Fistful of Lead: Might and Melee

I had a great game of the fantasy version of Fistful of Lead with some of Bodvoc's gaming group. He and I have played some games of Galactic Heroes before, and the other chaps had a little experience with the original Western ruleset, but it was the first time any of us had tried the actual fantasy set.

I provided two human retinues using my Frostgrave collection and Bodvoc made up an Elven group for himself (of course) and a goblin group.  You can read his account here.

The scenario was the first one in the book, where the aim was simply to put as many of the opposition out of action as possible and gain Renown for doing so.

At the end of the first turn my Sons of Empire are skirting the wood held by the elves. A long range crossbow shot from Heinrich Shutz has Shaken one of the goblins who are making their way over the hill. The Norse carefully move round, keeping out of the action for now.

The Sons of Empire wade the stream and take on the goblins in the small wood,

while the Norse assess the situation,

and the elves advance through their wood

Goblins are falling like chaff before the mighty Empire. I even took out the goblin leader.

The elves turn nasty, with unprovoked archery against my men.

The Norse look on, trying to decide where to wet their steel.

Heinrich wounds an elf, purely in self defence. More elves attack my Empire chaps (you'd think they'd welcome my helping rid the woods of goblins), forcing me to decide which was the greater threat

After failing to hit the Norse archer, elf bowman Emyn Lockharn is Shaken in response.

My leader, Heinrich Issacs Balthazar Resinarius turns his back on the remaining goblin to face the elves

The Norse finally decide that the elves present a threat and march forwards

The wounded lady elf charges Heinrich and a long combat begins

Heinrich Issacs is attacked by elves in the front and a goblin to the rear and the Norse move in.

Shutz and the elf continue their fight, in the background the rest of his team slowly fall to the elves and goblins

With the death of Issacs, the elves are whittled down by the Norse

Who also pitch in against the lady elf

Night fell at the end of turn eight, by which time I had one soldier left, Heinrich Shultz.  i think only one or two elves were left standing.  Two goblin rabble and one spear armed goblin slunk off, the latter had taken down Issacs.  All the Norse survived, the benefit of their cautious behaviour early on in the game.

Fistful of lead provided another great fun game, with lots of tense moments and changes of fortune.  I played a '6' several times allowing Shultz to reload and fire in the same turn, and use the relevant queen cards to remove his shock, and one of Issac's  wounds as well.

I'm looking forward to another game, though most of our retinues are a bit weakened, with several troops having to miss the next game, and more than a few have developed unfortunate negative traits.

Having played Frostgrave I do find the post battle injuries a little more punishing, and the cost of replacing lost troops seems high.  Still, it's the same for all of us.  I'll have to think of ways to spend my 9 points of Renown.

Kings of War - Elves vs Undead

I'm delighted to publish this battle report from my son-in-law.  He's had a couple of games (here and here) and learned the rules, and decided to show an old school friend how to play.  They both played Warhammer back in the day, so used their old GW armies.  

"So, at long last a full battle report. Prelims: There's probably a good chance I might've unintentionally overlooked rules here and there, but that just comes with experience Didn't have counters for recording damage so used pen and paper to keep track throughout The battle was fought over the objective in the centre, the aim being to hold it with a unit for 3 turns to win. The armies: Both armies were at around 1000 points, making for a decently sized game. 
Tom fielded: 1x Zombie horde 
1x Skeleton spearmen regiment 
1x Skeleton spearmen troop 
1x Ghoul troop 
2x Deathpack hordes 
1x Deathpack Regiment 
1x Soul reaver knight troop (these were actually Bretonnian knights, but since one was headless I allowed it) 1x Vampire lord on foot 
1x necromancer on foot (represented by a corpse cart) 

I fielded: 2x kindred tallspear regiments 
1x kindred archer regiment 
1x palace guard troop
 1x stormwind cavalry regiment 
1x elven archmage 
1x eleven prince on horse 
2x bolt throwers 
Tom won the initial dice throw and went first.

