I don’t use miniatures for my roleplaying games, so I’ve been wanting to use the gorgeous Dunkeldorf minies in some kind of skirmish game for some time. Hadn’t really found anything I liked, and was kinda resigned to having to come up with something on my own.
Then along comes Gangs of the Undercity. A slightly revised edition of Gangs of Rome. And it’s darn near perfect. On paper anyway. Since I hadn’t tried any of them, it was time for a test. So here’s the very first gang fight in the streets of (my) Dunkeldorf.
I did some changes to the rules, for this first fight. Simply to make things easier for me. This was never about winning (obviously, since I am playing myself), but learning. So 2 gangs of 4 people each. Ignored the points value of them, but in the end there’s only a difference of 1 point. Each gang is of the same faction.
I gave them each a 1 coin item and stopped at that. Figured I’d have plenty to learn about mob reactions etc., so wanted to keep it rather plain.
Gang 1 consists of Herman Geizhals with the Wand of Illusion, Erhardt Reichenbach with a Sticth Kit, Hans the Joyful with a Sling and Linus Witzner (off course 😉 ) with a Cloak. All in the Golden Square faction.
Gang 2 consists of Claudia Hinkel with a Crossbow, Sven Wentzel with Brass Knuckles, Barik Kneebreaker with a Hammer and Leonard ‘Lenny’ with a Chain. I put these in the Rookery faction.
In both cases I completely ignored their deity. That will be for later games. This was more about learning movements, attacks, mobs and simple coin items. So I also ignored the fact that they’re mounted on various sized bases. I will get the odd ones out either re-based or in the cases where I have two of that person, I’ll simply repaint a second one.
Using my Carnevale stuff. It’s really perfect for this. And since I am painting some of it for my Dunkelshelf, it’s evern perfectier (now a word! 😀 ).
I didn’t have to worry about the coin cards so much. Since they each just got stuck with a 1 coin item and that was it, I just placed it with the character card. I don’t have any 60mm bases. Will have to order some. So for now I just cut out 60 mm circles in card stock for the mobs. Used colored dice instead of pebbles for the draw bag. Don’t need any way to identify the card with the mini, since I wrote their name on the card.
Since I don’t have the ‘roman’ dice to indicate direction of the mob, I used a direction die instead. I think from Bolt Action or Gates of Antares but I am not sure. Anyway, 4 of teh 6 sides have an arrow on it. So I just re-rolled it, if it ended on one of the other two. Used D10’s to indicate wounds.
And then it was just a matter of getting the gangs going. Deployed them on either side of the board. Decided this was an all-out war. They just wanted to take each other down. Again, learning, so didn’t want to complicate with scenarios objectives. Although I must say, that this rule system seems like it’ll be a breeze to make scenarios for.
A lot of movement in the beginning, as expected. But it wasn’t until round 2, when I did a quick read up on The Mob rules, I realized I could use them to get around the table a lot faster. I think at the end of Round 2 I had 3 gang members all hiding out of sight 🙂
I absolutely love the super simple success vs failure rolls of the dice. Any 4, 5 or 6 is a succes. Any 1,2 or 3 is a failure. So it’s so super easy to quickly see how the fight goes (in the above Erhardt hits Barik for 3, and Barik defend the 2 of them, gaining just 1 wound).
And I absolutely adore how you can ‘gang up’ on each other. But I think what I enjoyed most of all from this first game, is how The Mobs reacted. Erhardt got attacked twice by them. Claudia got trampled and moved out of range by 1. It just makes the table so much more ‘alive’.
Also found the rules to be fairly easy to understand. Though I did also use the YT channel, for some clarification. I do have one thing I haven’t quite figured out yet. In Gangs of Rome the cards state the persons Agility value. But in the Gangs of the Under City there is no Agility value on the cards. So I just gave them all an Agility 0f 6 and left it at that.
Gonna do some more learning games and start tweaking it to the world of Dunkeldorf even more. Like gang factions and deities. Specific Dunkeldorf scenarios and items. And I think in the next game I’m gonna try and bring in Animal Companions. I mean…we do have an attack chicken. Would be a shame not to use it.
And as a side note, it was Sven’s gang that won. Barik did go down, and Sven himself had a nasty head wound. But in the end it was only Hans the Joyful left of Hermans people. So he jumped into the canal and escaped, when he realized he was out of beer.
If anyone is interested, you can find the rules to Gangs of Rome here in pdf version: Gangs of Rome
And the rules of Gangs of the Under City in the Facebook group. They are free.
Bag Interior 