During the cold winter months there have been tensions in the Tribe of Gong. Food has been plentiful, and the hunters have had time to sit and talk at their leisure. And their talk has turned to how Ron no longer seemed to be cutting it as tribal leader, whilst the bowman, Frun, truly shone during the previous year's hunts. Frun listened to their flattery, and a challenge was made; a hunt to determine who would be the leader of the tribe!
This was the scenario The Men Who Would Be King from the rules, with just two hunters.
Frun - Bow (run by me)
Ron - Club (run by Catherine)
I forgot Frun's 'Alert' trait, and decided to skip the dogs, although with hindsight they would have made a very entertaining addition to the game (and I might try it again with them included).
As spring takes hold in the valley, the grazers return, but also the predators, lean and hungry after their hibernation. The two hunters have a challenge: before sundown (eight turns) one of them must kill the giant wolverine that has moved into the valley. Failing that, the hunter who kills the most grazers will be proclaimed chief.
Frun approached from the west, nocking an arrow as he did. There were two groups of bovines, but sniffing around between them was the wolverine.
Ron approached from the east, readying his club. He'd have to get close to the bovines to score a kill, and they'd certainly run after his first strike, but he was sure to wound them, and could then chase them down. Maybe he'd save the wolverine for Frun.
Ron crept up to the closest bovine ...
Ron wounded his bovine, causing the grazers to scatter to the south.
The wolverine pursued the panicked animals.
Frun saw his chance. At extreme range he shot an arrow at the predator, which turned on the nearest hunter - Ron. Ron tried fighting back, but the wolverine was too much for him, and was soon feasting on his shredded corpse.
It had been a short contest, but Frun was now victorious by default, and would take his place as chief.
That concluded the campaign element, but we set it up and played again. Catherine chose to use Ron again
Frun came in from the south this time, but quickly attracted the attentions of the wolverine, who rushed into the attack. Amazingly Frun survived.
Ron wounded a bovine, and the wolverine left Frun to investigate. The wounded bovine attacked Ron, and against the odds wounded him.
The grazer then fled, and Ron limped after it
It turned on him, and before he could evade, gored him to death.
Poor Ron.
Another win for Frun, who did very little in this game (I think he killed a cow, off camera).
Onto our third game. I offered Catherine a go with Frun, but she declined. She felt sorry for Ron.
Ron got busy and quickly wounded a couple of the grazers, which stampeded.
Frun brought one down, and the wolverine moved to investigate and eat the fresh meat.
The wolverine took an unhealthy interest in Frun, who backed away. Ron tried to pursue the fleeing grazers.
Frun brought down a second grazer (one of the ones wounded by Ron), and before the end of the game took down a third. Ron failed to catch the herd.
To be fair in this two-player game, pitting a bow against a club probably wasn't the best pairing. With three or four hunters vying for the prize there's more scope for a club-armed hunter to get easy hits on other people's wounded animals, or to step in and finish off the predator. With two players Ron was left to do his own work, and Frun's bow offered him more flexibility to control the beasts and make life difficult for his rival, even if his killing power wasn't as great. To be fair, Ron was very unlucky; he missed a couple of easy attacks in one game, and getting killed by a herd grazer is quite a difficult thing to do in this game.
Anyway, it whiled away an hour or so of our social isolation, so was a win in both our books. I decided that there would be no recruitment of new hunters after this scenario, so the tribe will enter the next with just the four. I'll post the updated tribe status in the next game's post.
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