Gaming with the Gnomies: Mice versus Cthulhu!

Father's Day doesn't mean breakfast in bed and a weird tie or t-shirt. It's a simple day of a tea party and gaming with my girls. If those two things can happen, I can chalk it up as the best day ever.

The weekend did start off better than expected with boxes from both Sally 4th's Able Company Kickstarter and BattleValor Games' 15mm Baggage Train campaign arriving on Sunday. No, I'm not delving into another scale, rather I took advantage of pledging for this campaign to get significant discounts on Battle Valor's 28mm Pulp, Sci-Fi, and Space Dwarf lines. I basically lost all traction I made on my lead pile this year (and Reaper Bones 5 and Macrocosm's Space Dwarves are shipping soon). As usual, I'm gleefully doomed.

After breakfast and a long meandering drive along the dirt roads in the area (that was requested), we prepped for the annual Father's Day game. I do have a LOT stuck in the gaming queue, but I always attempt to do something different for Father's Day, and this year was over a pandemic year in the making.

I mean, I'm not sure where I initially saw this, but as a man with all similar components in his arsenal, it was a no-brainer.

Despite a pleasant morning, I may have worn out the goodwill of two girls under 13 and when the bickering started during set-up, I did something I've never done before for these games: I sent one away.

With the idea of the giant monster moving ashore and terrorizing a small mousling town, only one game could recreate what I was looking for: Steve Jackson Games' OGRE. Heroes were Heavy Tanks, Archers/Wizard were Missile Carriers, other mouslings were Infantry, and the Eureka Mice Warriors on the board became GEVs.

Here's Millie's encounter with the dread Cthulhu.

Cthulhu's Anti-Personnel System is its large non-Euclidian feet.

*SMOOSH*

Millie kept here troops in front of the charging Cthulhu, ultimately forming a u-shaped defense.

The brave heroes were quickly devoured.

And the band played on, instead of fighting, then getting eaten.

Eye to eye with the Mouse King and Queen, then *poof* vanished.

Needing six turns to destroy the tower, Cthulhu was literally touching the building and only need a 2+ on the last roll of the game, to knock it to the ground and win.

Of course, I rolled a 1.

And to not be a heartless father, once the youngest deemed it right and proper to jump in the pool, I called the eldest back down (after a well-needed nap?) and we played the some scenario. She set up a fairly straight line of defense, and played a game of catch-up as the Elder God burst through. Cthulhu managed to topple the tower on the games's last die roll, using its only remaining tentacle (secondary weapon). Given the lack of experience and lack of mouslings, I did reduce Cthulhu's "treads" down to 30 from the original 45. This slowed down the beast just enough to create some drama.