Back to Back Gaming Weekends - Report

Last weekend Mike and I drove down to Philly for our monthly (most of the time monthly, sometimes a bit longer) Pathfinder RPG session.  My friend Jason runs this one, and the group consists of three guys I know well, and two I just recently met (through this game).  Regardless, gamers who play for the love of the game and the experience of gaming can have fun with anyone.  This campaign has been no exception, we have a blast playing.  We don't have very long sessions, usually about 5 hours, so we don't make a lot of ground in terms of actually completing the adventures, and our previous session left us on the verge of a big battle.  WE accumulate experience on an encounter basis, and had recently leveled up.. however. some of our characters are quite hasty.. and often don't like to wait for dawn when their cleric needs to pray and attain his new spells (or let our sorcerer rest to do the same)...so we went into this battle with one level 1 spell to back us up... 

We had been exploring and "cleaning out" a large goblin stronghold... and this big battle was the war chief's throne room.. they had a bunch of fodder goblins, a couple class-goblins, a "bard," a few goblin dogs, and Ripnugit, the goblin war chief, riding his giant gecko... the battle did not go great for us... long story short our Rogue died, and all but one of us were below 0 HP.  Our archer managed to constantly back pedal enough to drop the last enemy, grab some healing potions, and keep the rest of us from dying. He had 5 HP when the last goblin dropped... exciting battle to say the least, we rested and recuperated, actually took the goblin war singer as a prisoner and guide, and continued out exploration into the underground levels of the fortress.  Much fun was had by all...

Then just this past weeked, I drove over to central PA, to see (what I consider) my core gaming group, and my best friends (one in the same).  I was the first to get there, and hung out with Dave for the evening until the other boyos arrived.  We played a great game of Warmachine.  I tried out the full might of my Fiona the Black Pirate army (750 points).   Fiona is the reason I decided to make a pirate army in the first place.. who doesn't like evil red-headed pirate chicks?  She has really great spells, cool fluff  (back story), is a very nice model, and very fun to play.  Here's a pic of the Privateer Press studio painted model, and her description:

This bloody Thamarite pirate takes to the battlefield completely free of quaint notions of morality and justice. Surrounded by a worshipful cabal of Sea Dogs who obediently follow her, Fiona rushes into the fray eager to press the attack personally. She has the power to dominate lesser minds while consuming her stronger-willed enemies with bursts of soul-ravaging flames.

I fought Dave's Searforge list, led by Durgen Madhammer, which is composed of Dwarves and Ogrun...  it was a great battle.  Lots of crazy things happened, not to mention crazy die rolls.  Things went somewhat slow at times since both of us were using models we haven't spent a lot of time playing, but it was a great learning experience.  The battle concluded with Fiona charging Madhammer and bring him down... It was awesome to finally use the army in its full capacity, I still need to buy one last warjack to complete it, but that night I just borrowed it from Dave.  Anywho, it made me even more excited to finish it up and get it painted!  I am still reaching for my goal of having it fully painted and assembled for GenCon.

Then Saturday came and all the guys were there for the continuation of our Iron Kingdoms campaign. (which you can read about here)  We were supposed to be introducing a new character... but he was ill and couldn't join us.  So it was the usual crew.. Dave, Mike, Jason, Rob and Glen (Gargosh, Gareth, Vasco, Jyric, and Tok respectively).  We got started around 11 AM, and finished up around 3 AM.  A truly epic session, only broken up a by a couple short breaks involving food.  The session was the beginning of my Orgoth Dungeon adventure... and it went great!  Everyone had a good time, and they actually managed to clear everything that I had prepared... that included 4 levels of dungeon and numerous encounters.  The big starting encounter went great.. it started with a group of goblins, and ended with a bulette.   As a DM, bulettes are awesome to run... the encounter ended by plunging the characters into the dungeon as the ground collapsed around them... The Gelatinous Cube/Otyugh encounter was also very fun... the G. Cubes are really great in 4e... we even had the D&D mini for it (easily one of the BEST they have ever made)  :)

It was a very fun, but exhausting, weekend (I am still recovering, I must be getting old).  A good time was had by all...