A Friday night game of Alkemy

On Friday, I introduced Alkemy to Tim, another player in my gaming group.  I ran him through the two demo scenarios that I composed for Demo Day.  Here, in the first one, our objective is to collect as many alchemical stones as possible from the center chest and return them to our deployment area.  My javelineer attempts to occupy the dangerous Crossbowman, while my power-characters take the center.

My leader, Tecum'seh, is able to take out one of the Swordsmen, but he failed one hit, which prevents Tecum'seh from charging the second Swordsman, which I think would have swung the center battle in my favor.  Instead, the fresh Swordsman forced Tecum'seh to enter the fray with Garlan de Brall in a wounded state.

While the Auroch Totem-Warrior pummeled Garlan de Brall pretty well before dying, a severely wounded Garlan had the advantage on a severely wounded Tecum'seh, with assistance from the Swordsman.  Both Aurlok warriors bite it, and Garlan limps off the field with two alchemical stones.

Next, we introduce the alchemists to the game and fight for control of a Jin Post.  Garlan and Tecum'seh manage to kill each other off, and the Auroch was lost in the process as well, leaving a badly outnumbered Toad Shaman and Crow Thunder-Warrior.  Aurlok Nation is defeated again.  Ugh.

Tim enjoyed the game, but he is not keen on guessing distance for ranged combat.  I dislike guessing distances in any miniature game myself, but it doesn't bother me too much in Alkemy.  I think Alkemy has a lot of strengths that help fade the "no pre-measuring" rule to the background.  The tactical focus of the game is judging the sequencing of activations and actions.  Guessing distance contributes to a useful but non-critical modifier -- it feels like a minor step within the larger pace and tactical context of the game, so I'm OK with it.

I composed a new scenario, which will see one faction trying to run across the length of the board with a stolen map, while the other faction ambushes the first from both sides.  I designed the scenario to be scalable from 100 to 300 points.  I look forward to trying it out and seeing what it's like to play larger-size games.