Go wild in the country...

I managed to drag Legatus along to Guildford this week for a game... it must be around a year since we last managed this!

This time we’d planned a game of In Her Majesty’s Name as he has been painting the Servants of Ra set and these match nicely against my Scotland Yard Squad.
 

I haven’t played this for some time and all my previous games had been set in an East End type setting using some warehouses and townhouses I’d built using the printable buildings from Stoelzels Structures [link].  When I got the box out of the loft earlier in the week I realised that these were actually crap!!  Not the fault of the printed material I hasten toadd, they’re really nicely done, but solely down to a bit of wear and tear and mainly my very poor construction skills!  When I mentioned this to my son he tactfully commented   “Yeah.. I’d always thought they were rubbish but didn’t like to say!!”... Cheers son!
 

A bit of head scratching ensued before I came up with scenario B... a trip to the country for the boys in blue.  The scenario presumed that the evil Egyptian cultists were hiding out in a remote country inn, using it as their headquarters for some kind of nefarious plan, and a police raid was in about to be launched on the unsuspecting Servants of Ra.

 

IHMN games are usually based on a 3’x3’ table so nice and compact: a few woods and hedgerows around the edge and a barn, pigsty and the Inn made up the terrain.  The cultists were skulking around the Inn amongst an assortment of boxes and barrels when the police arrived at the table edge, whistles blowing and shouting “You’re nicked sunshine, etc!”.  

It's alright...we'll be perfectly safe behind these crates....

There were also an assortment of Victorian townsfolk, taking in the country air and a refreshing pint and seeming oblivious to the strange men in robes and hoods milling about.   They moved randomly throughout the game although a few of the Gentlemen seemed strangely drawn to the scantily clad assassin!

 

The police split into 2 groups with one group heading for the Inn and taking cover in the woods, while the Sergeant led a squad round the back of the barn.  The Cultists formed a firing line with their handful of armed figures [most of them only have clubs] behind some crates while their leader, Akhenaton headed off to tackle the Sergeants squad.  The Chief Inspector coordinated the police firing which quickly took down most of the minor Servants of Ra and all was looking promising for the police.  

Special Branch take up position in the woods

 

At this point the other squad ran into Legatus’ secret weapon... a giant sword and shotgun wielding Nubian, who quickly dispatched the Sergeant with a blast from the gun!  Luckily Dr Watson was on hand to run over and apply some bandages and smelling salts and he was back on his feet next turn.... no sign of Sherlock though....

Baaaa.....

 

The revived Sergeant led a charge at the Nubian which descended into a mass brawl with police Constables and Cultists being drawn into the fray.  This carried on for several turns with no one gaining the upper hand until Akhenaton armed with an assortment of magical dooh dahs waded in... he’s very much the heavyweight of the Cultists with a magical sword, armour and a range of mind-bending spells that make him very hard to deal with.  He was also joined by the scantily clad assassin Zairah who is also pretty fearsome, very fast and armed with poisoned daggers.  Between them they began slicing their way through the police ranks.

Excuse me sir...do you have a licence for that sword...

 

That'll be a 'no' then...

 

At this point one of the townsfolk... a mild mannered little old lady... threw off her disguise to reveal herself to be none other that Sherlock Holmes himself, and threw her/himself  into the melee!

The game ended with a properly cinematic finish with all the bit part characters having been dispatched [and sadly Dr Watson] and a final duel between the Akhenaton and Zairah versus Holmes and the Chief Inspector.  Unfortunately the only real way to defeat the cultist leader is to gang up on him and by this point I’d lost all my PCs so didn’t really have much hope, and sure enough both of my remaining figures fell to the Servants of Ra.  I had one remaining Special Branch officer who survived by running off into the woods!
 

All in all a great game... the magical powers of the Chief Cultist mean he’s really hard to take down with mobbing him with figures and I couldn’t get enough people in place at the right time to do it.  Holmes is also tough but could only hold out for so long against the attacks before succumbing.

I used a couple of rules that are contained in the Heroes, Villains and Fiends supplement that came out at the end of last year.  If you’re a fan of IHMN this is a useful addition to the rules.  As well as a few additional Talents and abilities, there are a load of suggested stats for animals etc as well a wide range of new factions.  These include groups from Europe, the Americas [broadening out the scope for more Wild West based games], and Africa: the latter has a lot of potential to include wild Cannibals and brave Explorers and Jungle Lords of course.
 

A further supplement is due out later this year dealing with the Far East and Pacific.

 Many thanks to Stephen for an excellent game, even if the forces of Law and Order were vanquished!

On a completely unrelated note, last year my painting schedule was severely interrupted by the acquisition of a dog, Trigger.  Well... we’ve gone and done it again!  Meet Lizzie...