Boar Hunt in the Wildwoods

Saturday evening: Let’s go hunt some boar in the Wildwoods!

Exhaustion (from adult life demanding adult things from adult people) dragged on us, but the lure of tabletop gaming proved stronger. Seeking a lighthearted diversion, we turned to Wargames Soldiers & Strategy 132 and more specifically Michael Hoddinott’s simple, but clever, medieval boar hunt rules. Perfect for a quick, fun session, we thought.

To add a narrative twist, we integrated the hunt into our ongoing Frostgrave: the Wildwoods campaign. This wasn’t just your average boar; it was a beast of legendary renown, or in other words a perfect little side quest set in the enchanted, dangerous woods we were exploring. Our tired minds envisioned our warbands, weary from their other expeditions, now tasked with tracking and bringing down a particularly ferocious boar, a challenge that promised both excitement and a welcome break from adult life.

We placed four pieces of difficult terrain (swamps), as per the rules on the table. Using numbered markers we marked the exits of the six trails, on which the boar could escape. We roughly placed them, so as to form a 60 by 60 cm square, as the rules suggest. In between we placed some decorative snow-covered fir trees to set the stage. Then, after an initiative roll we alternated placing our respective miniatures: the hunters, the beaters and the dogs.

Eric used Pritt, his Frostgrave Captain as the hunter. My own Captain, Jaz‘Minh, led my henchmen during the hunt.

Eric’s guide managed to chase the boar in the right direction: Pritt, his hunter, who was eagerly waiting at the end of trail number 1. But, things proved more complicated than expected. The beast managed to slip from Pritt’s grasp and flee across the woods the next trail. No luck for Eric’s hunter …

Mayhem in the frozen forest: the boar was chased from one hunter to another. But, somehow it always managed to slip past its pursuers …

It was a very cunning boar, perfect at the game of cat and mouse (hidden movie reference here 😉 )

My crew was eagerly waiting for their prey. Ruby, beater was less than effective, sermingly more fascinated by random snowflakes, than the boar. Indeed, over most turns, she barely activated.

In the end, at round 4, it was my hunter who finally managed to capture the boar. Admittedly, it was mostly luck and a weakened boar, that handed me the victory.

As we played in the Frostgrave Wildwoods setting, we decided to let the winner of the boar hunt have a treasure from the campaign book, as well as extra supplies at the start of our next Wildwoods game: The Temple of Cats!

And, as always, this game was brought to you by alcohol! And a fine one at that too: