Continuing with our alternating of the basic quests with two different groups of Heroes, it is Sir Ragnar and his chums who take on this quest. After all, it was this group that slew Ulag a few quests ago, and should therefore be the subject of Grak's revenge. This would be another quest where I, as the Evil Wizard, would have to try hard to get the game balance right. The worth of this Hero group is in the weapons and armour that they carry; with these items taken from them by Grak's minion's, I was worried that with their low body points they would get wiped out before they could find them again. I hoped this would be counterbalanced by the fact that their were 5 Heroes, and the wizard Zaphod eventually having access to better spells than last time (more on that later).
Sir Ragnar can hardly believe his bad fortune, having been captured and imprisoned AGAIN! Whilst he grumbles at his men crammed into the cell with him, Sneeks quietly picks the lock and pushes open the door. Garmin follows him out and strangles the sleeping goblin with his bare hands.
In what is quite a surprise for me, the Heroes decide to split up, reasoning that they would be more likely to find their equipment. Sir Ragnar and Garmin head left from their cell...
...whilst the other three Heroes interrupt an orcish feast in the centre room. Uh oh, that's a lot of monsters.
It was at this point that a dispute broke out at the gaming table. Somehow I had forgot to inform the wizard player that as well as missing all their equipment, spells could not be cast until Zaphod found his items. A bad error on my part. The players suggested that we waive that rule and allow Zaphod to use his spells, but I ruled that we should stick to the quest notes.
In another surprising act by the Hero players, they decided to actually run into the room with all the monsters, rather than their usual tactic of waiting at the door. They reasoned that with only one combat die each in attack, they would need more Heroes in combat to actually do any damage. Thankfully, Sarymoor managed to kill one of the orcs, and lost only one body point to the Fimir in my counterattack. This made me feel a bit better about forgetting to tell the players a crucial rule earlier.
Meanwhile, Sir Ragnar finds a cupboard containing all their weapons! What's more, its unguarded.
Which leads to a mad dash of the Heroes out of the centre room towards their equipment, with the monsters close on their heels.
Sneeks manages to hold off the monster congo line, losing only one body point in the process. This allows time for the heavy-hitters Ragnar and Garmin to rush down and kill the monsters one by one in the corridor. The Heroes were rolling very well, whilst my monsters could barely hit anything. They must have been drinking as well as eating in the big middle room.
With the small horde of greenskins defeated, Ragnar returns to the now empty feasting room and finds a stash of 60 gold coins on the table, in amongst all the empty flagons.
By now the other Heroes have collected their equipment and trekked right around the board. This poor goblin guard, sandwiched between 5 Heroes, never stood a chance.
Another Fimir roars a battle cry. This room was to be where the Heroes would be tortured and executed, at least in the plans held in the mind of the foul Grak.
Another angle showing the "new" torture rack. As with many of my 30 year old Heroquest pieces, the rack had pieces missing, so I added two new handles and a new skull.
Whilst Ragnar and Sarymoor take on the Fimir, Sneeks has moved around to the long south corridor, and is now confronted with an orc sentry armed with a crossbow!
With Sneeks not having enough movement to reach the orc, Zaphod Swiftspell puts himself in between them and casts Shape Shift on himself, taking on the form of an orc. The confused crossbow orc cannot now fire at either Hero on his turn. The spell card does say that the monstrous appearance occurs on the casts next turn, but seeing as it was such a clever use of a spell by a player, and as I still felt guilty about not informing this wizard about his loss of spells earlier, I decided to allow it immediately.
The real orc decides to retreat further down the corridor, hoping to stay out of range of the Heroes movement.
The view from the other end of the corridor.
Sneeks can't cover the distance to the orc, so ducks inside the doorway into an empty room. Living up to his name, I feel. The crossbow orc fires at Zaphod, who has now reverted back to his human form, causing two body points worth of damage.
The Heroes are hoping that Sarymoor can reach the long corridor to lend a hand with his own crossbow, but he keeps rolling very low for movement.
Another view of the converted orc crossbowman (from a Warhammer 40,000 model!). This orc continued to retreat and caused another two hits on my turn, this time on the swordsman Garmin. Garmin eventually killed the monster marksman, but like Zaphod was now down to just two body points.
Sir Ragnar easily swots aside two more goblins.
On the next turn the Heroes find the stairway exit from the dungeon. However, their escape is blocked by Grak and his coterie of greenskin guards.
The only changes I made to this quest (other than using different Heroes of course) was to add a few more monsters to this room and giving the crossbow to the orc in the corridor. I decided to make these changes before the game started, as I don't really like to make changes during play (it's a slippery slope for me to cheat!).
Sir Ragnar, fearless leader that he is, charges in and kills the first orc. Sarymoor tries a shot at Grak through the doorway, but misses. Meanwhile Sneeks opens the other door and outflanks the greenskins. Garmin, seriously wounded, decides not to join the fray, but the brave Zaphod enters the room in order to cast Psychedelic Flash. Not surprisingly, the half-blind monsters do no damage on Morcar's turn. Grak howls in mad frustration. Not only has his prey escaped their cell, he can't even strike at them!
Sir Ragnar then kills Grak (pictured below), before my new model even has a chance to roll any attack dice. What a disaster for Morcar!
Zaphod then casts one of his new spells, Distract Enemies. It works better than anyone could have hoped, with the two orcs targeted killing each other on Morcar's turn!
It is then a simple matter of the other Heroes slaying the two remaining goblins, and the quest is over.
The Heroes win again, but even I have to admit that they deserved it for their great use of spells and tactics throughout. I had decided ahead of time NOT to use the stats for Grak from the American version of the game, which made Grak into a spell-caster. That would have been fun for me, but it probably wouldn't have been fair on the Heroes (who only have Zaphod and his 6 spells in their group).
I'll just have to enact my revenge next time........
No comments:
Post a Comment