Today my friend Lawrence agreed to follow my last game with Phil with another try playtesting my new Dr Who rules. We ended up having 2 games, which I have tried to give some insights into the system I am using.
I had expected with Lawrence being a fan of Tom Baker we would again be using him, but I was surprised...
The terrain for today, a ruined village. You can see the orange Objective markers and the smaller Portal Markers use to bring on Aliens and Information.
I rolled for the entry point on the table edge...
...the corner?
Yes!
I placed a new bit of terrain I built this week, from plastic sprue and a milk bottle top!
Out of the Tardis came the second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) accompanied by Zoe and Jamie!
I decided to move towards the village and find what was going on!
These are the cards we use for Characters.
I headed us toward the wood, not wishing to get us too spotted by Portal Markers before we were in cover! Lawrence decided Jamie and Zoe would stay close to the Doctor, I was leery of this, but we would see how this style of play played out!
I popped us into the wood edge to observe the village, the Portal Marker being within 8" of us had to move back.
It did activate a card for us. It would be necessary to get all 5 cards of the correct colour in order to win, but not knowing if we were facing Cybermen or not...
...I kept the card. Being the Doctor I could store 5 cards.
We moved towards a hedge...
...and entered the ruin.
There was an Objective Marker there, but it turned out to be a dummy.
We were in sight of a couple of Portal Markers...
...and they generated 2 cards. One meant we found a civilian who told us the Alien race here, but also a person who was a problem for us, being argumentative and bossy, you know the type! (He lost us a card each turn on a 6(d6))
So, we were lumbered with these two!
This is the arrivals chart in the rules, if you are interested?
Finding the civilian also generated 2 'Idea cards' representing anything he might know.
We gave the cards to Zoe.
The Alien race was Silurians, a you can see, so those cards would be useful!
Jamie escorted the civilian off table to safety.
He then joined me and Zoe...and the mad professor.
We were again visible to Portal Markers.
...but we were untroubled as we crossed to the ruins.
Jamie seemed to be having a 'Barney' with the professor!
The Portal Marker was generating cards, but no Silurians yet.
A pity we weren't fighting Daleks! I now had 3 cards only of use against them!
The mad Professor took one next turn, he rolled a 6!!!
As we walked down the road, the Portal markers retreated before us.
I led us toward another Objective marker, a worthwhile endeavour as we would need to find the Active Objective to win the game when we had our 5 correct cards.
We passed behind the ruin, which meant we were only visible to a few Portal Markers, a large score on them generates a lot of bad things usually!
We had to get visible to 3 markers in order to check the counter, another dummy!
The markers had to flee, as we were again within 8" of them.
We triggered a Portal marker, which generated the 'Ambush' card, we were surrounded by an equal number of angry reptiles!
We were escorted to the Objective under heavy guard.
As we were all captive, we would be unable to get away, either Zoe or the Doctor would have been able to spring us, but such was not to be.
Never mind, as I wrote in the rules' One last thing, if, at the end of the game, all your Characters are captured, its not the end! – its just the end of an episode… !'
The second game had us appear at the far side of the table.
Would this be easier to search?
We set off.
Nothing in sight yet.
Zoe and I went to the Alien object, I sent Jamie to check the next field.
I placed myself in sight of 2 Portal Markers to try and generate the cards we needed.
Jamie found two more Markers, those we had chased over the road earlier
They generated no cards, just a scientist, what was he doing here? Jamie queried if he should go over and talk, but I thought the 2 Portal Markers with the scientist were too dangerous.
I was right, two Zygons were behind the ruin with the Scientist!
Additionally we got a supplementary quest, we were aware of some humans being held captive , and would need to rescue them as a victory condition.
Jamie joined us and we went under cover away from the two Zygons.
We crossed the road to outflank the Zygons, but came under observation by these 2 markers.
I thought it worth the risk as...
...there was another Objective marker here.
We got away with it.
We were out of sight of these two Portal markers, fortunately.
We filtered round the ruin.
Yay, we found the Objective! - just need to get the rest of the cards now!!!
As we knew, we found 3 civilians at the Objective.
Jamie went to attract the two Zygons who had been chasing him before.
He then legged it!
He crossed the road, easily outpacing the pursuit.
This had got them out of sight of the prisoners we had to rescue.
I asked Zoe to escort them to safety.
Then Jamie came round the corner with another civilian!
Zoe held up waiting for the latecomer to join her.
They finally got together and headed for the table edge.
Zoe waited for the last one to go, she had gained us a 2 card reward for this.
Unfortunately, another Zygon had seen her and came waddling over.
Also, the Scientist turned out to be a Zygon too, no surprise!
Zoe got back safely.
The first Zygon was still heading over...
...and the 'Scientist' Zygon came from the other side.
We were getting surrounded!
We headed into cover in the ruin.
Jamie had crossed the road, and was keeping the ruin there between him and the two Zygons.
The first Zygon had reached the last place he had seen Zoe, and started looking around.
We left the ruin and dispersed...
I crossed the road, Zoe went to the back hedge.
Jamie was playing hide and seek.
I had got 4 of the 5 cards we needed, and had managed to fabricate a smoke bomb!
Another Zygon arrived and started after Zoe.
I was keeping out of sight of that Zygon in the field.
Another Zygon was coming behind me, so I would have to move!
Zoe easily avoided her Zygon...
...as did Jamie.
I entered the last ruin trying to check the last Objective marker, but ran into another Zygon and got taken prisoner!
I was escorted to the Objective marker.
I was placed with another human.
I tried to escape, but it was impossible.
I had 4 of the cards, what was I to do?
As the Zygon crossed some rough terrain, I wriggled free, and the two of us ran for it!
The Zygon couldn't keep up with us, and I prepped my smoke bomb.
It detonated, and we escaped through it.
I found the other human was another troublemaker, and he took one of my cards, fortunately I still kept my 'Zygon' cards.
Jamie offered to take the troublemaker off my hands, so I headed over to him.
Unfortunately another group of prisoners appeared through the smoke.
One of them shape-changed into a Zygon!
He attacked us but we managed to overpower him!
Jamie went out to attract the Zygon in the field who would have stopped us rescuing the other 2 prisoners.
With only one Zygon in pursuit I headed to the table edge again.
Zoe distracted my pursuer!
On the way back, my Troublemaker turned into another Zygon!
Surprisingly he didn't attack, but headed for the Objective marker and the controls there.
I left him to it.
Zoe and Jamie were keeping out of sight of the searching Zygons.
Jamie then tried to bait the Zygon scientist from the objective.
I was keeping a Portal Marker in sight, so eventually generated the missing card!
I raced to the Objective!
Zoe and Jamie - having evaded the Zygons now joined me.
I overloaded the generator in the plague store, destroying it and foiling the Zygons dastardly plan to wipe us out.
We made our way back to the Tardis, U.N.I.T. were on their way to finish the remaining Zygons.
I am sorry it was such a long game for you to follow! I am making a few changes to the cards following this game to speed things along a bit!!!
