Doctor Who - Once Upon a Time in the West
Synopsis
The Angels have set up a farming system to sustain their need to feed off time displacement. They take people from 2013 and transplant them in a remote mining community in the American old west circa 1880. The Doctor has picked up the distortion in time and has tracked the Angels back to 1880 and set off to investigate and rescue the unfortunate victims.
Cast
The Good
The Doctor, Amy and Rory
The Bad
8 Weeping Angels guarding the flock and feeding.
8 Angels reinforcement at shift change.
The Ugly
Perhaps a bit harsh, but ...
The Sheriff, 2 deputies and 6 posse. Armed.
10 towns folk displaced in time.
6 miners from 1880 heading to town in a wagon to seek their fortune.
I used the statistics in the Doctor Who rules published free by Crooked Dice. I used the Pirate Captain as the Sheriff but the gun rules for pistol, and the pirate stats for the Deputies and Posse, again using the relevant rule for whatever they were armed with.
I could have used the displaced in time ruled from 7TV but I thought that would slow things down.
Location
4 x 4 board, although I dressed a 6x4 board the play area was restricted to a 4x4 section. The action takes place in a town with a main street and square with sides streets running off it.
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| The edge of the play area is the fencing middle of the picture. The fields are not in play. The majority of photos are dark and moody. I love to say this was by design but I'd in fact knocked the flash off by accident. |
The Tardis and the Doctor and friends start in a yard off the square.
The Sheriff and 2 deputies are in the Jail on the square
The Posse are in the Saloon on the square
The townsfolk are scattered about the town getting on with their new lives.
The Angels start in the Graveyard and the large church.
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| The Angels in statue form around the graveyard and in the grounds of the large church. |
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| The mining town |
And ... Action
Initiative
is determined as normal in all turns
Special Rules
The coach with the miners from the 1880s begins moving and will arrive at the beacon D3 once half the townsfolk are safe in the Tardis or when the night shift Angels are down to half strength.
The Angels have set up a beacon in the town square to enable them to always return to the right place either with food or collect new food.
Destroy the beacon by the Doctor passing an intelligence test while in base to base contact with beacon.
Rory has a Laser blaster in addition to his Last Centurion stats.
Only the Sheriff, Deputies and Posse can use guns.
The Doctor. Amy and Rory need to convince people to escape in the Tardis. This requires an intelligence test.
When the Sheriff is convinced his Deputies will follow. The Deputies or Sheriff need to convince 1 of the posse for all of them to be convinced. They will all now follow the Sheriff either to fight Angels or seek out towns folk and convince them to head for the Tardis.
The Doctor, Amy or Rory need to be at the Tardis door to let towns folk in.
End Credits
Extra saved (Sheriff/Deputies/Towns folk) +1 VP
(inside the Tardis for the Doctor or still on the board to temporally displaced by an Angel).
Enemy Stars/Co-Stars with Statuses at end of game +1 VP
For Each enemy Star or Co-Star with any Statuses at the end of the game
Enemy Shaken + 2 VPs
Opponent's force reduced to 50% models or less
Enemy Wiped Out + 2 VPs
Opponent's force reduced to 25% models or less
Scenario Objective Achieved Beacon destroyed + 4 VPs
The Game
I umpired while the eldest nephew took on the role of the Angels, and the youngest commanded the Doctor and companions.
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| The Mexican part of town. |
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| 2 town ladies praying in the large church for a way back home. |
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| The residents of the hotel |
Turn 1
The Doctor won the initiative and everyone trotted off to chat to the man in charge of the town, the Sheriff.
Using the Angel rules a dummy token and a token representing the real Angel were deployed and moved on the board. The Angels opted to spread out throughout the town so that they could react to whatever these strangers may do.
