Wombat Rampage

I gave my new wolves an outing the other day. Today it was the turn of the diprotodons. Ideally I'd like a group of Indigenous Australian hunters to take them on, but the only figures available in 15mm are currently out of stock. I have been told that some should be available early this year, though, and will get some once they are; with the completion of the diprotodons I have a complete set of Australian beast types, so can run Palaeo Diet games with a different look to them, even if the rules are fundamentally the same.

Anyway, I used my regular hunters, and set up a standard hunt, with the three diprotodon in the centre of the board. A predator lurked in a thicket to the north of them. All terrain and positions were randomised.

The hunters approached from the south (randomised again, as was their mix of two axemen and a spear)

I went with the usual plan; isolate one of the animals and then gang up on it knowing that you wouldn't have to worry about the others charging in or getting in the way. If it could be done quickly then the lion lurking in the thicket wouldn't bother the hunters either. The hill worked to my advantage here, since some reactions are line-of-sight based. I sent a hunter directly north to make a noise and scatter the wombats to the northeast and north west, leaving the group split by the hill.

It worked. The wombats were split up

To the east of the hill the axe-armed hunters closed on one of the diprotodon. I ran the beasts as Giant Grazers, but reduced their Savagery and Bulk by one. Their resilience I kept the same; modern wombats are built like brick shithouses, so I assume that a diprotodon would be equally hard to kill. With three bulk available the hunters only had to kill one wombat.

And the diprotodon did prove hard to kill. One hunter was injured, and they both backed away as it roared menacingly at them. The spear hunter decided that maybe the dirotodon to the west would be a safer target and went for it. It attacked him, but he escaped injury.

The hunters decided to switch their attention to west of the hill. Try as he might the spear hunter couldn't injure the diprotodon. One of the axe hunters came in to assist; the wombat turned on him and killed him.

So that was the hunt lost already; the aim is to complete it without losing a hunter. And, to make matters worse, the lion decided to have a look at what was going on.

I decided to keep playing, if only to see if the hunters could salvage some pride by getting a kill. The wombat proved surprisingly hard to injure, though.

The lion was now getting rather close to things and, indeed, took a swipe at the spear hunter, who survived and ducked out of the way. With things to the west of the hill looking very dangerous, the hunters switched to the east, leaving the body of their comrade to distract the predator.

And at that point things came together. The axe hunter got in a damaging strike, backing off when the injured diprotodon retaliated. And then the spear hunter came up and with a skillful throw finished off the beat for a clean kill.

So the hunters' pride was salvaged a little, even if one of their number was now lion-food.

I think the stats for the diprotodon worked quite well. The next step is to see if I can paint some kangaroos I have. And then get those other hunters.