The Silver Bayonet: The Ruined Chapel

After my first game, I realised I didn't have enough desert terrain, specifically for my palm trees which will give the setting more authenticity. So I alternated between printing Zone Mortalis terrain for Necromunda and desert terrain for The Silver Bayonet.

I must say the results were worth it in the end.  

Now, having got my Egyptian themed ruins and desert bases printed for my palm trees to really make it look like the desert… I present the 2nd solo scenario from the Silver Bayonet core book, suitably re-skinned to Egypt.

The Ruined Temple

Having escaped the wolves, you press on deeper into the desert, relying on a compass and a crude map to bring you to the lost temple. As another day passed, the desert slowly grew rockier, with the cliffs towering above the canyon merging together until they blocked out nearly all natural light. Finally, through the tenebrous shadows, you spy the ruins of a small, stone building, surrounded on every side by broken, tilted, and overgrown tombstones. According to your orders, you are to search the temple and recover any items of interest; however, just as you are about to order the advance, you see figures shuffling around in the graveyard…

This was kind of sort of similar to the previous scenario except I didn’t have to go through an entire stack of clues to find the correct one. This was a pure looting mission… and all the deadlier because of that!

Initially, I spread out my company and made for the 4 clue markers in the center of the ruins (highlighted in red).

Then a vampire spawned at the end of turn 1. Vamps are SCARY. Fast, Powerful. Dangerous. Difficult to hurt if you don’t have special weapons. Thankfully most of my guys had something that can hurt the supernatural… but not the zombies. Not yet, anyway. (Didn't have a suitable Egyptian or even Napoleonic themed vampire mini).

My unit went up against the Revenants. Basically zombies. Easy, right? Not when the dice are so swingy that they can one shot my guys most of whom only have 10HP, vs the zombie’s revenants 12HP! The first casualty on turn 2 was my Infantryman!

More revenants spawned. All made for the closet living human as zombies will do.

Then my Bedouin, already wounded after downing a revenant, got killed by a vampire! Two down!!!! Ugh.

But… he who runs lives to fight another day… even when being chased by TWO vampires!

I managed to get all 4 clues, despite an early hiccup in turn 2, failing a check to pick up the first clue. After that, all the surviving members of my unit ran off the map as fast as possible!

TL; DR: Those vampires are scary! I need to roll a 15 on 2d10s just to hit them! Most of my guys only have +1 for melee so rolling a 14-15 isn’t exactly easy, not when the bell curve for 2d10s is between 9 to 11.

Still, the difficulty made for a very tense game. During the mid-game I thought I was done for, but some lucky rolls dispatched the revenants, leaving only the odd revenant that spawned randomly at the end of each turn. And I was even able to down one of the vampires after 2 really lucky, Blessed shots. 

Now to complete the sandy bases for my palm trees with grit, sand, putty and a paint job, ready for the next scenario: The Troll Hunts! 

(NOTE: I'm having difficulty finding suitable early 19th century trolls so I will probably have to default to standard fantasy trolls. Not my optimal choice but what to do. I think I do have suitable goblins from The Wheel expansion from SMOG: The Rise of Moloch steampunk board game from CMON.)