Murder-hobo evening

Beer is good. Free beer is better. And if some old guy in a decent pub starts buying the drinks then, well, it would be rude not to listen to his stories while he keeps your glass full. It had turned into quite a night and among the rest of the group freeloading off the rich codger oaths of friendship had been sworn, plans made, along with promises to the man with the open purse.

Which is why, thought Ladro, he was shivering his hung-over nuts off at the mouth of some gods-forsaken cave at a distinctly unholy early hour with an elf, a dwarf, a jumped-up nobleman's son and his tea-making lackey, an apprentice wizard, and some oddball from out East who stank of stale milk and could only grunt, whinny, or say the word "horse". There'd better be some decent loot in this. I mean, an elf, for Randal's sake! The knightling was making some noble speech that no-one was listening to, not even the tea-boy (who at least had a lantern), the elf was pirouetting and making odd noises which was really winding up the dwarf, and the rest looked just as hungover as he felt. Ohhh, this was going to be a disaster...


Fortunately for those of us pushing the little lead men about, the evening was anything but. This was the first OGRE meet I'd been to and it was generously hosted by Erny in the fabled kitchen, using a metric shed-load of Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles:

There's a full box out of shot, and the full dungeon is set up on the table. That's a lot of pieces!

The other plucky gamers were antipixi, Whiskey Priest, snickit, Barney Leadhead and lenihan, most of whom are arrayed in the picture below. Feel free to decide which name should go with which fine figure of a man if you don't already know!

Anyway, the game. Erny had put together a great little adaptation of the 3rd Ed rules to give it a more WFRP/D&D/Realms of Chaos/Heroquest feel (all good ingredients, I'm sure you'll agree) and it wasn't long before we were nearly being killed off by a swarm of bats in the first room... The pathetic-aesthetic can be taken too far, perhaps!

After some Peter Jackson's Legolas-inspired heroics, the elf finally spitted the last bat on his blade, horse-boy recovered from his injuries and Ladro carefully didn't mention to his fellows that he'd found 4gp in the debris. The day was starting to look up for him.

Then there was a troll...

... goblins and orcs...

... a fairly feeble dwarf in a cell (who may or may not have been a Dungeon Quest model - opinion was divided, leading to an unresolved geek-off) who was missing two companions. No picture of this, I'm afraid, but I took the fewest photos. Then, after more orcs (with that bloody elf showboating all over the place with his high initiative, speed and weapon skill - pah!), our wizard flying up through a hole in the roof to haul us up to the next level, horse-boy proving almost entirely useless with his bow, we entered a large room...

There were orcs. There was an ogre. I left them to it and ransacked the cupboards while the keenies were fighting. No loot worth mentioning, sadly!

Heading further up into the tower we had to put down some wolves and their orc and goblin handlers, pausing only to weep at the ending of our supply of tea. Yes, the redshirt noble henchman took a goblin arrow to the heart, leaving us uncaffeinated, saddened and in the dark...

To be continued, I hope, as I certainly had a blast and think the others did too. There were great miniatures, great terrain, great beer, nostalgia-inducing soft drinks, pizza and pringles. Add top notch company and a warm welcome chez Erny, what's not to like?

May your gaming leave you with as warm and fuzzy a feeling,

Rab