Strange Aeons: Cthulhu skirmish in the desert...

[nikharwood]

I've been looking for some decent Cthulhu skirmishing rules for a while now - and I think I've found them: Strange Aeons by Uncle Mike's Worldwide [here: http://strange-aeons.ca/ ]

I had a run-out of the demo rules tonight, have enjoyed reading the Beta test of Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten [Of Unspeakable Cults] & am now looking to see if I can get hold of a copy of the full rules from a UK supplier [failing at the moment...may have to order from the States]

Anyway - the sample demo pack [here: http://www.strange-aeons.ca/doc/SA_Demopack.pdf ] gives a last-man-standing scenario pitting a Cult Leader, Cultist & a Zombie against two intrepid Threshold investigators...I set up a variation: the Cult have kidnapped our heroine, taken her to their compound in the desert and are about to feed her to their zombie minion as part of a ritual summoning...our two heroes have tracked them down - in the nick of time!

[Nik rule: the Cult Leader needs to roll a 5+ at the start of his turn to 'nominate' the zombie & summon him from his pen...]

[In this first pic I've not quite managed to get the zombie in the pen yet   ]













The game starts - the Threshold duo win the roll to go first...and start sneaking towards the compound, taking care to keep out of sight:









On the Cultists turn, the Leader manages to call the zombie towards the helpless maiden:













On the Threshold turn they split up and draw beads on targets from the cover of compound buildings:



Some simply stunningly accurate and devastatingly powerful shooting takes out the Cultist and the zombie:





The Cultist Leader knows that he has no option but to try to fight his way out - he moves towards the nearest investigator and fires his shotgun - but his anger makes him miss:



In return, he is gunned down in a short-order crossfire as he struggles to reload:



Our heroes release the grateful lady:



Notes: a cracking game - some stupidly good dice-rolling on my part made for a very short game - but the mechanics are sound and intuitive [felt a bit like Cthulhu-Mordheim] - the injury table allows for different effects [ie face-up, face-down, minor injury, major injury] although all my rolls ended up as major injuries & therefore figure removal...

Great stuff though - lovely to skirmish in 10mm too - and I really do want to get the rulebook for all the lovely special rules and gribbliness - just hoping that I can source it in the UK to avoid paying US$18.95 postage!!

[Maenoferren]

looked a cool game nik

[nikharwood]

Was great - if short! I've ordered the full rules tonight & am going to try to get another game in tomorrow: probably going to blag some rules for a couple gribblies as well; I'm also going to have a bash at converting some spare figures I've got knocking around into Cultists (if I get time!) 

[Shedman]

it took me a few pictures to realise it was 10mm - excellent

[Maenoferren]

Yep me too, it registered when I realised that the young lady tied to the stake was the same as the one I painted for the competition

[Pruneau]

Looks like a lovely game indeed.  I have the Call of Chtulhu rules and I have just joined a relatively new wargame club near to Antwerp (HQ) so I might just get a new group going at last.  I was thinking about a shopping spree for Chtulhu stuff in Lon-dunn but I did toy with the idea of doing it all in 10 mm, could definitely reuse the more generic WW2 terrain like trees and houses only matter is what to get exactly.  I suppose some of the WW I stuff would work, as well as some of the fantasy stuff.  Maybe I can get a look at the booth...

[nikharwood]

The SCW range is your friend for heroes...also see my other reply  

And some civvies with shotguns in bowlers would be good too (BR 154)

[Steve J]

Having just looked at the sample rules (thanks for the link), they do look very Mordheimesque in feel which is good. The SoTR ruleset could also be tweaked for this as it already has plenty of 'weird' stuff going on. I'll be interested to see how this develops Nik and maybe even try it out next time I can get over to Chez Harwood .

[nikharwood]

You're on - it's got a nice feel to it &, based on the two simple games I've played out, is a nice in-betweener...to break up those gaming behemoths that take hours! It's nice to skirmish in 10mm too