Order of Eventide Playthrough

Previously, I discussed my first impressions of Order of Eventide (OoE), a solo/co-op dungeon crawl game. The game has a campaign structure that piqued my interest. I decided to start a one.

Character Creation

I created the requisite 4 characters. I decided to go with one of each class - fighter, hunter, mage, and adventurer. The hunter is an elf while the others are human. No bunny-men for me.

Here they are (thanks to Chat GPT) - Aldric, Corvin, Rook, and Lethariel.

Character creation was not difficult, but a little confusing. Different rules are in different sections of the book, which requires a lot of flipping around. I was using a Kindle, which makes flipping especially challenging.

There is a mention of armor in the resources section, but I didn't find rules for armor. I guess it's built into the defensive abilities. Shields and some racial traits will give defense bonuses.

There are not a lot of stats, which I like. Each character has an Attack Bonus and a Defense Bonus. Use these when rolling in combat. Here are their bonuses:

• Attack - Aldric +2 in melee, Lethariel +3 ranged, Corvin +1 arcane, Rook - no bonus, but he dual wields
• Defense - Aldric is +1 for a shield and Lethariel is +1 as an elf.

Characters get starting weapons for free. They also have a small amount of gold, er glowstones, to buy additional items. I got a healing potion for each character.

Corvin is a mage but I don't see magic rules. Oh well, hope he can find an arcane weapon.

Into the Dungeon

My heroes decide to adventure in Sundessa. Using the random tables in the book, the dungeon is called the Martyr's Crypt.

OoE has blank dungeon sheets that are 25 by 25 squares. Instead of printing a sheet, I used Excel. here it the dungeon explored by the heroes so far.

The entrance is pre-mapped. From there, our heroes choose to go north.

• Rm 1. They encounter 5 spark sprites (will o' wisps?). Spark sprites are level 3, so the heroes need to roll 3 or better to hit and to defend themselves. They manage to wipe out the sprites with only one minor wound. They gain 1 Essence (experience) and roll for treasure. They find a two-handed sword.
• Rm 2. 5 blackpaw cultists (orcs?) - Another victory. This time they find glowstones.
• Rm 3. An event that give them a token to reroll any altar rolls. Characters use altars to summon the region's main boss.
• Rm 4. Another event. This time they lose half their treasure to a pirate.
• Rm 3. Backtracking, they run into wandering monsters, 16 skeletons.
• Rm 5. Another event. They purchase a scroll.
• Rm 6. A boss! They defeat a bandit leader. More wounds,
• Rm 7. 3 blackpaw cultists.
• Rm 8. 6 orc blademasters.

As you can see, this part of the dungeon dead-ended. There are 3 more doors leading from the entrance that the heroes can explore. I stopped for the time being.

Right now, Lethariel has lost 1 of 4 health. The others have lost 2 of 5. So some damage but they can still press on a bit.

My Thoughts

Now that I played it some, what do I think of OoE? Note that I have some peculiar tastes when it comes to dungeon crawl games. I an really in it for the combat. I generally don't like searching for treasure or dealing with inventory. I also prefer short dungeons.

• Combat was simple and quick (aside from Surges and Blunders).
• Combat alternates between heroes an enemies. For example, Aldrich attacks, then an enemy, them Lethariel, then an enemy, and so on. I prefer to roll all the hero attacks at once, then the enemies. I may house rule this.
• Combat seemed too easy for 1st level. With their attack bonuses, Aldric and Lethariel often could not miss (and a natural 1 is not automatic failure). I wonder how things will work at higher levels.
• 8 rooms and still maybe 75% of the dungeon to go. Longer than I like.
• Checking for treasure dragged, especially because I had to flip pages on my Kindle. 
• Surges and Blunders required more reference than I like. Perhaps it would be easier using printed pages. I may just need to get used to it.
• The enemies felt a little too random, a common issue with randomly generated dungeons. I thought that the OoE campaign structure would alleviate that, but it still is a minor problem.
• Nevertheless, I still find the campaign structure appealing.

OoE still scratched the dungeon crawl itch. I like the campaign and am interested in seeing where it goes.

What Next?

I think I may play it some more, looking for ways to streamline.

WWMFL Season 1 Wrap Up

Season 1 is now complete.

Here are the final standings (teams in alphabetical order).

Note: Green shading indicates best offenses or defenses while red are the worst.

Some exciting games from the second half of the season.

• Week 7 - Dallas comes back from a 21-7 deficit to beat Miami 31-24. The Stallions score the game-winning TD mid-4th quarter then hold the Miami offense.
• Week 8 - Washington ties NY in the 4th quarter but then gives up a TD in OT to lose 24-17.
• Week 9 - Dallas and Seattle play for the division lead. Dallas is up 10-0 but then Seattle scores 2 TDs to go up 14-10. Dallas dominates the second half, scoring 2 TDs en route to a 24-14 victory and the division title.
• Week 9 - Down 14-7 late in the 4th, Denver scores a TD to tie it up. The Dragons then get a TD in overtime to win 21-14.

