More Frostgrave

I played another game of Frostgrave against Grim the other day.  This time we played The Keep, using the splendid teleportation discs made by JP on his Tales of Frostgravery blog.  We decided to keep to the first edition rules for now and continued with our warbands from last game.
Hakon was without some of his better soldiers, the knight and the tracker, wounded and resting for the duration, and a thug and a man-at-arms who died in the ruins last time.  He hired a templar and an infantryman to make up for their loss.  Orangorn had been spending on various potions and scrolls to give himself an advantage, but how well would his planning pay off?

The scenario is an interesting one, with four teleportation discs, each with a treasure on it.  There is a 75% chance that a disc will teleport anyone stepping on it to another random disc.  This gives a wizard an experience boost if he or she is personally teleported by a disc.

The ruins of the keep

Orangorn's warband.  Note the crossbowman on top of the arch

Hakon's band ready to explore

Opening moves, Orangorn's woman-at-arms is the first to try one of the discs

The core of Hakon's strategy.  Keep a magic and missile base, while the rest go after treasure

Thugs from both sides begin claiming treasure

Orangor's new knight faces the blinded templar

Orangorn's thug grabs a treasure, while a rat menaces Jonrik

A great fun game. We felt the scenario really added to the experience.   Highlights included Halfdan Pushing the crossbowman off his arch right at the beginning of the game.  Hakon taking out the bold (wo)man-at-arms who's experiment with the disc took her right in front of the wizard.  No time for fancy spells, Hakon took her out with a wallop from his staff.  One of my archers also got a lucky critical against the new knight.  Hakon himself braved the teleport discs as well, and after a failed try, they took him right in front of Orangorn and the battered crossbowman.  Fortunately, the game ended (time constraints, alas) at the end of that turn, so we assumed the two wizards stared hard and menacingly at each other, then backed off.

It certainly didn't go all my way.  Once again Orangorn made good use of Wizard Eye, and this time proved adept at Blinding Light.  At one time three of my soldiers were blind, and with casting numbers of 17, 17 and 20, I was lucky to get even one back in play.  Worse, one of the blinded solders was my new templar, who I had high hopes for, with Strength giving him a bonus, along with an Enchanted Weapon and Fleet Feet (which I mistakenly cast after he was blinded, having forgotten).

Some of Orangorn's spending had been on teleport potions, which proved doubly interesting when used to teleport onto a teleport disc.  We couldn't decide if it helped or hindered, but it certainly made the game great fun.

In the end I had put four enemy soldiers out of action, for the loss of one.  Fortunately everyone survived, though my Infantryman will have to miss the next game.  None of us actually got treasures off the table, but I had claimed three to Grim's one.  We have house ruled that in such circumstances we get the treasure value, but not the experience.

Hakon gained sufficient experience to rise to level 6, thanks mostly to his trip on the disc and taking out the woman-at-arms.  Orangorn has got to level 5.  Hakon did well treasure-wise, though he was disappointed to find that both grimoires he found contained spells he already knew.  He has traded both of them for one grimoire with a new spell.

I'm not sure when we will get another Frostgrave game in, but this has been a great couple of games, and has helped cement Frostgrave as one of my favourite fantasy skirmish systems.  I'll admit to wondering if I could use the new Fistful of Lead fantasy rules instead of the actual Frostgrave rules to give a similar experience, but I think I'll stick with this.  I will, of course, play the fantasy FfoL anyway, in fact, Bodvoc and I are planning a game for October.

Frostgrave, Return to the Frozen City

I got another game of Frostgrave in recently against Grim, one of my roleplaying buddies. We both used level two wizards, veterans of a couple of previous multi player clashes.  You can see Grim's soothsayer (Orangorn) with his apprentice Jonrick and the rest of the band here and here, and Hakon the Enchanter, Halfdan and crew here and here.  

Despite there being a new edition of the rules, we were still using first edition, and it's a long while since either of us played, so we were a bit rusty.  I chose one of the rulebook scenarios that required no additional or special terrain, Genie in a Bottle.  It did need a special mini, but I improvised (after failing to find something suitable near to hand).

The two wizards were looting the ruins of Felstad, as usual, but they had both heard a rumour that a powerful djinn was imprisoned in a lamp somewhere in the area.  Both wizards want it, lets just hope it will be friendly (Spoiler: it wasn't)

The field of play; the warbands face off against each other

Hakon, Enchanter Extraordinaire (second right) and some of his band

Orangorn (second left) and band. Note the sneaky elf taking advantage of a lofty perch.

Orangorn's warband moves forwards, aiming for the treasure in the nearby house and the more valuable loot in the Skull Temple.  He cast Wizard Eye (the blue crystal) on a wall, allowing him to stay in cover behind the Skull Temple platform and causing me problems throughout the game.

Hakon's band advance, ready to claim two nearby treasures, while he uses telekinesis to bring a third treasure closer.