Turn 1 At turn 1 Tom immediately moved to attack my ranged units with whatever he could use, lacking his own ranged units. A very lucky strike by his necromancer managed to immediately rout one of my bolt throwers, and on his left flank he advanced all his deathpacks to try and intercept my archers. The rest of his army he either moved towards the objective or behind it to protect his flanks and give his more vulnerable cover from my other ranged units. Luckily he wasn't able to close fast enough and I managed to counter charge with my palace guard, quickly despatching his forward troop of deathpack, but leaving them open to 2 larger units advancing quickly behind. I moved both my tallspear regiments forward with my prince behind towards the objective and to hopefully interdict his main force, my cavalry on my left flank were moved at the double to try and outflank his army, and my other bolt thrower moved to to find a better position

 

Turn 2 (I think, might be missing a picture here and this might possibly be turn 3) Tom began the turn by charging his skeleton spearmen towards my own line of spears to block off my access to the objective. Meanwhile, my palace guard had held their own against another line of deathpack and successfully routed them, battered by their 2 previous engagements however, they succumbed to his final unit of deathpack and were routed. On my left flank, my cavalry had successfully manoeuvred round to his rear, but an obstacle prevented them from charging that turn, thankfully my bolt thrower had moved into position and was able to fire on his ghouls, causing great damage

 

Turn 3 (we'll just say that's turn 3 for simplicity's sake) Tom's skeletons failed to beat my spears and were routed, his last remaining deathpack was successfully defeated with a mixture of archers and magic. At the rear, my bolt thrower had dispatched his ghouls, allowing my cavalry to move clear of the obstacle. Things were looking well aside from the fact his vampire lord managed to ascend towards the objective

 

Turn 4 (disaster strikes) Unfortunately, my own troops had been so tied up with his skeletons and deathpack that he had managed to move his zombie horde to attack my right hand tallspear regiment in the flanks, the massive weight of their attacks routed them from the field, my lefthand tallspear regiment, badly battered from its earlier engagement, was routed by his necromancer's use of drain life was enough to rid them from the field My cavalry might have come to save the day, however Tom had kept his own cavalry in reserve for the occasion, and managed to charge my own, not quite decisively defeating them, but keeping them tied down

 

Turn 5 (bad to worse) While my cavalry were locked down, Tom's zombies moved to get my archers, I had however one last gambit, to through my prince up the objective and to face the vampire lord in single combat, the vampire lord being a duellist however didn't put things in my favour

 

Turn 6 (end) As expected Tom's vampire lord won the engagement and dispatched my prince, he had now held the objective for 3 turns and had won

Overall a tough fought game that could've gone either way, with a lot of damage dealt to both sides"

They clearly had a lot of fun, and I hear that the are already looking at expanding their armies.  I'm really pleased to have passed on one of my hobbies to the newest branch of the family.

Frostgrave Scenario Specials

 Continuing the Frostgrave theme, here are a couple of pieces I painted up as scenario specific models.

First, the genie for the Genie in a Bottle.  If you read my account of the game, you'll see that I had to improvise.  I mentioned that I had a specific mini in mind, well here it is.  It's a D&D prepaint, a Fire Archon.  Whilst the scenario calls the creature a 'Genie', it's use of fire arrows suggested more of an efreet to me, applying D&D terminology.

Anyway, the mini is a nice one, being made of clear plastic, with black painted around the base to match the D&D prepaint look, and metals painted on for the armour and weapons.  There has been some ink or similar wash used to colour the plastic to look like flames.

It's easy to scrape off the black plastic to expose the base so it fits in with my clear based minis.  I thought the swords looked a bit out of place; both unimpressive, and unnecessary. All that was required was a bit of extra colour for the flames.  I used Army Painter Speedpaints to give an extra coat of yellow on the lower section of the mini, orange in the middle and arms, and red for the fists.  

I decided I didn't like the silver colour of the armour, so I repainted all the metal in bronze, then gave a drybrush of black to give the armour a sooty look.

The Genni from the bottle (need to scrape a bit more of that black off the base)

The Well of Dreams and Sorrows is used in the scenario of the same name.  I've seen some lovely models made for this, with fountains and icicles and so on.  I'd like this to be a fairly quick project, however, and I came across a spare well from Dungeon Saga the other day and thought it would paint up quickly.

Dungeon Saga well, now the Well of Dreams and Sorrows

The well had a base coat of Vallejo Model Color German Grey.  I then picked out random stones in two lighter greys and two browns before drybrushing with Vallejo Game Colour Stonewall Grey then VGC Khaki.  The whole lot was given a wash of AP Darktone.  The bucket and rope were VGC Beasty Brown and Khaki, given an AP Strongtone wash.

I wanted something a bit special for the contents of the well, and pondered for some time over what would look good.  I had decided on a dark blue with reflected stars, but then I remembered T' Other One's use of Vallejo Shifter Paint on his Nameless.  I managed to get a single bottle of eBay (green blue violet) and I think it looks suitably mystical.

None of these pieces were difficult to paint, but they make nice additions to my Frostgrave stuff, and I'm sure I can find use for them in other skirmish games.  

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.