Return to Blackstone

Original Draft 2020-09-18

We've managed to roll some Thursday Night Dice about 3 times over the last 4 weeks... sounds about right. Missed last week.  Anyway dice were rolled last night.

The prior sessions had 4 of us in attendance so we played 1:1 BFG and 1:1 AT on side-by-side boards. Same for both sessions. As we only had 3 people last night we resurrected Blackstone Fortress. Looking at the map notes the last session of this was 20th Feb 2020, so quite a hiatus.

Anyway we carried on from where we left off. Heading toward the 3rd chaos shrine and the rules (and our preferred tactics) came back to us with very little issues. The session was fairly productive, mainly churning through labyrinth maps and if the discovery pack is any indication (only 2 cards left) we've cleared the path mercilessly.

Passage 16  gave us 4x Exploration cards (2 combats and 2 challenges) to do.

Firstly an ambush maps with Negavoltists (these had quite a few showings during the evening) and Traitor Guard.

Then a non-optional challenge that we managed to (luckily) blast through without picking up any wounds. The challenges are my least favourite aspect of the... game, i guess. Usually a matter of random luck and no opportunity to opt out. As opposed to be a tactical challenge where you can choose or manufacture a workable solution.

Next up a somewhat challenging map with Negavoltists, Cultists and Spindle Drones. We managed to wipe out the first two and exited the map before tackling the spindles, which frankly are a bit of a joke.

The last challenge of this set was a cut-down combat with (random) two of the explorers set upon by smaller groups of hostiles: Urghuls, Cultists and Beastmen.

Rogue Trader and Navigator managed to dispatch the hostiles incurring only 3 wounds and only 1 of those grievous. Not great, but not enough for us to turn back at this stage.

That concluded Passage 16, which dropped us out at Chamber 12.

Chamber 12 while small and 'immediate' was notably light on - only one hostile squad. We dealt with them easily and took the closest exit out.

Booting down in the Passage 6 which gave us 2x Exploration maps.

The first map was mildly challenging but the corridors were easily defendable with overwatch until we were ready to pounce. Negavoltists again, Cultists and Traitor Guard.

With one map left in this set we called it an evening. The combats are fun but take time setting up and playing, plus it was getting late for a school night.

The now standard end-of-game card piles for future reference...

And out current maply progress...

hmmm... felt further than it looks on the map.

Anyway, it was a fun session and nice to be rolling some exploration dice with people again.

Until next time...