Last night we had a game of Blackstone Fortress at (FLGS) Good Games in Top Ryde shopping centre.
Three players all up, and given we now know roughly what we're doing the with admin side of things the dice rolls, initiative setup and all that kind of bajaga was handled as second nature. It definitely helped having extra eyes for picking up missed or forgotten caveats with the specific maps.
Started around 5:30pm and finished around 9pm.
We resumed play in 'Passage 1' where the Rogue Trader picked up a grievous wound from a sniper. Then played Chamber 8.
This was a very mild encounter with traitor guardsmen the only real opposition. A twist helped keep numbers down but meant picking up discovery cards provided the risk of a wound (which we generally risked as we planned to return to Precipice once the chamber was done - 5 clues between us was enough to get back).
Between us we've now played 3 sessions (of the expansion version). First session progress in red, second in green and last night's efforts in yellow.
This was our first time returning to Precipice after about 10 or so exploration bits (chambers, passages or random combats/labyrinth) which we mainly did to drop grievous wounds before hitting the stronghold.
A few trading events happened including picking up a speed bonus, some vintage amsec and a melta bomb - pretty random for the most part.
We now have the perma-inspire for the Rogue Trader, and the Navigator.
I swapped out the second, new version Rogue Trader given the similarity in combat roll to the original RT. Took the space elf instead to add some long distance firepower to the group.
With the exception of the retinue servitor all the team was now original game characters.
Back to the fortress. It is possible that our understanding of the mechanics for exiting/entering the fortress is not quite perfect but we spent our clues and 'resumed the story' if nothing else.
This was our first time tackling one of the strongholds and safe to say that it was FAR more challenging than the combats we'd previously encountered. From my understanding this might have been the easiest of the strongholds too.
We did triumph however with the Missionary and space elf dashing for the shrine and destroying it before the (copious) reinforcements managed to take out any of our explorers.
There were two goals on this mission:
- take out the firebrand (cultist leader), which the Navigator did with his newly acquired melta bomb to the cultist's face,
- then destroy the shrine.
The threat level had been raised (only by 1) by our prior return to precipice and we consistently rolled up 'reroll reinforcements' with the end of turn random shenanigans. so we had A LOT of reinforcements for the entire game (kinda annoying).
The Missionary managed to inspire (twice) and probably not exaggeration to say that without her firepower the explores would probably have been overwhelmed. The other characters all contributed admirably, 'supporting flanks' as it were, but the Missionary was the backbone of forward progress until the final goals were in sight.
On completing the mission we are returning again to Precipice where we can't really trade much due to having no new creds to trade with - but can remove wounds and start 'round 2' afresh. I'm hoping to maybe get the perma-inspire for the space elf too to help shift our progress along.
And that's probably it for the year. Next session (whenever that happens) should be a lot easier with the explorers starting to acquire and accumulate bonuses, as well as general game experience.
Our players too generally have tactically similar ideas so there's not a lot of loose-cannoning going on, though some variation provides some depth there.
Overall the session was very entertaining, suspenseful at times, and it felt like the story was moving forward which is adds to the experience.
Until next time...
