Rangers of Shadow Deep deluxe edition

As one might have noticed on this blog, I have been starting to play Rangers of Shadow Deep as a solo game recently.

The rules, written by the same author of Frostgrave, are made for either that, or to play with various players (aka Rangers) versus "the system", in quite a simple manner.

The setting is the kingdom of Alladore, which now borders the Shadow Deep, a darkness collapsing neighbouring kingdoms and ever expanding.  While the original rules where published in 2018 through DriveThru, the deluxe edition contains all the original material, the Temple of Madness expansion material and the FAQ integrated into one, and published by Moediphus.

So if you have the original books, and the FAQ which can be downloaded from the RoSD Facebook group, you are good to go.

The player creates a Ranger in the game, basically his lead character like the Wizard in Frostgrave, who comes equipped with all sorts of skills and Heroic Abilities, even Spells if you like to go down that road.  Then he recruits a party of companions, your run of the mill soldiers which do evolve over time as they fight through scenarios.

Now, the more actual players take part in a scenario, the fewer companions will be present, so you won`t be fielding an army of troops if you gather with more together, but rather you'll need about 6 - 7 miniatures for the Heroes, and then the (indicated at the start of the missions) monsters that you can face.

A Mission is a series of linked scenarios, the first intro mission being only 2 scenarios long (those are the ones you saw passing by already, The Deserted Village and The Infected Trees, whom make up The Missing mission), other being longer.  Between scenarios you can check your treasure and loot, roll for any injuries or God prevents deaths in your party, and if needed swap out or recruit fresh companions.

The game itself drives on a d20 system, with roll offs between attacking and defending stats, and any modifiers from skills, pretty straightforward.  The monsters work via a simple flow chart on how they behave, and each scenario has a unique set of events which are created through an Event deck, or a set of normal playing cards whom all cause a different effect.  Once a certain number of turns is reached, the scenario ends and the wins and losses, as well as any experience, are calculated.

A great game and a very well produced rulebook and set, this is something definitly worth checking out should one find himself without opponents or clubnights.  The fact it is an "independant" rulesystem, means you can use any model you like, I for one opted to go for drawing mostly on my Middle-Earth collection, and you can even change settings to for example Star wars by just renaming items and creatures...

Creativity galore in other words, and a very fun experience!