Current play?

[RVA_Grandpa]

Originally Posted by malchidael

As Artur was drawing his father's saber, the Orc swung his broadsword, and eviscerated poor Artur.

As Artur lay dying, his last thought was that at least his parents had one less mouth to feed......

Poor Artur. He was over matched by the more experienced orc.

A well written piece. I like seeing encounters like this published.

[larsdangly]

A word to the wise for all you folks playing Melee: if you move to two-on-two fights and add a terrain feature or two to the map (e.g., a pit or a column or something), it all gets exponentially more interesting. One-on-one fights are quick fun but the movement and maneuver side of the game tends to boil down to just a few tactical choices. When you add another combatant on each side things really open up because every move toward or away from one foe implies something about the other's ability to flank you, run past you, etc. The whole thing suddenly gets much more 'chess like'

[larsdangly]

I'm giving this thread a 'bump' back to the top page so people will have a place to post their initial experiences with actual play using the new materials.

I ran a session today for a campaign I've been running approximately weekly since the PDF's dropped last fall. So, the players and setting and rules and so forth were all well understood at this point, but this is the first session where we got to use the new materials - i.e., the MH tiles, hex maps and chits.

A bit of background: We are playing in a pretty elaborate sandbox setting. It is the accumulated product of many years of newly made material and even more material adapted from other systems, and there is so much stuff jammed in there that it sort of runs itself. Most recently, the party fled a large city where they had gotten into hot water with a couple of groups, and stumbled across my adaptation of Keep on the Borderlands. They are now a half dozen sessions into sustained raids on the Caves, and this week were trying to work their way deep into the Gnolls' lair.

It's all going swimmingly, but I was quite curious to see how game play would be effected by going all-in with the MH tile approach to assembling the dungeon on the table top in real time. It was a great experience, and I would say the larger scale of the new components was a critical part of the success. My group gathers by Skype, so it is pretty important that people be able to see what is going on. Everyone was quite happy with the end result, and had nothing but good things to say about the overall system of hex and chit components.

My one immediate thought is that it's a good thing I have a second set of MH tiles coming in hte mail, because it really requires a lot of them to assemble a significant stretch of dungeon map and leave it up while people run around. I think I won't be comfortable with my ability to do it unimpaired until I've got a third set (or fourth). This is more important than getting more chits (though we wanted some of those as well - I had to ad lib a big fight with a swarm of giant ants). So, the good news is the physical materials are awesome for facilitating play, but start thinking about getting that collection of components built up to the point where it can handle the task!

[BrianEye]

No campaigns (yet), but for receiving my set this past Friday, I've gotten my neighbor to play a few matches of Melee and taught him the rules. Also run a few solo Melee games for myself, and a few runs at Death Test (1). Having a great time!

As far as the new materials go, we loved using the new Dyson Logos artwork mouse pad mat. The new counters are a blast. I also used some of my painted minis with the maps and megahexes, and it's been fun all around.

The pregen fighters on the dry erase cards are absolutely killer - that made it so dang easy to both enlist my neighbor into playing (vs. just showing) and play.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

<Snip>

My one immediate thought is that it's a good thing I have a second set of MH tiles coming in hte mail, because it really requires a lot of them to assemble a significant stretch of dungeon map and leave it up while people run around. I think I won't be comfortable with my ability to do it unimpaired until I've got a third set (or fourth). This is more important than getting more chits (though we wanted some of those as well - I had to ad lib a big fight with a swarm of giant ants). So, the good news is the physical materials are awesome for facilitating play, but start thinking about getting that collection of components built up to the point where it can handle the task!

Great minds! ;-) (I ordered four additional sets of the Megahexes during the Kickstarter -- both because I wanted to be able to do really big rooms (and enable more tactical choices by the players and bad guys), and also because I wasn't sure how much additional support the game would get in the future...I can build some *really big* areas now!)

I just wish they'd create the giant room from the original hex sheets in TFT back in '81. I loved having that big room (all in one piece) to work with. But, with the new hex size, I doubt it'll ever happen...

Originally Posted by BrianEye

<snip>

The pregen fighters on the dry erase cards are absolutely killer - that made it so dang easy to both enlist my neighbor into playing (vs. just showing) and play.

I'll second that. They turned out to be much more useful than I thought they would! (I'll also admit I was doubtful about the idea in the first place, but I'm a believer now, that's for sure!)

Oh, and to answer the question -- just a couple of training Melee bouts thus far; teaching the system to a couple of friends to see if they're willing to engage in something bigger.

[Witchstar]

Has anyone played a game using the cardboard counters on either of the cloth play mats? Is it a satisfying experience? I’m going to try a game of Melee soon with a couple friends. I always thought the play mats were intended more for minis, but I think I’m likely to prefer the convenience and old-school feel of using cardboard counters.

[BrianEye]

Originally Posted by Witchstar

Has anyone played a game using the cardboard counters on either of the cloth play mats? Is it a satisfying experience? I’m going to try a game of Melee soon with a couple friends. I always thought the play mats were intended more for minis, but I think I’m likely to prefer the convenience and old-school feel of using cardboard counters.

I have - very satisfying experience. The playmats are great; we ran our first couple Melee games on them, and my neighbor commented on how nice they were (looking and feel).

I think the box of Melee, the deck of pregens, and the Melee cloth playmat is an absolute winner combo. My neighbor commented about how it would fit the "cafe gaming scene" that his daughter brought him to the other weekend.

[larsdangly]

Agreed, the play mats are bomb and work great with the cardboard markers. I played a couple of arena fights where I accept all the pits and such as present and then added to them a couple of short bridges from the MH tile set.

Re. big rooms, I recommend people who are going 'big' with this get a 3x4' Chessex 'megamat' with 1.5" hexes (at least, as your immediate term solution). You can get one for something like $37 on Amazon. They don't quite have the same visual and tactile appeal as the tiles because they lack good quality art features (unless you are amazing with a wet-erase marker!), and your eye always sees the whole mat rather than just the rooms and tunnels you draw on, which sort of breaks the feeling that you have a birds-eye view of your honey-comb dungeon. So, I think it is better as an add-on than as your default. But, it really solves the problem when you need to cover some serious real estate with appropriately sized hexes. Also, you can merge the Chessex mat and tiles; this is what I do at cave entrances, or when a dungeon tunnel or stair case opens into a really big room. You just lay a few tiles down to mark smaller features and use a marker to indicate edges of the bigger space they modify.

[Witchstar]

Great...I’m glad to hear the cardboard counters work well with the play mats 🙂

[JLV]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Re. big rooms, I recommend people who are going 'big' with this get a 3x4' Chessex 'megamat' with 1.5" hexes (at least, as your immediate term solution). You can get one for something like $37 on Amazon. They don't quite have the same visual and tactile appeal as the tiles because they lack good quality art features (unless you are amazing with a wet-erase marker!), and your eye always sees the whole mat rather than just the rooms and tunnels you draw on, which sort of breaks the feeling that you have a birds-eye view of your honey-comb dungeon. So, I think it is better as an add-on than as your default. But, it really solves the problem when you need to cover some serious real estate with appropriately sized hexes. Also, you can merge the Chessex mat and tiles; this is what I do at cave entrances, or when a dungeon tunnel or stair case opens into a really big room. You just lay a few tiles down to mark smaller features and use a marker to indicate edges of the bigger space they modify.

That's an excellent tip! Thank you!

(Edited to add: I just went over to Amazon, and not only can you get a regular battlemat for $22 or so, and the megamat for $39, but you can get something called a "Mondomat" (54" by 102"!!!) in the 1.5" hex/square size for roughly $80! Yipes!!!)