Mammoth Hunt

I played a quick game of Paleo Diet the other day, just to while away a lunchbreak with something other than a nap.

I set up a couple of mammoths and some horses. One of the mammoths was a juvenile as I'd not really used the juvenile rules that much.

There were five hunters, with a target of six bulk. The adult mammoth is worth 4, the juvenile 3 and the horses are 2 each.

An early shot with an arrow saw the adult mammoth wounded. The archer was really just trying to drive it away from the calf.

A hunter inflicted a hit on the calf, but this brought up the wounded parent who was quite cross. The hunter was wounded in the attack.

Another hunter came up and attacked the juvenile mammoth. This obviously enraged the parent whose subsequent attack were all ineffective.

The hunters killed the juvenile and the parent ran off.

A spear-armed hunter had attacked one of the horses, and found himself in the path of the bereaved parent.

One of the hunters carried fire, and had been trying to set up a wall of flame to prevent the animals fleeing north. However the fired had kept going out and it was only now, well into the hunt, that he really got things going.

The spearman ducked out of the way of the mammoth and finished off one of the horses.

In panic the other two horses stampeded over him, injuring him.

They also ran towards the fire, panicked again and headed towards the edge of the table. If they left then the hunters would have to take on the adult mammoth; not an enticing prospect. One of the club-wielding hunters moved to drive them back into the hunt area.

They turned around and he was lucky enough to get a good strike at one, killing it.

And that was it; with two horses and a juvenile mammoth in the bag the hunters had managed a successful hunt, albeit with two injuries.

In fact they were very lucky; the adult mammoth had attacked four times with a 50% chance of scoring a hit and missed each time. At least one hunter would have probably been put out of action if the mammoth's attacks had been better.

Still, juveniles offer an interesting challenge, and I'm going to try another hunt with one for my next game.

Palaeo Diet On Two Continents

I took Palaeo Diet along to the club last night, since a couple of people were interested in trying it for the first time. Caesar decided to play as well. I sat out the first game to run it for the others, so Stuart, Bailey and Caesar ran two hunters apiece in my Australian megafauna setup.

I gave them a group of five kangaroos and three Diprotodons to hunt; they needed six Bulk, so that would be three roos or two Diprotodon, or a combination thereof.

Baily complicated things by selecting a hunter carrying fire.

They players decided to concentrate on the roos at the start, wounding one early on. The presence of fire startled them into a stampede which took them away from Bailey's hunters and towards where Stuart and Caeasar's were waiting.

They killed one, but the fire made the others very flighty, and the hunters couldn't easily get in close enough for further attacks.

However they did manage to kill a second, and it looked like we were in for a short game, since they only had to finish off the wounded one to win.

However the roos really did scatter across the board, and the hunters had to run to not only keep up with them, but also prevent them from leaving the table altogether. One of the kills got caught up in a fire. I ruled that whilst it wouldn't be destroyed it would lose one Bulk, so now the group had to kill something else to reach their target.

The Diprotodons got caught up in the general chaos.

One of Stuart's hunters was injured by an angry, car-sized, wombat, which then ran off. Meanwhile Caesar inflicted a hit on one of the other roos.

Bailey added more fire to the mix, and by now all of the roos were injured. The Diprotodons were proving tough to hunt, so the players concentrated on keeping the surviving roos in play and finishing one off.

Finally once of them got a killing blow; four roos were down, one of which had been lightly cooked, so the group got seven Bulk for one hunter injured. It was a messy, but successful hunt.

We had time for a second game, and switched to the northern hemisphere. This time we played the Men Who Would Be King, a competitive scenario in which individual hunters are vying to lead their tribe by proving who is the best hunter. I took part in this one. 

There were two small groups of grazers (some birds and some horses) as well as a cave-lion. Whoever struck the killing blow on the cave-lion within eight turns would be chief. If no-one had managed that, then the chief would be whoever had killed the most grazers.

Stuart too a club-armed hunter. He moved onto the board and startled the grazing birds, who ganged up him, attacked him and, in a display of unlucky die rolls, killed him.

And then there were three.

Bailey and I had hunters with missile weapons. Bailey shot at a couple of horses, wounding them and causing them to run towards Caesar's spear-armed hunter. Caesar killed one, but all of this activity had attracted the cave-lion, who attacked his hunter. But Caesar managed to seriously wound the lion as well!

With Caesar looking close to a win, Bailey and I made lots of noise to antagonise the predator, which caused it to attack Caesar's hunter with great ferocity, killing him.

And then there were two.

You aren't allowed to directly attack other hunters in this scenario, but you can put them in harm's way. I drew the lion after me, then ducked behind Bailey hoping that it would attack him. It chose to stand and roar. Bailey's hunter backed off and finished off the lion with a lucky shot.

So Bailey was the new chief!

Both games were great fun, and very lively and I think the new players enjoyed their sojourn in our prehistoric past.

Another Hunt Down-Under

I decided to use a larger group of my Australian Aboriginal hunters for my latest Palaeo Diet game. This time six hunters were looking to pick up six Bulk of food. On the table were three Diprotodons and five kangaroos. A Megalania was also lurking about.

I chose three spear-armed hunters, one with a ranged weapon, one with a club and one with fire. The latter was to keep the predator away.

As is standard, the hunters spread out ready to take up positions where they could split one Diprotodon from the group for their first kill. Then they'd either pick off some roos for the rest or take another giant wombat.

They pelted the Diprotodons with rocks and two of them shuffled off out of the way. The kangaroos were strangely unconcerned.

The hunters isolated a Diprotodon, and attacked, but they couldn't seem to wound it. The Dipotodon got tremendously angry and charged.

In fact it was so angry that it charged and crushed one of the hunters.

A second Diprotodon also wounded one of the hunters. This group was particularly stroppy.

The hunters continued to throw spears at the first Diprotodon, and seriously wounded it. This only seemed to make it even more angry, and it charged again, wounding one of the hunters.

The Megalania was very excited by all of the bloodshed, and came over to investigate, but was driven off by the fire-wielder.

The Diprotodon crushed another hunter.

The Megalania continued to be frustrated, unable to close up on all of the tasty meals that were available because of the pesky fire-user.

The club-armed hunter moved up to finish off the Diprotodon. He missed and the Diprotodon killed him as well.

And it kept attacking. With three of the six hunters now out of action, I decided to call it a day for this hunt. It was a complete failure.

The final positions. Three hunters were down and a fourth was injured. I'd sent the hunter with boomerangs out to see if he could take down some roos, but he never got the chance.

So a terribly short game, despite all of the moving parts involved.

Aggressive Outfolk

Having painted them I wanted to get my new Outfolk onto the table, so I set up a game of Paleo Diet. I was a little over-ambitious with the scenario, however. I had two groups of hunters, both after a single mammoth in the centre of the table - the tribe which made the killing blow would be the victors. I added in some wild cattle for the fun of it and, of course, a group of opportunist Outfolk

One tribe - the Red Heads - closed in on the mammoth.

Or most of them did. One of them, armed with a stone-axe, went hunting the Blondes. 

And killed one.

Another Blonde rushed over to avenge his comrade and was also killed.

This fighting attracted the Outfolk, who were now close up to various hunters and looking very threatening.

The mammoth (remember him) became very agitated and attacked one of the Blondes. The Blondes were not having a good day.

Their day got worse when the Outfolk attacked their slinger.

The Outfolk were now getting very aggressive, and the hunters of both tribes were devoting most of their attentions to fending them off.

Just to add to the fun, one of the cattle decided there was too much noise and movement and charged a Red-Head. 

By now both tribes were down to two hunters apiece, and the Blondes didn't have anyone unwounded.

Both tribes withdrew. The mammoth was going to be too hard to hunt in these circumstances.

There was plenty of action in this game, but at the end of the day it was all a little unsatisfying since it turned into a massive brawl. Probably not my best designed Palaeo Diet setup.