Iron Helm

 'Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn...'

...at the going down of the sun and in the morning,

we will remember them.

(From 'For the Fallen', by Laurence Binyon)

I've been playing a lot of Iron Helm in the morning before work.

A quick set up, tough dungeon-delving solo game, it is well worth a look if you like a simple-to-play system that involves some interesting resource management decisions. I really like the premise of being an older adventurer who is on the verge of retirement and just needs to pull off one more delve to get the gold to retire (In computer games I'll often design my character as older.)

Iron Helm is (to date) the only 'print-and-play' game I have (a quick Google search will point you to sites where you can buy a print-on-demand version, or pay and download the files.) It was quite an adventure in itself to make it  but I'm glad that I did! There is a quite a sense of achievement in seeing a game you have 'made' yourself - even when the game kicks you between the legs and then stomps on your head when you hit the dirt. Despite that, every game feels like a memorable adventure with highs and lows and some thinking as you learn the cards and hone your techniques. It makes me sad when my adventurer meets their doom!

Moliclan rolls a perfect parry to fend off the terrifying wraith!

I won't talk about how to play here, except to say that for a simple game I come across a lot more rule-checking than I thought I would, mainly to do with timing and specific cards (I'm looking at you mimic...) The rulebook covers the basics, but you soon realize that there is stuff that should be covered but isn't. This is included in a supplementary book/ PDF, and many other questions are answered in online forums and a fan-made FAQ.

Fan-made tracking cards for your stats
'Comprehensive resource tracking cards' by Karsha

However, what Jason Glover has achieved here with just a deck of 16 dungeon cards to choose from is really impressive. Every time I turn over a card I feel tense, and the line art is very evocative and gorgeous.

Highly recommended.

I found the 'Cinderblade'! Now we're cooking!

What I'm playing: More Hexploring over and under ground.

 Necromancy makes death more fun...

The valley stretches out before you

While I haven't played as many solo games recently as I'd like, I brought two games back to my kitchen table for solo runs. The first is an overland adventure 'Hexplore It: Valley of the Dead King' and the second a made-for-solo classic print-and-play -  'Iron Helm'. The former is an overland adventure, and the latter a push-your-luck dungeon delve.

I've written before about my initial experience playing Hexplore It: Valley of the Dead King (VoTDK). I had another run at the game a week or two ago, this time with some enhancements and added components that I'd tracked down. I went in with a few goals:

1. Play a faster game and become 'smoother' with the core systems.
2. Try some different race and role combos.
3. Try to use the app more to track stats.
4. Play a 'full map' variant.

I'm happy to say that all the bits I initially thought were fun were more so this time around.

Character Generation

One of the most attractive things about the Hexplore It system is character creation. There are lots of roles to choose from, and then mash up - either randomly or intentionally - with one of many races. I wanted to try something randomly, but still have a good two-handed solo run, so I chose a 'Striker' (fighter) and 'Healer'. Who did I end up with?

Meet my Grey Dwarf Necromancer, and Half Elf Divine One. Just for fun, I spent 5 minutes creating some images in Hotpot. AI.

Maladus 'Aren't you a bit tall for a dwarf?' Ironside

Maladus Ironside (as imagined by Hotpot AI)

So his trick is doing damage, but also being able to raise fallen opponents as an undead 'Dark Legion' which he can command to join the battle for a round. Here is his dry erase board:

Hexplore It Necromancer dry-erase board (front)

Hexplore It Necromancer dry-erase board (reverse)

Brimbildor 'Pretty boy' Silverhair

Brimbildor Silverhair (as imagined by Hotpot AI)

The 'Divine One' can use 'Empowered Recovery' to heal health, and also resurrect a fallen comrade in (but not outside) combat.

The Divine One dry-erase board (front)

Divine One dry-erase board (reverse) and Race cards

A little help from the app

In addition to rolling up the party and updating the dry-erase boards for them I also made a serious effort to use the app this time around, and it did make life pretty easy. For a free app, it works great most of the time and makes tracking most stats hassle free - combine a role and race and stats populate automagically, tap to increase/ decrease skills and health etc. 

As you can see from the images below, it looks quite 'busy', but hats off to the team for providing this. I can see that some people will really dislike the dry-erase system, and the app gives them a viable alternative. There are a few niggles, but overall great!

Click image to expand

Sadly, the team came to a quick (and sticky) end! 

I ended up starting my adventure far away from some of the best quests, in the Rokk'to encampment. Even when using a luck stone to get some new options, I had a lot of travel to do early on. To compound matters, the Dead King randomly entered the game on round 1 - arghhh, and THEN kept (randomly) choosing the next closest city to target for conquest, so he didn't have far to travel to consume his next victims. For each city he conquers, his power and speed increase. This meant that the endgame arrived quickly and I was too underpowered to face him. I hadn't completed many quests or grown in my own powers enough! 

On the way though, I...

...visited a dilapidated shrine near the mountains and received a Blessing of Good Fortune...

...travelled to some ancient ruins and had a fantastic adventure yet emerged unscathed (an awesome result by rolling a 1 on a D10 for some cool rewards)...

...defeated a bandit prince and was rewarded with the appearance of Bezzelquark's Black Market (another perfect role of a 1!)...

...explored some locations and solved some quests (not enough though!)

New components - Encounter Deck and Living Card deck

Despite falling to the Dead King I still had a good time. I got to use the 'Encounter cards' that are sold separately. These add (much requested) art to the different encounters you have, and they really make a difference to the look and feel of the game - very evocative!

Silk Spiders

Thugs

Mangy Wolves

'Opponents assemble!'

The 'Encounter Deck' also includes 'peril cards' which add dangerous but rewarding new challenges to choose from. I didn't get to a high enough level (or roll enough sixes) to choose them this time! (You can see them in the image below - the red exclamation cards in the image below at right).

I also used the 'Living Card Deck', which brings the online QR code-sourced quest lines into the game in card form. In this adventure, I didn't come across them.

Every hill and dale in view

Finally, inspired by Daniel over at 'The Dungeon Dive' (a YouTube channel I really enjoy), I played this game with almost all the map tiles out at the beginning. While that meant I didn't need to explore to find new tiles for quests, it was pretty thematic - Maladus and Brimbildor have lived in the valley all their lives - so they roughly know the lay of the land.

A small quality of life improvement for next time would be to use a die on each of the quest markers that get put on the board so I can easily tell which quest is which without hunting around.

Overall, I really enjoyed this overland adventure, and I'm looking forward to my next visit to the Valley. In the meantime, a much shorter underground experience is Iron Helm. I'll share more about that in my next post.

Cheers!