Finally the Table Breaker dice that I backed on Kickstarter arrived. I say finally, but that’s me being impatient once I knew that they were coming.

In reality the dice are two months early. I shouldn’t be getting these dice until sometime in February. However thanks to a bit of good luck and filling in my backer details early, I was, along with 140 other lucky regular backers getting our dice early along with the early bird backers.

I went with the black and red colour combo. It looks cool, but more importantly it’s very readable. I’ve seen some dice that the numbers are not that clear.

The dice are beautiful, and have a nice weight to them. The whole presentation is really good. The metal storage case can have the foam for the dice in the lower half removed and be used as a mini dice tray. My only complaint is that the hinge seems a bit too wobbly.

But how did I ended up with these amazing dice?

It started as a joke! Longtime sufferers will recall that last year The Usual Suspect broke my folding gaming table. Which meant that one or two of my supportive friends in my hour of suffering, used that opportunity to make jokes at my expense. Some would consider this cruel, but it was good natured banter in reality.

The day after, my friend Bouncy posted a screen grab of a kickstarter page for these dice on the club Facebook page. I missed the intended joke totally, and went off looking for the dice, cursing my friend for not including the link. Naturally I liked what I saw and backed the project.

It wasn’t until much later in the day when Jonathan commented on Bouncy’s post that he had only just got the joke, that it dawned on me also. Wow how slow was I? But it was funny, and had also cost me money. Well it would do (the Kickstarter hadn’t finished at that point), I could have backed out of backing the dice. But they looked really cool, and the name was cool also. So I let it ride.

I suppose you would like to hear what Dram got up to in the first session of the New Year. So read on for more in the adventures of …

Dram Tactical Genius

Our party of adventurers awoke the next morning, sore, beaten, but more importantly not stinking of poison.

While the others in the group pottered around, Dram did what was second nature for him. He made and ate breakfast.

Breakfast was followed by a boring discussion about what to do next. Ace and some others in the group wanted to go to Cragmaw Castle. No one seemed on board with Dram’s idea about seeing the dragon again. Which seemed the more exciting option. Where was the fun going to some castle? Apparently there was some guy they had to search for there. Who might have a map to a lost mine. This really didn’t sound as much fun as Dram’s idea of seeing the dragon again.

Out voted, the group broke count and headed off towards Cragmaw Castle.

They were travelling light and fast. Which for a halfling was more like jogging along to keep up with these big folk. How that gnome and his heavy armour was keeping up he didn’t know. In the distance Dram could here the wings of the dragon flapping as it flew above it’s domain. Which for Dram was a constant reminder of the excitement they were missing out on.

Early evening the group pitch camp near the edge of a woods. After the evening meal, before settling down for the night. There was another debate about the path to take. Sarmyar made an incredulous remark during it that Dram had to pick her up on. She had remarked at one point that she wanted excitement, to which Dram responded “but you turned down seeing the dragon again”. That put her in her place he thought.

Sarmyar and Ace took first watch. Dram snuggled up under his blanket and fur skin blanket, and drifted off into a slumber.

The next thing Dram knows he is being woken by a commotion, Ace and Sarmyar had awakened the camp, they were under attack.

Dram could make out shapes and flapping. He cast darkness to hide and give him time to prepare his defences.

Unable to see, Dram felt around for his staff. With battle noises filtering through to him. Dram used the staff to give himself mage’s armour.

Fully protected and now ready for action, Dram made his way out of the darkness. The rest of the group were still fighting these creatures. Magic missiles flew from Dram’s hand as he guided them to hit the creatures attacking Nick, Sarmyar and the gnome. They dropped to the floor dead.

Dram had once again saved the day.

As they waited for the darkness to disappear. Dram looked at the creatures corpses. He recognised the small, leather winged blood sucking stirge.

The final watch after all that excitement was carried out by Dram, Grull and Nick. Which was rather boring, and uneventful.

As the sun rose in the sky, slowly warming up everything it touched, Grull and Sarmyar disappeared off to do a spot of hunting. Dram naturally made breakfast.

After breakfast had been eaten, and Dram’s thoughts had started to turn towards second breakfast. The hunting couple returned with a boar over Grull’s shoulders. Second breakfast was going to be awesome.

After breakfast Ace had the bright idea of taking a short cut through the woods to Cragmaw Castle.

Light was dappling through the overhead canopy. The walk was rather pleasant. The party hit a path that they decided to follow.

Suddenly Sarmyar disappeared into a hole in the ground. Dram reacted instinctively casting feather fall to save Sarmyar.

As the party gathered round the hole in the ground, hobgoblins appeared out from behind trees and bushes. Arrows flew through the air. One struck Dram.

There was only one response Dram had to this. Misty Step. Dram disappeared and then reappeared the other side of the hole Sarmyar had fallen into. Before anyone reacted or could do anything, for the second time in two days Dram was engulfed in a wall of darkness.

Once again whilst hidden, Dram used his staff to give him mage’s armour. He was ready now for this battle. The noises of which were making their way through the darkness. It sounded exciting.

Dram slowly made his way to the edge of the darkness. Poking his head out he saw the pit directly in front of him, now half full with hobgoblin corpses.

There were two hobgoblins attacking a dire wolf. Nick had transformed again and as usual getting himself into a sticky situation. Dram casts magic missile and directs them at the two hobgoblins, then fades back into the darkness. Well you need to see something first to hit it.

Dram repeats the manoeuvre. This time there is a single hobgoblin left attacking the dire wolf, and a cleaved hobgoblin corpse between the dire wolf and Grull. That lone hobgoblin took the full force of the magic missile. It’s body slumped to the ground, expired.

Gnomes are such carrion-scavengers. Our “paladin” was true to his race, and rushed over to go through the pockets of the hobgoblin that Dram had just killed.

Dram was concerned about Sarmyar. He didn’t think she had bumped her head from her fall, after all he had saved her. Which she could have been grateful about and at least said thank you. Maybe she got hit on the head during the excitement of battle. That’s what is had to be. Why else would she keep going on about a dust cloud, and waiting for it to disappear? There was no dust cloud.

The gnome went over to Grull and showed him a bit of paper that he had found on the hobgoblin corpse.

Feeling brave Ace went looting the remaining bodies. Who then starts handing out pieces of paper to the rest of the group.

Dram looked at the piece of paper handed to him. It was a wanted poster with his likeness crudely drawn on it. “I’m going going to send that back to mother, she’ll like this”, spoke Dram to no-one in particular.

If Dram thought gnomes were carrion-scavengers, Ace was going to make what the paladin had done look like the height of good taste.

Ace started hacking off one of the hobgoblins heads, and then tied it to his belt using the remains of the hobgoblins hair.

With that image firmly in your mind we leave our adventurers for another week.