Otherworld Skirmish Game Review

I have to admit that when I read the eagerly anticipated fantasy skirmish rules from Otherworld Miniatures I was a little disappointed. The rules seemed just a little bland and I couldn't see the hook. After playing it last night, I can say that it's a fantastic game to play and I'm really excited about giving it another go.

Since I'm not very good a learning rules from a book,  I was lucky enough to play against one of my regular D&D'ers, Jon, who has always had a keen I for the minutiae of rules and that certainly helped speed up our understanding. I brought to the HATE Club a set of pig faced orcs, some undead and four really old Games Workshop Disciples of Red Redemption to use a cultists.

I quickly made up two very basic 120gp factions, using a companion in each, with 4 orcs with halberds, 3 with crossbows and a shame for the orc faction and 3 cultists, 3 ghouls, a wight and a shadow for undead faction.

Undead Faction

I'd set up some dungeon terrain - parts of which I been given on the night (did I mention, I love the generosity and spirit of HATErs?). Then we got started. The shadow needed to be summoned, so I gave the Wretched Priest undead leader magic(2) and +1 Intelligence to ensure he/she got it off. My Monstrous Myrmidon had +1 hits, for 3, light armour and leader(1) for extra activation - which I kept forgetting.

Pig Faced Faction

I think we pretty much misinterpreted a least one rule a round, which is great because it meant we were definitely learning and discovering. It quickly became apparent that the damned status of undead is very nasty, and is something we need to dig into more online as it's very easy to lock down a faction using it. Weakened is also vicious, but since ghouls aren't too tough it didn't feel unbalanced in the end. I think I felt for awhile completely outgunned, but actually a few lucky armour saves kept me in the game and meant we ended on a draw, one model each both of who fled after failing morale checks.

Initial setup

Orcs turn one

My lone Orc crossbow man tempts the ghouls from their lair. 

He actually survives the charge attacks.

All undead cause fear, and orcs have a 50% chance of being scared.

More undead and their cultists emerge

A couple of rounds later, there isn't much left in the forgotten chamber.

The activation system, which means that generally you can only use half you models a turn is brilliant at creating internal tension, forcing you to really think about what it is you want to achieve each round. The statuses are a little brutal, in a fun way. I did think that a gentleman's agreement to tell your opponent what types you're taking i.e. men, monster, humanoids, undead, demons, etc, might be in order because I can see that a undead list with lots of ghouls would be very nasty.  The luck and fate systems definitely help give you a just a little more tactical ability, and stop the game being solely about dice arbitration.

I think £25 for the rules is a decent price. It's full colour scenic pictures of their model range is glorious, and works as intended, as you definitely want to go a buy so more of them. The tokens and cards aren't essential, but I think to you'll want them to make things easier. I suspect I'd use glass beads for activation in future though. I suspect, and hope, that they'll produce a monster manual for the creatures not covered - carrion crawlers for example. I'm also looking forward to trying a game with the adventure cards, which we didn't use to help speed things up.

So the game goes into my mainline game systems, to play repeatedly and so I hope a few more people at the club give it a try.



    

Dwimmermount - The Barbarian's Story

This is from Zoilus' player on the fight for dominance over the Orcs. Very much a touch of the Cimmerian about the young barbarian.

The mighty man-beast strode towards the steel-thewed Barbarian, unbuckling his armour. “Now, we wrestle!” bellowed the orc.

Laughing heartily, the shouts of his comrades ringing in his ears, the young barbarian launched himself cat-like toward the foe. Hands locked eagerly, and man and man-beast grappled, each shifting their feet in the dungeon dirt to take the force of their opponent.

The mighty man of the North was the first to overpower his foe, a lock of limbs that would have laid low a lesser being, but too soon the orc broke free through pure brute force. They clashed again, a desperate dance of grapple and dodge.Soon it was the orc that had the best of it, winding Zoilus with many a mighty hold. Dodging and grappling, they sparred, but the beast-man’s inhuman prowess looked soon to best the Thulian adventurer. Again and again, Zoilus endured the crushing embrace. Bruised and winded, the barbarian finally broke free of a hold which looked to be deciding move. The orc bellowed swinish laughter from its porcine maw as the man scrambled across the slabs, victory in its sight.

