ESCAPE to EDEN

The Missing (Rangers of Shadow Deep)

Played 1st Mission : The Missing (the one with the deserted village) solo. 

For my war band, I took a ranger, arcanist, conjurer, swordsman, rogue and tracker. I wanted something different so I used the Khaliman Empire faction from the Alkemy skirmish game... all cat people. Minis worked well.

I made mistakes in melee combat damage calculations. I skimped the reading of the rules and used the damage calculations for Twisted Steampunk instead. No wonder I couldn't kill the zombies! Once I got that straightened out things went more smoothly.

Really need to think tactically: who to use to score objectives, who to use to whittle down the enemies (since they almost always respawn). The thing is, even with a good range of skills and abilities in my war band, it's not always guaranteed that you can match the particular skill with a particular objective.

I managed to accomplish all objectives and scored 122 XP. Phew! That's not always guaranteed.

Rangers is lots of fun, especially since it's perfect for playing solo. I think the only downside is you need to prepare the terrain and appropriate minis. 2'x3' is a bit of an oddity for most skirmish games (3'x3' being more popular) but it's not a deal breaker as you can always mask off the extra space. It's the terrain and minis that's challenging, although (as always) you can substitute or proxy them all. The RPG-lite aspect of the game is also nice as you can slowly up the abilities of your Ranger with each mission you play, giving you an incentive to finish off the campaign. The fact you're not locked into your war band can also be a good thing, since you can try out certain models to achieve a good range of skills and abilities your Ranger doesn't possess. A downside to this is you don't get to level up your entire war band unlike some other skirmish games out there.

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