Last Friday Game for a While - The Rise of Moloch

 With Julian his lovely wife Jane off to Europe and then Canada in just under a week, we won't be back at his place until mid-October!! 

As our final outing, our host chose the boardgame Rise of Moloch. It has some very nice plastic figures that Julian has done a great job of painting.

We played two "Chapters" of the campaign, the first was a kind of "learning game". Andrew played the "Nemisis" character, who controls all the "baddies" and has a lot more options at his disposal. Julian, Chris and I were the "Gentlemen" even though Chris and I actually had female characters!

Here is what it says about the game via AI:

Chapter Two of Rise of Moloch continues the story of the Gentlemen of the Unicorn Club confronting the Nemesis and the cult's machinations, introducing new challenges, tactical gameplay, and opportunities for character upgrades.

Story Context

In Chapter Two, players continue their campaign to stop a sinister cult plotting to bring the demon-god Moloch into London. The narrative expands on the rivalry between the Gentlemen of the Unicorn Club and the Nemesis, the cult’s leader, as the city becomes increasingly dangerous 

This chapter, like others in the campaign, uses a modular board configured differently to represent new locations and obstacles, requiring fresh strategies

Not a lot of images because things do not change all that much in this type of game and there is a limit to how many images of basically the same thing anyone might want to see, but here is what I have.

The board tiles set up for Chapter 1

Two of the Baddies - Capt. Moran (I think) on the left and Irene Adler on the right

Good and Bad Minions - a London Bobby on the left and a Victorian zombie on the right!

This Distressed Damsel was also a good "minion"

Character card for my "gentleman"!

The cards for the two baddies featured in the earlier piccy

Emma Swanson figure

Chris's figure - don't know her name - I think she is some kind of benevolent spirit

Chris confronts a zombie minion

We had to move around the board, getting adjacent to the policemen, to get clues from them, which was achieved in exactly the same way as inflicting hits on baddies was.

Sherlock Holmes was absent from Game 1 but the figure on the right is Dr John Watson.

We won the first game (just) by gathering four clues. A break for lasagne and salad was followed by Chapter 2.

New figures and a new layout were introduced - the above is Ira Kodich, "a cult priestess and a powerful Nemesis Agent who specializes in occult rituals, summoning magic, and commanding specialized minions like Dismembered Zombies"

The goodies start all together in one small room in the middle of the board.

The man himself, S Holmes Esq, joined us - don't ask me why he is modelled lugging some weird creature around in a large trunk!

The mission was to stop the spirit or ghost or something of Dr Moriarty getting from one end of the board to the other. Holmes had a special weapon that could inflict damage and 5 hits were required. Chris and I could grab one of three "Magic Bullets", as per below:

So basically, when I got one, I was able to use my standard firearm with 4 dice, plus one dice for spending an ether token, to magically fire at Moriarty at the far end of the table, through intervening walls, rooms, and characters!  I rolled two hits but the circle with the arrow means reroll misses, so I did, and ended up with four hits, none of which the Evil One saved!

Which was just as well because Irene Adler was busy almost snuffing out Mr Holmes (she succeeded in dispatching his off-sider Dr Watson!)

It was a close-run thing - Chris got to roll three dice for his magic bullet but failed to hit anything. Holmes only just escaped the evil clutches of Fraulein Adler and managed to get off a shot with his magic firearm and extinguish Moriarty just before the Evil One would have exited the board and won the game for the Nemisis.

Not our usual fare and not what I would have chosen but it was certainly a good laugh and an easy couple of games to end the working week and wish Julian "Bon Voyage" for his trip.