I’m not quite done preparing everything for my campaign with my son, but we did get a learner game on the table this past weekend in an effort to work out the ruleset. It was very useful toward tuning how I should build the scenarios, particularly when considering my son’s gaming preferences (read: he is very low risk, high narrative). It was also a great chance to setup some terrain I just finished!

The mission setup was very simple: explore all three anomalies and at least two points of interest (POI). The anomalies are the two craters (South West, North West) and something inside the garage (East). For enemies, we started with a few security forces on the board behind the western walls and decided we would draw for more out of the event deck each time we flipped a POI (the poker chits).

I started off by taking down the guard in the tower, once again reminding myself how lethal combat is in this game. One wound takes down most things, though Kontraband does make your own heroes more durable, which I like. After taking out this guard with my stalker, I sent my scientist ahead to resolve a POI.

It uh… went poorly. I flipped a card and discovered the area was covered in mysterious cobwebs, but my scientist readily resolved it and grabbed the loot. He then took a bunch of fire and ended up wounded and pinned. Graciously, he had a med kit and between myself and my son we made short order of the remaining troops.

Speaking of, my son came in near the garage, which he… immediately ignored. When pressed for reason, he said my scientist was better at handling anomalies and he didn’t want his guys to die to something horrible. He instead sent his technician (scientist) to handle the mechanical POI in the center of the board. We agreed he would tackle at least one anomaly but now I know I should give him a specialist in anomalies if I want him to do anything about them. The additional POIs turned up booby traps that his mechanic happened to be perfectly equipped to handle, so it worked out anyway.

Shortly after resolving these two anomalies, we rolled a Zone Event: emissions. A storm came through–but not any normal storm. One full of howling winds that cut through you. Anyone in the open would take damage. I brought a meteorologist, though, so we got free actions per model after rolling the event with which gave us just enough time to duck behind cover and be safe from the storm. I was generous with “Cover” here as it was a learner game, so we had no issues. In the future I’ll require it is something that can enclose you.

But hey, how often do you get to say “Thank God we brought a meteorologist” in a wargame?

The last anomaly was also electric, but my researcher (his actual class) was more than ready for it. We were able to disable it and get off the map without incident.

In sum, we had fun, but it wasn’t very dangerous. After killing the guards we failed to reveal any additional enemies. We checked the deck and about 1/3rd of the event cards are enemies, but somehow we ended up with 10 straight non-enemy cards. This is fine, I suppose. Sometimes nothing happens, which is part of the tension. For the future, I’ll beef up the starting enemies a touch. I had, for example, considered placing vermin or bugs in the garage. That would have been just enough to make dealing with the garage a real issue.

It was a fun start, though, and helped me calibrate. I still have a few more models to paint before our first “Official” campaign game and this game let my son see how everything works so he can make more informed decisions about equipping his guys. For the campaign, I plan on both of us having three characters but only bringing two per scenario. That way we can have one perish but stay “in it” just fine.

Plus, it wrapped up in an under an hour, including “the teach.” Definitely a win in my book. I was able to get it done in a busy day of writing out a long essay for a final marketing project. Who says getting a masters kills your hobby time?

Well, me. I said it. It’s still true.

Don’t get a masters.

(Unless the value proposition works out for you, or you’re young and fresh out of undergrad, or it’s required for the career you want, or…)