And stories of interest.

• Denver starts the season 4-1 but then goes 1-4 in the second half to finish at .500.
• Seattle surges into second with a 4-1 second half.
• New York runs away with the East title while Dallas needs a victory in week 9 to secure the West.

The WWM Bowl

Division champions New York Imperials (East) take on the Dallas Stallions (West).

• 1st quarter - both teams get a field goal. 3-3
• 2nd quarter - NY gets a TD but Dallas responds. 10-10 at half.
• 3rd quarter - NY gets another TD early and its defense clamps down. 17-10
• 4th quarter - NY moves the ball but cannot punch it in the end zone. The Imperials get 2 field goals. 23-10. Dallas gets the ball and drives, but they turn the ball over on downs.

Final: NY wins 23-10

That's a wrap for season 1. I think I will put WWMFL on hold until next football season.

The Campaigns of Rome

For 2026, I decided to play a long campaign using the Dominion of series. This would be far more than a best-of-three or even a best-of-five. I wanted something to keep me occupied for much of the year.

What Theme?

But what should the theme of the campaign be?

I toyed with playing the American Revolution battles from Dominion of Patriots and Redcoats. But I also want to play the 1776 battles on or near the anniversaries. So I decided to put the Revolution on hold.

Next, my thoughts turned to Rome. I am a bit of a Romanophile so it should keep me interested. And there is a lot of history as the basis of the campaign. So Rome it is.

Campaign Ideas

I want to do the full scope of Roman history. I thought of repeating the Roman battles from the Dominion of the Spear's 36 Battles. Some of those battles were not really competitive, though, so I decided not to do it.

Next, my thoughts turned to Solitaire Caesar. I purchased the print-and-play version many years ago. I played once and was moderately successful. It seemed perfect - I could play out the battles using DotS. Alas, I could not find the files, and the price has gone up considerably. So I shelved this idea.

Perhaps I'll just play a bunch of one-off battles against the most formidable foes of Rome. I'd like to play one scenario a month. This gives me 12 scenarios to play. I'll use the army lists in DotS.

The Twelve Foes

I asked Chat GPT for Rome's 12 most formidable foes. Here is the list they gave me, in chronological order:

1. Samnites
2. Pyrrhus
3. Carthage
4. Hannibal - well, this is kind of a repeat of #3 so we'll only do it once.
5. Macedon
6. Pontus
7. Gauls
8. Parthia
9. Germans
10. Dacians
11. Sassanids
12. Huns

Not a bad list, though some may quibble. I may add the Britons to replace the duplicate Carthage.

I asked Chat GPT to create a title image. Here it is.

I'm not sure who's who, but it looks good.

Order of Eventide

I recently picked up, Order of Eventide (OoE), a solo/co-op dungeon crawler tabletop game akin to Four Against Darkness (4AD).

First Impressions

I happened to see a couple of glowing references to it in a Reddit thread on solo RPGs. It was $9.99 on the Kindle so I took a chance.

Here are some of my thoughts as I read through it the first time.

• The artwork is good, albeit AI-created. I don't care about that but some do. My issue is not AI but the amount of art. I'm not a fan of a lot of art in rulebooks. I just want good rules.
• You play with 4 heroes, like 4AD. Logical.
• Wow, they have a lot of difference races. Not my thing, but I guess modern audiences prefer that. I'd probably just stick with the old standards.
• Odd class system. 
• You start with one of 4 classes - fighter, hunter, mage, or adventurer (I guess that's like a rogue). 
• Then when you reach the second tier (whenever that occurs), you unlock new classes. I guess you dual-class.
• Then there is a third tier. And paladin is third tier. So I need to level up to play a paladin. Not keen on that either.
• There doesn't seem to be a level cap. This is my big issue with 4AD - there is an effective cap at level 5, unless you switch up all your dice.
• They don't have experience points or gold pieces. Instead, they have Essence and Glowstones. Why not just use plain language?
• You get ambushed by wandering monsters when you backtrack through a room. More shades of 4AD.
• All hits do 1 point of damage. I see a lot of 4AD here.
• I like how they do dual wielding, You roll 2D6 and take the highest. This fits my experience with dual wielding in LARP. It is extremely rare to attack with both weapons simultaneously. Generally, you use one to feint or defend and strike with the other. OoE seems to simulate that in a simple manner.
• It is a D6 system. Huzzah! 🎲
• They make a big deal about Surges (roll a 6) or Blunders (roll a 1). Surges or Blunders can have a variety of effects.
• There are 3 types of enemies - horde, forsaken, and behemoths. Forsaken and Behemoths kind of fit into 4AD's minions and bosses or weird monsters dichotomy. Hordes are undead but seem similar to 4AD vermin.
• Again like 4AD, enemies never roll dice. When enemies attack, roll for the characters to defend. I like this.
• There is a built-in setting. For example, the campaign starts at town called Kara's Vale. The characters join an Order to fight evil. The Ordermaster is headquartered in Kara's Vale. Generally, I'm not fond of prescribed settings; I prefer to make my own. But I can see the appeal.