A snow leopard arrives to trouble Hakon's warband, killing one thug before later being dispatched by another.  Meanwhile, his soldiers begin their assault on the central platform.

The elven twins? brothers? keep up a constant stream of annoying, if ultimately largely ineffective, bowfire on  Halfdan, my apprentice, and the soldiers under his command.

Orangorn's soldiers claim the central treasure, but one of Hakon's thugs arrives to try and take it off them.

The arrival of Hakon's knight spells doom for Orangorn's (wo)man-at-arms.

After being Pushed off his perch, one of the elves joins his kin to shoot (again, largely ineffectively) at Hakon's man-at-arms.

Thug vs thief:  Both rolled a 20, automatically hitting and causing double damage, and kill each other.

The djinn appears, easily killing the tracker who rubbed the lamp, despite Hakon enchanting his staff to give him a chance.

The djinn chases after Orangorn's crossbowman after taking out Hakon's knight (also armed with a newly enchanted weapon).

As usual, I got so wrapped up in the game that I failed to take any pictures of the end turns.  The djinn was unstoppable,  though my knight did hurt it.   The djinn rolled a 20, but my knight beat it's score thanks to a higher Fight value.  The natural 20 meant that the knight was hit as well, killing him.  Closer post game reading of the rules says that the natural 20 trumps the knight's higher score, but there would have been no change to the result, the knight still died.

After that, the djinn turned it's attention to Grim's warband, killing a sacrificial crossbowman.  At this point we called time, Hakon had three treasures, due partly to good use of Telekinesis on treasure tokens.  In fact I had planned to use Telekinisis to move the djinn's lamp once it had been revealed, but forgot in the excitement, and threw the knight into combat needlessly.  Ah well, heat of the moment.  Orangorn got two treasures, but that included the double value one from the centre of the Temple of Skulls.  Hakon also benefited from retrieving the lamp.  Sadly, two of Hakon's gang didn't make it out of the ruins, one of the thugs and the man-at-arms.  I suspect that Hakon is more concerned about the enchanted sword the MaA was carrying, he'll just have to try and Embed one of the enchantments cast during the game before his next foray.  He also has a couple more soldiers too injured to accompany him next time (or 'malingering', in Old Norse), including the knight, so there will be some recruitment before the next game.  Treasure-wise Hakon gained 170 gold crowns, and sold the lamp,  once he had finished inspecting it, for more gold.  He also has three more scrolls and a couple more grimoires and is now level 5.  Orangorn also lost two soldiers and is now level 4.

This was definitely the most fun game of Frostgrave I've yet had.  The action was exciting, with many cinematic moments.  I'll definitely try and get some more games in again soon, and I ordered a copy of the second edition rules, which I understand are back compatible with all the scenario books.  One of the changes is the way in which experience is gained, I might compare the two systems to see how Hakon would have fared under the new system once the book turns up.

Artefacts from my Gaming Past: 2

I've been sorting through my stuff in the loft of shame and came across this chap.

He's an Asgard dwarf (FD3 Dwarf Thief, according to Lost Minis), and may not look much; little detail and poor paint job, neither helped by years of abuse at the bottom of a lead pile

But to me he's my first character mini, Flosi the dwarven thief.

Flosi was my first ever D&D character from my first ever game (I got the mini a few weeks later, from a games show in Manchester, where fantasy minis were rare).  I turned up at the long defunct Kirklees Modelling and Gaming Club at Huddersfield Sports Centre one Monday evening in 1977, after one of my college chums persuaded me that I had to try this new game.  I was led through the character generation process by the DM, (Johnny, I think) largely by being told what to roll, then being told what my character was best suited for.  

I was instantly hooked.

Flosi survived to third level, he controversially died in The Licheway, a White Dwarf dungeon, run by Tom Kirby (yes, that Tom Kirby), killed by a throat leech, a monster that lurks in drinks and attacks from the inside.  Poor Flosi was only having a dip, according to the inscription "bathe Sandlander, and ease your cares".

Anyway, his mini, now painted with Humbrol enamels, did duty as Flosi's replacement, and even spent some time in a small army of Asgard dwarves in my early Warhammer days.

He used to have a sword in his right hand, and a dagger, actually a pin (ouch!) in his left.  I may repaint him, though there's not a lot of detail on him.  Still, it would be fun, though I can't ever see me using him in any game.  

Talking of repainting old minis, I also found this, an old Citadel Miniatures bard with sword and lute.  I liked him because it was unusual to find a mini back then with a musical instrument, even though it does look more like a crossbreed between a lute and a mandolin.  

Unlike Flosi, the bard was definitely in the character minis box I showed in my first Artefacts post.  I wonder what other old lead I'll turn up in my delving?

Now if only I could find 'Wreckless' Eric Harminion, my longest lasting character, a 14th level human fighter.

MDF Generators in 20mm

A quick addendum to the previous post; here are a couple of the generators with two of my 20mm Star Wars minis.

