Urg the Hungry, Rodan the Thinker and the survival of the tribe

We sat down to do some fine tuning of the predator mechanics for Palaeo Diet: Eat or be Eaten this week. The first game saw a hunting party of five hunters and a hound trying to secure 6 'bulk' worth of kills in order to feed the tribe. We divided the party between two of us and decided to roll for character traits for one hunter each. 

JB took Bow, the archer, and his trusty hound, Hound. He also had Bow's spear carrying twin brother Rodan. He rolled for Rodan's trait, and discovered that he was a Thinker. Thinkers are useful tribe members and can gift successful activation to other hunters within line of sight.

I took Urg, Ogg and Ferg. Ferg carried fire, while the other two were spearmen. Urg rolled for a trait ant ended up Hungry. Hungry hunters make uncontrolled movement towards wounded models and risk breaking cover completely when the first model on the table is killed.

We deployed with Bow, Hound and Rodan along one edge (the left of the photo above), while Urg and Ogg deployed in the centre of an adjacent board edge (bottom of photo), with Ferg in the corner (off screen to the right). The centre of the table had a herd of grazers - our intended prey - while a pride of lions watched from a nearby hillock, and a bear did something nondescript in the woods.

In the opening couple of turns, we set the pattern that would continue throughout, rolling terribly for activations and spooking the all too timid grazers with every bad roll. While most of the hunters tried to form a perimeter around the goats, Ferg the fire guy loped up the board edge, attempting to start fires to drive the prey back toward the waiting hunters.

An isolated ibex looked like a ready meal for Hound. Unfortunately, Hound rolled no better than the hunters when making its attacks and all the commotion started to attract the unwanted attention of the bear and the lion pride.

Cornered, the wounded goat rams Ogg the Nondescript, catching him off guard and delivering a painfully placed wound.

Meanwhile, bear met hound with (ultimately) predictably bad results for Hound.

Both Hound and the bear received wounds. By this stage, most of the grazers had been wounded once, but the hunters could not land killer blows. Ferg was doing a great job stopping the herd from stampeding off the table, but with every additional wounded beast, the lions crept closer.

In the end, after far too many attempts, our hunting party did manage to kill three of the grazers, but not before the already wounded Hound (savaged by the bear) was trampled under the cloven hoves of stampeding goats. All the fresh blood drew the predators in, but Ferg's timely arrival with his fire was able to shoo away all those pesky carnivores. 

So, in the end, the hunters had one wounded party member, and 8 bulk worth of meet (because why waste good dog meat?) - a secure victory for the tribe!