🐭(SAVAGE MICE) Mouslings of Jinnai #2.1 - Collecting Wood

Normally, my "gaming year" starts October 1st, and I try to at least schedule a couple things regardless of whether or not I’m going to Fall-In!  This year, outside of a fun little bantha game, I haven’t gotten the time or motivation to do anything until last weekend.

And after much consternation, along with some hemming and hawing, we've returned to Savage Mice.

It’s been a while since there’s been a full-blown mouse game. In fact, the first four session mini campaign ran right during the height of Covid, culminating I believe an Easter game. 

I've compiled a lot of cool scenarios, and a lot of the future mouse games are re-interpreted from actual plays from the Realm of JiNNai.  He runs a bunch of awesomely painted figures, and fun scenarios, running from Songs of Blades and Heroes, to Pulp Alley, to even some Warhammer.    Due to the vast amount of inspiration is coming from him, the Mouslings for season two will all come from the Realm of Jinnai.

The Mouslings haven't been completely dormant, having come out of retirement for some experimentation using Mammoth Miniatures' Brutal Quest.  I really liked the first edition of the game's older brother, Planet 28.  All the games were amusing, but I decided to stick with something more my speed, if not my style.  Planet 28 ideas were turned to Fistful of Lead.   The Mousling saga returned to used Savage Showdown.

Savage Showdown are the skirmish based rules from Pinnacle Entertainment Group that are based off of the Savage Worlds RPG.   I started using these rules when my girls were six and four, running multiple seasons of their "Egypt Game"   They're a senior and a sophomore in high school today, and we're due for a few more episodes of Pulp Alley's Tomb of the Serpent using Savage Showdown.

Background

In the Realm of Jinnai, things have gotten dangerous outside of the town.  The twiglings, a normally peaceful group of tree people, have grown more and more hostile, forcing the authorities to establish bounties on the marauding ones.

With that knowledge, the "Original Guard" (OG) Mouslings have set up a trap at a farmhouse.  Setting small fires in the woods, agitating the forest-kin, and forcing the marauding Twiglings to fall right into their trap. 

Keeping with their experience in Brutal Quest, Scrye the wizard (center) and two of his henchmen were a sturdy crew, although a hit to the head caused brain damage, reducing his spell points in Savage Showdown from 10 to 8. 

Catching wind of their plans was a trio of Mousling adventurers, Scout, Swordmaus, and the ever-imposing Wakanda.  Years ago, they were part of a dastardly crew known as the Snakes, but eventual break-up between Wakanda and fellow adventurer Pinky caused the party to break-up.  Today was the day they would begin rebuilding towards the glory days again. 

Swordmaus, Scout, and Wakanda - They were named by a 9-year old. The names stick.

The final group venturing out was some common mice mercenaries, hastily calling themselves the "A-Ha!" crew.   While some, if not all of the other Mouslings were Wild Cards (Heroes, with "Bennies" for rerolls, wild dice, and three wounds),  these commoners carried their weapons and their dreams into battle.. and only one wound each, just like the Twiglings. 

Objectives: Crews get one point to each dead Twigling they are able to turn in.  There are also four objectives on the board, worth five points, and yes, the Twiglings can also go after them! 

Turn One:  Once he saw the Twiglings emerging from the countryside, Scyre left he protection of his henchman and stared down the marauding woodmen.  Without even blinking, he threw a Burst spell at the critters (aka Fireball). 

After the explosion, the Twiglings all survived!  Albeit a bit scorched and stunned, the wizard failed to drop a single one. 

It was going to be a long afternoon.  

The Maple Twiglings (darker ones) flanked the lone wizard quickly, stunning him.  

I hadn't rolled from any the special events charts I've collected from games over the years, but if I had the result might have been "Wet Grass."  While a one is not a critical failure in Savage Showdown, rolling the action die and the wild die and rolling snake eyes results in something so bad it should be "GM's Choice."   Rolling snakes eyes were so common, they I even made the Twiglings trip and slide on their single die 1's. 

Nary a scratch, nor a smolder

Scrye's one henchmen slid into the combat with the Maple Twiglings.  Wakanda suffered the same ignominious result.   Grey Hat, the Mousling responsible for retrieving the Golden Porcine during Brutal Quest, decided that treasure was far more important than glory in combat, and slinked off to a rumored lair behind the farm house. 

Wakanda falls! 

And after fireballs and falls aplenty, it's the A-Ha Mouslings with the first death, er... one of their kind was brutally killed by the Birch Twiglings.  

Turn Two:  One of the A-Ha! Mouse Mercs never made it to combat, slinking off to an objective: The farmer and his flute-playing son's hidden beer stash in the mushroom fields.   He was rebuffed, but no deterred. 

Across the farm, Wakanda recovered from his embarrassing slip, but it was SwordMaus, charging the Twiglings, while Scout snuck into the animal pen and grabbed the first objective, the Golden Bell of the Lamb. 

The center of the farm was terrible chaos.   The Twiglings had seized the arcane stone objective, and were desperately hoping to use it against Scrye, the "Slayer of all wood-kind." 

The "Slayer" realized his plans had not been well thought out, using his staff to prop himself up, stumbling back to the farm house while his henchman was overwhelmed by the Twiglings. 

Meanwhile, the greedy Grey Hat reached the lair and slew the mighty, if slightly miniature, beast.

The Rabbit of CarNotGoing was not very tough, especially when you roll a 17 for damage with exploding dice.

Turn Three: Something with the seized mythic stone didn’t settle well with the Twigling, instead of seizing great power, they were unsettled by an uncharacteristic war cry from Scrye.   The wizard raised his hands at the Twigling chasing him, and shot three Fire Bolts at it, incinerating it on the spot. 

Wakanda simply couldn't land a blow on the Twiglings, forcing Scout to hop the fence and chop the limbs off another creature.  

The A-Ha! Mercenary Mice flailed away at the Twiglings, but it was obvious: the 3-on-2 disadvantage they faced was going to be overwhelming.  

Meanwhile, their traitorous brother in arms had acquired the much sought after brew.

Turn Four:  Wakanda and his former Snakes, killed the last Twigling and carried their loot home (8 points)

In the center of the board, Scrye finally came into his own, again stepping forward, again unleashing a hellstorm of fire onto the Twiglings, killing all of the them coming near him.  

The A-Ha! Mousling Mercs did not fair well , everyone in combat dying a horrible death, only the one with the ill-gotten beer survived.  (5 points). 

The OG Mouslings, namely Scrye, had save the day for all, but outside the rabbit carcass, not enough of the Twiglings could contained to claim the bounty.  (5 points). 

Scrye's fire-filled rampage in another rule set, adds to his legend, begging the question.  Are the Twigling attacks forcing his brutality, or is the wizard rampage causing the wood-kin to rise up in greater numbers? 

Do we eat it, use it for spell components, or turn it into a zombie????

Wrap Up:   Overall a fun game to kick off a new "season".  It’s been a while since we’ve done Savage Showdown, and the rustiness showed, as well as the thought of how it would be done in Fistful of Lead.  I am on a mission to search for some missing mice, including the uberly powerful "Robin Mouse and His Merry Mice"

Like I said, we have a number of various fantasy scenarios hiding behind the scenes in the blog, and I’d like to continue on perhaps even giving me an excuse to paint up more mice, a whole collection wanting to be used.

The scenario was inspired and interpretted from "Defend the Farm" from the The Realm of JiNNai.