The Hunters AD 2114!

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I’ve been pretty quiet this past month. One reason has been I’ve been playing The Hunters AD 2114 campaign where I have to play… stop to paint the required minis… play again…

The other reason is I got COVID (for the first time) and while the symptoms have thankfully been mild, I had to deal with the aftereffects of long COVID… lack of energy, motivation etc. so that’s dampened my gaming time.

Anyway, back to The Hunters. I got this during the first Kickstarter and played it up till Day 30 or so way back in June 2020 at the height (or depths) of you-know-what. And I packed it up and didn't get it to the table until... well... now.

While I know it's not a tabletop skirmish game as such, I thought you guys deserved to know what I've been up to all this while. I did censor some events so that they won't be spoilers in case anyone has yet to play the game.

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DAY 1

The Prefect of New Jensen gave us a job. Find the leaders of the new cult of the Frozen God and bring them to him. Sounds simple enough.

Arriving in New Jensen, some local toughs make the mistake of taking us on. They soon regret it although Tanya does take a flesh wound.

Stanislaw, the Prefect’s man tells us we can go to The Piggery, The Main Square and the Under The Side bar to sniff for clues and news. He has to go to Red Canyon for some negotiations.

We wander around New Jensen and head for the local bar, The Piggery. 

(On the way, we meet a woman who sells plans for a submachine gun at a cut rate price we can’t refuse.)

The Prefect’s contact, Jim Velasquez suggests we go to the Weather Station to see if we can find the epicentre of this unnaturally cold climate and Jack Reno at the Old Steelworks might help us.

Old Grant at Under The Side wants payment - electronic parts - before he’ll tell us anything. We don’t have what he wants. He does offer a place at his goal fighting ring if we are interested. We tell him we’ll think about it.

That night, at the Main Square, we hear the sermon from the priests of the Frozen God. A lot of mumbo-jumbo blah blah blah. Not sure why the Prefect is so worried about these guys.

There are several jobs posted here. None of them pay in electronic parts.

We discuss things and decide the crashed plane we heard about earlier might be a source of electronic parts.

DAYS 2 to 10

Going to the crashed aircraft was a mistake. a big mistake. We were only able to grab 2 scrap parts before we were swarmed by mecha-dogs and giant mutated rats. When more dogs and a Robo-tiger appeared on the horizon, we decided to get the hell out of there. No wonder this place was full of scavengers! So many crazy treasure hunters came and died here! As we left, we could hear the howl of a Mecha-ape and the buzzing of Robo-bugs in the distance. As it is, Sveta and Maksim were not only wounded but also poisoned by those nasty giant rats!

We don't have enough funds to buy the antidote and have to get a job to get cash. Once Sveta and Maksim took the antidote, we were ready to leave, pausing only to hear the preaching of another group of priests. It’s more of the same. Oppressors will be put down. The downtrodden will rise blah blah blah. But this time they also distribute food to the poor. No wonder people are willing to follow them!

We decide to follow the so-called holy men and once asleep, we break in and find some interesting information... sadly we are not able to translate the most important document we found but Sveta knows someone who can help.

The next few days sees us working at several jobs (thankfully no combat needed) to gain some much needed cash to buy food and see the doc to heal the wounds from the fiasco of the crashed aircraft.

Then it's off to do the job Pole asked us to do and deal with the trader Nag.

Once done, Pole pays us and gives us another job. We demur as we have to complete the Prefect’s task. He accepts that and we are now Pole’s friends.

We head to our Base for some down time. Maksim starts the process of making his submachine gun and we recuperate after the encounter with Nag.

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Ugh. Food. The need to get food is a real pain and the part that makes you feel like you have to grind. 

The pros: I forgot how tough the side missions and random encounters can be. Not in terms of combat but in the decisions you have to make. There are no easy decisions and the morality is very grey. Doing the right thing can sometimes hurt you, while doing some shady things can help. Where do you stand? What choices do you make? Each have some weight behind them.

It's thankfully not as dark and bleak as This War of Mine: The Board Game otherwise I think I'll just pack up the game and sell it off. Nothing against that game but the incredibly tough decisions you have to make just beat you down each encounter. The Hunters has some light elements and even hope as sometimes when you do the right thing, you do get rewarded. This makes me want to continue onwards as the random encounters ensure no two games are ever the same.

DAYS 11-18

We go and do some missions to get food and cash so we can get some electronics so we can follow up with Old Grant. He tells us his contact is a person named Red Jack who can help us since he’s done some jobs for the priests of the Frozen God.

We have to go to the Base to make some antidote in case we run into giant rats again.

On the way we discover an abandoned vehicle. It’s actually not too badly damaged and we spend 2 days fixing the thing before driving back to New Jensen where we trade the old junker in for some fuel cells and food. 

On the way back to the Base, we run into a group of pilgrims who are being led by a delusional madman. We give them directions for their “Blessed Lands” in exchange for some fuel cells.

We do some more jobs to get some more cash.

Then we go to meet Red Jack. Unfortunately, we’ve taken too long and he’s gone on a delivery run. He’ll be back in 5 days.

While we wait for his return, we go on another job. It’s a supply delivery run. As we reach the settlement, there’s a mech attacking it! We help the settlers defeat it and they ask us to help with further attacks.

We thank them for their generosity but decline. We have to get back to New Jensen to meet with Red Jack.

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By now the PCs are getting wounded in every encounter but since they have access to healing and first aid kits, it's not an issue like it was when I first started playing.

DAYS 19-36

After buying an implant from a hobo on the street, we get Sveta's hacker friend to decipher the cryptic message we found at the priest's house. In exchange we need to handle some toughs that's been hassling Sveta's friend.

We do so and after that we get the deciphered message. We can read it now... but we still don't know what it means. Typical religious gobbledygook.

After that we head to the chop shop where we discover the implant was legit after all and Maksim gets it so he can heal in the middle of combat.

We are short of funds and food so do some odd jobs and tasks while waiting for Red Jack to come through for us. Some jobs include going after nocturnal predators killing a farmer's mutated sheep...

Scavenging a damaged mech that suddenly came to life...

The time has come and Red Jack takes us to meet his boss. The boss agrees to take us on a delivery run.

We discover where the priests meet up and after some discussion decide not to follow them right now as we still need to head to the Weather Station to discover what's behind the crazy weather patterns and unseasonable cold. So we go to the Old Steelworks to meet up Jack Reno and... dang,

The hobo only escaped because he was already in hiding. 

We have to do some more odd jobs to get cash and food and deal with a gang of uppity punks in New Jensen. The cash we use to buy modules so we can stock up. Armour. First Aid kits. Then we go after Jack Reno.

We can hardly believe that we pulled it off without a hitch!

Jack Reno is grateful and is ready to take us to the weather station any time we want to go.

While we are in the Wastelands we decide to also capture a robo-gorilla that a collector back in New Jensen wants for their collection.

After that, we head for the Weather Station with Jack Reno. When we get close, he suggests we take the old disused tunnels to avoid the cold weather that's come in early summer. Once in the tunnels, we are aware that there are some people following us.

They ask us to help them. We look at them helplessly… and follow. We go down several tunnel until we arrive at a split. To the left is a red door. To the right is a dark, dank, stinking tunnel. ‘Please help us,’ the children say. 

Shaking our heads and hoping we haven’t made a mistake, we move inside… carefully.

The task done, we leave the children and the adults behind, we move further into the tunnels.

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And that’s where I stopped because I got hit with COVID. On the plus side, managed to paint the minis required for the next few missions so when I take it up again, I won’t have to pause to paint.

Right now, my table looks like this: