Rangers of Shadow Deep Playthrough (Mission 2, Scenario 1) | The Bridge Guards Battle Report

Always Board Never Boring has finally managed to find the necessary time to shoot the third part of his ongoing Rangers of Shadow Deep campaign. This scenario is The Bridge Guards, the first scenario in a new mission called The Beacon Tower. Tsubasa and his motley crew of heroes need to sneak up on a group of goblins and evil soldiers (dutifully standing in for gnolls) to make their way across a bridge. Will they be spotted?
Please note, a battle report of this nature takes a long time to shoot and involves a lot of filming, retakes, narration, and editing, so unfortunately occasionally a few errors may slip through. Here's a handy list of errors in this video (besides occasionally getting a character's name wrong):
1. Throughout the whole game, Always Board only applies +1 to fight rolls made by goblins, but it should actually be +2. This only has an impact on one fight, at 00:39:58, when Johan should have taken three wounds instead of two. In all other cases, the heroes would have come out on top anyway.
2. At 00:43:02 Always Board's brain fell out and he forgot he was rolling a D20 rather than a D12. This meant it should have been Johan who set off the booby trap. Fortunately, the trap failed to wound, so this error didn't have an impact on the game.
3. At 00:46:01 Johan and Tsubasa group activate. There's no need for them to do that. Johan could have activated independently after Tsubasa, allowing him to move twice. Again, this didn't actually matter to the outcome of the game.
Special note: For the mechanical bird to make it off the table moving six inches per turn, it needs to arrive on the board as the first or second event. This makes it almost an inconsequential thing in most games, so Always Board recommends letting it make a double move each turn (moving nine inches) rather than a single move of six inches. This makes it much more of a threat. To compensate for this, in the next scenario we're going to apply the punishment that normally only applies if the bird makes it off the table. It seems only right, as we failed to kill the silly flapping thing during the course of the game.
#RangersofShadowDeep #battlereport #letsplay
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[@matthewmcfadden6332]

I really dig your narrative play through. Makes me excited to get back to Rangers

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks so much. I love Rangers.

[@Trencher1375]

This was great! Awesome table and fantastic miniatures!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks so much. I'm glad you liked it.

[@nickgraney2119]

Great installment, and everything seemed to go your way, making short work of the enemies. Rain was an ally this mission (vulture apart), and some bungling enemies really helped. I love Rangers, I think my favourite part is how the little actions translate into a riveting story line. What a great game!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks. I feel the dice gods were incredibly kind. The number of times the enemies rolled an 18 or 19 but my bonuses meant I still won was incredible. Shame that little vulture escaped though. I'm going to play the next scenario imposing the punishment for the vulture escaping as I feel there's no way I could outrun it all the way to the beacon! Rangers really is a lovely game, with fantastic stories to tell. I'm interested in Lasting Tales as well, as that seems to be quite similar and might be worth a closer look.

[@the5thmusketeer215]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring The reason that most of your die rolls were so mightily blessed by the Dice Gods in this scenario, was because you placated them with your thoughtful gift of a luxury wooden Dice Tray in their honour….. ✨🎁 ✨ A little Bribery & Corruption can go a long way towards winning the favour of some of the lesser deities… those whose ethereal influence is felt within the twin realms of Luck & Fate… But their favour can only ever be gained *temporarily* of course & can never be relied upon... Their affections are nothing if not fleeting, fickle & capricious - as every tabletop Warrior, Adventurer & Gambler knows only too well; especially those who have risked & squandered much upon the turn of a “Chance” Card… or forfeited their very Life because of a single, “luckless” throw of the Dice….. 🎲 🎲☠️ 🪦

[@ghostinquisitor7743]

Hi there, I've wanted your Battle Reports for Rangers of Shadow deep and its been fun! I'll like the way you [planed out the backstory of each characters and how you would role-play them. Favorite characters? The UN-appreciated Trio (so far) The reckless, but strangely, turn-out "would be" Rogue Assassin Hansel. The Virgin, but not so inner cent, Lady Greta who is clearly smarter than her little brother (or are they twins?). And their Lamp-head of a "so-called" Guardian... who has a big heart. Looking forward to the next battle report :)

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Hansel is certainly having something of a hero's journey. Thanks for watching the series. I did film the next installment, but unfortunately made a pretty serious blunder that only came out in editing, so I have to reshoot the whole episode. Hopefully I will be able to get around to that soon.

[@wargamesgeek1334]

Really enjoyed this, thanks very much 👍

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks. These are always fun to play through.

[@fortesqueca]

Good stuff! Too bad Slambo couldn't see your group behind that helmet of his.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

He was too busy disciplining the staff.

[@TheNoobPainter]

Johan must have been annoyed at getting upstaged by that little twerp Hansel in the town and decided to finally even the score.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Yeah, he clearly decided it was time to up his game.

[@stuartward6067]

Once again love the story telling element of the game.👍🏻

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Rangers always manages to create little situations that make me laugh.

[@ericwitmer]

As soon as the alarm is raised all enemies know you are there and will move towards the nearest player model, the sergeant and archer should have been causing trouble for your company

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Once the alarm is raised, you lose the bonus to stealth and you no longer roll to see if you get to move a guard each turn, other than that, enemies will continue to operate under the normal conditions. The sergeant didn't have line of sight to any of my characters, so as per the activation rules, moves randomly because there is no target point for this scenario.

[@ericwitmer]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring the target point for that mission is your warband, they are supposed to be preventing you from completing your mission

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

The scenario specifically states there is no target point. When the alarm is raised you lose your stealth bonuses, but the guards still need line of sight to come towards you. Effectively, they know someone is in the area so their guard is up, but they don't know exactly where so they have to wander around looking until they get eyes on you. You could adjust the rules so they will make a beeline to the closest character once the alarm is up, and that might be an interesting way to scale up the difficulty a bit.

[@ericwitmer]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring you could also have them move towards the bridge if they can't see any warband members, then they could be seen as protecting an objective.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@ericwitmer That would work. I think next time I play this scenario I will play that the sergeant doesn’t move off the bridge until he can see an enemy, then you will get a more satisfying boss fight showdown near the end.

[@lergof0202]

When’s the next episode coming?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I'm hoping it will be in July. The Rangers playthroughs require all the stars to align for me to have the time to set it up, play it, and edit it. It will definitely happen as soon as I get the chance, though.

[@lergof0202]

Any update on the next mission?