The Thing Returns

During lockdown I painted up figures for a Perilous Tales game based on John Carpenter's The Thing.  The 80s Genre Guide for 7TV includes profiles for the various Thing creatures and the designers had a demo game at Salute earlier this year, and shared the episode guide on the 7TV Facebook page.

The playing area was two feet square with snow drifts, trees and the Antarctic Research Base.

I had the Heroes with MacReady, a second co-star, a Corrupt Official with three security guards, and three dogs.

John took the Villains with The Thing, two Dog-Things, a Human-Thing and three Cursed Creatures, plus a Head-Thing and Spider-Thing standing by to take over the Heroes.

Starting from opposite corners of the playing area, we both sent our faster moving dogs into the centre where one of the fuel cans needed was located, whilst the Official and the Security Guards moved up the side of the board towards a second can.

John sent a Cursed Creature to cover the third fuel can but a Scene Card enabled me to swap it with MacReady, getting him into a better position whilst the other co-star battered the Creature.

John transformed one of my security guards into a Head-Thing, killing a second one, so my co-star used the Steal The Scene to get into the action and take revenge.

By now, The Thing had awakened and engaged MacReady before he had a chance to pick up the fuel.

The Corrupt Official used his fuel can to set the Human-Thing alight, whilst the dogs howled at each other in the centre of the map.

My co-star then moved to the remaining fuel can and fought with another Cursed Creature, before taking the fuel and making a dash for it.

The Thing eventually killed MacReady, and the Human-Thing was killed due to burns and dog attacks, but the co-star and Corrupt Official managed to make it to the Series 2 and escape.

Although a number of creatures were disposed with, the Thing was still alive so the base remained infested.  The main co-star was dead but the other co-star and the Corrupt Official escaped to safety.  On balance, we judged this is as a minor victory for the Heroes.  Another great 7TV game.