Foraging in the Botanical Gardens

After a break of a few weeks over Easter we got our Empire of the Dead campaign back on track last night.  In the interim I had painted up the Gardens of Morr kit from Games Workshop and had put together some ingesting flora and fauna for a Botanical Gardens based scenario.

The entrance

I also chose the lost artefact scenario because that works best with three factions (me, Steve and Chris).  For future nights we might split into two games if we can arrange it.

The gardens

Here is the set up following placement of the artefacts and plants.  I got the corner between Chris and Steve for deployment having lost the roll and braced myself to be beaten up on both sides.

Lord Percival flew over and checked out an artefact early in his gyroscope.  He then remained stranded out there whilst I lost the next initiative roll.  He managed to survive the shots fired at him from Chris, before we debated the ability to charge over obstacles.  Chris finally thought better of it and left Percy alone.

No artefact here

Steve meanwhile skulked around, splitting his force so a couple looked for the artefact and the rest took pot shots at me.  He finally charged my Huntsman and got his Librarian in place to charge too (finally).

Lucien wanders off in the wrong direction reading an interesting book

Chris was also lining me up with his packmaster and I decided that now was the time to pull out the stops - especially because it was looking very likely there would be no artefact (there was one marker left to uncover and it is only the artefact on a d10 roll of 9 or 10). So Percival flew over to the anachronistic Lord of the Rings ruins in his gyroscope and unleashed on Lucien the Librarian.  Then the zombies were called and set upon the packmaster:

This pre-empted a lot of rule discussion around mobs and multiple combats.  After working out the rules (it helps to be a lawyer at times), one of Chris' wolves was zombified and the packmaster left a little vulnerable.  Another of Chris' wolves then tried to charge across dangerous terrain, missed the saving roll and fell over.  The fall led to him being "downed" and therefore rather vulnerable.

Steve went next and confirmed that the last marker was not the artefact, meaning the game would end at the end of that round.  That was good for me because Chris was vulnerable, if only I could hold out from Steve's attacks.  His Lieutenant Gordon flew over and charged Percival, his other Inspector Lestrade was on my huntsman and his other bobbies charged the two members hiding around the tower offering fire support.

Lestrade braves the New Zealand plant to try find the artefact 

The final battles led to one of my members being removed from play after fighting an unarmed bobby (&%$!), and the huntsman being removed also.  But I also took out Steve's unhinged Rupert and the downed wolf who fell over trying to charge.  Final points led to me having 40 shillings, Steve 35 and Chris 30, so a good win for me considering I was fighting on two fronts.  It is always painful to lose one's member to an unarmed bobby : ), but if I hadn't lost that fight, I would have had an even greater win.

The aftermath of Steve's and my Tete-a-Tete

Having started the night a little under the weather, I was rather happy with the night and always like working out how to spend my money after the game.