A highlight in the depths of winter, this weekend of gaming joy in Tenby is looked forward to by all who attend. The snow and freezing temperatures from the previous week had all disappeared and the weather was perfect for the time of year.
Sod’s Law also saw Grogmeet moved to this weekend (from November 2024), and as we couldn’t be in two places at once we had to pass that for Grogten (it’s longer and the accommodation is better!). From what I saw online Grogmeet was a fantastic event, and I’m already looking forward to the next one in November (and of course Virtual Grogmeet before that).
The journey across Wales with Jeremy flew by and before we knew it we were in Tenby, greeted with hugs, food, beer and Savage Worlds Pathfinder character sheets. And so the games began!
Savage Worlds Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords
Selecting one of the many pregens created by Bagpuss Grognard we were rolling dice and off on an adventure in Golarion, playing the Rise of the Runelords adventure path.
The adventure had a great setup, with our PCs attending the Swallowtail Festival in Sandpoint. Fun things to do, competitions, food, drink and funky goblins! The nasty bastards turned up en masse and we had a fight on our hands.
Savage Worlds was well up to the job of delivering a Pathfinder like experience (ok, I’ve never played Pathfinder, but I have enough of an idea from the Pathfinder card game and video games) with our competent heroes slicing, dicing and immolating them gobbos. As the adventure progressed we encountered interesting NPCs and locations and had lots of laughs along the way.
The adventure ended early Friday afternoon with a fantastic boss fight that looked like it was going to go poorly for us. But we were heroes and triumphed, evil was vanquished - at least for now. I think that was the first part of the adventure path, it’d be great to play more of it some day.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying: The Affair of the Hidden Jewel
Splitting into two groups for the 2nd Friday session, I joined old hand WFRP GM Jeremy who ran a fantastic little adventure, The Affair of the Hidden Jewel. This adventure was oozing with that WFRP Old World vibe and cleverly drew together two hooks we were following and was full of duplicity and back-stabbing with roguish nobles and noble rogues, great stuff!
The other game in this slot was 17th Century Minimalist GMd by Viscount Jonkeer, by all accounts it was very good.
Space Hulk
While the Battle Tech heads gathered their robits to batter the crap out of each other, the rest of morphed into Space Marines and Genestealers for a session of Space Hulk.
Making its second Grogten appearance, I was keen to give this a shot. It’s such a neat game and looks great on the table with the room and corridor tiles and miniatures painted by Jeremy who refereed and provided guidance to both sides in the conflict.
The battles lines were drawn out with myself and Of Dice and Men as Gene Stealers against Bagpuss Grognard and Viscount Jonkeer as the outnumbered but heavily armed Space Marines. Their strategy and gear served them well, but the Genestealers swarmed and whittled down their numbers; which side was victorious shall remain a secret.
Mythic Greece Pendragon: The Final Odyssey
An Grogten annual event, the all day Saturday game with 9 players is GMd by Sam0Vail and this year he had gone all out in preparing a highly entertaining heroic adventure with an epic climax.
All of our PCs were Greek heroes, mortals and demi-gods (like my character Diomedes, who was decidedly ungodlike with a series of terrible rolls) setting out to save humankind from the Titans. Sam0Vail brought out the big guns with his three harpies who appeared at key points in the adventure to offer cryptic guidance in the form of song, all performed by Sam0Vail. It was an experience.
The climax saw Bagpuss Grognard’s hero, Ion, heroically meet his end so we could defeat the titans, it was epic.
D6 Star Wars: The Argovia Strike
We split into two groups for the Sunday morning slot. I was running D6 Star Wars while Of Dice and Men ran Twilight Green, a Vietnam based mythos adventure using the more recent Twilight 2000 system. The reports from the front line were that it was it was a solid victory.
The Argovia Strike is taken from Instant Adventures, a collection of short adventures suitable for one shots. It’s a great setup, with a band of rebel agents infiltrating an imperial base to destroy a sensor array. I enjoyed the adventure but wish I’d had a test run as the players breezed through it, and I’d have beefed it up a little more. Still there were some nice scenes and moments of tension. Maybe one to reflect on and run again.
Call of Cthulhu: Journal d'Indochine
As we moved into the Sunday afternoon we were down to eight tired and jaded gamers. But we were driven to play more games and Bagpuss Grognard stepped up to GM a cracking Call of Cthulhu adventure Journal d'Indochine (at least part of the adventure).
This felt as much war movie as Call of Cthulhu adventure, but as we pushed on into enemy territory the horror grew along with a realisation of what we faced.
And perhaps the highlight of the weekend was the TPK that Bagpuss Grognard delivered, killing not one, but two of my PCs - that was terrifying and exciting! What a fantastic way to round out a great weekend!
Food, Drink and Good Company
Like previous Grogten weekends, it’s as much about the good company, food and drink as it about the games.
Food highlights included:
A duet of curries from Jim “Old Man Slippers" Failing Forward and Bagpuss Grognard for Friday tea
An amazing fry-up with 2 types of haggis courtesy of Jeremy and Jim “Old Man Slippers" Failing Forward
Saturday tea was at Harbwr Brewery Tap & Kitchen
And lots of chilling in the lounge, drinking beer and whisky and talking bollocks.
Before we knew it the weekend was over and Monday morning saw us all parting ways, a sad moment, but we were pleased to have enjoyed a great weekend and made a load more memories. Here’s to the next one!
Huge thanks go to Bagpuss Grognard for once again generously hosting us, running two amazing games and sharing the delights of Tenby.
Also a big thanks to ian.fenrisgames for sending a load of minis for our games, unfortunately they didn’t arrive in time but the Grogten crowd will see them put to good use! If you’re looking for amazing miniatures I’d highly recommend checking out the Fenris Games website.