Sunday 11 March 2018

Paleo Diet: The Hunt Begins

Introduction

I've run games that pit men against ice age mammals before [for example, here, here and here] and my "go to" set of rules was "Adventures in the Lost Lands" by Two Hour Wargaming.  However, despite the number of times that I've tried this game, it didn't quite work for me.  Either a player's choices were too limited or combat outcomes were too one-sided or something; it just wasn't the game I really wanted to play.

I've never given up hope for a hunting game, though.  Now there is a new kid on the block: "Paleo Diet", from Ganesha Games.  In Paleo Diet, one or more players take control of a small number of hunters.  These humans can be equipped with bows, clubs, fire and/or dogs, though the default weapon is a spear which can be thrown a short distance or used close up to stab at things.

The basic mechanism is that a hunter chooses to roll from 1 to 3 dice each turn, with a "success" granting an action and a "failure" alerting a nearby animal.  A fresh, unwounded hunter has a pool of 2 white dice (success on a 2+) and one coloured dice (success on a 4+); an injured man downgrades one of his/her white dice to a coloured one.

Animals never act on their own, but rather they react to various events such as the proximity of a fire, being attacked or a hunter failing an activation roll.  Different classes of creature (from apex predator to small prey animal) will react differently, but on the whole if you're far enough away they will ignore you and if you're very close then their reaction will be more extreme.  Usually the carnivores and large herbivores (mammoths &c) will defend themselves aggressively whilst smaller herbivores will run away - but different reactions such as roaring/trumpeting or stampedes are also possible!

So far, so good; this sounds very much like the sort of game I'd like to try.  Everything in a hunting game depends on the animal behaviour, though: is it believable?  Let's see...


Trial Game 1: The Mammoths


We had 3 players, so we set up 3 groups of hunters.  One group had 2 neanderthals, whilst the other 2 groups each had a neanderthal and his dog.  So, a total of 4 men and 2 dogs.  Let's go mammoth hunting!



After a short conference on tactics, we decided that we needed to split up the pair of mammoths and concentrate all our efforts on just one of the beasts.  Goodness knows, it would be hard enough to face even a single such creature!

To this end, the hunters crept forwards carefully.  Crug sent his dog on a wide, flanking move.  In hindsight, this wasn't a terribly clever idea: if the dog failed any of its activation rolls in the future then it would probably try to rejoin its master, which would result in it sauntering through the mammoth herd.  That's not really what we intended!



Durc stalked right up to within touching distance of the mammoths, planning to hide and ambush the chosen target later.  Unfortunately, something gave him away and both beasts rounded on him



The hunter wasn't badly wounded, but he was pretty shaken up.  It didn't help that one of the mammoths then trumpeted loudly and the other pursued him for a short distance; Durc fled!  Well, at least we had split up the pair of mammoths; there was now a significant gap between them...



Durc spent much of the rest of the game hiding in some foliage.  The player claimed that he was laying a fresh ambush, but personally I reckon he had soiled himself.



Broud's brown dog then decided to have a go at the nearer animal.  It did manage to bite the pachyderm, but the mammoth squashed the dog in return.



Then, Crug's grey dog had a go.  It rushed in and bit the mammoth on the bottom (so that's 2 wounds inflicted; another two will bring it down).



The mammoth reacted with extreme hostility to this assault on its nether portions; it spun around and flattened the dog.  Hmm, both dogs are now out of the game - but that's OK because they don't count against us when determining victory.



The hunters (apart from Durc) moved in and tried to spear the mammoth.  There followed a long and confused sequence of quick assaults, trumpetting, retaliation and so on [far too complex to describe in detail!].  Any notion of a plan had gone out of the window after the beast's first short charge!

The end result was that 3 of the 4 hunters were injured, but the mammoth had taken a 3rd wound out of the 4 hits it could sustain.  Sadly for the hungry tribe, the mammoth ran off the table before it could be finished off.

One player suggested that we had a go at the other, uninjured mammoth that was still grazing peacefully in the middle of the table.  This suggestion was quickly vetoed by the other bruised and battered hunters!

End Result: mammoths are tough to hunt, especially without ranged weapons and/or fire; expect casualties.  Leave the dogs at home; they might be good enough against a deer or a wolf, but they're really outclassed here!


Trial Game 2: Something Smaller


For our next hunt, we decided to try some smaller prey.  This time, there were 5 neanderthals and only 1 dog; we had a small herd of deer as our target.

The hunters stalked carefully around the edges.  Our plan was to surround the herd and then pick off as many as we could from close range.  We needed to kill 3 of the 6 deer to collect enough meat to feed the tribe, so we really didn't want any to escape if we could help it.



Initially, the plan seemed to be going very well.  All the hunters (and the dog) crept closer and closer...


The first hunter to act was Broud.  His thrown spear hit a young buck and wounded it, but the startled and confused animal then ran straight at the hunter and tried to attack him!  Fortunately for the man, the deer then fled in the opposite direction without injuring him.



The panicking, injured buck fled straight towards Goov, who had no difficulty in felling it at close range.  As he did this, the rest of the herd stampeded, running over the unwary Crug and kicking him in passing.



The hunters scrambled to try to head off the small deer before they fled out of reach; it looked as if their prey was about to elude them.



All their efforts achieved was to scatter the herd; deer ran in all directions.  Brun managed to bring down another buck as it raced past him, but no-one else was so lucky.  Despite a brief stalk of the remnants of the herd, all the other deer eluded the hunters and fled to safety.

End Result: we didn't gather enough meat to feed the tribe and one of our hunters got a broken rib!  Not the ideal result, though at least we weren't totally hopeless.


