After-Action Brief: Strange Aeons

(I'm calling this one a brief because it's not going to be a full after-action report - just a quick recap with highlights.)

So, our gang played its second session of Strange Aeons last night. Once again, we played a four-player game - two Threshold players and two Lurker players. The scenario this time was "Retrieve the Artifacts." The Threshold team was dispatched to gather artifacts at an old farm; the Lurkers, of course, were there to prevent this. (The scenario calls for four artifacts to be placed on the table; we doubled this to account for the two-player Threshold team.)

The Threshold forces were the same as in our last session, with one exception: agent Molly Dawson took the place of her late sister, Maggie. As for Lurkers, the Threshold team found itself facing one group composed of a maniac and two zombies, and another composed of two ghouls and a trio of cultists.

For the first few turns, the game played fairly smoothly. The Lurkers focused on gathering the artifacts on their side of the table and scurrying away with them to prevent them from falling into Threshold hands. Meanwhile, the Threshold team secured and searched several artifacts on their side of the table. The only casualties were the three cultists, one of whom became Molly's first act of vengeance; the other two were J.P. Dither's first dynamite victims.

The tide turned, however, when the maniac emerged from behind the farmhouse on the Threshold team's right flank. In the blink of an eye he was on top of Agent A's group, and in one turn he took out Agent B, then moved to attack Agent A. Agent A held his ground (despite being wounded) but before Agent C could move to help, the maniac finished him off.

Despite the Threshold team's valiant efforts, that maniac dispatched one team member after another - it was a bloodbath. It was only a couple of turns before the only Threshold agent left was The Professor, who was desperately attempting to search the last artifact before being set upon by the blood-soaked maniac. Unfortunately, the maniac got to him before he could do so, and the elderly agent found himself locked in mortal combat with a near unstoppable foe.

Here's how the first action of that combat went (the red dice with black pips are The Professor's close combat dice):

(Let this stand as Exhibit A to any who would dispute my professed inability to roll dice to save my life!)

But The Professor refused to go down without a fight! Here's the next close combat action:

The professor fought valiantly, bringing the ravening maniac within one wound of defeat. Alas, the dice once again betrayed him in the final round of combat, and he fell to the maniac's cleaver:

It was a solid Threshold defeat. Worse yet, of the three artifacts searched, only two held anything of use. (Naturally, the single artifact my group searched was empty. My dice truly hate me...)

On a positive note, none of the Threshold agents suffered any lasting effects from their wounds. (Two went out with only minor injuries; of the other five who suffered major injuries, all recovered fully.) I suppose things could have ended worse...

.............................................................................

A Hard Won Thing Scoreboard:

0 wins / 0 draws / 3 losses (but another - oh, you know!)

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