"Stormin' The Keep - Old Skool" Topic

This month at Con on the Cob, I ran the following WEGS "Stormin' The Keep" demo. I gave the first player who showed up for the demo the option of Mild, Medium or Nasty. His Elf Ranger chose Nasty… (I loves it when they chooses the nasty…)

Within fifteen minutes, the players had their Arks (characters) up and at ‘em. This was a diverse company: two fighter-types and two spellchuckers. Kim the Elf Warrior was a WEGS vet, having had played at Origins earlier this year. Sue the Goblin Mage also had lots o' WEGS exp. So, two verified Wegshogs were in the mix.

The Arks
John the Gnobbit Sage
Kris the Elf Ranger
Kim the Elf Warrior
Sue the Goblin Mage

Side note: There are no such things as Gnobbit Sages technically as Gnobs have no spellcasting talents. As this was a demo, some rules get bent!

The Plot
This was a demo, so there was no grand plot. We didn't even give the Keep a really cool name like Shieldshallow or anything quasi-Tolkienesque. This was just a bunch of heroes storming a generic dark castle seething with enemy forces. The one rule was that, at that glorious moment between innings called the Spante, a new minion would storm out of the castle to meet/greet the heroes. An obvious strategy was for the heroes to plug up the castle door to stop the flow of minions, but they never got that far…

The Minions
(in order of appearance)

A 77 Orc Ranger (positioned in the Keep's tower)
77 Wounds, 77% Invulnerability, 77% Ruggedness, 7 Move, 7 Ranger Strength
Special Ability: Able to fire every inning.

A trio of 55 Orc Warriors
Nothing special about this trio; straight Level 5/55s.
55 Wounds, 55% Invulnerability, 55% Prowess, 5 Move, 5 Warrior Strength

A pair of 66 War Jackals (Tricksters)
66 Wounds, 66% Invulnerability, 66% Stealth, 6 Move
Allowed to Move + Attack.
Trick Attack: Move 6 + Pounce 4 (this was their power attack) and Wounds based on Move (so, 6 x D6). Trade-off for this trick attack was that the jackals had to constantly disengage their foe (allowing for swipe attacks). Otherwise these guys would be 4/44s for standard bite and claw attack.

Master Minion: 88 Ogre Warrior
88 Wounds, 88% Invulnerability, 88% Prowess, 8 Move, 8 Warrior Strength
Move + Attack.
Two actions/attacks per inning.
Warrior Strength + 4 (total base for Wounds = 12 x D6)
Blood Chip: D10 x 10 extra wounds (determined once all others are depleted).

A pretty powerful lot…

As this was a Nasty demo, I threw the players a bone and made them an offer: they would each get a 6% stat bonus for each minion they dispatched. So, take out a minion and everyone in the party gets a 6% Rank bump! This little rule tweak definitely gave the players something to strategize over. This also demonstrated how their Arks grow in normal game play. It's a perfect mechanic for a short adventure and gives a strong hack-n-slash style play bonus. A really great gimmick for demo purposes!

As usual, the game started with an Act Fast! test. Each player rolled 2D6 versus their Move score and those that scored equal or less got a preemptive strike. The Gnobbit Sage was the only one to succeed and managed to get off a Sense Mystic. The Gnobbit was ready to blast a spell!

My minions held top of the inning as they had the highest stat on the board (the Level 7-77% Orc Ranger in the tower). From my standpoint, this Orc's only worry was the Elf Ranger, the only foe that could attack him from a distance. For most of the game, I focused this Orc's efforts on eliminating the Elf Ranger (and the Elf Ranger did return the favor)!

Some highlights from the game:

The Elf Ranger took his far-off position early on, entered Sure Shot mode, and began spraying the tower with arrows in an attempt to take out his evil counterpart (which he eventually did do). In WEGS, rangers want/need range (it's a Ranger thang). By the end of the game, the Ranger had moved into the midst of the battle, dancing about the field with the Gnobbit Sage and taking point-blank shots at the last remaining minions. Nothing like seeing a ranger storming the field when the tides have turned!

The first action of the heroic Elf Warrior was to charge up to the Keep's main gate. This put her as first in line for the non-stop flow of pain that poured out of that dark maw! She had put herself on the line from the start and by the end of the game was in really bad shape (see notes below). The Elf Warrior was a returning Ark from our Origins 2008 games, so she was sitting pretty with high stats from the start. This also put her into a power position to constantly Blitz! her attacks. A very formidable Warrior!

The Goblin Mage positioned herself somewhere within spell range of the Elf Warrior and the Elf Ranger (who was about as far removed from the battle as possible). This gave her the ability to hit anything around the castle entrance with a spell, as well as have some cover from the Elf Ranger behind her. The Goblin Mage had a superbly place Flashpot that temporarily blinded the two jackals and one of the Orc Warriors. She was also devastating the Orc Warriors with Flaming Fryballs. She got things a-sizzling!

The Gnobbit Sage was a whirlwind of action, blessing the weapons of his allies, cursing the dice of his foes and maintaining a constant flow of spoints to his allies in their time of need. Sages can give away their spoints during the Spante (the game moment that occurs between innings). By the end of this game, both of the Elves' individual spoint pools had evaporated; the Sage kept them one step ahead of being bone dry. There was actually a point where the Sage gave the Elf Ranger some spoints, and then the Elf immediately took those spoints and put them back into the pot to pay for his Enchanted Weapon (which was given to him by the Goblin Mage). Nice!

These four great players kept me on my toes…

This demo was supposed to last an hour. It ended up running 2.5 hours with non-stop hack-n-slash action every step of the way! Once we got rolling, we kept rolling!

After about the fourth inning, the game started buzzing. The speed of WEGS was kicking in. Once players get a sense of the game flow, cruising speed begins. Lots of Wicked Scores and Good Shots/Bad Shots popped up. Gotta love it when the dice get wicked with it.

The "whack a minion" bonus kept the game hopping, too. Many times the players had to decide if it was worth it to focus their attacks on a weakened foe or press the attack on another that was breathing down their neck. The Orc Ranger in the tower was perfect for this reason. With 77% Invulnerability, it was tough to take this nuisance out of the game. As the Elf Ranger was the only one who could hit it (due to its position in the tower), many of the Elf's attack actions were spent on that difficult target.

The game had a definite nasty bite with the non-stop flood of minions. When the Master Minion hit the field, my 88 Ogre Warrior, the Arks were at their collective wits end and blowing Phew! points left and right; but with some very well-played spells and skills, the Arks were able to walk away in victory. As each foe gave them a 6% Rank bump, that's a total of 42% in bumps. The experienced Elf Warrior found herself using many of her 6% bonuses to buy additional Phew! points (which was the only thing that kept her one step of the WEGS Near Death Experience)!

The demo lasted about 2.5 hours and was moving at a very rapid pace toward the end. Excellent play and great dice rolls charged the game from beginning to end.

All in all, heroes were made that day.

Arks triumphant!

pictures?

OK, I will bite, what is WEGS an acronym for? Where does one purchase the rules?

Mike

My Googlefu skills brought up this gamewick.com/wegs

(Arrrg! Link problems…)

WEGS is the Wickedly Errant Game System by GameWick Games.

WEGS is a 2d6/2d10 percentile-driven system. Great for that old skool, sword-n-sorcery feel, but works really well for squirmish level, too.

And, by odd chance, there were photos/review from this specific demo posted by one of the players who demoed the game. You can find that info here:

link

Enjoy!