It’s always good to play with a ruleset you haven’t looked at in a very long time. When you write your own rules, often times you end up with blind spots as you always know what you meant to write even if an objective observer wouldn’t read what you wrote in the same way. Time creates that separation and it’s almost like playing someone else’s game. The rules for Dino-Wars are here:
https://deathzap.co.uk/dino-wars-v3/
They’re my attempt at writing something that’s fun and engaging while paying some attention to historical accuracy, while also letting you play with whatever dinosaur toys you may have to hand. I’d recommend giving them a skim or the following report is unlikely to make much sense.
The Green Pack was:
The Orange:
I spent no time painting them using this tutorial to get them onto the table extremely quickly:
https://deathzap.co.uk/2019/05/12/taking-your-dinosaurs-from-0-10-to-a-solid-5-5-10/
So as far as objectives are concerned, the two common objectives are Domination and Bleed.
Domination – Place 2 objectives, 1 either side of the centre point on the board (12” away from the centre) along the centre line between the two opposing halves of the table. At the end of each turn if a player is holding more objectives than their opponent then they score 1 point. To hold an objective you must have a dino within 3” of it, and have no opposing dinosaurs within 3” of that same objective.
Bleed – The first time you kill one of your opponent’s dinosaurs you score 1 point.
The Green’s unique objective was Escape – If you can get your lowest points cost dinosaur (currently in play if your original is killed) into your opponent’s deployment zone and then off of the board you score 1 point. The dinosaur takes no part in the remainder of the game, but does not count as being killed for objective purposes.
This meant the Green Corythosaurus had to get off of the board.
And the Oranges had Assassinate – If your opponent’s highest points cost dinosaur is killed, then you score 1 point. If your opponent has multiple with the same highest points cost they select which specific dinosaur will be your target at the start of the game.
This meant the Oranges had to Assassinate the Greens T-Rex.
I chose to not have a twist.
Both start on 5 Ferocity.
Round 1 – The Greens roll a 5, the Oranges a 3.
Oranges go first. The Endoraptor runs to the domination objective on their left. The T-Rex runs to the domination objective on the right taking two actions and burning one ferocity. The Ankylosaurus pushes towards the centre costing two ferocity, one for the extra action and one to add a die to its movement.
Greens go. The Pachycephalosaurus charges forwards into the T-Rex on the domination objective costing two ferocity, one for boosting their movement to make the charge and another to boost their combat value for the attack. They fail however. Then the Centrosaurus charges the Endoraptor on the other objective and slams into it. They spend a ferocity to boost their attack making their combat value double the Raptors (with the charge bonus). They beat the Raptors roll by 5 delivering a killing blow and then the Raptor fails it’s protection save, killing it outright and scoring the Bleed objective for the Greens. The Green Spinosaurus advances to a feeding point, the T-Rex rushes the centre and the Corythosaurus burns a ferocity to use an extra action and advances on Green’s left, sticking within a feeding point.
Green go ahead 1-0.
Greens go back up to 4 ferocity, as do Oranges.
Round 2 – Greens roll a 1, Oranges 6.
Greens go first. The Pachycephalosaurus tries to headbutt the T-Rex on the objective again but fails, and burning one ferocity for the extra action Corythosaurus advances further trying to escape.
Oranges go. T-Rex bites back against Pachycephalosaurus but fails to hurt them too, the duel continues. Spinosaurus uses up two actions and charges Corythosaurus but also fails to harm them. Ankylosaurus also charges Corythosaurus but fails to harm them too, even with Spinosaurus’ support. Spinosaurus strikes three more times and fails.
As the Orange T-Rex couldn’t remove Pachycephalosaurus from one of the objectives, and as the other was being held by the Green Centrosaurus the Greens scored a point for Domination. Making the score 2-0.
Greens go back up to 4 ferocity, Oranges only have 1.
Round 3 – Greens roll a 3, Oranges a 5.
Greens go first. Corythosaurus makes their escape by breaking from combat and running off of the board at Orange’s end scoring them the Escape objective.
So Greens win 3-0.
It was a short and sweet game that played quickly and with minimal difficulty. I think I made a couple of blunders, Tenotosaurus while being cheap wasn’t really using their main advantage of speed to help out the Oranges. They essentially sat on a back feeding point to build up ferocity. The points would have been better spent on something slower, freeing up points for faster carnivores than Spinosaurus, or a faster Herbivore than Ankylosaurus. Two Allosaurus could have overpowered the Green T-Rex and scored that Assassination objective.
Rules wise I think I’ll add a rule in for living battering rams like Pachycephalosaurus or Triceratops – giving them an additional bonus when charging. When those guys hit it should be extra hard.
Deathzap 