Scarecrows

I wanted to give my new animated scarecrows an outing, as well as one or two of my new pilgrim adventurer figures. So I set up one of the scenarios from the Palaeo Diet: Pulp book - The Mummy Returns.

A party of adventurers in the centre of the table must collect artifacts that are randomly scattered across the table. The artifacts are each worth a number of points, but the adventurers don't know how many until they get them home. To win they must recover (in this case ) 5 pts worth of artifacts. Three of the six artifacts are worth 1pt, one is worth 2pts, one is worth 3pts and the sixth is worth a whopping 4pts.

In two sectors of the playing area are mummies. At least I used the mummy stats for them; they were, in fact, animated scarecrows. I used the leader as a greater mummy and another as a lesser mummy. Each could summon more animated scarecrows if they rolled the appropriate reaction.

In PD:P mummies are scared of cats, and in this scenario a cat starts on the board. I don't have a model of a cat, so I used a rat swarm. It would react like a beast and affect the scarecrows if within a certain distance of them.

Here are the three adventurers. We've met the swordsman Aaron before. And, in fact, the musketeer Job has featured on the blog as well. So the only new adventurer is Adam the Alchemist. He is armed with a a big bag of grenades. What could possibly go wrong?

The Scarecrow King is menacing, but in fact took no part in the game.

Adam and Isaac loped off towards the small farm to pick up artifacts there.

Isaac edged warily past the screcrow.

It lunged at him, wounding him.

The injured Isaac backed off. If an adventurer is killed in this scenario then the VP target increases by 2pts, so it's best not to lose anybody.

Adam lobbed a bomb at the scarecrow. A bomb can be thrown a short distance, then you roll for a bounce. Hopefully it continues on its path, but it can scatter, go off immediately (hitting the user) or, in this case, simply fizzle out and not work at all.

Aaron had collected an artifact and rushed over to assist his companions as the scarecrow pursued Isaac. Isaac escaped further injury, but the scarecrow cursed him.

Aaron wasn't having that, and in a brisk fight, which saw him injured, chopped the scarecrow into distinctly non-animated pieces.

Isaac and Adam fled with a few artifacts between them.

Aaron soon joined them; the Scarecrow King was too far away to do anything effective.

The lads had four artifacts between them. I rolled 4D6 and rerolled until the numbers were unique; 1-3 meant an artifact was worth 1pt, 4 meant it was worth 2pts and so on. The adventurers picked up 9pts, so got a very convincing win. They needed 5pts to win, so four artifacts would always do it for them. 

The scenario played very quickly and, to be honest, seemed pretty easy. It wasn't hard to get to the artifacts and obviously the scarecrows only do anything if the party fail any activations. Playing with two adventurers makes it harder, since they still have to collect four artifacts to ensure a win (but have less risk if they go for fewer). Also making the terrain denser would change things a lot as well.