For the Darkness is Massive...

Besides skirmish games, my other great table-top passion is the good old Dungeon Crawler. It all started for me with Heroquest and Space Hulk, and I never looked back!

Lately, the humble 'Crawler has seen something of a resurgence (not that it ever really went away to my mind!), with the big companies like CMON flooding the KS market (for good or ill) with minis-heavy 'Crawlers with lavish production values...

One of the lads at my Monday night group went all-in on CMON'S Massive Darkness, and since it turned up we've been playing it a lot to figure out our favourite character/class combinations. Last week they started a Campaign (or story mode, as I think it's called)- I couldn't make it unfortunately, as I was feverishly painting models for a Dracula's America demo game the following night (see my last post for how that went); but they took over duties on Siegfried (my chosen character- a Dwarf berserker-type) the Bonecrusher (my chosen class- basically a barbarian type with a fondness for maces and hammers).

*The mighty Siegfried!

One of the fun things about MD is the freedom to mix characters and classes- so you could choose a wizardly-looking character but have them use the Pit-Fighter class- and the way your character's skills interact with the abilities of your chosen class makes for some interesting meta!

Anyway, this was game two, and involved the intrepid band of heroes crossing a series of bridges in search of artefacts before making their escape. MD is fully-cooperative, with the players competing against the game's card-driven AI system. Mobs of minions spawn as you progress and break down doors into new rooms in search of loot, and the occasional Roaming Monster makes an appearance to kick your teeth in just as you start getting confident- all very familiar stuff, but it is done very well and with great style- love 'em or hate 'em, CMON know how to make a lavish game! The minis are lovely and cry out for a splash of colour, but I doubt my buddy will ever get around to painting them, unfortunately...

*The start of the quest... (the gaming mat we laid the tiles out on is the 'Frostgrave' design by Deep-Cut Studios)

 



It ended in a victory for the forces of good (by the skin of our teeth!), and Siegfried now has some decent gear and skills to take to the next mission- which looks to be featuring Shelob's understudy...

Expect a report on how that goes, plus a bit more about how MD plays, in the near future!