Drowned … Over … Earth … Watch(???)

Drowned Earth has wonderful sculpts that add to the overall game. An Artefacters crew and a Wanderers crew have faced off in many battles in the post-post-apocalyptic world of TDE…

The Klukva minis equal the quality in resin with super crisp detail and great poses. My son is a video gamer first, tabletop player second, but even he was anxious to get them on the table.

Using the existing TDE range as a guide, we came up with a stat line, abilities, and point values for each OW character that made them a little stronger than a typical TDE model. Where a 5-model TDE crew comes out at 100 points, the OW crew will match the same with 4 models. Our goal was to hit 6 model teams at 150 points if Klukva expands the range.

I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds with the rules, but I think we found a good balance. Anyone not familiar with Overwatch may find this next bit a little head-scratchy, but we had to think hard on how to fit the more video-gamey abilities into the TDE ruleset without making it too overpowered. Mechanically, we got it working without adding rules – just using existing rules in different ways.

Torbjorn’s turret was a little tricky to jury-rig, but I’ve seen enough examples from other games (i.e. Deadzone) to get a workable solution where Torbjorn acts as a Leader to his turret, feeding it CP to act. The turret has a facing arc painted on the base and can react to anything within that arc.

Tracer’s abilities were probably the trickiest, with the Blink and Recall, but TDE Dodges and Reactions provided the framework. For example, with Recall, we decided if Tracer was damaged from a Reaction to her movement, she could discard all remaining AP to return to her starting location and avoid the damage – essentially turning back time.

If Reaper gets a ‘Nailed It’ on a Move action, only Dodges can be taken in reaction to simulate Shadow-step. McCree can ‘Fan the Hammer’ with Nailed It’s on Ranged attacks, allowing him to chain more attacks. Reinhardt can throw up a Barrier Field giving hard cover to allies in base contact, though he is limited to Restricted Movement.

Next up will be a bit of a battle report with the Overwatch crew thrown in. Just have to parse through some pictures…