Aeon Trespass Odyssey

Just a quick one this week. The past few sessions had triggered story fights, so this session only had one turn and then I was straight into a “normal” primordial fight. I was very lucky and opened up with two critical hits in a row. I made short work of it and took little damage back in return. I still lost a Titan though, as it suffered a lost oxygen token, so it drowned in turn two.

This session was largely story progression, as in the last session I unlocked the next main story chapter and several “inwards odyssey” steps (essentially side stories related to our ship). I unlocked the ability to awaken into Zeus Exalted form. Normally to awaken you have to die, and then roll a 10 on a d10. I’ve complained before that its a wasted mechanic as it only occurs so rarely. But in this cycle you can amass aether tokens, and each one adds to your awakening roll.

Normally when you progress the main story, you trigger a battle with the Boss Primordial of the cycle, and this time was no different. I’d managed to get it to the point where I only needed to inflict one wound to win, but then it was it’s go. It managed to inflict massive damage on one of my poor Titans (I haven’t been able to manufacture it any armour or other defensive gear yet) and it died, but then I realised I had enough Aether tokens that it would awaken on a 6+. I awakened and decided to give Zeus Awakened a try. Suffice to say, Zeus was able to inflict the final wound and win me the battle.

And yes, the card does have an ability called “Childeater”. I’ve just learned that the Gods weren’t as good as we thought (and by now I didn’t have a particularly high opinion of them in the game) and that Zeus drew his power from eating children.

I’ve finally found another city on the map. The main drive for the first part of this cycle is I’m meant to be finding cities that I can deliver aid to, following a massive “natural” disaster we inadvertently triggered. I had found one city, but when the Nemesis spawned it destroyed that city. It’s taken me several gaming sessions to find another.

This session was my first battle against this cycle’s Adversary, Titan X. It’s most notable speed – it doesn’t just run as fast as it wants to get to you, but it then hits you and runs past, making retaliation difficult. I managed to get seven wounds in, which was the criteria for winning my first battle against it. As luck would have it, my first hit was a critical which ripped it’s helmet off giving me a secret item. The problem is if I use it, in future battle the Titan X won’t be messing around anymore and will be more lethal. I’ll decide if I’m going to use it before my next battle with it.

Just a reminder of how much space this game takes up: one full dining table for combat, an A0 poster board for the map and another A0 poster board for the technologies I have.

This was my second battle against the Dragon of Phobos. This is the Primordial that usually retreats after each attack and vanishes. Since my first battle with it, the story had a segment where my hero’s were practicing a simulated battle with the Dragon. They were saying that if they surrounded it, it would not be able to retreat and vanish. I couldn’t see how that worked in the rules, as normally a Primordial that needs to move through a Titan simply does so and inflicts damage on the Titan. But I assume I’m missing something, and decided to follow the story. So in this battle I surrounded it, trapped it, and subsequently beat it up. My new oxygen technologies also meant none of my Titans died from running out of oxygen in the underwater battle. I did loose one to a level 3 AI attack. Some of those can be incredibly lethal – I only had a 1/1000 chance of being totally unharmed, and a 1/100 chance of having the non-lethal outcome. There was therefore a 989/1000 chance of dying.

This was my first battel against the Meduketos. It’s a Primordial that starts off hidden down geysers. You have to search for it to reveal it. It’s not that tough once exposed, but after taking three wounds it hides again. When hidden it’s attacks are primarily to fire microwave lasers (I’m not making this up) from off the board edge.

As with the previous battle, the main problem is that it’s underwater and after three rounds my Titans run out of oxygen and drown. I tried to go for it and manage seven out of ten wounds inflicted before loosing all my Titans. But I did get enough resources to craft two sets of gear that give Titans an extra round of oxygen, and I’ve also researched a tech that gives another two Titans an extra round. That should be just enough to start winning some battles.

This was my first battle against the Dragon of Phobos. As is usual for the first half of the cycle, the battles are really hard. For the Dragon, two mechanics really work together to make it virtually impossible. The first, is that after being hit the Dragon moves away, and if it reaches a board edge or end us outside your light radius (currently 0 or 1 for all my Titans) it vanishes. You can’t interact with it until it turns up again to attack. That turns the battle into a slow waiting game. The problem is that the second mechanic is that we’re fighting underwater and holding our breath. After their third action a Titan dies.

So this time round one Titan died to an unlucky card draw, then a second drowned, then I retreated to save the remaining two. Until I get some new gear that increases my light range and allows me to hold my breath for longer, these battles will keep going that way.

This session was brief, as it was just the second half of the cycle opening sequence. I had another battle with the Ur-Fleece, except this one was a flash back, despite me now having more advanced equipment. A bit odd, but basically a re-run of the last session’s battle.

I’ve changed my game layout for this cycle so that the Nymph summon cards that I might use are stored near the area of the board where they might be of use, i.e. the battle summons are on the side of the battle area, the map related ones are by the map. This way, I might actually remember to use them.