OK, so today I hosted my good friend
Kurt for another game of "Forbidden Psalm: The Last War."
Since the last time we played we were still mostly learning the
rules, we considered that just a playtest game. But this time we
decided to play "for real" and kick off a bit of a
campaign. And with the experience of our last game under our
collective belts, we both created our Scavenger Crews with the aim of
surviving through several games instead of just one.
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| The Crew: Gunther, Glut, Klink, Ludwig, Fritz |
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| The start of the game from my point of view |
My Crew (named Kruger's Crooks during
the course of the game) consisted of five members. First off, I chose
a Specialist; I made her a Witch because it seemed really cool that I
can have a bit of a spellcaster in a WWI-themed skirmish game. Then
came Klink armed with a pistol, and Fritz who also had a pistol,
Gunther with his one grenade, and Ludwig with only a bayonet.
Everyone had bayonets! I had a little confusion about how some of the
equipment worked, and when I had Kurt proofread my roster he spotted
a few errors but we got them all figured out before the game.
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| The end of the first Turn |
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| Klink and Ludwig attack the Loyalist |
We replayed the same scenario we did
last time, as it seemed a good idea now that we had purpose-built
Crews and knew the rules a bit. Which means we were not only facing
each other, but also five enemy Loyalists, poor souls not realizing
the war was over and still guarding their supply crates. Based on my
experience from last game, my plan was to split my Crew into two
small teams that would go after a Loyalist each, and then the three
who did not loot their crates would meet up in the middle to attack a
third Loyalist. We knew that a random Hostile (or Hostiles!) would
spawn in Turn 3, and we rolled "The Thing In The Mist" as a
battlefield condition so on Turn 5 we could expect a Martian war
machine to enter the battle area as well.
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| Fritz, Gunther, and Glut attack the Loyalist Who Would Not Die |
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| The end of Turn 2; Klink is already out of the game with his Loot. |
Things went well enough for Klink and
Ludwig, they overpowered their target Loyalist with little difficulty
and Klink then left the battle area with the Loot. The other three
were having a tougher time with their Loyalist, who was wearing metal
plate armor and was very difficult to injure. Glut the Witch cast Let
The Blood Flow which caused the Loyalist at least one point of damage
per turn. And both Fritz and Gunther were able to cause at least one
point each time they hit with their bayonets; it is the bayonet
ability to always cause a minimum of one damage regardless of the
opponent's armor. But it took four game turns to kill him!
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| Why won't he die? WHY? |
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| Some of Bowker's Trench Raiders facing off against a Loyalist |
During Turn 3 things went Sideways. Two
Ghosts spawned in the battle area, corrupted cannibals intent on
picking off our Crews for some quick food. Fortunately for me, the
random nature of the spawning meant that they would be more of a
problem for Kurt than for me. During this time Ludwig went looting a
couple of the corpses littering the battlefield, before being shot
down by one of Kurt's guys who had looted an automatic rifle. I used
a special once-per-game rule to remove Ludwig from the battle area
with no death roll necessary. He disappeared having acquired a rifle
and a trench club.
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| Oh, snap! The Martian war machine has arrived! |
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| We finally killed that Loyalist, now to get out before the Martian notices us... |
On the other side, Kurt was holding his
own against the Loyalists and Ghosts; one of the spawned Ghosts
attacked a Loyalist that had previously been shooting at one of his
guys, so that gave Kurt a little breathing space. But at the end, the
Martian war machine entered the table on Turn 5. I grabbed what I had
looted with the trio on my left flank and left the game, getting away
with another Loot crate and a suit of metal armor. Kurt was not so
fortunate. He had a crate he had not grabbed and his Lieutenant was
stuck in melee combat with both a Loyalist and a Ghost. In the end,
the Martian war machine claimed both the Loyalist and the Lieutenant,
leaving Kurt's Crew short a member as the game ended.
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| Kurt is having a bit more difficulty over on his side of things |
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| The good news is that there is some Loyalist vs. Ghost action going on, leaving the Loot free to take |
I always enjoy the post-game sequence
during a campaign. We had to look up a few rules, but everyone was
able to heal their wounds taken during the battle. I managed to
accumulate 8 experience points for the Crew, and after all was said
and done we had 70 Resources from the Loot. I had more Resources than
Kurt, and no casualties, so I am calling this a Win for me even
though it was really just a case of me doing better than him. I don't
think anyone ever really "wins" in this game. I
redistributed some of the existing gear amongst the Crew, bought
Klink an Anti-tank rifle from the Quartermaster, got some ammo for
Ludwig's rifle and Klinks big gun, and added a Bengal Cat as a Crew
member. That wiped out all 70 Resources. But I have a Big Gun and a
Cat! I then used five of the eight Experience points to add one to
Klink's Strength ability so he can adequately wield that big gun of
his. I also equipped him with the plate armor. I'll need to build a
new model for him, I found a nice 'kinight in armor" from Reaper
Miniatures that I can chop the arms off of to add in the Anti-tank
rifle. It will make a fun conversion and add a little flavor to my
Crew. Oh, and the looted Trench club? That's sitting back in the
Crew's Bunker, waiting for someone else to join up that can use it
well.
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| The Martian advances on Bowker's Trench Raiders... |
This game can be purchased at
Forbidden Psalm: The Last War
