Day 4
Encounter: Marrow’s Civil War
Tantrum is killed before he gets to take a single turn.
Boon: Gain 3 Buff HP (bonus HP above and beyond his max), which is great, and remove 1 Scar, which isn’t relevant at this time.
Lockpick attempt: First 2 locks down, 3rd remains.
On to Day 5…
Day 5
Encounter: Between A Rock And A Hard Place
I face the choice of fighting a 5-point Stone Golem, or a whole complicated thing that will end with me fighting a 20-point Golden Golem. I’ll take the 5, thanks.
We start off face-to-face, and Tantrum has initiative, 5 Dex, and 5 Atk. That’s great, but the Golem has Break, which means any Attack dice spent on injuring the Golem get thrown in the trash. The actual, literal trash, much like Gloomhaven’s rules literally instructed you to tear up your Gloomhaven cards after buying the game for $200. That definitely was NOT a symbolic icon indicating “remove this card from your current playthrough.” It definitely DID mean “tear this up right now.” lol.
Anyway, I say fuck it, and roll all 5 Attacks. Four one-damage hits and a Bones. OK. Bye, four dice.
Golem does 4 damage to me. Yowch. 3 of them were Buff HP, but still.
Round 2.
OK, check this out. Tantrum has mad Dex now. He spends 3 of it to scuttle so far away that the Golem LITERALLY CANNOT REACH HIM this turn. He then rolls his 1 Defense die (can’t roll ATK because there’s no eligible target), and gets 1 shield.
If I’d rolled a Bones, I could use the “Cool Down” Backup Plan to reduce my Rage by 1 and upgrade that Rage die to a better one. But with my Rage maxed out, I will simply zero out my Rage next turn. Sucks.
However… I think that my Dex is so high, that I can simply spend the rest of the combat running around the map until Round 6, at which point both Tantrum and the Golem will lose a Health each turn.
BUT!
Tantrum and the Golem now each have THREE HEALTH, which means we’d die at the same time and I’d still lose.
Fuck.
Golem takes a couple steps toward me.
Round 3.
Tantrum closes the distance and rolls his one remaining Attack Die (taking it from the Bones slot). Two damage. So now, if the Golem does FEWER THAN THREE DAMAGE to me (since I have a shield), I can run around the map until he dies.
And the roll… is a 3.
One health to one health. All my Attack dice are gone.
BUT. My Rage is now 1.6.
OK. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help me out.
Round 4.
I scoot away from the Golem again. We run around the map until we both get Knocked Out from Fatigue.
On to Day 6…
This entire battle sequence is hilarious to picture in my head. It’s like The Three Stooges meet Krull. Or something like that. 👍
Oh, I pop open the second Trove Loot and get a Poison Vial Kit. Forgot about that.
Day 6 is a non-combat Encounter (I’m so good at these!) called Invited for Dinner. I choose an option that lets me make a lockpick attempt for some Loot. I succeed! And I get a Prying Iron and Fortunate Discovery. Fortunate Discovery lets me unlock Tantrum’s “Horn o’ the Zerker” die. I spend my one Training Point on his “Anger Management” die. And I get that crucial Progress Point.
Going into Day 7 with 3 Progress Points (you typically get 1, maybe 2, for a successful Encounter.)
I need 3 more by the end of Day 9. Wait, the end of it or the beginning of it? I’ll have to look that up.
Plus you gotta fight the boss. Which, given the way your fights have been going so far…
Wait, so you’re doing better by losing battles than you would be doing by winning them? That seems… odd. (I have never played this game).
No, that’s 3 total so far across 6 days. He’s saying that he’ll need to successfully get progress from probably all three upcoming days’ encounters to be able to win this. Usually losing battles means no progress from that encounter.
I know, right??? I do have a good feeling about Day 7, though…
Day 7
Encounter: “An Issue of Lung Capacity”
I face an Orc Warmonger (attack reduced to 1 thanks to the encounter), an Orc Peon, and an Orc Grunt. Nice theming, randomly-shuffled Baddie Stacks. I’m fighting a whole Orc party!
I go first, so I position myself next to the Peon in such a way that the Grunt won’t reach me this round. I roll 3 damage and a Bones, killing the Peon!
