Been many months since I've been to the monthly game day. Mainly double booking I think, rather than a specific desire not to go.
Anyway we rolled out OPR's Grimdark Future: Firefight (GFF) and, fortunately - after so much hype and anticipation - it lived up to expectations.
We started with a 200pt game with approx. 6 activations a side, on a single KT fold out board.
Then a 350pt game with about 9 activations, on 2x side by side KT boards.
[The board, towards the conclusion of 2nd game. Still a few models about.]
We had 6 activations each on the 1x board. Then 9 activations each on 2x boards.
The single board was very 'immediate', shooting models were mainly in range... even pistols if they moved as well. It's probably a little small for 'most games', good for beginner games as you're straight into all the actions. Perhaps good for a real quickie/warmup game.
The double board was more tactical, where you could take a turn to move and use your longer ranged weapons before things started to charge and close to melee. From another perspective it was not so far spread that it was tedious to get into a fracas. You didn't need double the models to make it work, 9 felt fine, not overcrowded, not too sparse.
Here's a section of my 'Havoc Brothers' force, cultists and chaos marines (eq). I've had these models for aaaaaaaages, and this is my first legit (i.e. not solo) game with them. Was super to get them out for a game.The cultists are from 'Dark Vengeance' 2012/6th ed starter box. Marines added a little later.
My fellow OPR explorer was running 'Soul Snatchers' (aka Genestealer Cult) using even older genestealer models. Both of us are taken with the ability to use whatever models you want/have and make it a workable game... as are most OPR fans.
While I've played several 'trial'/solo games this was our first 'live run', so rule book lookups were inevitable, but not overly time consuming. Our first game was probably done in 40 minutes, the second (larger) game was perhaps an hour to an hour and a half. With a little more experience in the rules those times can probably come down a little too - not that speed is the objective, but it's nice when a game doesn't drag, especially due to rule knowledge failure.
The battles were fairly even and straight forward. We weren't trying to be too tactical about things, just get as much action happening to experience as much of the rules situations as possible.
Overall it played as a very light weight system, didn't get bogged down through over-complexity - as advertised. There are extra rules and caveats that we could add, but personally I thought it played well with just the 'basic components'. We may add more in future sessions.
Conclusion: WIN.
We then played a 4-way Necromunda game on a 3x3' board. This was... tedious after whipping through the far, far simpler GFF games with minimal effort.
It was an amusing time, however I was really there as a token player/observer. I wasn't kitted up with a suitable gang and honestly, my mind wasn't in it.
Overall, a good experience and well worth going.
Until next time...
