Open Combat RPG Lite Test

       I've been talking about running a RPG style game using the Open Combat rules for a couple of months now, and with the Kickstarter for a physical copy of the rules currently on the go, it seemed like a good time to organise a test of the actual game I want to run.

       So here it is; the 5 plucky adventurers, tasked with taking out the necromancer who has taken up shop in a cemetery.
       As I have mentioned in older posts I have adapted the rules ever so slightly to include magic, but I have simply used a existing mechanic and used it for my purposes, in this case both the priest and necromancers count as having bows, but the priest's is used to heal, while the necromancer's is used to raise the dead. In both cases they 'shoot' normally, then have to get a result that would normally wound, so the priest has to roll a 'wound' on a fellow party member to heal a wound, while the necromancer has to 'wound' what ever he plans to raise, because of this it is a lot easier to raise the dead than it is to heal.
       Unless anyone is particularly interested I won't write the actual stats I used on this blog, as that isn't the point of Open Combat but the one thing I will mention is that I gave the human adventurers much better stats and gave them all second wounds to give the healing a chance. I wanted the undead to be a threat in terms of numbers rather than raw power.

      The first turn was all about maneuvering into position to make best use of a limited amount of actions, but the second turn everything kicked off. The two tanks charge the zombie line but fail to actually do any damage, while the two scouts flank around the marshes and one kills the zombie in her path. In return the undead move all their figures in and strike a wound on the male scout, while the necromancer rolls spectacularly well and raises 2 zombies and 3 skeletons.

     Faced with a wall of undead the 2 tanks both use everything they have to try and break through, but can only kill a single zombie, but the wounded male scout does better and kills his attacker. The undead continue to push forward but only achieve nothing and the necromancer only raises a single zombie to replace his loses.

     The adventurers took the opportunity to counter attack and kill off 3 of the undead and the priest managed to heal both wounded members of the party. The undead manage nothing in response but do raise 3 zombies.

      Pushing further forward than they have managed all game the party smashes into the next wave of undead, killing 2 more zombies and a skeleton, but lucky dice rolls from the undead means that both scouts and a tank all take wounds.

     In another turn of continued good dice rolls from the undead, the party only kill off a single skeleton and can't heal any of it's members, but then loses a scout and a tank to the return attacks.

     The last turn ended up just being a continuation of the turn before, as surrounded the last tank loses both of his wounds in a single turn as the numbers become to tell and with his death the party goes past it's break point, with just two members let, its game over. 

     I am actually pretty pleased with how the game went, although I did make a mistake in how I played, which I think made a massive difference to how the game went. In raising undead I was raising a model for every wound the necromancer rolled, but that's not how a bow works in Open Combat, you don't kill one guy then carry wounds onto the next one, so it wouldn't make sense to carry spare raises over to another model. It was a mistake I made and not in the rules, which is almost more annoying for me to make. On the other hand this is exactly why I wanted to test my game out before using it as club, so any of my mistakes don't ruin a game someone else is playing.
     I really don't think I will need to change all that much for when I take this down my club, I might just get a few more figures painted first though.

Thanks for reading