I played a game today trailing some new dinosaurs and a new objective – the gargantuan. The idea being that there’s something big and nasty and the first side to bring it down gets an objective point. I played the game mostly for fun (oh the horror!) so I didn’t take too many pictures, all the ones I did take are above and for are eye candy purposes only (if… you know… you’re in to this sort of thing).
A few thoughts arise during play testing and I have to say without blowing my own trumpet too much, I’m very happy with one aspect of the rules in particular and that’s the rather relaxed stat line. I’ve got speed, stamina, combat and protection, also the necessary evil points, but that has no impact once play begins. Only four characteristics makes memorising the stats of Dinosaurs incredibly easy, and I almost never have to reference the rules at all during play. This is something which is key to solo gaming (which the majority of my gaming is), as having two armies to keep track of becomes tiring with double the stat lines to remember. Combat could have easily taken a more traditional route of Attacks, roll to hit, roll to wound, save. Which is already as many stats as I have and what would be the point in complicating things? As long as the combat generally gives expected results while leaving space for the occasional unexpected outcome that’s really all you need. To that end I’m also proud of my combat system. Each dinosaur has a combat stat which represents the number of dice they roll in combat. The highest single result wins the combat. Or if the highest is a draw the second highest rolled by each player is consulted. If the defender wins then the attack fails. If the attackers wins by 1 they can reposition the defending Dino and the defending side loses a point of ferocity (more on that another time). If they win by 2 then the defender is knocked down, meaning until they stand up they roll half the dice they would normally roll in combat. If the attacker wins by 3 or more then the defender has to make a saving throw, which if they fail they die. Simple stuff but it has a few important elements, firstly it’s easy to remember, secondly it gives you pretty much all the outcomes you’d expect from a combat and third it leaves room for a dinosaur with combat 2 say, to bring down a dinosaur with any number of combat, since no matter how many dice you have you could still roll all 1s.
Just a few thoughts.
Deathzap 