Hunting Rhinos

I played a quick game of Palaeo Diet yesterday, with the same six hunters from the previous game having a go at hunting some woolly rhinos on a fairly featureless plain.

The hunters spread out.

One group approaches the herd, which begins to move around nervously.

The hunters close in.

The sling and archer moved in from the right and made some noise, hoping to drive an individual towards the other hunters. The whole herd went instead. However one of the animals did stray close enough to a spear-armed hunter that he could make an attack, and he seriously injured the beast.

The herd closed up.

The hunters attacked a second rhino. This one responded by attacking back, injuring one of the hunters.

A couple of sabre-tooth cats prowled around, attracted by the noise and scent of blood.

The slinger and archer tried to keep them away, injuring one of them. Meanwhile the other hunters tried to finish off the two wounded rhinos, but another of the party was wounded.

Finally, a kill!

And the slinger finished off the wounded cat too, which gave the party the necessary amount of meat to take back to their camp.

However there were a couple of things to take into consideration. One was that there was still a predator lurking close to some of the meat, which needed to be driven off. And the other was that animals react to their own kind being killed, and this caused the surviving sabre-tooth to launch itself at the hunters.

A wounded rhino killed one of the hunters!

And the archer failed to fend off the cat, and was also killed.

The hunters did manage to drive off the cat, but their victory had now been nullified by the loss of a third of their party in their moment of triumph.

Better luck next time.

Separating animals from the herd really helps avoid the 'friendly beast being killed' reaction, and can prevent disasters like the one in this game. But the hunters just couldn't manage it this time.