Legends of the Old West: Playing with New Objective Cards

Some of you might be familiar with the Secret Objective card system I developed for Chaos in Carpathia. I decided to try a similar (yet completely different) idea for Legends of the Old West. Marc and I have tried them out a few times and they really add a lot to the game, even if I do say so myself.

A selection taken from the deck of 40 Private Objective cards.

The six Public Objective cards. Each player may choose a maximum of one before the game begins.

The purpose of the cards is two-fold. First of all, as with Chaos in Carpathia, they remove the need to choose a scenario. Instead, the cards each player chooses and plays creates a unique scenario every game. Secondly, the cards give players something more strategic to aim for, as the cards represent the fickle and varied priorities of their characters.

I chose the High Noon Public Objective. This meant that both leaders started in the middle of the table and had a shoot-out before the game began. Half-breed Bob was too elusive so I discarded the card halfway through the game.

Marc's Outlaws chose the Robbery Public Objective card. These three characters were deployed in an agreeable location and each was assigned a Loot counter at the beginning of the game. 

As always, where ever you find Marshall Mills, the Assumption Vigilance Committee is never far behind.

The game in full swing. The outlaws, slowed down by loot, made their way towards the edge of town. Meanwhile, the Lawmen stormed the corral and ended up driving the outlaws out of town. Sadly, not all the Loot was recovered.

Another great game, I have to say. Marc and I agree that the card system adds a lot of flavour and ultimately makes the game more tactical and unpredictable. We will continue to tweak and play this objective system over the next year or more. Count on seeing more game reports in the future. And for the record, my Lawmen won. Just sayin'.

Thanks for reading,

JET

The Wrath of Brother Abelard

We haven't played a great amount of Chaos in Carpathia in the last six months but it is still one of mine and Jason's favourite games. I snapped a few shots of last night's game for all you Gothic Horror fans.

Grossmeister Abelard fends off the Vampire Lord as his dark minions encircle the brothers.

We played one game - my Brotherhood against Jason's Nosferatu. Since we both have six warbands each for CinC, one never knows what two foes will end up on the table for any given game. The Brotherhood are quite a different warband from my European Monster Hunters. Although they lack the pseudo-super characters available to the monster hunters, there's the ability to spread skills around the warband in a much more balanced fashion.

For this game we used my new-and-improved objective system. It's similar to the one I posted a couple of years ago except now there are separate objective decks for Human and Monster warbands. The Brotherhood drew the Duel, the Search, and the Task. The Nosferatu drew the Duel, the Invasion, and the Kidnapping. Of course, we didn't know what our opponent's objectives were until after the game was over.

Father Athanasius inspires the brothers to greater acts of courage.

It was one of those rare games where a player can end the game early by earning all 6 VP before the time is up. Things started going right for me early on after my leader charged the master vampire and killed him in two turns without any help from his fellow brothers. Doing the job himself earned my warband the maximum of 2 VP for the Duel. With two less combat-oriented objectives remaining (i.e. the Task and the Search), I concentrated on a couple of key characters finding things and solving puzzles while the rest of my warband held the monsters at bay. It worked out in my favour and early in turn five, I announced that the game was over and that I was victorious!

Brothers Ephrem and Ambrose protect Sister Benedicta from the night creatures.

When the game ended, Jason had 3 VP and I had 6 VP plus 9 Investigation Points to add to my campaign sheet. More importantly, we got to roll lots of dice while insulting each other with horrible Transylvanian accents.

I'm not really painting anything for Gothic Horror these days. I'm trying to focus (which is hard in Summer) on painting a new posse for Legends of the Old West and some other odds and ends that I'm trying to get finished before the Fall. However, Jason has purchased models for two new warbands - French Monster Hunters (which he has started) and Romanian Vampires. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading,
JET