Congo - first game and first thoughts...

So last night I managed to play a first game of Congo, kindly hosted by Eric the Shed.  We'd planned a 4-handed game which I was going to umpire as most of the others didn't have a copy of the rules.  Sadly one of our players (and the only other one who had read the rules), Legatus, had a bit of a problem when his car packed in so we were down to 3. 

We were going to play one of the scenarios included with the rules, 'The Treasure of Makoko Mbe' which is suitable for more than 2 players, so with a bit of tweaking we had columns from a European force , an African Kingdom group and a Forest Tribe column all heading for the fabled lost treasure in the centre of the table.  The players knew that the treasure was guarded by Fanatical Warriors and that there were areas of Dangerous Terrain around it.  The terrain contained counters which would indicate which corner of the table the players could exit from which incentivised entering the deadly jungle..

It proved to be a very bloody affair, not surprisingly, with the 2 African armies scrapping away with each other while the Europeans sat back and let them weaken each other before moving up and blazing away with their rifles...and if that doesn't sum up European Imperialism I don't know what else could!

An angry gorilla...

Without going into all the scenario details, Rolf's Scouts managed to flush out a very angry gorilla which proved very tricky to deal with, despatching the Scouts before eventually falling to a group of Warriors who at least had the satisfaction of carting it off as loot.  Mark's Forest Tribe Witchdoctor tried casting a spell very early on which immediately went badly wrong and he disappeared in a cloud of evil spirits.  The Europeans advanced at a very steady, civilised pace, pausing for tea and popping off the odd round at a Native.  Rolf had actually done the hard part and killed the defenders of the treasure but was largely wiped out afterwards but did rack up a decent amount of Victory Points in the process.  In the end the Europeans claimed the treasure by default as everyone else was dead or had run off.

We got a few things wrong... I forgot that muskets need to be reloaded and it took me a while to work out exactly which Totem card did what.  I also couldn't find the rules on the Red coloured Actions and what they meant...if the symbol is Red there are some restrictions on what it can be used for.  I also made some errors in the combat results which led to some extra casualties early in the game but at least this was spread equally.  The game was also only meant to last for 7 turns but we ignored this as it was our first outing with the rules.  I'm not sure we'd have got very far if we'd kept strictly to time.

The menagerie is growing...

I think everyone enjoyed the rules...there are some things to think about such as table size and characters vulnerability.  Shooting also doesn't appear to cause any Stress to groups, unlike melee which seemed a little odd.  On the whole though an excellent game and one which I suspect will get quite a few outings...if nothing else we need to rearrange a game when Legatus is mobile again!

No photos I'm afraid as I was too busy trying to cope with umpiring and making sense of the rules (not the rules fault but entirely down to my brain!) but there are some pics and a write up on Eric the Shed's excellent blog...  Shed Wars.  Now to paint up my newly arrived African Kingdoms column from Northstar Miniatures...