A Search for Our Souls

So this past weekend my Brother John came out for a short visit from Brunswick Georgia, besides taking a trip to Palm Springs to surprise our parents, my brother wanted to get in a few games while he was here. We had talked on the way out to Palm Springs about the "Old Days" of playing ADD&D with our old group and we were both looking for that sort of game to try to recapture some of the fun from our past. Well I have sold almost all of my old D&D stuff (Still have a ton of modules left thought) so this was not an option. But wait I told him, I still have another classic from the past, Warhammer Quest!

Now my brother, his wife, my wife and son as well as I had all played this pretty frequently about 14 years or so ago. The good thing was that I still had the game and all the tiles as well as the figures.

So it was settled, Warhammer Quest it would be then. But since Quest works well with at least 4 players I needed to talk my wife into playing as well as get another person to fill in so we could have 4 players. So I had asked my good friend Rob to come on over and we would show him a classic old school GW game. My wife was up for the challenge and wanted to know if her figure was still in the box (a converted Dark Elf Witch model as a wizard) and once I told her it was she was game.

So as soon as we got back from Palm Springs I told Rob to come on over & I would throw some meat on the BBQ and stock the fridge for some gaming. And with that Warhammer Quest hit the table again after many many years of hiding out in the closet. Here is a shot of the game just getting going.

Now one thing we did was run through a quick game to get us back in the mood and also to explain to Rob the rules. Needless to say, we died very quickly and we all had a good feeling for the mechanics for the game. So we decided to get a game going for real and we each took a character, my wife took the Wizard which she named Deidre, my brother took the Dwarf and named him Starky, I took the Barbarian and used an old name from our D&D days of Djon Boarhog (Don Gows famous character!) and Rob took the Elf and called him...Chuck! What the crap we all exclaimed!! A Elf named Chuck, that had to be one of the funniest names we heard and we all loved it!

For those that do not know, Warhammer Quest uses 14 Dungeon cards that you draw as you enter a new room. These could be rooms, hallways or the main objective room. But here's the catch, we you start setting up, you deal 6 Dungeon cards out, then shuffle in the Objective card into that deck of seven. Then you place seven more cards on top of that stack, so the objective card can either be the 8th card in the deck or it could be the 14th card, so you have to go through at least 7 cards before reaching the Objective room. Also each time you enter a room, you draw a Event card, which can be monsters , traps or just about anything else. This system allows the game to be run without a Gamemaster. Also to add a special quirk to the game, the Wizard must roll a D6 at the Beginning of each phase to see how much power they have that turn, if they roll a 1 on a D6, than you draw another Event card and resolve it. This usually means the wizard ends up bringing more baddies into the room your in and we like to call the power phase the "Don't Roll a 1 phase".

So the first card we draw is a collapsed passage way and once we all enter the room, I draw an Event Card, we get 2D6 Skaven which results in 8 of the little buggers to show up! Well only I can fight since it's a narrow passage and I slowly start to kill Skaven while losing some off my wounds. The very next phase my wife rolls a one and we get 6 Orcs along with 5 Night Goblin Archers! The monster start to line up outside of the room were in (which is the first room by the way) and I slowly start to die as well as kill a few things in front of me.

My wife than rolls another one and draws another Event card which is something to do with Snakes on the floor which than has us draw another Event card. We get Shifting sands and basically there is a chance for us to fall while we fight. Needless to say the Mighty Barbarian doesn't do so well and even manges to smack Chuck the Elf a few times while he is Berserk. This goes on or a few more rounds and I get down to 1 wound, which Chuck the Elf gives me a Potion to heal me back up to full points. But as luch would have it, my wife rolls another one in the Power Phase and we now get to deal with a Big Orc that Challenges me to a fight. So I take two turns to kill him and win a magical sword but my wife again rolls another 1 and we get a Minotaur to fight! We then also get a few Spiders (8 I think) as well as 7 Snotlings!

Here is a shot o my Barbarian getting man handled by the Minotaur which ends up killing me!

Needless to say, after I die, Mighty Chuck the Elf gets beaten down and we all start to die. This game lasted about an hour and a half and we all had a blast. The funnest thing was we never made it out of the first room! My brother could not believe it and told Rob that in the past we had completed many adventures and even had our Characters go up a few levels. All in all everyone had a great time and it looks like I might bust out Warhammer Quest again in the future.

So after Warhammer Quest, I busted out another old game, Formula De which is a race game.


Rob nor my brother had ever played this game & after a few instructional minutes of how to play we were ready to take on the Long Beach CA course. We all had fun racing around the track and I can't remember who won. It was about 11:45 by then & rob had to head out, but my brother, wife & I were ready to race again. So we choose Montreal for the track and each of us took 2 cars each. Well with it being late, we all got a little loopy and after my brother crashed we called it a night.

All in all we had a great night and my brother was sad that he had to leave the next day because he wanted to get in a few more games. Oh well there is always next visit kid, just don't wait so long...

TK