Had the rare privilege last weekend to travel to Western MA. to GM an afternoon of Nightwatch for a group of friends. My host informed me the last time they had all been together was at his wedding, some 25 years earlier. It was very cool and quite humbling to be a part of a reunion like that, pushing miniatures, rolling dice, and slaying the undead.
I’m also pleased to note no one’s character died while doing so, so double win there.
Most everyone in the group was a long time RPG player, but tabletop war games not so much. And Nightwatch not at all. This would be a real test of just how ‘easy to learn’ my game was. So I hammered out three simple missions, created some PreGen Hunters, and brought all the minis and terrain to spruce up the event. If nothing else, the day would serve as an excuse to hang out, eat pizza and snacks, and catch up on lost time. But I was determined to make it as fun and cool as possible.
AMBUSHED BY ZOMBIES
Never a good start, eh?
The Party was attached to a regiment of soldiers sent to investigate civil unrest in a border province. Wouldn’t you know they got ambushed while strung out in a narrow valley and crossing a river. (Hate when that happens, don’t you?)
Mission One was to defend the bridge as long as possible to allow some of the soldiers to escape to safety.
TAKE THOSE DOWN ON YOUR WAY THROUGH
Frying pan to fire, after a narrow escape the Pact fled through the hills pursued by skeleton warriors and ghouls. Battling for survival, they needed to weaken the grip of the necromantic energy choking the area by destroying two of their adversary’s vile totems. Hilarity ensued.
A LUCKY BREAK
Chopping down those totems had some effect after all. Mission Three gave our heroes a chance to strike down one of the evil mages responsible for the slaughter at the river. A mob of Zombie Brutes, a scourge of Hell Knights, and one Giant Skeleton later, they took him down.
Our heroes win and live to fight another day.
When all was said and done, evil was defeated and everyone left victorious and well-fed. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
Thanks for stopping by. If you’re interested in running the three scenarios yourself, there’s a link below to a free pdf. There’s more coming – a full campaign is in the works.
That’s it for now. Have a good weekend. Good Hunting. Game Hard.
STALKER7 
That looks like a perfect way to play Nightwatch, I hope it was as much fun as it looks.
I have been preparing an undead “Saga” force for a while now, with an eye on that force becoming the cast of villains in Nightwatch too. That PDF couldn’t have come at a better time, thanks for making it available 🙂
Glad to help. The guys seemed to have a good time. I wager it was more that they were happy to all get back together after so long.
How do you like Saga? I’m not familiar with historical games but that one keeps popping up. Any particular reason you like it? Or a favorite link to more info?
One of the guys here is keen on RavenFeast, the quick play Viking skirmish rule set. He’s been passing around the free PDF and talking up ‘how to play’ videos.
Now there’s Vikings in my painting queue.
I have only played two games of Saga so far, both with my opponent who also had not played it, so bear that in mind.
I like that the game is botj mechanically very streamlined and miniature agnostic, like Nightwatch.
Saga mechanics involve a little resource management (which sounds dull, but can be fun if done right), again like Nightwatch, but more immediately obviously like Warcry, or the Claustrophobia boardgame.
This combination of simple and streamlined rules, that are dictated by manipulating a random selection of thematic exceptions gives player agency and the ability to let the rules take a back seat early, in favour of theme driven narrative. Well thats the hope anyway 🙂
One step further out from the core mechanics, armies are split into three tiers – Hearthguard, Warriors, Levy – that use the same stats whether your army is lizardmen, goblins, elves or whatever. In addition to removing rules clutter, it fits nicely with what I like when painting: small numbers of different types of miniatures to paint, defined mainly by what I want to paint, rather than by what the rules require.
Hope that made sense!
Time to read Shadows over Sezgard before bed đź’€
Excellent. Thanks for the info. I’ll look into it.
I just bought Nightwatch and this addition will be great for introducing my gaming group to this new adventure.
Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate that.
Glad it can help. The next three missions are coming later this month.
Let me know if you have any questions.