Up next is the Warmonger. He rolls 1 Defense and 2 Attack dice (his 1 boosted to 2 due to the presence of another Orc on the field), and does 2 damage to me, and gets 2 shields.
The Grunt moves toward me but can’t make it.
Round 2
So, as part of the choice I made on the Encounter card, I can’t use Skill dice on the first two turns. So I actually think it makes sense to run away this turn, then dart in for an attack on Round 3, and hope I get some results that I can use to have my Skills keep me alive. OK, I scoot out of range, across the map.
Everyone follows me, but NOBODY REACHES ME. (Warmonger rolls another Shield for Defense.)
Round 3
Now I can use Skill dice.
I move one space, and kill the Orc Raider with my 4 remaining Attack rolls! OK! Now it’s me, with 2 Health, face-to-face with a 7-health Warmonger. But I can use a couple Skills! Let’s see…
My Body Count is at 2, let’s burn that and get my Health back to 4.
And my RAGE die is at 1.8! That’s the sweet spot to upgrade it to RAAAGE! (Seriously.) I do so, swapping out the RAGE for a RAAAGE.
Warmonger rolls his 1 Attack (down from 2 since he’s alone now) and rolls BONES.
Round 4
I roll my 5 Attack dice. 6 Damage, knocking down his Defense and leaving him at 3 Health.
He does 1 Damage and gets 3 Defense again.
Round 5
I do 4 damage; he’s down 1 more Health.
He does a damage and 2 shields.
Round 6
We each take a damage due to Fatigue. We’re now at 1 and 1. I roll 5 damage… and he’s dead.
I get 2 Training, 1 Progress, 1 Loot (Reflex Powder).
Just as things start looking good… I see the max Progress I can get on Day 8 is 1. That would leave me at a maximum possible Progress total of 5 at the start of Day 9… but I need 6 by Day 9, and it has to be at the beginning of Day 9.
The game is lost!
I’ll try another run with Tantrum next. Not sure if I’ll write about it.
Hey, you won a battle!
I really liked Tantrum in the couple games with him I tried. He has a lot of sustain with Body Count, and timing uses of Rage on the right enemies can swing a battle back in your favor. It feels like you over-indexed on Attack just because the upgrades would auto-succeed, without having Dexterity to back it up. Things that sap attack dice are awful in any case, though.
Are you still thinking to try solo? I’ve never played that way. Using multiple characters to cover for each other appeals to my party-based RPG senses.
Hurray!
Boo!
Hurr…ehm…boo?
boy, for the price of a PS5 you can get a copy of TMB on the secondary market. Dammit! They should license the game to somebody to produce a regular version with cardboard chips, if they don’t want to do it themself.
nevermind, continue with your adventure
By the end of Day 3 I had equal Dex and Attack, and I was pretty regularly rolling all my Attack Dice. Also, when I encountered that enemy who had Break, if I’d even had ONE MORE ATTACK DIE, I would have won. If anything, I needed MOAR Attack.
I do think I’ll keep playing solo for now.
And Too Many Bones (base game) is due to be back in stock this month at Chip Theory, @newbrof. If you don’t want to wait that long, it’s in-stock at The Game Steward. They ship way faster than Chip Theory anyway, with free shipping.
thanks, I found the game steward site. They ship international. Price is OK, but shipping + customs could add some.
Oops, didn’t know you needed international! Good luck!
Also, on the Chip Theory site, even though the base game SAYS “PREORDER” on the little menu where you select what region you’re buying it for, it also says “In stock” on the same page. I think it might actually be in stock! Something similar happened to me with Age of Tyranny and 40 Days In Daelore. Chip Theory takes a few days to ship even if things are in stock, so if you order it there and they don’t ship immediately, that doesn’t mean they don’t have it.
TMB costs 123 euros now, brand new, from CTG.
And their shipping to me is only £12.
Oddly, Plaid Hat Games were going to charge me $110 for shipping, on a $149 game (Dwellings of Eldervale)
My order receipt says 7-20 days…
I had a calm discussion with my backlog, sigh. Backlog doesn’t understand that I am a collector now.