Review: Perilous Dark

I've now read through Perilous Dark a few times and want to write a quick review of it.

I got Perilous Dark from the quick description of the book, I pre-ordered it (I haven't with all the expansions) as it promised rules for soloplay and randomly generated dungeons. 

When buying Perilous Dark will you get that? Yes, you will. Is the book what I thought it would be? No, it's not.

Perilous Dark contains a nice ten scenario coop / solo campaign, designed for new wizards. There's a lot of good hours of work in this.

The toolbox

But mostly Perilous Dark is a mix toolbox and game design theory. The only other expansion having toolbox elements is Into The Breeding Pits. That expansion gives you some tools, direct changes to gameplay if playing in dungeons. "If playing in Dungeons, here's the tools to do that". 

Perilous Dark comes with lots of tools / suggestions for designing your own scenarios. Lots of ideas and methods when making up your own scenario. Good things to consider. A lot of these suggestions are rather open - not set in stone, it's more like examples.

A good thing I learned (that I've never considered) is the use of dungeon cards, to make up random dungeons. Quick cards that tell what you encounter. I'll have to make some for my dungeon project, for random placement of tiles and monsters.

I was anticipating something more concrete, I was expecting to see more locked frame work for playing solo games. I had expected loads more of random tables, to generate scenarios, objectives and so on for me. So the beside the campaign, the expansions needs some work from me. 

Will I get around to that? I doubt it. There's so many written scenarios that I haven't played yet, and despite them not being written for solo play - the tools provided here will let me make adapt them well I think.

The solo and the coop
The expansion adds rules for both coop and solo games. I'll be using this mostly for the solo experience. The campaign is written to work with going solo, start fresh and play through.

The game makes quick and easy update to the monster priority table - making them choose weaker targets and attacking smarter. These are written addition, that we almost excactly house ruled earlier ourself.

For coop game, the rules are really simple. You get to hire 4 soldiers (instead of 8) and you skip the apprentice. This is for balance and speed. Your partner will then bring the same thing, four soldiers and no apprentice.

Now two wizards is of cause much better than one and apprentice. You get access to two different schools and have two times wizard stats. The book offers balance for the campaign with a section in each scenario description. Small tweaks for added difficulty in coop games, one example is with an expanded random monster table (more numbers and more dangerous).

The thoughts

The wording in the book differs from other expansions as well. There's a lot of what can best be described as 'thoughts of the author' - the introduction section points it out as well. Joeseph has written a lot of Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep over the last couple of years, an the expansion has a 'memoir' vibe going on. Lot of designer thoughts, pros and cons theory on the different tools mentioned above.

For me that makes for a fascinating read, as I've spend so many hours between the Frostgrave systems.

The campaignThe campaign that's provided seems to be a good one. Ten scenarios for a new wizard and warband to work their way through. Unlike like the previous campaigns, with a huge epic story containing 'save the World' elements - this is smaller in scale.

Your wizard gets a tip about some treasure, and is pushed from scenario to scenario, down the rabit hole. The theme of the scenarios seem to be that the wizard get a hint of awesome treasure and go hunting for it. The scenario made me think of the first Frostgrave novel and the warband that travels around in it (both novels are awesome by the way).

Another thing I like about this campaign is the different setups that come in to play. Unlike many other Frostgrave scenarios it doesn't have super specific and crazy terrain pieces needed. But the scenarios are taking place in both city ruins and dungeon settings.

Plenty of new monsters however - as there always seem to be. Lotsof weird ones as well.

Final thoughts
I'm happy I got Perilous Dark. For me there's sufficient value in the 10 scenario solo campaign - that'll bring in lots of hours worth of gaming. And I'm happy to have it in a complete collection.

Is the book what I thought it would be? No. I would have loved a balanced and tested 'roll up a random mission' generator. But it's alright.

If you expect rules for fighting an AI wizard warband - you won't be getting that. That's okay, that'll be really hard to do in a good and smooth way - if not impossible.

Is this book for everyone? No, I don't think it is. If you don't plan on playing solo, I don't think you need to get it. There's no new spells or warriors in it.

Is it a good expansion - yes it is. Well setup, excellent new art, good content.

Ghost Archipelago: Drichean Skeletons

Another part of the core book bestiary for Ghost Archipelago. This is a two for one entry counting as both skeletons and dricheans in the game.

I got these old Games Workshop khemri skeletons in a giant auction box I got, resold most of the stuff. So I ended up with some cool free bits and nice free models.

I'm going for different colors for different cultures, so I've gone for red, black, bone on my tribals. And these (and possible later some alive ones) are in different tones of brass and purple.

I mixed some regular skeleton (plain) bits with the khemri bits to get some more. using some khemri torsos on vanilla bone legs and vice versa.

