Blackstone - Back Into It

First Blackstone session after a few weeks off.

Safe to say that we've got our 'admin' processes sorted and we really pounded through some maps this evening.

We arrived in the standard entrance point; Passage 23. This thre two random combats at us, first an 'ambush' combat...

and then a 'regular' combat...

Despite warming up with generally rubbish dice rolls (especially shooting dice) we managed to get through these without any wounds. The enemies were not particularly tough and to be honest we've kind of optimised the explorer crew and our MO with them.

Thence, we arrived in Chamber 7...

which we also crushed... 

This one had Beastmen in it which were scary, but they didn't manage to do us much in the way of actual harm.

Through Passage 14, which had us shooting at each other in a fit of madness. And on to Chamber 3...

We selected out exit point, aiming for the next shrine and set to work. 
This map had some negavolt cultists which again are quite scary in close combat, but we managed to get through the map clinically and without picking up any grievous wounds.

All of these maps so far we have done before. Probably worth considering expending some clues to pop up somewhere more practical next time around. Anyway, we collectively picked up a decent haul of loot so when we get back to Precipice next time we'll have some good trade options (hopefully).

Missionary about to flame a negavoltist through a corridor...

Our progress this evening is highlighted in green text. Everything we did, we'd done before. Our next session has us entering Passage 16 which has 4 random challenges - which seems quite a lot, but [shrug] all good fun.

We're aiming for the 'top right' section of the board where there should be the 3rd shrine.

Without wanting to jinx us we should probably be able to get pretty close to the next shrine without having to return to Precipice (thus making the reinforcements harder etc).

Below is the current states of our explorers with loot and so on. This really is quite a handy practice (recording the pics on the blog) for setting up for the next session.

And that was that. Overall a very entertaining session even though we were retracing our steps.

The narrative aspect of the game (and certainly this is a reflection of the players as well) really makes the game quite engrossing. Despite our characters handling themselves quite capably there's still plenty of suspense, surprise, and the lurking threat of dire reversals of misfortunes brought about by unlucky dice roles, missed shots or saves, unfortunate reinforcements etc. Also plenty of situations that seem to highlight the humorous characteristics of the explorers as well. 
As a retrospect i can't recall any of our sessions feeling like just going through a cookie cutter routine process.

The drive was reasonable. This is the first time i'd done it since school was back for real, and overall it felt like going against the traffic (especially knowing first hand that the other direction feels like).
I think i could manage it again.

Until next time...