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Saturday, October 28, 2006

Official Word: Monstrous Creatures

CreatureOn October 16, the last game-related post on the official DoW blog covered Creatures in BattleLore.

Creatures in BattleLore are rare, but dangerous. A Giant Spider will be coming with the base game, and of course the special promotional figures, the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental, also fall into this category. They are brought into play at the cost of a Lore Master level token just like Lore Masters, as described in that entry—which makes them valuable battlefield assets not to be misused!

Creature BannersCreatures have a distinctive banner shape, as shown. They are represented by a single figure with a large hex-shaped base, but considered a unit for game purposes.

Creatures are eliminated only when they receive a Critical Hit. When attacked, any dice that would have normally scored a hit are set aside and rerolled—only if the creature’s banner colour (Bonus Strikes don’t count) comes up in this second roll is it eliminated (and the victor receives both the Victory banner for the kill and one Lore token from the Lore pool).

Spider combat exampleNot only that, but Creatures can be ordered if in a different section from the Section card just played Out-of-Section Ordering at a cost of 3 Lore tokens.

Creatures are Bold, but must always ignore one Flag rolled against them (ie, they can never opt to retreat, even when this is a preferable option).

For each Flag, the Creature must retreat 2 hexes (unless stated otherwise of their summary card); risking a Critical hit if it cannot. The attacker rolls a die for each hex of retreat ground not covered, and any hit that when re-rolled hits again, the Creature is killed.

If the Creature’s retreat is blocked by enemy or friendly units, they are Trampled, and lose one figure for each hex of retreat ground not covered. This affects both units if there are two blocking a Creature’s path!

Creatures provide Support to adjacent friendly units, but never receive the benefit of Support; aand do not benefit from a Morale boost when occupying a Landmark.

Giant SpiderCreatures also have Special Powers, which are detailed on their summary card and triggered by rolling the requisite number of Lore symbols. They can Power-up by temporarily storing Lore rolled in combat and unleashing, for example, a more potent Special Power later on instead of a lesser power right away.

Web tokenPoison tokenThe Web and Poison tokens shown mark the victims of the Giant Spider’s special powers.