Like a lot of you I've been playing and hobbying Joseph McCullough's Rangers of Shadow Deep lately. For the few of you who are unfamiliar with RoSD, I can't recommend these rules enough, especially during the current lockdown (though it's much more fun if there's a group of you playing). They have rekindled my interest in the hobby which was waning of late. There's not a huge amount of miniatures required to start a game (though the number soon builds up if you intend on playing the various campaign missions), the space needed is generally quite light (a 3ft square will usually suffice) and the terrain can be as complex or as simple as you like.
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Your humble narrator checks the rules, while our adventurers arrive at the Infected Forest.
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The rules are simple enough not to get in the way, but complex enough to feel involved. They sit happily between board game style fun and RPG style immersion. And once you're all set-up it's no great stretch to knock out a few missions at a sitting.
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| You can have your table's as busy or a simple as you like. |
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| To date we've opted for chaotically busy. |
The other great thing is the diversity of miniatures each player brings along, we've had vintage citadel, Mithril, Northstar and more all romping about on the tabletop. And though the later missions call for copious amounts of Gnolls, there's no reason why you can't proxy in any goblins, orcs, skaven etc that you've already painted up.
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| Our heroes pose for an oil colour. |
There's also a high replay value to the missions, and the card and dice driven random events keep things fresh and can lead to some memorable encounters. We found the last survivor of a terrorised village cowering behind some junk, only to watch him get devoured by a hungry, giant rat that spawned in the building next to him. And happening the same turn that John's ranger got taken out by 3 of the buggers, we all left with a new sense of respect for our rodent foe.
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| John's ranger about to accumulate some serious wounds before the arrival of his dwarven paladin. |
So it's a thumbs up from me for Rangers of Shadow Deep and I'm glad it's getting the support it deserves. The pictures on this post were all taken by my cousin, more of his excellent work can be seen here:
https://www.reddit.com/user/HankMoustache/
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