It’s raining today so I decided to play a game of Two Hour WarGames “Adventures in the Lost Lands”
and write-up a battle report. The cool thing about “Lost Lands” is that a player can opt
to play a scenario with adventurers(Victorian, Pulp, or Modern) exploring in a Lost World
setting, play as early hominids (Australopithecines, Neanderthalers, or Cro-Magnon) trying
to survive the Ice Age, or last but not least a game with prehistoric animals pitted against
each other in the struggle of life. Today I decided on the last scenario: a game set in the
Mesozoic with no anachronistic humans or pre-humans. The game is also perfect for solo-play on
a rainy afternoon.
The terrain would be on a 3′x3′ table and I rolled a 4 on terrain generation so the area is
wooded. The table is then divided into nine sections with each section diced for on the
terrain table. My rolls ended up with the following terrain:
Section 1-clear w/river 4- wooded hill 7- wooded hill
2-woods 5-clear 8- wooded
3 clear 6-wooded hill 9-clear w/river
I decided to make section 5 clear w/river so that the stream would stretch diagonally across the table.
I then rolled for the encounter rating of the scenario and scored a 10-this gave an encounter rating of ’4′
which is a very high encounter rating making the stream running between the wooded hills a very hazardous
place! An encounter rating of ’4′ requires that you randomly place four ‘potential enemy forces’(PEF) on
the table. I rolled for the locations and ended up with a PEF in section 2, another in section 3, and two
in section 6. I marked the PEFs by leaving a d6 with the ’4′ face upward in the respective section.
After the terrain and PEFs were laid out I then selected what dinosaur would be my player character. I decided
to live dangerously and rolled at random using the encounter table. I ended up with the most vulnerable of the
vulnerable: a small feeder! Well the fates decided so I used the two Magister Militum Pachycephalosaurs-Stygi and
Pachy. I rolled for entry point and the pair of Cretaceous turkeys ended up in section 9 on the south bank of Death
River. To make life as a small herbivorous dinosaur more interesting in a land of snapping jaws, I added a couple of
small modifications: Unlike predatory dinosaurs, small feeders will never head toward PEFs and must skirt around them. This
will represent the little victims using heightened senses of vision, smell, hearing to know ‘something’s bad in that place’.
Also, to give the diminutive herbivores something to occupy their time (when not being devoured) I used the ‘Gathering Table’
included in the caveman Gathering Scenario as a ‘Browsing Table’. The plant-eaters will move from section to section looking
for things to eat-roll on the table as normal-pass 2d6 and the dinosaurs will keep browsing in that section, pass 1d6 and
the dino will find food, but have to move on next turn, pass 0d6 and “Nothing to Eat Here” so the animal will move to the
next section. This should nicely split up any herds as individual dinos will drift around munching. Let the game begin….
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- Aerial view of Death River taken by timedrone 7. Looking north from sectors 7, 8, and 9
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- Closeup of zone bordering sector 8 and 9. A favorable spot to film herbivores fording Death River
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- Aerial shot of sectors 4 and 7 taken from the west by Timedrone 7
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- Another aerial view. Note vegetation lining the banks of Death River. Irresistable to the local herbivores
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- Aerial shot of “Therapod Grove”. The white cube is a motion sensitive camera
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- “Stygi” and “Pachy”. A mated pair of Pachycephalosaurs. Radiochip tagged on 09/24/2111.
