Apes Hit London & Come Out Swinging! Battle Report for the First Night of Empire of the Dead

Last Friday we started our Empire of the Dead campaign games.  Test games finished, it was time to start building the stories of the new heroes and villains of 1888.

Many of us will be running more than one faction team, since it isn't a very big commitment to create a team, and there are so many fun choices it's hard to limit yourself to just one.  Six of us were able to start last Friday, and there are some rather unique themes and some obligatory classics that can't be resisted.

We had:
Classic Vampire brood
Gentlemen's Club buying as many firearms as practical at such an early stage
American Vampire Hunters Abroad, using the Gentlemen's Club roster
WWWWB: Women Who Wield Wet Blankets Temperance Society (Gentlewomen's Club)
  - You can follow their exploits on his blog here.
Hinterland Hussies (I forget their real name, but the slur might stick)
and my Lord Greystoke's Apes, using the Lycan werewolf roster.

There will also be another vampire team, Ottomans, St.George School for Monster-Slaying Girls, and more.

I recently gave a long background of my faction, so I won't repeat it here, but the roster to start was:

Characters:
James Clayton, Lord Greystoke -Beastlord
Alphie the Ape-Pack Master

Henchmen:
Sergeant Dooley with Club
Woodhouse the Butler with Bow
Margaret the Maid with Bow
Bernard & Cecil the apes (wolves)

The starting team, painting in progress but enough to hit the city.

It's an easy roster to write up, the characters and wolves can not have equipment.  So they're pretty good to start since they have natural abilities.  I wonder if the stat & skill increases will keep them competitive compared to humans & vamps who can get good equipment over time.  Time will tell.

First Game was against the Gentlemen's Club.
The mission was to find an artifact that was rumored to be nearby.  It was night, which was pretty good for me.  We had 7 possible locations to search.  After a full turn searching the spot a team member could search and on a roll of 9 or 10 on the d10 it would be the artifact, otherwise that location was cleared.  Unlike a similar scenario I remember from Mordheim, it is not the case that the sought item will be the last token searched if none of the others were it.  The last is rolled like any other- if it isn't it, there is no artifact- perhaps the rumor was just an empty story.  I like this, since there can be some shenanigans in the other system when it's down to a couple search spots left.

The artifact is somewhere in this neighborhood... then again, maybe it isn't. We deployed in 2 groups, each having a diagonal, I had the lower left & upper right while the Cognac Sippers Super Club had the other two corners. He advanced more cautious than I, preparing for shots when he could take them.  I decided I'd not head him, and raced out to search as many spots as I could.  Of the 7, I managed to get to 6 locations.
None of them were the artifact.
His President and a few others with guns and a shotgun opened fire on my Butler, Greystoke and an Ape, but I survived fine.

When only 1 spot remained to search I started to move to envelop this group, and got a wound on his 2 wound President with an arrow.  Once it was clear there was no artifact, his club left the field. No artifact meant it was a draw. No one was removed from play so we each got 15 shillings for the tie and 2 per surviving member.

Lord Greystoke got an additional attack and Alphie got the regeneration skill.  

Meanwhile, the Ugly Americans were being unchivalrous to the Uppity Women's Sewing Circle:

This was disastrous for the women, as many were removed from play and one was captured and handed over to the Peelers (police) on charges of suspicion of harboring opinions. 

To rescue her, he decided to play for it, so I volunteered to play the Peelers, and tried to prevent her escape.

In the rescue scenario the Peelers have 2 officers with 2 wounds, and a couple heavy pistols, net guns and some clubs. Not the best equipment, but every turn they're attacked they can blow the whistle and more flunkies may arrive to help.  The rescuers have 8 turns to try to get to the center compound and bust the poor woman out of the clink.

2 officers guarded the woman inside. He had split forces coming at the guardhouse from North & South, but none of his shots were successful, and using the meager cover to get to the attackers, hand to hand fighting broke out and 2 of the women were brought down.  Two more officers came on to the scene and time ran out for the Crumpet Strumpets.

One thing we're considering is as the campaign continues the Peeler force will likely need to be augmented as warbands get more powerful.  They were plenty formidable for this game, but when teams get more weapons, members and skills, the force as listed will be too easy to walk over and rescue the captive.
Not a difficult adjustment to make.

It has already been nearly a week since these games, so we'll be playing our 2nd session of the campaign tomorrow,
so more to come!