EotD - Start of a 4 man campaign

Yesterday evening 3 of my friends and I got together to start an Empire of the Dead campaign. For my friend Frank it was the first time even playing the game, but since Empire of the Dead is a fairly easy game to learn, we still managed four games.

Setup
For gaming tables we used two of mine, the London Docks and London Sewers boards. The Sewers board has not been used that much as I don't really consider it that great, but it fitted well with the setting.

We built our factions with the usual 150 shillings, and came up with the following factions:

Vampires
Player: Frank
Graf
Guardian
4 x Thralls

Zendarian Officers Club (Gentlemens Club)
Player: Chris
President
4 x Members

Brotherhood
Player: Michael
Deacon
Knight Marshall
4 x Brothers

Supernatural Branch
Player: Me
Detective Inspector
Police Sergeant
Detective Constable
Police Constable
2 x Firearms Constable

I don't have the specifics for each faction. We randomly chose who met who in the first round and that gave us the following games:

Vampires vs. Supernatural Branch
Zendarian vs. Brotherhood

Game 1: Blissful Ignorance
We ended up with a 9 civilians on each table, so there where plenty of them to capture/rescue.

Since I was playing the Supernatural Branch, I don't really have that many details from the Zendarian vs. Brotherhood game, but managed to grab some pictures of the game. There are no winners or losers in the scenario, but in terms of shillings the Zendarians came out on top, but one of their members had to sit out the next game, thanks to the roll in the campaign table. Meaning that the Zendarians would only have 4 models for the second game.

My game with Frank was slower to get started as I was showing Frank the rules of the game. When the game started, the first few rounds were spent getting closer to the civilians. I was definately hampered by the fact that I was playing a Good faction against the Evil faction Vampires, meaning that despite me having control of a civilian the Vampires were free to take pot shots at me. Frank played an effective game with his Thralls concentrating on capturing civilains while his Guardian was patrolling one side of the board, while the Graf got into several Charging positions. Still I managed to get control of 4 civilians, and had a 5th in my control, but the Graf charged my DC and killed him, and then took captured the civlian.

It was a fun game and despite Frank scoring twice as many shillings as me, I did not feel like I lost. Post-game I decided to spend my shillings on getting a second Police Constable and armed him with a heavy pistol. I think Frank chose to by a few hunting rifles and got a skill for his Graf.

Game 2: Fracas
The draw for the second game, pitted the following against each other:

Supernatural Branch vs. Zendarians
Vampires vs. Brotherhood

In the classic encounter of Vampires vs. Brotherhood, Frank felt overwhelmed by daylight and the holy crosses of the Brotherhood. I don't have all the details, but after only 2 rounds the Vampires decided to forfeit the game. Frank explained that he was scared of losing his Graf and Guardian, but later on he conseeded that he should have played on.

With my 7 models against the 4 Zendarians I knew I would have to bring the fight to Chris. He will gladly stand back, playing a no risk game, and wait for the opponent to come to him. I found out that he had equipped all his members and his president with half-armor and had been lucky in the skill he got in the post-game and got Hip Shooting, meaning that he could make a run and still take a shot with his repeating rifle (with a -2 penalty though). I decided to split my forces, so that I would be attacking him from all possible angles, the idea being that it would be difficult for him to get cover.

For the first 4-5 rounds we shot at each other but both rolled so badly when it came to dealing  Wound Effects, so that we had only one model on Down. I felt I was in a good position, but then things changed and in the last two rounds of the game I lost 5 models, and then I forfeited the game.

True to my previous games with the Supernatural Branch I rolled some bad injuries and got one of my Police Constables Unhinged! Michael was pleased though as he knew he would be facing a severly depleted Supernatural Branch next time we got together.

Conclusion
This was one of the best experiences playing Empire of the Dead. Playing this 4 man campaign is a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed themselves. I'm looking forward to the next time we get together, even though I will be playing the powerful Brotherhood.

Some pictures from the games.