“You fight like elf!” The orc mocked.Drawing on his final reserves of energy, like a wounded lion cornered in the wild, Zoilus launched himself forward with desperate, primal fury. His arms found their hold and, with a bone-wrenching heave, he squeezed the foul air from the lungs of the spawn of chaos and hurled him to the ground, defeated.

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 7 - I hate you but respect you! I shat the sun!

The party map so far

Our intrepid Dwimmerdelvers return once again to the Path Of Mavors after a short rest. Looking at their map, they decided they’d return to the region populated by Orcs, so heading into the southern dungeon area they came across a room filled with strange tube, pipes, odd miniature metal cartwheels painted red and blue, basins and floor grates. Some of the tubes were made from a kind of perfectly clear glass, free of bubbles and blemishes. Since nothing looked removable, and some of the party were wary of witchery they didn’t understand they decided to leave the room. However Flandar, the gnomish warlock, saw a shadow move further down the corridor. Calphis cast a light spell upon a piton and Zoilus hurled it down the corridor to illuminate the area but it revealed nothing. Brother Spenzar used his divine thaumaturgy to shout out a command in Ancient Thulian to show themselves, and indeed this did attract four Orcs from the side corridor. A brief battled ensued, but Zoilus donned his Thulian Warmask and in his most intimidating manner demanded the Orcs cease their attack. This worked, and the Orcs skulked back down the side passage. After a few moments a lone, huge Orc came forth to parley with the party. I’m hoping that other party members will write up a separate account of what took place this session, but the Orc sub-boss approached with ‘I hate you but respect you’, the beastman greeting given to someone they don’t intended to immediately eat. Later the Orc asks if the great burning ball is still in the sky, to which Zoilus replies ‘I shat the sun’, pretty much confusing and amusing everyone at the table. There was a wrestling bout, won eventually by Zoilus using rules made up on the fly - they could use a little work.

"I hate you but respect you!"

Orc Wrestling

After agreeing to sell to the Orcs ten horses, one each for the remaining Orcs on this level and telling the sub-boss not to tell the boss or his lightning bolt shooting wizard the party remove themselves from the area, to explore the remaining central hallway.  

The first chamber they found contained strange floating silvery black bubbles. A small pool of bubbling black liquid resided in the one corning of the room which appeared to be welling up from a fissure in the floor. Bittersalt released an arrow one of the bubbles which exploded with a blastwave, setting off the other bubbles and creating a powerful shock wave that injured the entire party. Cursing this magical liquid, the party ignored the doors within the room and took the opposite door in the main hall.

The room beyond, a workshop of sorts, contained an ancient device of iron, with disks of brass and a front mesh. The party are once again reluctant to investigate this mystery and instead plunge further into the halls. A door is opened revealing gleaming eyes in the dark as a gang of misshapen and misbegotten creatures spill out. These humanoid things are pale, with patchy beards and little in the way of clothes but clutching rude weapons and tools. They hoot and howl in attack, focusing solely on Errol the dwarf. In their frenzy to kill him, their pack tactics fails them and the don’t strike a single wounding blow against him. Zoilus leaps over the pack to better evade their swarming, while arrows, crossbow bolts and spells of sleep, ruinous poison and death spill forth from the rest of the party.

Errol’s cries out “death to Kobolds” and wades in, hewing left and right. Already the party’s ferocity takes its toll on these Kobolds, and many are falling, turning to powder as they do. The parties mettle is established, and with only the dwarf taking wounds the party dispatch all but one of these creatures, who is kept for interrogation. Bittersalt implies a link between Errol’s dwarven heritage and this Kobolds, to which Errols restates that he was adopted, and only has as book of Dwarven history, an heirloom, to rely on. More on this to come I suspect.  

When Kobolds Attack

Kobold Swam

We ended the session here. The encounter with the Orcs was brilliant and everyone left feeling like we’d had another good session. I’m going to tighten up starting times as we’re getting later and later, which is limiting the rate at which we get through things. With so much interesting stuff to come, I don’t want to feel like we’re getting bogged down here. The party will get enough experience in all likelihood to get to 3rd level next session, which will no doubt means a return to civilisation and perhaps a journey to the city of Adamas! Once again I feel very lucky to have such a diverse group of players who seem to all enjoy playing together, and none of whom are motivated by annoying the rest of the party or players. This is a type of player I’ve always struggled with, and have left otherwise perfectly good groups to avoid.