I figured it was time to run another quick game of Brutal Quest with my OG Reaper Mouslings. Last time, they blasted their way to claim the Golden Pig.
This time I flipped the map in two dimensions (the mouslings start where they finished last, and I literally flipped the double sided but identical map from green to red for fun.).
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| Fresh off the painting bench and onto the mini-battlefield... |
Objective: The Mouslings need to move the Golden Pig off the board with 20cm of the opposite corner. Whoever held the Pig could not attack or use spells, less they drop the pig as a free action, but needed to use an action to pick it up. This is the big reason the Mousling Wizard didn't just cast teleport and blink out of there, leaving his minions to handle the mess.
I did not set up a turn limit.
That was the biggest mistake of all.
Turn One: Two Goblins take a defensive position at the bridge and the wizard hurls a fireball, damaging, but not forcing a break test.
Scrye, the Mousling Wizard was wisely hiding within the ruins, peaking out to throw a fireball of his own. The other mouslings charged across the bridge, making one goblin flee.
Turn 2-?: And then the dice seemed to fail... The goblin had weaker stats but the the experienced mouslings simply could not put them away. The axe-wielding mousling was wrecking havoc, even managing to track down and dispatch the opposing wizard. That 3d4 damage against the unarmored 1d4-1 damage soaking meant considerable damage each time.
Still, those mangey goblins were persistent. The Brutal Quest system is based on a Bennie system known as ... Brutality. You earn Brutality by hurting opponents, making them fail break tests, killing them outright, etc.... and you can turn those points in for number of things such as:
- Giving your figure a bonus to it's next action (1 Brutality)
- Automatically Passing a break test (1)
- A Reroll (3)
- An extra action during the turn (6)
- Increase a core skill by 1 after the game (6)
It's a bit of bookkeeping, but fun.
About five turns in, the sword wielding mouse used his Persuasion trait, which forced the goblin he was fighting to break off from combat and step back. That gave Scrye the Mousling Wizard an opening past the bridge to make a break for it.
One problem: the goblins hadn't taken their turn yet, so the disengaged goblin starts to run towards the mousling holding a solid gold pig.
It was apropos to call combat brutal. The goblin got a couple good hits into Scrye, and the other mouslings attempted to rescue their leader, and it alternated between no one failing their break test, of the goblin's leather armor absorbing all the club and sword damage.
Another way to earn Brutality I omitted previously? You gain a Brutality if you absorb all the damage from an opponent's attack. Between hitting the wizard twice, the goblin suffered no damage from four successful attacks.
Another way to use Brutality? This character does an automatic 1d10 damage to their opponent. Opponent may make armor rolls as normal. AS A FREE ACTION AT ANY TIME (4 Brutality)
That was a large 9 points of damage on Scrye, and he officially dropped, both his body and the pig.
In the post-game, The goblins and their wizard master recovered with minimal issue, but Scrye the mousling wizard, suffered Brain Damage, giving him a permanent penalty to his Psychic (Magic) and Awareness traits.
It was a fun game, I enjoy the Brutality mechanic, but it can get bogged down in play as often as a group could easily dispatch a crew in a round or two. As much as I love the concept and scale of Brutal Quest, and it's sci-fi parent Planet 28, I think I'm returning to Savage Showdown for the mouslings and continue with Fistful of Lead for sci-fi.
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