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| The Doctor |
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| Blink and it's the Doctor again |
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| The Doctor and companions have arrived in the Tardis in a yard off the main square. |
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| The Sheriff chilling with his Deputies |
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| The individuals are towns folk and the group are the Posse carousing in the Saloon. |
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| Main street with the beacon statue visible in the square. |
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| The Doctor and companions reach the Sheriff's |
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| The Angels' first move both dummy and real counter deployed |
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| The Angels moving out through the town |
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| Angels move towards the Doctor. |
Turn 2
The Doctor dusted himself off and walked in to the Sheriffs office and explained his plan to rescue everyone. A successful opposed intelligence test later and the Sheriff and his Deputies were activated and all 3 sprinted across to the saloon to round up a posse. The Deputies stayed outside facing possible threats and trying their best not to blink.
Amy and Rory headed off in the opposite direction to the Sheriff moving towards the rear of the jail. Both facing different directions eyes staring for any threat.
The Angels moved closer to this disturbance in their town. One attacked Amy. Tension was high could this be the first blow against the Doctor's plan. Bad luck for the Angels the attacking token turned out to be a dummy. It's seems this method of concealing movement works for both sides!
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| Angles move in on Rory and Amy |
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| Store owner |
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| The Sheriff convinces the Posse |
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| Amy and Rory attract Angel attention as the Deputies on the other side of the square guard the Saloon door. |
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| Mexican town with lots of possible Angels. |
Turn 3
The first Angels are revealed as they come in to line of sight of the Deputies and Amy. The Doctor plays an event card and the Angel that had moved to block the escape to the Tardis is turned in to member of the towns folk.
The Sheriff declares he's going to focus on taking out Angels rather than saving the towns folk. While he convinces the Posse the Deputies move to see the approaching Angel creeping up on the Saloon and open fire causing it to flee (removed from game). Only 6 more Angels to go.
Rory fires his Laser pistol at Angel moving up to attack and obliterates it. He uses his next action to move after Amy who decides to check the building next to the saloon for towns folk. The Doctor races to the next building along from Amy's. At last a systematic search of the town begins.
The Angels are now down to 5. Surprisingly they become more cautious, helped by the fact they majority are on the other side of town away from the gun totting Sheriff and his Posse. 1 Angel enters the second saloon next to the small Methodist church getting ready to spirit the owner away. A 2nd moves up to support.
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| Angels begin to be spotted and dummy counters removed. |
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| 3 Angels in sight, don't blink now! |
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| 3 dead Angels later. |
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| Juan is surprised to find Juan by the Tardis. |
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| A member of the Posse follows an Angel to the back door on the other saloon. |
Turn 4
The Doctor still holding the initiative convinces his stall holder to flee to the Tardis. The peon who'd replaced an Angel gets the drift of what's going on and tries to get in to the Tardis. Rory realizes the problem and heads to the Tardis to open the door.
The Angel in the second saloon is gunned down by a Deputy, and some of the Posse take care of it's partner closing in on the back door. The Angels are now down to 3. The dice is rolled for the second shift and the miners' wagon. They will arrive on turn 7.
Amy fails to convince her store holder that she can get him safely home in the Tardis.
More of the Posse pour out of the saloon and cross the square spotting another two Angels heading for the Tardis, and end their attempt in a hail of bullets. The Angels are now down to 1.
In the Angels turn the last one launches an attack on Rory and fails.
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| The Doctor convinces a shop owner he can get him home. |
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| Amy on the other hand does not |
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| Show down by the Methodist church |
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| Rory is attacked from behind! |
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| The Angel didn't stand a chance |
Turn 5
The Angels gain the initiative and fail to kill Rory, who turns and blasts it to smithereens.
The Sheriff heads for the Hotel to convince the occupants to flee. He discovers on a D6 that they are scattered within the building. Amy convinces her stall holder to move. The Doctor enters the bakery and discovers it's empty.
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| Rory turns to face his attacker. The Posse gathers in the square. |
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| Amy succeeds and the shop owner scarpers towards the Tardis. |
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| Everyone moves towards Mexican town and the Tardis |
Turn 6
The Sheriff convinces the receptionist of the hotel and moves on to find the guests. Half the posse gathers around the square and the rest head into the Mexican part of town looking for fellow townsfolk.
Rory opens the Tardis and Juan is the first to safety, followed by 2 of the Posse.