This takes us about a third of the way through the 200+ page book. So far, it's just making me want to pull out 4AD.

But now it starts getting interesting. There are six regions in the game world. Each region has different charts for creating the dungeons. This gives the adventures in each region a distinct feel. There is also a different big boss (sorry, Master Behemoth) for each region. Once you defeat all those bosses, there is a final boss of the campaign. As much as I don't like built-in settings, I rather like this premade campaign structure. It gives a sense of purpose for your characters.

The rest of the book mostly fill in details on classes and races.

Quick Synopsis

Based on my initial readthrough, my impressions were:

• It is a lot like 4AD. That's a good thing, but it also begs the question - why not just play 4AD?
• The rule differences from 4AD didn't really appeal to me. For example, I'm never going to play a Sylveran (looks like a bunny person).
• But I really like the campaign structure. Dungeons in each of the 6 regions of the game world have different enemies and therefore different feels. This made me want to try the game.

What's Next?

I was going to include a short playthrough in this post, but it already got very long. I will create a separate post for my playthrough. Stay tuned!

What's In Store for 2026?

I was SO wrong with last year's predictions that I seriously toyed with skipping them this year. But I fought off the urge and will pull out my cracked crystal ball once again.

Here is what the wizard sees:

• Dominion of still dominates - this will continue to be my go-to set of rules.
• Fewer posts - I had my best year in over a decade in terms of number of posts. This is largely due to Dominion of. For example, I gamed all 36 battles of the Spear supplement. I don't think I'll be quite as aggressive with games, and therefore posts.
• Semiquincentennial - 1776 was a busy year for American Revolution battles. Expect to see them on the tabletop.
• Dominion of the Eagle and Bear - last year, I briefly dabbled with some Red Dawn style battles. I didn't get far. I'm hoping this year will see a Dominion of variant for late Cold War battles. If not, I may need to create some.

Battle of Quebec 1775

For the 250th anniversary, I gamed the battle of Quebec using Dominion of Patriots and Redcoats.

The American infantry (blue) storm the walls of Quebec. A whiff of grapeshot holds them back on the right but the Americans gain the wall on the left.

The British Highlanders drive the Americans from the wall (left). The American general, Montgomery, rallies the infantry.

The British wipe out the Americans storming the center. On the right, the Americans overrun the guns.

The rallied American infantry try again. This time, they rout the Highlanders.

With this, Quebec is in American hands!

Game Notes

• I don't have a white battle board to represent snow so I improvised with the box cover. It worked.
• I'm tempted to do a what-if. Could the American have held Quebec?

Skirmish Revolution

As usual, my manias can get triggered by the most inconsequential of events.

My latest was triggered by this picture.

I was working on another project (a dungeon crawl, which I will post about in the new year), when I rummaged up a box. I glanced at the cover - Micro Battle Skirmish. It wasn't even this picture but it reminded me of this one, which was the original MBS cover. This triggered a desire for some Revolutionary War skirmishing.

Rules?

I started looking for rules. Naturally, I plan to experiment with my old Micro Battle skirmish rules. But I could use some help, specifically for campaigns and scenarios. Is there anything that will help me?

I'm looking at a number of rules sets or expansions. Here are a few under consideration:

• Red Hatchets and Black Powder - a supplement for Fistful of Lead.
• Black Powder Battles - an old Two Hour Wargames set.
• Long Rifle - a successor to THW's BPB. It's for the French & Indian War, but I'm sure I could make it work for the Revolution.

I'm still hunting around and welcome suggestions.

"Figure" Basing?

This is another consideration. Obviously I'll be using counters. But do I want one figure on a counter or do I want a small group per counter (still 1 "figure" = 1 man)? The latter might work for a big skirmish, a la Rebels and Patriots.

Current Status

Right now, I lean towards 1 figure per counter. I'm thinking about 4 heroes (Americans, of course) vs. hordes of natives, mercenary Hessians, and dastardly British. 😉

I would need to make counters. I may just make some generic skirmish counters.

We'll see how long this mania lasts. It may dissipate in a few days.