Aeon Trespass Odyssey

This session was a scheduled fight with the main enemy of the cycle, the Babelian Lunacy. Having killed it last time round, it now is always level 2. This made every location harder to wound and introduced a time mechanic where each round it destroys four terrain pieces (restricting mobility and ending the game once the terrain pieces run out). Had I been playing with friends, we would also have been forced to all speak in a different language for the battle (that’s the sense of humour/difficulty the game designers have).

Know that I know actually dealing 12 wounds and killing the Babelian Lunacy only makes it stronger in future battles, I realise this battle is virtually impossible. To win, I’m supposed to unlock the full endless staircase (requiring I inflict four wounds), then get at least two Titans to the top of the staircase (requiring two or three wounds inflicted each), then deal a further two wounds from the top. I.e. Inflict 10 to 12 wounds without inflicting 12 wounds. Also by the time you reach the top you’re likely to have wounded most of the level one and level two body parts, so you’re on to wounding level three locations which do two wounds at a time.

Needless to say, I lost. I did ten wounds getting my Titans in to position and then struggled to wound the remaining level three body locations. In the meantime I had Titans dieing one by one.

On the plus side, I reckon I’ll be finished with this cycle in four more sessions, given I believe I have four more fights to win to end the story. That will mean I’ve finished cycle four in six months and will have exactly six months left to play through cycle five.

This session was relatively story heavy, so I’ve focussed on showing you the cycle map as it currently stands. I started just north-west of the centre. I then explored the north-west area, headed down to the central south region, then headed up the eastern side of the map.

I’ve now got to the point where I can schedule the final battle with the pursuer three turns in the future at any point. The final campaign battle is set on a tile in the north-east. Once I finish exploring the area I’ll travel to it and end the cycle. I can also schedule in a re-fight with a re-incarnated Helios god (the final battle from cycle 3), which I’ll do soon.

Not much to say from this gaming session. This was a “routine” battle with one of the regular primordials of the cycle. By now, my Titan’s have decent weapons and armour, and I’m up to speed enough with the rules that I’m able to handle these battles fairly quickly and with minimal risk.

In this session I not only gained enough progress tokens to trigger the next part of the main story line (I know now where the final boss fight will be), but I also gained enough doom tokens to trigger the next negative story progression. This turned out to be a full blown market crash in the economy. I think the authors of this game cycle were heavily influenced by 2008!

This culminated in my fifth battle with the “main boss” primordial. As it was the fifth battle, in order to win I essentially had to do so much damage that I’d almost certainly do 12 damage and kill it outright. It was a tough fight, and I managed to get a couple of my Titans on to the vantage points which allow me to actually wound the level three body locations. By this point I’d done nine wounds. Each level three body locations counts as two wounds when they’re taken out. So if I could wound once more I could call it a victory, but if I held out for a second I’d win and also kill the primordial.

The problem was that by doing so many wounds the Primordial was now doing level three AI cards each time, which are very severe attacks. One of my Titans went from unharmed to dead twice over in a single hit. But then the awakening mechanic (on death there’s a one or two in ten chance of being possessed by a god) which I’ve previously complained kicks in so rarely that it might as well not exist – happened. My titan turned into the embodiment of Hephaestus. This interrupted the Primordial’s attack, then gave the Titan a bonus attack with which I wounded my first level three body part. Then it was immediately my next turn and I wounded another level three body part.

Awakening may trigger very rarely, but it does feel awesome when it does!

I had a good feeling for this battle at the start.

It was my fourth battle with this cycle’s pursuer. These primordial’s aren’t related to the main story. Rather, the pursuer’s chase you across the map on some sort of personal vendetta. They don’t level up like normal primordials, but they tend to “play” with you. Their scenario’s progressively get more punishing until you kill them the first time. Then the gloves come off and they’re very punishing until you finally defeat them again.

I was still in the playing phase, but by this fourth battle the stakes had become very high. I could only loose by being totally wiped out, and I could only win by inflicting ten wounds.

The battle dragged on a bit more than usual, as this guy’s quite tough. I started to run out of fate (the resource that gives me re-rolls) and two of my titan’s died. I had it down to nine wounds taken, but by now my titan’s had each attacked five or six times. Each time you attack your rage goes up by one, unlocking better skills. So the longer a fight goes on, the deadlier you become.

Rather than keep hacking at it, I took a turn to disengage and move my titans into an ambush position. I knew this particular primordial often teleports to the centre of the board after attacking, so I stood next to the centre of the board. The ambush worked, and I managed to not only hit, but critical hit a level three body part. That does two wounds. So it had taken eleven wounds, enough for me to win, but if I could to twelve in total I’d actually kill it. I decided to take the gamble and it paid off. I was able to kill it.

It’s been a while since I’ve had such a tough battle and it was rewarding to reach those higher rage levels. Now in the campaign I can setup a battle three turns down the timeline to try and finally defeat the pursuer, but until then it’s battles will be even more tough.

Not an awful lot to say about this session. Made a bit of progress with side quests and then fought a Midascore. During a side quest I’d unlocked wise providence, giving my Titan’s the ability to go first in the next battle, rather than the Primordial. As such, it was half dead before it even acted. It also helped that I’d unlocked the technology to make some better armour which I immediately crafted and equipped.

I found that someone has uploaded technology trees for each cycle on Boardgame Geek. They should help me manage getting new technologies going forwards.

This cycle saw me make good progress with the main plot. I had the customary battle with the main baddie. I was able to win without taking any damage, although I was running very low on resource by the end of battle so still couldn’t have kept fighting much longer.

For completing this stage of the chapter I received another cypher card (see image). I’ve now received five this cycle. The language you see on them is used a lot in this cycle. I suspect I don’t need to, but will get a lot from solving the cypher so I can read these messages. That’s how deep this game can get – you have to solve a real cypher to get the most out of it.

Having a titan be disembowelled on turn one was quite unfortunate.

Other than that, the gaming session went as normal. A few story elements were explored which were interesting, and the battle with the Primordial was a challenge but I’m more or less getting the hang of the combat now.

One thing I did notice was that I really struggle with the tech tree. I have done in every cycle so far. The way it works, is that you get a combat tech and a non-combat tech every four or five campaign turns. Each tech comes on a card that lists its prerequisites and also the techs it helps to unlock. But I find it really hard to keep track, as once I unlock a tech that card needs to go to where it’s used, otherwise I’ll forget it exists. Combat abilities go near the combat board. Map interaction technologies go near the map. And so on. It makes it very hard to check I’ve got all the prerequisites.

I noticed today that I have a string of about five techs, but missed the first one in the chain. A page in the rulebook that was an actual mapped out tech tree would be very useful. I’ll have to give it some thought and see if I can come up with a better way of tracking it all.