I think they work just as well in this scale as in 10mm or 28mm.  Partly because there is nothing on the models themselves to indicate scale.  So that's a definite win for this terrain set.  I'll build the other set soon.

Chillcon 2022, and MDF Generators

I recently went to Chillcon in Sheffield. It's a great show, and it was good to see it back after several years absence.

I got Clash of Kings 2022 (Mantic's annual update and re-jig for King's of War, notable this year for the brand new army lists for Halflings and Riftforged, lightning themed orcs).  I'm certainly not looking for a new army at the moment (I've still got those Trident Realm minis to paint, for one thing) but it's always nice to see the game growing.

Otherwise I got little else apart from some MDF terrain from Blotz.  A pack of 28mm Generators and a 28mm Turbine/10mm Shield Generator.  I'm planning on using both sets for several games.  They will make great terrain/objectives in the 10mm Sci Fi games and also in Star Wars skirmishes.  They do rather resemble a certain Shield Generator on Hoth.  They may even look good on a Deadzone table or in a Firefight battle.

In the past I've been disappointed with some MDF terrain.  It can be a bit flat looking; blocky and lacking in depth and detail.  Well the generators certainly don't look flat.  They are simple to build (the instructions are on the website) and they've made the most of the materials to give a nice chunky piece that certainly doesn't look like sheet materials.

They've also been designed so that none of the little tabs left from where pieces attach to the frame are on surfaces that show.  They can easily be removed with a light sanding, but it's a nice touch all the same.

The finished generators 

147mm x 197mm of Generator goodness

I couldn't find my Gorilla Woodworking glue, but Strong Craft glue seems to have done the trick.  I used clips to hold the various sub-assemblies together while the glue dried, and I found that I could work on the fin section while the arch section was drying.  If I get another set I'll work on all four at once, indeed, I built the last two together, which saved a lot on drying time.

Painting wise I mostly copied the suggestion in the instructions, black undercoat, heavy drybrush of Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal Metal, followed by highlights of VGC Chainmail Silver.  I picked out details with, and painted the various 'power' bits with Vallejo Model Color Dark Prussian Blue highlighted with Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue and finally VGC Glacier Blue.  I added a little drybrush of a mix of the Magic blue and Glacier Blue around the vents to look like a glow from the power coils, or whatever they are.

The examples on the website have gold or bronze to accent the fins and other raised details, I chose red for this, simply VGC Red Gore with a highlight of VGC Blood Red and just a touch of VGC Fiery Orange.

I'm sure that many other colour schemes would look good; Hoth style white for instance, and I may get another pack and experiment.

Next to a 28mm Star Wars mini...

...and with some 10mm Sci Fi minis.

I think they work well for both scales, and, although I didn't have any to hand, I'm confident that the 20mm Star Wars minis will look good too.

Building and painting these was a pleasure, I recommend these for very useful Sci Fi scatter terrain.  Excellent value, and all round nice pieces of scenery.

EDIT; you can see these terrain pieces with some 20mm minis here.

Elves vs Orcs - 28mm Kings of War

I recently got another game of Kings of War with my son-in-law.  His first game was a little while ago (though only recently blogged) where he soundly beat me using Kingdoms of Men.  This time he used his old Games Workshop High Elves which dated back to his school/college days.

I made up a list ahead of the game, having a rough idea what he had.  This may not have been the best list possible, but at least we had a fun, and speedy game.  Both sides had 610 points (the slightly odd total was due to me changing to the higher points value Kindred Archers in Clash of Kings 2022)

The objective of the battle was to be in possession of the statue in the centre of the table.

The view from the orc lines

and looking from the elven host

The elves have advanced and caused some casualties on the orcs

Gore Riders vs Kindred Tallspears

and Ax vs Stormwind Cavalry, the wavering Krusher looks on

When you need a 5+ to hit

Excitement took over and I didn't take any more photos.  The orcs triumphed, though it should be pointed out that it was only his second game of KoW and his first with Elves, so that put him at a big disadvantage.

We both had a great game, and my son-in-law commented how smoothly the game plays, and also how well his High Elves fit the Elf army list.  I think he's now going to try and convert some of his old school chums who still have Warhammer armies.

A Kings of War Demo Game - Orcs Vs Kingdoms of Men

Note: this post was written in April, but somehow I missed actually posting it.  Since I have just written another post about our second game, this should really be seen first.

I recently introduced my son-in-law to Kings of War. We used pretty much my standard 500 point demo armies, as seen here for instance.

The game went down very well, though it was a grim day for my orcs; tabled, whilst the humans lost just one regiment of spear phalanx.  Thus it can be seen that my son-in-law very quickly picked up the game, and has a shrewd tactical mind.

The start of the battle

The orcs close in on the humans, but were wiped out in short order.

And the newly painted spearmen avoided the 'curse of the newly painted minis'. I wonder if it's the Speedpaints?