Guards of Traitor's Toll, or Possibly Return to Whitby

We got in our first game with the full rules, playing the basic Patrol Duty scenario. After the training game it occurred to me that a hex grid might make movement a lot easier to manage, and I’m pleased to report that I was right — everything about movement in this game, from the random directions for patrolling guards to figuring out line of sight was a thousand times easier, and made for a smoother game overall.

That said, we still have some issues with the rules. Admittedly we forgot one critical rule: targets only get a defense reaction if they haven’t yet activated during the turn. This of course made it much more difficult to score successful attacks, but in our defense, that rule is buried in the rule book and nowhere to be seen on the quick reference sheet.

Even with that error in mind, I have one additional, major problem with the combat rules: on a successful hit, you still have to roll for the outcome (either to deal damage or subdue the target), and it is possible to completely fail this roll. I think this creates a negative play experience — a successful attack should always do something. There are several ways to add more dice to this roll, but they’re still dice, which means it’s still possible to completely fail, even after a successful hit.

Other, much more minor, issues we had with the game revolved around roving, the random movement that guard models are forced to do if they’re not within sight of a suspect. Equipping your guards with lanterns and torches can mitigate this a little (something it would have been nice to know when assembling the models), and there are quite a few optional rules that seem to be responses to player complaints about the movement rules making it too difficult to get your guards where they need to be.

I know I sound grumpy, but don’t get me wrong — I think Guards of Traitor’s Toll is a wonderful idea, and I think there’s a great game in here somewhere. It will be a question of adjusting expectations to accommodate the game’s high level of randomness, and, where that isn’t possible, coming up with rules adjustments to get rid of the things we don’t like. I think the idea of the game is strong enough that I’m willing to put in a little extra work to make it more fun for us.