Conclusion

I think that we all enjoyed these games very much.  The players each had plenty of choices each turn and the animals reacted in what seemed like a realistic manner.  I don't think this will be the main event in one of our gaming days, but it's a very pleasant filler (it would work very well as a participation game at a convention, I think).

Clearly, our hunting tactics leave something to be desired - but that could change with practice.  Perhaps we should set more ambushes and then have a few hunters drive the prey into them by shouting and/or throwing stones?  I'm also quite keen to experiment with that new wonder weapon which Ug keeps talking about: fire!  More figures have been ordered...



Afterthought: even the deer are dangerous; they hurt one of our hunters.  Maybe my stone age men should become rabbit hunters instead.  What could go wrong with that?

23 comments:

  1. "It's got big, pointy teeth..."

    Rabbits are dangerous game - as is this. Looks fab though.

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    1. Hmm, you're right: rabbits might be dangerous. How about we hunt butterflies instead :-) ?

      Thanks, Herbert.

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  2. Poor old Crug. Is he alright? A broken rib is nothing to laugh about.

    And as for Ug. Yep he's an ideas man alright but does he ever really put them into action. Fire. Eh. That concept will never take off.

    Love the report and the overview of the rules. Thanks for sharing. I've got Adventures in the Lost Land too and have played it several times but I've never had a go at something like Paleo Diet. They look interesting.

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    1. Well, Crug is still alive - and that counts for a lot in the stone age :-) .

      I think you might be wrong about fire, though - it could go viral if handled correctly. Or, wait - is that smallpox that goes viral instead?

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  3. I enjoyed your write up very much. Strangly i was going to post a game of Palaeo Diet this evening but went with something else.
    I've played 7 games now and enjoyed them all. Your games played out in a very similar manner to mine.
    The animals can't be relied on to just get themselves killed ;-)

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    1. So, a fellow hunter :-) ! I hope you've had more success than we did...

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    2. Tricky - My clan dug a mammoth trap and drove one animal into it - Success.
      The other animal wounded 3 of my hunters but we killed it - Success
      It's calf wounded the remaining hunter. Success??
      Hunters 2 Mammoths 4
      We claimed victory because all the hunters recovered, well mainly and we ate the mammoths so they couldn't disagree. ;-)

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  4. This seemed like it was a lot of fun. Fantastic animal collection C6

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    1. Thanks, it was a good game.

      That's only a small part of my prehistoric animal collection; for a fuller description you could refer to some of my earlier articles:

      * http://colgar6.blogspot.com/2012/09/army-showcase-28mm-prehistoric-megafauna.html
      * http://colgar6.blogspot.com/2015/06/28mm-prehistoric-fauna-herbivores.html
      * http://colgar6.blogspot.com/2015/06/prehistoric-fauna-carnivores.html

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  5. I've been wanting to get into prehistoric games for some time, but haven't seen a set of rules yet that I like - perhaps Paleo Diet could be?
    Great looking set up and true to form, animals of all shapes and sizes are dangerous.

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    1. I think it might suit you very well, Joe. Paleo Diet has a fairly simple basic engine, but with plenty of variety on top of that. There are optional rules for character traits, small animals ("critters"), a basic campaign and a goodly number of varied scenarios. You can play solo, cooperatively or (in a few scenarios) as opposed tribes - or even as pack hunters. It's also quite a cheap set of rules :-) .

      About the only thing it doesn't handle is anything out-of-period, so no Edwardian hunters with express rifles, no dinosaurs or anything else like that. Though it wouldn't be too hard to make something up if that's what you want...

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  6. A couple of challenging games in which we (inexperienced hunters) failed to make our quota of kills.

    The system looks good, with the animals behaving unpredictably and reacting in ways that prevent the hunters ganging up effectively.
    It will certainly take several tries to master the basics of hunting; team tactics, use of terrain and making allowance for blunders by the hunters.

    Play was quite quick once we had mastered the rules and situations that cause reaction.
    I would certainly like to play again.

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    1. Well, at least no-one died on our first hunts :-) ! Yes, I can definitely see us playing more of this game in the future.

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  7. This is right up my street. Wish I could play.

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    1. Paleo Diet requires no more than a small number of hunters (if I remember right then just 1, for one scenario) and at least one or two prey. The rules are cheap, it can be played solo and doesn't require much in the way of dice either. I can't see anything to stop you apart from having enough free time :-) .

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    2. Thanks C6 I shall look into it in greater detail. maybe even buy some "Lucid Eye" figures.

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  8. Replies
    1. We certainly enjoyed it. I think this worked well as a cooperative game; there was the usual lack of coordination between different players' assets which occurs when they're not all controlled by the same mind. That's a good thing; it adds to the fun!

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  9. Excellent stuff C6! On the strength of this I bought the rules and they look like great fun. A nice little distraction project lol.
    Can I ask where you herd of deer came from?
    Cheers
    Mark

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    1. Thanks, Mark - I hope you'll enjoy Paleo Diet as much as we have :-) !

      My deer are old models from Steve Barber's "Settlement" range. They're not available any more; Steve Barber has reworked most of his prehistoric range in recent years (and very nice they are too) - but not the deer.

      I suppose you could try asking him if he has any plans to release updated versions of the deer; you never know...

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  10. Very nice presentation of PD - I am currently beginning to build a small library of solo playable games (have Strange Aeons Solo Deck and Sellswords and Spellslingers, need to buy Solo Deck for Pulp Alley), and PD seems one to put on the list.

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    1. Paleo Diet is a relatively cheap, simple game which (after a couple of quick games) appears to play very well. It sounds a s if it would suit you very well.

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