Adventures of Erindale - Part 1

With lockdown continuing on...maybe forever...the need to get some sort of gaming in has become more and more top of mind for me. So if all else fails, do it yourself. In other words, play a solo game. I've owned Joseph McCullough's Rangers of Shadow Deep (ROSD) since shortly after it was released and have always wanted to give it a go. There's no time like the present.

ROSD is a solo (or cooperative) miniatures games set in a dark fantasy world where the "Shadow Deep" is encroaching on civilization. You (or several of you) play a Ranger and their band of companions, playing through programmed scenarios to defeat the evil rampant in the world. Each scenario defines the game board setup, objectives, random events, clues that can be found that tie in to the multi-scenario adventure paths, treasures available to be found, and gives basic artificial intelligence on how to control the evil creatures you are fighting against. No matter how many players you have, you are all on the same side fighting against the evil.

I would be remiss to note that ROSD is a different-flavored adaptation of the same game engine that runs McCullough's well-received earlier game Frostgrave (published by Osprey), which pits wizard-led war bands against each other in a player-versus-player version of basically the same game, but in a different fantasy setting (and much more oriented toward magic).

Scenario 1 from the rulebook is called The Deserted Village, and pits a brand new Ranger and his companions against swarms of zombies and giant rats while trying to discover clues as to what happened to the villagers. The initial set up is shown below. [I had so much fun fumbling though this first scenario that I forgot to take any more pictures after this one...]

Game Setup - The Deserted Village

A few notes on the scenario (and the setup). The Ranger and his companions start in the center of the 36" square board, surrounded by zombies and rats. There are a few houses spaced around the board, and 6 clue markers (the white beads, some of which are visible in the picture). The good guys need to collect the clues while surviving the attacks of the bad guys and their reinforcements, which come on every turn in the form of random events. I painted the terrain board. The rest are houses and various other pieces from my collection. The figures at this point are almost exclusively D&D figures from the various WizKids lines, although I have a bunch of new Frostgrave figures that I am assembling and painting specifically for ROSD.

I found the rules to be simple but fun, and made for an enjoyable ~2 hours. If I knew the rules better, this probably would have been played in under an hour. The nice thing about the AI for the enemies, and the randomness of the clues and events, is that by some very simple mechanics, it removed the usual issue in solo gaming of how to play the enemy at least somewhat fairly...

As for my mini-campaign, I created a Ranger named Erindale, named for my earliest Dungeons and Dragons character I can remember (an elven ranger from the AD&D days of the late 1970's). Erindale would be supported by his companions Roderick the guardsman, Volko the archer, Irina the tracker, Thomas the recruit and Ethan "Grayblade" the rogue.

In a very quick recap of this scenario, we took some significant damage early, but then had a good run of luck in the mid- and late game, resulting in a smashing success. Nobody dropped to zero Health, and we achieved all of the scenario goals, getting experience points for those, and also killing a bunch of zombies and rats in the process.

The role playing game aspect of ROSD is that your Ranger gains experience (XP) for things that happen in each scenario, allowing you to "level up" after gaining enough XP. This in turn allows you to improve your stats, skills, etc... Your companions can also improve, but at a much slower rate (they get a point of XP if they survived the scenario without dropping to zero Health, and advance at a different rate). A Ranger or companion that drops to zero Health during the game (i.e. out of play) must roll on a chart to see if they are killed, suffer a long-term wound/effect etc...

Since we had such a successful mission, Erindale will advance from level 0 to level 1, gaining some skill points as a result. I can't wait to play the next (and final) scenario in this two part mini-adventure. Which might happen tonight. Or I might work on some terrain, or paint some figures... There are other adventure paths available after this simple 2-scenario one.

Lastly, if you want to see great examples of what ROSD is about, go to YouTube and search for Guerrilla Miniature Games, then look for his Rangers of Shadow Deep playlist and find this scenario as one of the very first videos listed).