It Wasn't Beauty ...

It Was The Baron Killed The Beast!

I had a go with the Battlesworn solo rules in 'Knight and Knaves' last night, pitting the SAVE Envoys against the Politically Incorrect Pygmies. The bidding tables took a little getting used to, but eventually I got the hang of them, and found myself up against a foe which gave the impression of trying to outwit me, even if it was a series of weighted random rolls.The priority lists for actions helped drive the Pygmies' actions rather nicely - I had them on the defensive, with SAVE trying to rescue Miss Faversham from their base edge, so there actions didn't have to be too sophisticated. Early on their blowgun-armed Shooters inflicted a few wounds on my characters as they crossed a river, but I pushed forward steadily and the game settled into a series of attritional melees in which the Pygmies came off worse, despite really having all of the advantages. SAVE lost a Fighter, a Shooter and Miss Carfax, whilst the Pygmies lost their Brute, a Shooter/Rogue, two Fighters and Kong himself to push them over the 'half dead' limit.

As the rules say, always allow common sense to over-rule the priority charts. If you do that, then the solo rules work very well.

I should report that The Baron finally used his Chaos Warrior ability, rerolling his melee bid a couple of times when the odds favoured a slight increase. His actual striking power was curtailed through most of the game because the Pygmy witchdoctor kept putting him under a Curse. He killed Kong with a spectacular four-hit blow, which included three sixes - two sixes lift the curse immediately, so I assume the whole attack counts at that stage. This was enough to take down the lightly-wounded great ape, and win the game for SAVE.