Australopithecus finds an watering hole, Palaeo diet AAR

We managed to play another game of Palaeo Diet the next day and as we had already occupied the dinner table our group of Australopithecines were hungry again...
The previous game can be found at: http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2024/08/australopithecus-jungle-hunt-palaeo.html

In the next game I had placed a small watering hole in the jungle and our group were interested about any food that could be found there in.

We had 6 members of our group, 2 to each player.
I placed a small area of water in the middle surrounded by 4 terrain pieces for smaller critters to try to run and hide into if found in the water.
The critters can be found if a hunter makes a special search action after a succesful activation, finding a critter on a 6 if standing on the shore, or a 5+ if in the water (but with the risk of drowning as the standard rules).
I placed 2 other primates on the table to act on failed rolls. Lets see if they are gets interested when our group starts their search in the water.
The hunt would count as successfully if we find 6 counts of food and at least 4 members survive. 

The first two of our Australopithecines are searching the water.

More members of their group joins in.

A smaller bird have been find in the waters and are trying to run for the closest new hiding place.

The Australopithecus is trying to sneak and catch the birds.
In the background we can see another primate from an unknown species, but it are keeping some distance as of now.

A frog has been found and the hunt is on..

Mutch activity in the water. Food can certainly be found here.

With an activation of three ones I instead placed a apex predator in the jungle. Some way from our group but still maybe we should try to not splash as mutch in the water...

One member of our group is hunting a frog or a toad that is running to a new hiding place around the roots of an old tree.

The hunt for food continues.

A new small bird have been found, if we are careful maybe we can catch it...

We had found enough food for the entire tribe and we could leave the water.

The apex predator had shown some small interest in all the commotion but not enough to attack us, just close in somewhat.

Australopithecus jungle hunt, Palaeo diet: Eat or be eaten AAR

 

My daughter asked me to play a tabletop game and it was ages since we played a game but I had a game in mind that I wanted to play with the kids.
I wanted to show Palaeo Diet: Eat or be eaten.
Its a game from from Ganesha games that I have played some times but it was some time ago so I was a bit rusty about the rules.
You as a player decides how many dices you want to try to activate your miniatures with but with each fail the game reacts, making for a interesting "intelligence" of the other miniatures in the game.
It can be found on their site: https://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cPath=1_59&products_id=328
Its a nice stone age themed hunting game that I really recommend.

I wanted the game to be set some millions years ago in a jungle in Africa, following a group of our earliest ancestors. Something like a group of Australopithecine, relatives to the famous "Lucy" fossil.

More pictures of the miniatures that will represent our hunter group can be found here: http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2023/06/simians.html

We each took control of 2 hunters and had 3 herd grazers placed at the middle of the table that we needed to hunt down to give our tribe a feast.

A hunter is sneaking through the bushes to get close to its prey...

In the distance one of our members runs to get around the prey. Our plan was to try to surround the prey so they wouldn't be able to escape.

The hunters closes in...

First prey has fallen, wounded by a spear and after it started to run away one of the hunter finished it of with a club.

A second grazer is felled.

The last grazer is hit by a throwing spear and it reacts by attacking one of our hunters that was trying to sneak up to it from behind.

But the grazer was then felled by a mighty wooden club.

A successful hunt and all the members of the tribe rejoiced...
A feast wait us tonight...

Simians

 

I just fell in love with these Simian miniatures from Lucid Eye when they released them and finally I couldnt resist them and bought me some...
https://www.lucideyepublications.com/savage-core

Ive seen some people paint them with markings like ive done here and I really liked that idea.
It shows that these simians are smarter then first persevered, that they are highly intelligent with a sense of art or style.

My plan is to use them in a primitive hunting game like Paleo diet.

Cannibal attack on peacefull village, Palaeo Diet AAR

The jungle cannibals attacked a nearby agricultural village...


This is a short after action report from an Palaeo Diet game we had.
And I wanted to introduce some other game mechanics.

For this hunt we would have human preys...
I used the hominid reaction table and the miniatures were armed as the model indicated, with bows or spears.
The villagers had just woken up or were not prepared for an attack so the reaction mechanics could work great for this sort of scenario.
I had six villagers scattered around the table and the goal of the scenario would be to kill atleast three of them in eight turns and suffer less casualties then the defenders.

For the attackers I had two groups of four miniatures that were to attack the village.
We also tested out some special rules. Amongst the attacker would be one medicine man(Healer rule), a shaman(Shaman rule) and a chieftain (with the Crotchety, and the Brute special rule to represent his big belly).


The villagers are from Perry Miniatures plastic Ansar box and the Cannibals are from Northstar Miniatures.

https://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_62&products_id=2593&osCsid=9c0nsn91oia1jbicnrfsuieo07

http://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=87&cat=317&page=1

The unsuspecting village...

The village drum and a burnt out camp fire.

The first attackers led by their chieftain.

A flanking force with the shaman.

To my total surprise one of the villagers offered tougher resistance than anticipated and I lost one of my attacker. This is not a good start for this attack.

The feisty defender had been pushed back and was then felled with and arrow.
Another defender had left a crop field, climbed over a small fence and was engaging my troops.

Jungle cannibals moving in...

Another defender had been taken out and the troops starts to move to the centre of the village.

A villager is taken out in the fields by a spearwielding cannibal.

The chieftain tries to catch up to another defender but he would have nothing of it and instead opted to run for it, thinking he was faster then the chieftain. A calculated assumption based on the chieftains big belly I would think.
No matter, we had managed to kill three of the defenders and had suffered one loss of our own resulting in a successful attack on the small village.




The deadliness of the first enemy came to a shock for me and I almost thought that the whole attack would be a fiasco. But we managed to come back and in the end it was a success for the cannibals.
Another great game of Palaeo Diet.