Shortly after the first session we met again for some more games of Rangers of Shadow Deep

After the village is safe from the zombies-and-gribblies infestation (well, bar for a house Clarissa’s muscle tore in)… and all the people who got turned into zombies. And all the others who were killed before we arrived…

…our heroes proceed to the South to further investigate the strange going-ons. How did all these honest folk stop living and became mixed up zombies?

All clues point to Giant Enemy Spiders.

In the upper edge of the table you can see the remains of the city wall. There’s a few paces of open space between us and a forest on the lower edge of the table.

Strewn across this open field there’s a number of giant spider cocoons, which may contain villagers who got spun in and may still be alive. But then there may be very alive Giant Enemy Spiders in there as well. Only way to find out is by opening them.

The objective of the game is to get over to these spider nests and burn. it. down. The faster the better, because if we take too long we’ll have to face more (all together now) Giant Enemy Spiders.

Despite my character Drago Dunkelschummler, Dark Elves master ninja, almost dying last game he’s back on his feet (and sligthly obscued by a cocoon in this photo). So are his pupils, Drixi and Draxen. Draxen got badly wounded last game and still suffers from a light poisoning. He’ll start this game with reduced health.

Right next to them you can see a small creature. That’s Distel, the Gnome sorceress. Her henchme-, henchpeop-… henchcreatures are Milo (the hooded, crouching roguish fella in the front) and her pet dragon Blautatz.

Blautatz is sitting behind our archer Clarissa Caretaker who has her beefy bodyguard buddy with her.

Here’s an overview of the early phases of the game:

The first game has been a learning experience, and this time we keep our guys together. Since time is of the essence our three teams go different paths to check the cocoons for survivors. Drago and his pupils head off to the right, Distel and Blautatz go left, with Clarissa and company following up.

Milo, Distel’s rogue pal, instantly finds an odd-looking survivor (bard, apparently) who staggers out of the cocoon. Despite a few well-meant slaps he has a hard time focusing or keeping on his feet.

This ‘sticking together with your henchmen’ thing works like a charm. We don’t find any more survivors, but make short work of any opposition we encounter. After just a few turns we arrive at the spider nests and start lighting them up.

There are some horribly mangled creatures trying to stop us, but they’re cut down on the spot by Clarissa and her bodyguard.

While Distel sets another nest on fire Milo triggers another zombie, but prevails.

In the end things work out splendidly. All the nests are destroyed, no casualties, and even the strange musician made it back home safely. We even made some loot: Drago found a potion which allows him to use a spell twice during a game.

The day went well, time to head back to the tavern for mead and medals.

I hope you enjoyed this little battle report! Stay tuned for the next adventure of our rangers!