool, the Lair, and the Statue. We also heard the flutter of wings and the patter of feet in the distance. We felt strong in number, so we moved quickly through the cave with the Pool to search the Lair. We would loot the Pool on our return.

The Lost City of Borderland was filled with Bats, Goblins, and Dragons. The swiftness of the Lancers actually made Bats easier to handle, since they are both fast and nullify the bats's speed advantage. The knights of the Order are tough and can take punishment as targets while the rest of us swarm the monsters. Even the Octopus couldn't handle our numbers, although we did lose a Lancer and some horses during the many attacks.

[It was interesting to keep restoring the game in Borderland to see the different combinations of denizens to battle with my small army. Once I played a battle that turned out especially well for me, that's the save that I continued into the next days.]

I made it back to the Chapel on Day 28 with horseloads of treasure, selling everything and ending with 38 points.

Anonymous said...

I just want to add that my comment about heavy use of autosave and restore was not an indication of stability issues with Realmspeak, but of my constantly replaying tactics to see the outcomes.

DewKid said...

Thanks for adding that, Steve! :-) You had me worried there for a bit.

MWrynn said...

Funny how Dwarf rules the caves, but those goblins will wreck him!

DewKid said...

No doubt! If those guys hadn't flipped (all six of them!!), I might have been okay. Unfortunately, the Dwarf was too focused on the Octopus, to notice the goblins organizing an attack...