I have to scavange some khemri bits for conversions, so alive dricheans can have the same shields, weapons and head gear.

Dungeon: Tile 1 - corner

I've been wanting to build a dungeon for years. Can't remember when the idea first came to me, but the first game I played was Hero Quest. It was also my first experience with minatures at all - so I guess the idea from back then almost.

For this dungeon project I'll do something I haven't done before, write multible blogs for the same project. From start to finish.

Design
I'll be building my dungeon on 1' tiles, that I cut out at my schools wood workshop. I'll be building 9 different tiles at a start, to make a 3'x3' board.

For modularity I'll try to make sure, that the tiles can be changed around in different ways.

First up I'll build the four corners, having massive walls in connecting on two sides. So I can put down a 2'x2' setup when they are done. When building the different tiles, I want to make sure, they all fit well together - so they wont block passenges and corridors of, when changed around.

Materials
There's a ton of different materials to use for a project like this. I'm using the cheapest XPS foam I could find. It's 5mm board, for lying beneath floor boards. I've started by gluing a foam board on both sides of cardbaord. The glue and cardboard will prevent it from breaking. Put the boards on a flat surface and let them dry under pressure from something heavy.

When the board were all dried up, I cut out long 3" strips, wanting my walls to be that height in the entire dungeon. 

Building the first tile

First I drew up a pattern to mark out the walls on the board. Note the L shaped corridor in the middel. It's 4" wide, and all the four corner tiles will have a 4" gap at the center - making sure they all line up together. 

Not it's time to cut up wall pieces fitting in length. 

Stone work

The coolest thing about this XPS foam, is you can draw in it with a regular black pen. I want to make sure there's some free detail in the walls, so I want different designs in the various rooms. To make sure things look good together:

All outer walls will have the same design.

All corridor walls will have the same design. 

I'll also make sure these are painted in the same colors. 

Doors

The only expensive part of this build is gonna be the doors. I've invested in some Zombicide plastic doors, as they can open and close. Draw the outline and cut a hole fitting the doors. The zombide side door set comes with three different types, I'll save the square ones - as they can be glued together for double doors. 

Dry fit and glue
When every wall is cut and the stone work is drawn into it all, it's time to glue it into place. The material I've used for base board will often warp when glue dries. So I glued every piece into place, to the floor and connecting walls as well. Placed a spare 1' board on top of it all and placed a bunch of books over the night. The pressure made sure the walls got a good fit and the board didn't warp.

Floors
I want to make this dungeon useable for a lot of different games. So despite it not being the most interesting floor pattern, it'll all be roughly 1" tiles. Close enough at least. So this will make the terrain work for sch games as Hero Quest and Dungeon Saga.

Strength
All terrain will take a beating, so I want to add as much strength as possible. First with the cardboard inside the walls. The top of the walls is ugly after first assembly, so I've added pva glue and sand to the top. It adds some nice texture (better than cut foam) and strength - as thes is where the foam will probably break.

When I get to painting, I'll mix some pva glue into the acryllic paint, adding strength again.

Terrain: Renedra Huts and obectives

Renedra is making really cheap hard plastic huts. They make different styles, but I've picked up the timber ones, as I thought them to have the best texture on the surface. The huts are so cheap and sturdy, that I didn't want to bother making scratch build ones. The roof can be taken off for indoor objective placement - but there's no detail on the inside. 

The paint job is a fast different brown base coats, with a quick drybrush and a heavy layers of Army Painter quick shade varnish.

I've chosen to glue my huts to some small bases, for a better a finish. Used some of my forest sprinkle mix on the outside, and added sand to the inside of the huts. 

I really hope Renedra bring out more dirt cheap kits like this, that would be awesome. And these small huts will be used for tribals in Ghost Archipelago, in Burrows and Badgers, Vanguard and Rangers of Shadowdeep. So many games to drop them into.

A small village ready for any classic fantasy setting.

As a small tribal jungle village in Ghost Archipelago.

And a small Mantic damsel in distress, captured by some brutal feral orcs. The orc slave heads is a nice kit from Admiralty Miniatures that fit well on Games Workshop savage orc (or whatever they're called these days).

This is the first part of the Mantic Terrain Crate kickstarter I've painted. Up until now it's only been sitting in a box. But I'm getting ready for soem solo fantasy games, so better get to work on it.

I think this bonfire, the 'witch' and the bonfire is actually from the Vanguard kickstarter, that also came with some very nice terrain crate pieces for objectives.

TNT: Nuka Cola Plant

Played this wonderful game of TNT back in the summer. I invited over at mate from back in the day, build a warband on a theme he liked. My opponent would be playing Cult of the V8 raiders and I was bringing my Mutant Cannibals to battle for the second time.