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| A crowd gathers at the Tardis door. Juan in the lead. |
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| Rory uses one action to move and one action to open the Tardis |
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| The wagon enters the board |
Turn 7
The wagon arrives as do the second shift of Angels. Now the Angel's habit of 'quantum locking' each other if they are in line of site of another Angel had already meant the game had been very tricky for the eldest nephew, never mind that they died easy, the set of 8 Angels in close proximity proved problematic. My original, not thought through idea was that they appeared around the beacon looking out. In the end we settled for deploying around the square away from the Posse but near the beacon and wagon.
Has it happened the Doctor was next to the beacon and was attacked twice and survived. The Angels difficulty in moving was also compounded throughout the game by very bad dice in attack.
Just ahead of the Doctor was Amy who was also caught out by the second shift's arrival. One got close enough to attack and for the first and only time in the game a good guy/girl was spirited away by an Angel. Rory was not impressed.
At this step in the game it was realized that no other Angel could get at the Doctor due to the danger of 'quantum locking'. In fact it was becoming difficult to work out how to move the Angels towards their food without locking each other, plus we now knew that since some could be seen they could easily be shot. The heart went out of the Angels and we called it a day.
Victory to the good guys!
Technically on points the bad guys won at that point in the game, because the beacon hadn't been destroyed and the Doctor was trapped till someone destroyed the attacking Angels. Plus the majority of the towns folk were not in the Tardis. However we all agreed the Angels were just going to get mowed down and with that decision game over.
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| The first person to leave the Hotel appears on the right while the Posse fan out to alert the rest of the towns folk. |
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| Rory opens the Tardis |
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| The wagon arrives and sets off the beacon |
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| The Beacon signals the second shift of Angels to take the miners to a new time period for them to feed on. |
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| The remainder of the shift line the square |
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| The face off that ends the game |
Epilogue
Not the most exciting game we've played. The Angels are tough to play and the scenario really needs to allow their strengths to come to the fore. Clearly this game didn't really work as planned. In my defense I thought the goodies would split up and gather the towns folk at the Tardis as per the scenario objective and this didn't happen. The goodies decision to gang up and shoot at the Angels worked brilliantly, and nullified the Angels being spread out to catch the fleeing towns folk. The fact that the Angels couldn't use their numbers in a swarming attack meant they could be picked off easily by groups.
The Doctor defeated the Angels this time but they'll be back after all they have all the time in the world to play with. Plus they still have Amy!
Nice batrep. Will be interesting to see what happens next time with the Angels using different tactics
ReplyDeleteGreat game and fabulous report - are all those 'useful' boxes filled with miniatures.
ReplyDeleteNow that's a batrep, excellent read.
ReplyDeleteYes all those useful boxes are filled with miniatures. Not all are 100% full but most are, and the majority are 25/28mm. Since I inherited my Dad's collection who was also an avid wargamer all those boxes represent around 40 odd years of collecting. Some of the WW2 tanks not in these boxes go back further in time to the mid to late 1960s or early 70s when my Dad gamed with his brother. The collection spans from Ancients to Modern. The Modern period is all pulp game figures. The core of the collection is second hand painted armies purchased back in the days when you could buy stuff for casting price or less. Even though I am slowly replacing the older figures with modern ones I haven't got rid of the old ones, mainly because you never know when you may need them but also some are filled with great memories. Since I keep buying new periods as well as updating old, or filling gaps in older armies the less played veterans will eventually be sold, much to my wife's delight.
ReplyDeleteFantastic looking table, I do like your buildings! Very nice report...
ReplyDeletePhil.
This is a great article. To clarify, what tabletop rule set did you use? I'd love to do something like this.
ReplyDeleteI used the Doctor Who Miniatures Game rules or DWMG for short. These are free as are all the scenarios and stats that you can get from the DWMG website, there is a link to this on Crooked Dice's website which I have a link for on the right. The free stats allow to play all the goodies and baddies right up to the last series, but not including the one currently being aired. The rules are the same as 7TV, but with a Doctor Who flavour. 7TV rules are more versatile for recreating your favourite TV shows or whatever your imagination produces. The DWMG character cards you can download worked great in our game and saved time looking up the stats.
ReplyDelete