Two's Company...: An Empire of the Dead AAR

Monday night saw Steve, Chris and me jump into a three player game of Empire of the Dead.  Made me recall that show, Three's Company:

An Early Photo of Our Gaming Group - that's me in the middle

We have been aware of the issues of playing three factions at once for some time and I have been keen to find a solution to random ganging up and the like.  I was aware that Games Workshop had released a new book called Triumph and Treachery that has rules for playing multi-player games.  For $150, there is about 4 pages of rules from what I can figure, based around the ability to make alliances and break alliances.

Couldn't be bothered paying that sort of money for that so I decided to play-test some home made alliance rules.  Here is how it worked:

1. In the maintenance phase any two players could call an alliance.
2. If an alliance is called, then the players each swap one model from their faction with a model in the others' faction.
3. That model is then controlled by the other person in the alliance as if it was their model.
4. In the following maintenance phases each player rolls a d10 to see if the alliance is broken.  On a 7 - 10 it is broken.
5. When the alliance is broken , the player breaking it gets to activate their model that has been swapped to the other faction during the maintenance phase.  They can move and shoot, or move at the double or whatever.

We played fracas in the end cause we figured that was one of the few scenarios that worked.  Cagey start at first.  Here's the set up:

When Chris and I got close, I summonsed my Zombie horde and Chris looked like getting squashed between that and Jack the Ripper.  He called an alliance.  I agreed, hedging my bets on the basis that I expected the alliance to be broken shortly, given the odds.

The Lycaon looking for trees to urinate under

Gentlemen Looking for Urinating Dogs

Steve continued to take pot shots from the far end of town, using the barrels I had just painted up:

And good evening to you too Mr Skeleton

With Uncle Thulu flying around shooting at a few as well.

Thulu Cam

You can see the Zombies approaching Chris there just before he called the alliance.  Here they are looking for some dog flesh:

Can you smell dog food?

I took out Steve's infernium hound, which they laid to rest in the cemetery:

Before

After: RIP Strange dog thing

Chris and I started to move towards Steve, but in the next maintenance phase Chris broke the alliance.  His figure freaked out (she was with the zombie horde) and ran out into the street only to be nailed in the cross fire from all Steve's waiting constabulary.  Chris had also moved his Beastlord and Packmaster close to the zombie horde and so when I won initiative next they were attacked, with Lord Percival landing five shots from his gatling gun.

The carnage was pretty great for Chris, who lost his Packmaster and a number of others too.  I took out another of Steve's constables, and along with three kills from Chris's faction, came out on top for the evening.

Steve had a quiet night shooting from distance, but got three kills (one of mine and two of Chris') so came second.

The alliance mechanic was fun, but breaking on a 7-10 was perhaps a bit too easy.  Tweak it perhaps to 8 next time, or try not to play 3 player games?

EOTD is fun and not too serious really - it is quite a nice run about from FOW which is pretty intense in comparison.  The alliance does add a fun aspect, but with three players it is hard for all players to have an equal role in the game.

Inspector Uncle Thulu, his pet infernium hound and subordonates

Finally it is time for Detective Inspector Uncle Thulu to emerge from his slumber and take charge of the Triple Six Division, or more commonly known as the Supernatural Branch. Very few know the group by Uncle Thulu's preferred name, Detective Inspector Uncle Thulu and Friends.

Uncle Thulu hanging out with the gang in, err, a gigantic pot plant

So how did this young detective Uncle Thulu, a Empire of the Dead Requiem Stretch Goal, come to be the head of the Supernatural branch? After all he never shaves, he has atrocious table manors, he never brushes his teeth, he smells of seaweed and once he even broke Constable Rupert's arm (story following soon). When Uncle Thulu was a kid he was bullied by his nephew (time is relative (get it???) for Old Ones) Cthulhu. Because of this Uncle Thulu joined the supernatural branch to lead them against the fight of all things supernatural. Plus Thulu has a thing for men in blue. 

Why hello there

Let me take you round my pot plant

It is worth noting a few things about Uncle Thulu in my faction. First he can fly (he has a gyrocopter but I will just pretend that he can fly). However if he gets shot on a 8-10 you shoot his wings which then might malfunction. Second his walking stick doubles as a bludgeon and a pistol. Pretty snazzy!

It took me a while to appreciate Uncle Thulu's black cape. I was very impressed with Dan's painting of Jack the Ripper, namely the black and thought my attempt involving mostly just highlighting the raised areas and leaving the rest black/german grey was a bit silly. However I have grown to appreciate it and now (as a week or so on the shelf does) think it gives it a nice comical look along with the green skin. I was contemplating a olive skin tone but thought that would be a bit to serious for Uncle Thulu and friends. I will save that for his brother Cthulhu. 

Cthulhu model I got of trademe (NZ ebay). I think it was part of the Call of Cthulhu RPG game
I think this guy is pretty cool. 

Next up for the Supernatural Branch is Uncle Thulu's faithful robotic infernium hound CJ7 named after the Stephen Chow film of the same name (which was a kinda average film admittedly). I found this model a little hard to paint although I think this is because my gold tamiya colour wasn't the same great quality as valejo paints which I normally use.

Infernium hound needs a wash after bringing
justice to the streets of London. 

Next up is two more of the Westwind Supernatural Branch police constables . Police Constable Rupert with the light pistol and Police Constable Nettles with the net-gun. 

Constable Rupert on the left had his arm broken by Detective Inspector Uncle Thulu in an arm wrestle. Because he lost he had to give 20 shillings to Uncle Thulu which he donated half to the faction. The reasoning behind this is because in the Empire of the Dead rules if you start with a 200 shilling faction you can take an injury to gain 10 shillings. I decided I wanted to have a full faction with infernium hound and two firearms specialists so needed a little bit of extra cash resulting in an arm injury (-1 strength) for Rupert. 

I think these guys look alright. However I had trouble painting them, I believe due to my ageing brushes. Which leads me to this question, does anyone know where I can get good quality, long lasting, not to expensive paintbrushes. Also what is the best way to look after your brush. Anyhow I hope you can forgive me for my somewhat silly faction backstory and enjoy Doctor Who's 50th anniversary today. 

The Sideburns of Justice - EOTD Supernatural Branch

After much deliberation of where to start with my Empire of the Dead miniatures, I painfully decided to put the Bedlam Brotherhood to the side and decided to finish what I already had. First up the Supernatural Branch and Lycaons. Here are the first two Requiem models I painted up.

Shotgun / sideburns guy and repeating rifle guy. Cooler names to come

I am testing out my new camera phone after getting my old one stolen (the full story here) to see how good the photos turn out for miniatures. Not so bad. Although the wooden background ain't so exciting, I should get terrain one of these days.

This guy certainly has amazing sideburns

I also got round to finishing off these two detectives form the west wind vampire wars range. 

 

My plan for now is to paint up first and foremost Uncle Thulu. I was thinking to myself, the only thing that makes these guys supernatural is their, admittedly pretty awesome, guns. So I thought to spice them up a bit Detective Inspector Uncle Thulu would make a great leader for the party. What is Thulu's motives? We will find out in a future Supernatural Branch post!