We lost an absolute giant yesterday with the passing of Bryan Ansell.
I had been planning to get my Oldhammer Orc army out on the table for the twice-yearly review. But in Bryan's memory, we roll up our sleeves. Today, we're all Mighty, Dark-Winged, Avenging Lords of Chaos.
I was recently made aware of a dandy little beer-and-pretzels wargame called "Tusk," distributed by Wessex Games. Set up for solo, co-op or competitive play, players control a hunting party of cavemen, pursuing a woolly mammoth across the landscape and trying to slay it for the tribe's larder. The game also includes rules for Victorian big game hunters and relic dinosaurs surviving into the 19th century in isolated locales. While I do not currently have a woolly mammoth in my collection, I do have some Lucid Eye cavemen painted and a toy Brontosaurus on my work-from-home desk. Being geared towards solo play and me having everything I needed to play already made the decision to give it a go a no-brainer. I printed out a copy of the rules and got the table set up.
I put together my hunting party, consisting of Og the Hero, three melee hunters and a dog; the other troop types available are archers and fire-makers (the latter of whom can set fires that drive beasts into bogs or off cliffs). Then, I set up my table, with a river crossing one corner and a few hills, and the Brontosaurus dead center on the table. The game is written for 15mm or 6mm scale figures, but I doubled all the ranges for 28mm and increased the table size from 2' square to 3'.
The dog ran ahead to harry the Brontosaurus around the ankles, with Og jogging not far behind. After a few turns of closing in and having the Brontosaurus turn and withdraw each time, Og, frustrated, charged in, swinging his club. Unfortunately, Og the Hero's legend ended before it truly even began, as the Brontosaurus stepped on him and kept going, oblivious to the Hero mashed flat beneath its thunderous tread.
As the dog continued to keep the Brontosaurus moving, the remaining hunters closed in. Finally, one of them darted forward, jabbing his spear deep into the creature's muscular neck. With an agonizing bellow, the Brontosaurus collapsed to earth, narrowly missing taking its killer with it. The tribe would feast for the next moon.
And so passed the great saurian, the last of its kind. The story of this hunt would be told and retold, echoing down the centuries, the names and locations changing to suit the needs of each new retelling. Marduk and Tiamat. Ra and Apophis. Herakles and the Hydra. All containing the germ of this one, great hunt, and the last of the thunder lizards.
So I really enjoyed playing this; the game took all of half an hour, making it a great pick-up game for a weeknight after work or something like that. Obviously not having archers or fire-makers on the table impacted how I played, and I'm looking forward to incorporating them into a future play-through.
The rules are simple enough that I think a six year old could learn them, but gameplay requires some thoughtful resource management - you get 1D6 "action points" per turn, used to activate figures, and there's a good chance you won't be able to activate your entire hunting party in any given turn. There's also a nice element of risk management; it's easier to kill the Brontosaurus (or Mammoth, etc.) in melee combat than at range, but each turn there's a 1-in-3 chance that a random hunter within an inch or two of the beast gets stomped into beef stroganoff. Fire can be used to force your prey into a panic, stampeding into a bog/tar pit or off a cliff; however, the fire spreads on its own accord, and can easily turn back and pen your own hunters in a deadly inferno.
All in all, I'm super happy I picked up "Tusk" and can't wait to give it another go.