A Night at the Park - Empire of the Dead AAR

For those of you who might have been getting tired of nearly a month's worth of Dark Ages related posts, rejoice! Because here's something completely different.

A few people at 7th Dimension Games have expressed interest in starting up an Empire of the Dead campaign, especially Gary (whose games I have included on this blog before, such as the Wings of War and Beer and Pretzel Ironclads games).  For those of you who don't know, Empire of the Dead is a 28mm campaign-focused skirmish game that takes place in an alternate horror- and Gothic-laden Victorian England. In Empire of the Dead, aristocratic Gentlemen and unsuspecting Bobbies fight against werewolves, vampires, undead, and plenty of other monstrosities.

In order to familiarize ourselves with the rules before starting an actual campaign, Gary and the others have been playing one-off games to learn the rules. This time it was my turn, and I decided to go with a Lycaon (Werewolf faction, with a great paint job by Gary) list against Bob's Gentlemen's Club list. These lists were:

The Darkshire Pack (Lycaon)
Beastlord
Wolfskin (Bow, Axe)
Wolfskin (Bow, Axe)
Wolfskin (Crossbow, Axe)
Wolf
Wolf
Wolf

The Tricorne Club (Gentleman's Club)
President (Sword, Heavy Pistol)
Vice-President (Repeating Rifle)
The Membership (Sword, Light Pistol)
The Membership (Sword, Light Pistol)
The Membership (Sword, Light Pistol)
The Membership (Sword, Light Pistol)

The scenario we rolled was 'Fracas' - basically a straight-up fight that lasts until one side drops below 25% of it's original starting number of models - with diagonal deployment. Bob and I agreed to have the fight in an Industrial Park so we wouldn't have to worry about any additional rules. And since I won the Unnatural Occurrence roll (a straight d10 roll between players), I decided that the game would take place at night. Not that it would do any good, really.

While the normal table size for Empire of the Dead is 3' by 3', Gary built us a 2' by 2' area to play in. This made sure that the game was fast and the action furious. The trees offered cover, while the street lamps illuminated a small area around their base.

I placed my Beastlord and a Wolfskin/Wolf pair deep in the woods in one corner. The other Wolfskins and Wolves went into the opposite corner, unfortunately in the open. Bob placed his Vice-President and two Memberships near a lamp. 

Thanks to the way Gary had set up the table, Bob's President and attending Memberships were forced to squeeze through a small alley between the Park's entrance arch and the small building. 

Thanks to the Beastlord's and Wolves' fast movement, they quickly fell upon the President and his men. 

Two of the Wolfskins sent their Wolves from opposite corners against the Vice-President and the other Memberships, but the Repeating Rifle and some quick pistol work felled those charging beasts, along with one of the Wolfskins. 

The remaining Wolfskin charged into combat, but ended up with a sword through the heart, as one of the Membership saved the unarmed Vice-President. 

The Beastlord, very much a close-combat powerhouse, managed to chew through the President and then both Memberships in short order. 

However, the remaining Wolfskin was gunned down by the Vice-President, who turned out to be a decent shot with his Repeating Rifle.

With the last Wolfskin dead, my force finally reached below the 25% threshold, and Bob claimed victory. The Beastlord would survive to re-establish his pack, and the Vice-President looked to be in line for a promotion. 

I certainly had fun, and I do hope that we get an Empire of the Dead campaign started. That said, I do have to mention a couple of things. The rulebook certainly has some editing issues, with plenty of grammatical errors, missing point values, missing entries, odd inclusions, and no index. 

Also, it seems as though the Lycaon are a bit underwhelming as a faction. With a 3' table, it would take my Wolves, Beastlord and Packmasters an additional turn or two to get into close combat. The Wolfskins can only take medieval ranged weapons, so they're seriously outgunned by the other three factions - even the Holy Orders can take monks with guns. Gary told me that smoke grenades on the Wolfskins are essential, especially if the Lycaons don't win the roll to determine whether or not the game is played during the day or at night. But even that might not matter if the Lycaon don't win initiative - anyone with a decent range and line-of-sight can start popping off shots before the Wolfskins can move. There's the additional fact that one of the four choices for the Lycaon - wolves - can't claim objectives or pick anything up (paws and all that) which makes them problematic for most of the scenarios in the game. This basically makes them furry little missiles, which is fine until they're gunned down. 

That being said, I would definitely like to play again, perhaps with a sort of Victorian-era, British military-based Gentlemen's Club, or perhaps a Darkfire Club ally.