Verrotwood AAR - The Relic Hunt

 Introduction 

The Verrotwood beckons and the faithful answer.  Drawn to an area of the forest the Wisentii and The Uncoiling of Beiysss confront each other for the favour of their dark deities. 

Set up

This is a game using the Relic Hunt scenario from the rulebook.  The six red markers on the mat represent a Relic token, with the purpose of the game to collect as many as possible, while preventing the other cult from doing the same.  Pre-game I rolled for additional terrain and generated a piece of Cursed terrain.  The creature roll generated a Greater Reanimated.  

Wisentii deployed at the top

Round 1

The first three tokens pulled from the bag are all for the Wisentii.  The Heart, Horns and Hooves all use their two actions to Run in search of the Relics.

SerpensMinajnem is the first of The Uncoiling to activates and he also Runs forwards.  SerpensNadrew uses 1 action to Move forward.  SerpensEnirethec runs to support Minajnem.

Activation now switches to the Wisentii and the Breath Runs moving up alongside the Hooves. 

The Greater Reanimated now activates and shambles toward the nearest cultist which is the Hooves of the Wisentii. 

The final model to activate is SerpensLeachim who moves up to support Nadrew. 

Round 2

Starting positions Round 2

The Breath of the Wisentii activates first and uses one action to move to the side of the Hooves and then one action to make a Ranged Attack on the Greater Reanimated.  His Dex roll is less that of the undead so he misses. 

SerpensLeachim activates and Runs to a Relic token.  He’s now used all his actions though and will have to stay there for the next turn to gather it.

SerpensNadrew does the same to another Relic token. 

The Hooves is next and with his path barred he has no choice but to make a Melee Attack on the Greater Reanimated.  He succeeds with one of his two dice being better than the undead’s one DEX dice, but it’s a non Critical hit and all he succeeds in doing is bashing the undead to the ground.

SerpensMinajnem uses one action to Move and then one action to collect a Relic token, which is now removed from the board.  First success for The Uncoiling.   

The Horns of Wisentii moves towards a token but can’t quite reach it due to difficult terrain.  Her activation ends. 

The Greater Reanimated is next and uses its activation to stand after being knocked down.

The Heart Runs towards Nadrew to prevent him from collecting the token next round.  Using both of her actions to Run means that although she is in contact with him she can’t make a Melee attack. 

Last token out the bag is SerpensEnirethec, who seeing the Horns close in on a token, runs towards it but can’t quite reach it.

Round 3

Starting positions Round 3

The Hooves activates and makes another melee attack against the Greater Reanimated.  Harnessing the power of the hooves of the great Bison for which he is named, bones splinter and fly as he pounds the undead into the ground with a critical hit.  For his second action he moves to support the Heart as she engages SerpensNadrew. 

The Heart activates and as she is in Melee range attacks SerpensNadrew with her 2-hand axe.  Her STR roll beats the DEF roll of the Serpens and he takes 8 damage. 

Nadrew’s token is drawn next and he Melee Attacks the Heart.  She takes 8 damage and will have to roll for the Poisoned blade next activation. 

The Horns uses one action to Move and then makes a Melee Attack on SerpensEnirethec.  Her attack fails as the Serpens uses his polearm to sweep the dagger thrust aside. 

SerpensMinajnem Moves for one action and then uses his other action to collect a Relic token.

SerpensLeachim uses one action to collect the Relic token he secured last turn and then makes a Range Attack against the Breath of the Wisentii.  It’s just about in range and his second dice beats the DEF dice of the Wisentii who takes a crossbow bolt for 8 damage.

SerpensEnirethec attacks the Horns and rolls a 10 – a Critical hit.  That’s 5 damage she takes. 

Last to activate is the Breath.  Having just been shot by SerpensLeachim he looks to return the complement.  Sighting along his bow he fires and hits the Serpens for 5 damage. 

Round 4

Starting positions Round 4

It’s the last round and the Hooves is first to activate.  Swinging his mighty two hand hammer at SerpensNadrew one of his rolls exceeds The Uncoiling leader’s roll and he  takes another 8 damage and is out of action and removed from the table. 

The Horns attacks SerpensEnirethec and sticks him with one of her punch daggers for 5 damage. 

A third Wisentii token is pulled, and the Heart spends her actions moving onto and then collecting a Relic token.

And to complete the set the fourth and final Wisentii token is drawn.  The Breath moves forward and then makes a Ranged action to fire his bow at the Uncoiling Crossbowman.  The dice are the same which is a success and SerpensLeachim falls to a second arrow. 

Bowmen duel

SerpensEnirethec now attacks the Horns but the attack fails. 

The final action of the game is SerpensMinajnem who attacks the Horns.  The attacks is unsuccessful and the game ends with the two Cults withdrawing to lick their wounds and count their successes.  

Summary 

Adding up the victory points for the game shows that The Uncoiling collected three Relic tokens which gives them three victory points.  The Wisentii collected one Relic token, took two enemy cultists and one Creature out of action and they collect four victory points making them the winners.   They receive 1 Power and 100 Favor with the Uncoiling receiving 50 Favor.  

This was my first game of Verrotwood.  It's got really simple mechanics, flows well and provides plenty of scope for narrative play.  It shares these features with Space/Sword Weirdos and Donnybrook all of which I'm a great fan of as readers of this blog will know as I keep repeating it!  

There's some post-game activity I need to do, where you can choose a cultist and take them on a micro-adventure.  You can also spend earned Favor on equipment and stat upgrades.  You can also swap out cult members, although I haven't got any spare minis to do this at the moment.  I like this RPG element, it keeps things ticking along even if you haven't got time to get the minis out and have a full game.

I very much enjoyed this and will be continuing this campaign between the two rival cults through the summer.

 

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