Two Recent Dungeon Crawler games

 I have taken the description from my friend Andrew, who hosted these games recently at his place. Again, we used a variation of his AS9 rules, and tiles/scenery collected from various Fantasy box games and Kick Starters backed by Andrew over the years. 

In both games, the basic aim was the same - two groups enter an underground crypt/dungeon via separate sets of stairs, traverse the netherworld, picking up VP's, defending themselves from marauding demons and monsters, and potentially engaging in combat with each other, prior to exiting again via the other set of stairs.

We had a value of 22 points and were able to select our own warbands up to this value, with sorcerers etc costing 4 points, apprentices or skilled warriors 3 points, professionals 2 and "grunts" 1 point each. Virtually every roll succeeds on a 9 or better on 2 x D6 and the figures add their skill value to the die roll - so sorcerer adds 3, apprentice 2, professional 1 and grunt 0.

Activation was by a full pack of standard playing cards - all red cards were my group, all black Andrews - and in this game, there was no limit on how many turns one side could have in a row. All court cards had the chance of generating a beast/monster.

Let's see how we got on!

Game One

Table layout

My group - 2 x sorceresses, 2 x apprentices, three (professional) armed nuns plus two bow armed "grunts!"

And here is Andrews group descending the other set of stairs.

Both groups advanced slowly, searching for VP's

Here is the first monster that was generated:

The Spectre appeared to Andrews right, and a group of his characters went off to deal with it. The cards are repurposed from Frostgrave (I think), and the stars indicate how many points the monster adds to die rolls and how many hits it takes to kill them.

As the other half of Andrews force successfully unlocked a magic door, they generated another monster!

My team advanced as one group, led by a Frostgrave Sigilist Sorceress!

Andrews guys successfully dispatched monster number 2.

On the other flank, the Spectre was doing a bit of damage....

.... but was eventually taken out by a combination of Andrews players. Killing a grade 3 monster gained his group 3 VP.

In my sector, the third monster of the day appeared!

Apparently, this figure is 40-50 years old and was a free toy in the bottom of a packet of breakfast cereal! (remember collecting those?!)

Sadly, the beast killed the nun - but was in turn killed by a spell from the apprentice Sigilist!

Whilst I was tied up monster killing, Andrews team was getting ahead of me in the race to the stairs!

They unlocked another magic gate - and generated a giant wolf!

The wolf charged forwards, but I think was dispatched without loss by Andrew's force.

My band spent some time gaining a few extra points in the centre of the table.

Andrews band has the exit in sight!

But they were moving extremely slowly and running low on activation cards .....

My group now had a number of turns one after the other, as the cards fell in my favour, finally!

Both groups close in on their escape route.

My group reaches the stairs with several activation cards to spare - but Andrew only had one card left...

.... and he rolled a double 1 for movement - so near - and yet so far! Technically, a victory for my force, as Andrew failed to exit the dungeon but, in the points, count up, we had 37 VP each.

I had the "coins" to the left, plus 3 for killing the White Ape, plus the combined score of all my original group members who made it off the table, minus two for the dead nun.

Andrew killed more monsters but also lost more team members - so our scores were tied - except, of course, his entire band failed to escape the nether regions!

The game had only taken about 90 minutes, so after a Chinese take away dinner, we reset, starting at the opposite ends of the table. 

Game Two

I took the opportunity to select a different band - this time, from my Pulp collection - nasty Nazis!I had 2 grade 3 officers, 2 grade 2 Unterofficiers (the pointing figures) three professionals, and two DAK grunts this time.

The Nazis advance through the labyrinth, in search of mystical objects to add to Reichsfuhrer Himmler's collection of artifacts. 

The two groups converged on the centre of the table from opposite directions!

At the far end of the table (adjacent to my exit route) a Lich Lord appeared - GREAT!

Andrew had gained a couple of Chaos Warriors at one point, and he threw these against my group - fortunately, female nazis are more evil than these part timers, and my team prevailed!

As Ilsa and Elsa battled the chaos warriors, Andrews characters slipped away towards the exit stairs.

Having taken a couple of detours en route to gain some extra VP's. the nazi band still had some distance to travel to escape from the underworld.

This monster was generated but its location was too far removed from where my band were located to be of any concern.

Fraulein Doktor Elsa Von Helsing, having dallied just a little too long to gain that last extra VP, was cut off and killed by the Lich Lord, but the remainder of the Nazi group made good their escape with a couple of cards to spare!

And this time, there was a definite winner, with my SS-Verband coming out ahead, 33 points to 27.

As always, these games were great fun and had the added bonus of being my first games of 2024, albeit they were played in the last week of January.

Last night, John and I partook of several games of Zombie killing at Julians gaff, but the AAR of those will have to wait a few days.

Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to read my ramblings and I hope it was of some passing interest!