As a good intro scenario we played 'tanks for nothing' altered to be about getting some Nuka Cola from an old plant. So I did a bunch of small scatter pieces and counters in a Nuka Cola theme.

Objective was to get in and carry out as many cannisters/barrels of Nuka Cola as possible, the more extracted the more caps and XP would be earned.

The warbands

Setup
We played the game on a 3'x4' mat with a large concrete structure in the middle. Made to look a bit like a wasted factory, with a parking lot, some fences etc. All terrain is scratch build and there's step-by-steps here. We placed a bottling machine in the middle of the ruin, this could be used to get Nuka Cola. There was also a vending machine on both side of the factory, a couple of bottles could be retracted from here as well.

The game

My family of sorry mutants set up close and ready to get into the plant. The idea would be to rush ahead with the beast, stop the enemy in their tracks and get some bottles from the machine in the ruin.

Part of the prize, the treasure to get - an unbroken vending machine from the past. Build to withstand the anger of people with no small change. A couple of flask could be gotten from both. There was a machine on the opposite site as well.

The raiders setup ready to attack as well. This is a pure melee focused force, brute strength. There's only a few machine pistols, pistols and a ton of grenades for ranged combat. The plan here was to get the angry mongrel dog forward (as it might otherwise attack its 'friends').

A photo showing the front of the factory, gates open. The raiders would be entering from this side. My mutants are coming from the parking lot in the back.

A raider elite moving forward, staying in cover behind some large scrap piles.

The factory was covered by a large chain link fence. This was a problem for my gang as there wasn't a lot of room to get through - and failing some activation checks bugged things down.

Raiders moving forward. My gang have some shooting attacks (though they are very bad), but it would be good to hurt the raiders before the inevitable melee - so the hug the cover.

The battlefield from my teams site, here my mutants have already moved up to the parking lot fence. The raiders can be seen hiding behind some trash, the other guys are behind the building.

Rank and file raiders, not the specialists. Armed with dual melee weapons and a bunch of grenades - this is maniacs.

Part of the factory is broken down, an entire corner is rubble and there's plenty of room to move towards the bottling machine in the center. I have my first born son, tiny the brute psycho and a few degenerate little brothers. Plenty of melee to take control of the factory.

The mutant cannibals are not good shots, but I'm still keeping some brothers at the road making a firing line towards the approaching raiders - not hitting a thing.

Would have been very good to put a bullet between the eyes of the raider - that didn't happen. And this is just about the range needed to plant a frag grenade in the face of my little mutant.

The first person to get to the bottling machine is the leader of the raider warband - a true beast in close combat.

And with great speed (and excellent activation roles) the raiders are also first to one of the vending machine - nobody have gone for the other one yet.

A nice view of the wasteland. Note the raider on the left, all the way up where I started the game with my mutants.

Just a nice shot of the Nuka Cola plant and the giant billboard on the roof.

A big tanker of Nuka Cola - empty though. There was no objectives to score in this tank.

Maw-maw the leader of the Mutant Cannibal warband constantly held back, shielding herself with potent mental powers. She didn't deliver much damage though, and only helped a bit with her motivator skill. I didn't want to risk her getting killed in a crazy melee.

She's also a lot slower than the rest of the warband as she's morbidly obese.

I made these bits, to add some color to the otherwise brown and grey wasteland. I think they add a lot, without breaking the bleak wasteland look I'm going for.

A brute entering the factory, ready to bash some heads with he mighty club. Things were about to get very messy around the bottling machine.

Kabooom! The raiders are not very good to hit anything from a distance, not even with grenades. It was however great fun seeing them throwing around high explosives. When it came to melee however, the small mutants didn't really have a change against the raiders. They were sliced apart.

My own family dog didn't do well in the melee fights and ran away quickly.

It turned out to be very hard capturing good photos of all the fighting inside the factory. In the end the raiders came out on top, bashing the mutant cannibal family. The elites and leader of the gang all came away with a good load of Nuka Cola canisters.

With a big chance of getting completely surrounded and killed, Maw-maw had to hide for the rest of the game. Running away from compact, putting up a mind shield with her psychic abilities. The game ended with enemy model inches away from catching up with her.

Aftermath
My mate haven't played a miniature game in 10 years and he really enjoyed this. The TNT system is easy to grasp and have some nice mechanics - it's fluent games. It's easy to keep focus as it goes back and forth.

The Raiders made some excellent roles after the battle and came away with enough caps to expand the gang with three models! So the group was joined by two Firebugs (kamikaze firebombers) and a Broiler (flamethrower guy).

My mutant cannibals for the second game in a row - lost a lot of guys. The caps earned only got enough to buy back some losses (like their first game). A few of the top tier models got some nice XP - but it's still a pretty bad team.

Excellent game though, very fun.