Last night's gaming fun

Last night we had company come over that hadn't played any real dungeon crawler or tabletop game other then D&D and Heroes Quest, so we first played through a game of Warhammer Quest. Things were going decent up until we got into a dungeon room with four orcs and five orc archers, then my wife rolled a '1' on the power die bringing in 5 more orcs. The next turn she rolled another '1' which got the 1D3 minotaurs events (which thankfully I rolled low and we only got one). The whole time this was happening we simply could not hit. As you might imagine, everyone died.

The neighbor didn't seem to really know how he felt about the game because of so much randomization, which of course is understandable if it is your first game of Warhammer Quest. I think that if it wasn't for the fact that for a good chunk of the dungeon we were pushing along at good speed with everyone rolling decently, only to suddenly see everyone rolling 1 and 2 on their die didn't help. For me, that is just one of those things you can't help. The die are going to do whatever they feel like, so if they turn on you, then they turn on you. Newcomers though are obviously going to get frustrated with the sudden shift of control.

After we were done with the game we talked a bit about the various dungeon hack games I had from Warhammer Quest to Drakon all the way to Decent and Talisman. Eventually the conversation went to my wargaming which seemed to intrigue him, and of course I don't mind chatting it up about my favorite hobby. I told him about wargaming basics, the core differences between games like Anima Tactics, WarmaHordes, and Warhammer, and of course showed him the miniatures involved. Eventually he was curious enough to want to see a basic intro game, which of course WarmaHordes is the best set up for a good low level balance.

Wife loaned him access to her Cryx, which we used the eSkarre, Reaper, and Slayer helljacks. I used Reznik and the Wonder twins (Castigator and Reckoner). I started off very basic, expecting to only show him how movement, combat, and other core actions behaved, intentionally not spending focus points on things like boosted attacks, running, additional attacks, ect. He was a quick learner though, and only a few turns in started to use those advantages as I discussed the options. For a good chunk of the battle it looked like I might actually lose, but in a single turn the Castigator and Reckoner managed to destroy his helljacks (the dice finally starting to show some love for me), and Reznik went for eSkarre, between two boosted attacks and Reznik's feat, I managed to kill her almost twice over.

Of course I was holding back at first, letting him get far more damage then he should have since I wasn't going into elemental damage, warjack power attacks, and whatnot. As anyone who plays Menoth knows, our jacks aren't the best in a basic punching contest. I am hoping though, that with his interest still somewhat peaked, that he might look further into some form of wargame and possibly give us another enemy to fight.