Back to the Dungeon.

Last night saw the next instalment of our Massive Darkness Campaign- this time, we had to prevent a gigantic spider escaping the tunnels and causing havoc in the surrounding countryside...

*Mid-way through the game, and Whisper the Assassin (bottom of picture with blue base) uses her Slippery ability to dodge past the spider and activate the Level 3 token- this allows us to start using our Level 3 weapons and armour, and in the end went a long way towards helping us to victory! Meanwhile, Mila the Sorcerer (purple base) lies webbed up and helpless before the arachnid horror, while the rest of us loiter around the corner preparing to make our final assault; seemingly unimpressed by the fire-spewing Hellhound (framed in the doorway on the left) bearing down on us...

Playing a Campaign of MD is very different to the usual one-off games in that you earn Experience much slower- where you would earn an Experience point, you instead earn a 'Micro-Experience point'; with five Micro-EXP earning you one 'full' EXP. This is all tracked by sticking pegs into on a series of holes on your handy hard-plastic 'dashboard'.
This dashboard idea is something I first came across on Zombiecide (another CMON title), and it's a very neat bit of design that keeps all your cards together and does away with the need for a scrap of paper to track your Hit Points and what-have-you.

*My character Siegfried's dashboard, featuring the character's stat-card (top left), body equipment slot (top right), Left and Right hand slots (below left), and Experience track (bottom right). Down the left side is your Health track, and down the right side is your 'Micro EXP' track.

 

 

Experience is spent during the Turn Sequence to purchase skill upgrades for your character- this works like a 'skill-tree' that may be familiar to video game players, and lets you craft your character and specialise them the way you want. Your chosen 'Class' is represented by a more 'old-school' paper record sheet and determines exactly what kind of skills you have access to, and when you first choose your character you also choose their Class.





*This is my chosen Class- the Bonecrusher. You probably can't see from the photo, but I've taken the Mace and Hammer Skill set to Level 2, and have also purchased Level 1 in Charge. Siegfried is not a subtle Dwarf...

 

Anyway, this is rapidly becoming a 'How-To-Play', so here's a quick overview of last night's game:

 

A victory for our merry band! We played this mission once before as a one-off game, and got absolutely hammered- when you encounter a big creature, you draw an equipment card for it. If you kill the creature, you get to loot this item off their twitching corpse- however until it bites the dust, it gets to use said item itself! First time around, we drew some powerful suit of armour that made the spider all-but impervious to our feeble attacks. It ended up trapping us in webs and dragging us all along for the ride as it made it's escape! Very embarrassing.

This time around, we were forewarned (and starting out with all our skills and equipment at Level 2 didn't hurt, either!). Even a Hellhound and Abyssal Demon showing up didn't stop us from running the spider down and crushing it (even with it's 30+ Health). I'm proud to say that Siegfried even managed to deal the killing blow!

*The end of the game- Mila and Whisper lurk around the corner (from where they were making hit-and-run strikes on the spider, I hasten to add!), while Siegfried stands triumphantly amongst the grisly wreckage of the spider, covered in ichor and screaming his victory! Meanwhile, the rest of the Party hold off the raging Hellhound and Abyssal Demon in the distance- just another Monday night. then...