Dino Safari at Broadside 2019

After several months of fevered terrain building and figure painting the day finally came and we introduced the world (well, the intrepid explorers braving this year's Broadside) to Dino Safari!

The day started off with some careful packing...

Followed by an even more careful drive to Sittingbourne...

Happily, everything arrived in one piece and at 1 minute past ten we were ready to face the crowds!

I was originally tasked to do the game last year, whilst helping out at SELWG. I gave the working title of Trophy Hunting in the Lost Valley, but over the months this evolved to the more manageable Dino Safari. The basic design aim was to create a fun participation game that includes numerous factions that each have different objectives. The factions were intended to be controlled either by club members or show participants. Since people tend to like to try a game but not be stuck with it for the whole day, I also wanted the factions to be reasonably short lived. There was a T. rex on the loose after all!

To keep things interesting, each faction was awarded victory points for achieving objectives and I made a simple leaderboard that was attached to one side of the table ('The Eaten' in the above photo). I was also keen to include characters from various classic pulp dinosaur films/books.

 We have the intrepid explorers of the Lost World who were searching for fossils...

The Big Game Hunter and Shooting Party...

And yes, there were rules that allowed them to drive the truck. How else would they capture the T. rex calf and get it back to the cage?!

The dastardly German U-Boat Captain and Crew who needed to collect oil from tar-pits and return it to the beach to refine and refuel the sub (!)

The Cavemen Chief and his Tribe who were hunting for fresh meat...

Last but not least, there was also a famous Geologist and two Spear-Armed Adventurers. Sadly, Prof. Blushing was trampled by a stampeding Parasaurolophus and failed to make it onto celluloid. So here's one I prepared earlier...

I was keen to make the terrain work as a dynamic part of the game. So, each terrain area was defined by the type of objects that were placed on it. Vegetated terrain included trees, cycads, ferns and other low lying vegetation. The various herbivore dinosaurs ate different types of vegetation and once all the plants on a terrain area was eaten, the terrain remained, but no longer blocked line of site. The idea was to make the table open up as the game progressed (depending on how hungry the dinosaurs were!). We did reset the vegetation when things got too sparse.

There was also a carefully placed piece of blocking terrain in the middle of the game area (hem!). This was of course the volcano, that rumbled progressively louder as the day progressed culminating in a rather large plume of ash that spat out lava bombs at anybody (adventurer or dinosaur) in range.

In the end the rotten Germans just pipped the Cavemen in VP. Although to be fair, the Cavemen withdrew back to their caves with their lives (and lunch) intact, whilst the Germans had some problems on the beach with a rather annoyed theropod....

The rules were inspired by Studio Tomahawks Congo, with a little bit of Dinomight thrown in for good measure. Player turns were based on a random card draw, with a special effects card each turn.

Overall I was pleased with how the game played and especially pleased that it was so well received, particularly by one or two younger adventurers. Unfortunately I was so busy with the game that I didn't get chance to look at anything else and so I don't have photos of any of the other excellent tables. I guess that being so busy also saved me some money, since I also didn't get chance to buy anything!

A very big thanks to Friday Night Fire Fight Club for helping with the game and to everybody who came along to either watch, play or with kind words.