Maniacus and M4jumbo meander into Frostgrave

[m4jumbo]

Maniacus & I finally got in our first game of Frostgrave after initially picking up the rulebook when it was released in July 2015.  Seems like we often pick up a set of rules right when they are released and yet it takes forever to get a game in.  Better late than never I guess.

For our first game, I put together two starting warbands so we could get right into the game when we got together.  We don't currently have any snowy ruined city terrain, so I pulled out my trusty Mordheim terrain and other bits and pieces to set up the table.

I had more of a chance to look through the spell lists than Maniacus and I went with an Enchanter for my Wizard.  I choose the Enchanter as I liked the idea of moving around unclaimed treasure with the Telekinesis spell and making it easier to claim for my warband.  Without having the time to look through all the spells, Maniacus went with an Elementalist for his wizard and used a pre-selected spell list that he found online (on the excellent Shedwars blog to be exact).  

We didn't take pictures of everything throughout the game, but below is a selection of pictures taken at random moments.

Maniacus' Warband: Elementalist Wizard & Apprentice (Made up primarily of existing Mordheim figures)


M4jumbo's Warband: Enchanter Wizard & Apprentice (Made primarily from classic Grenadier and Ral Partha figures)


With our spells chosen we were ready to jump into the scenario.  I set the board up ahead of time to play the first scenario in the rule book, The Mausoleum.  In this scenario there is a Mausoleum in the center of the board with a special treasure placed on each of the 4 corners.  Two normal treasures are also placed on the board along with two skeletons.  Each turn a new skeleton will enter play from a random side of the mausoleum.  The Warband getting the most special treasure off the board will be the winner.

I set up  on side A, Manicus set up on side B.




Maniacus put his Knight, Archer and Wardog together on his left flank.


Maniacus' Wizard, Infantryman and zombie in the center.


My Enchanter, some call him Tim, starts with three of his soldiers within 3" of him so that he can take advantage of activating all of them together in the Wizard Phase.

 
On the right flank, the Apprentice also has soldiers within 3" in order to move together during the Apprentice Phase.


Maniacus' Wizard presses forward towards the mausoleum and the special treasure, his raised zombie shambling forward alongside him.


My Apprentice moves forward towards a standard treasure that sits on the second floor of a nearby building as the Ranger stays close by her side to protect her from the dangers of combat.


Tim the Enchanter, with the bear by his side, moves forward and casts Telekinesis on an unclaimed special treasure that he can see on the far corner of the mausoleum.  He successfully casts the spell and drags the treasure 6" closer to him and further away from Maniacus' warband.  This would prove to be a handy spell.


Up in a ruined building, Maniacus' Crossbowman has the bear in his sights and takes a shot.  He rolls a natural 20! We used the Critical Hit rule, and this resulted in double damage and a quick and immediate take down of my bear before he got a chance to do anything.  Ouch, those Critical Hits can be very deadly even to a tough creature.  My poor bear.


After both Warbands had finished their turn, we moved on to the Creature Phase and one of the skeletons from the mausoleum charged in to attack Maniacus' zombie.


In this undead vs undead fight, the skeleton came out on top and took the zombie out of action.


Taking a cue from my Wizard, the Apprentice successfully casts Telekinesis to pull a normal treasure off the second story of a ruined building and drop it right at her feet so she can pick it up.   Maniacus' Warhound charged ahead to put pressure on my Apprentice and found my Warhound and Ranger ready and waiting.

[m4jumbo]

Maniacus' Knight prepares to charge my Ranger and Warhound who had by this time taken his Warhound out of action.


On his right flank, Maniacus' Thug claims one of the normal treasure chests.


We used the optional rules for Random Encounters, so as soon as a treasure is first claimed, a d20 roll is made and on a result of a 16+ a random creature comes on the board from a random board edge.  When this treasure was claimed, the roll indicated a random encounter and two ghouls showed up on the board edge right next the Thug that just claimed the treasure.


Maniacus' Infantryman fights off one of the skeletons that emerged from the mausoleum


The Ranger and the Warhound hold off the Knight as the Apprentice makes her escape off the board with a treasure.


In a desperate fight, Maniacus' Thug defends himself from the ghoul's attacks.


As Sneaky Pete the Thief claims one of the special treasures, my Enchanter casts a Wall spell between the Thief and Maniacus' warband, effectively blocking off line of sight from their missiles and spells, as long as the spell stays up.


Tim cover's his soldiers as they move towards the board edge to escape with the treasure.


With a 6"x3" wall, the Crossbowman up in the ruins has no line of site to the Thug and the Thief and they make off with another special treasure.  The wall spell proved to be another very useful spell.  It doesn't cause damage, but blocking line of sight is a big deal.


The ghoul continues to harass Maniacus' Thug as he withdraws.  His Apprentice takes advantage of her own Wall spell to block off the ghoul from reaching his other Thug that is carrying a treasure off the board.




Casting a new Wall spell, the Apprentice blocks the advance of another skeleton that emerged from the mausoleum.


As they make their way slowly off the board with the encumbering treasure, another skeleton from the mausoleum threatens to overtake some of my soldiers.


Using a Push spell, my Enchanter successfully pushes the skeleton 10" away from me and effectively out of range from catching me before I exit the board.  Danger averted.  Once all the treasure has left the board, the game immediately ends.


After the game wrapped up we did a quick check on the injury results for any of our warband members that went out of action.  As it turned out, only my bear summoned through the Animal Companion spell rolled a result that meant he was dead, everyone else made a full recovery.

We both got one regular treasure off the board, and my warband ended up getting three of the special treasures off the board to Maniacus' one.  Being able to cast Telekinesis and move the unclaimed treasure closer to my warband and away from his made a big difference in capturing more treasure.  Definitely a spell to keep in mind for the future.




We were just using this as a learning game so after the game we didn't end up rolling all the treasure rolls or figuring out experience for our Wizards.

The game was a lot of fun and a good learning experience.  The mechanics are different from other games we play so there was a bit of learning curve to getting things to run smoothly, but things seemed to go pretty well once we got through a couple turns. 

One of the interesting things to figure out will be what Wizard school will fit best with our individual playing styles and what spells to choose starting out.  Some of the spells I found most useful weren't actually ones that caused damage to my opponents, but ones that moved treasure and blocked LOS.  It seems like there will be plenty of tactical variety in using spells in Frostgrave.

Looking forward to getting more games in and starting an ongoing campaign.

[jp1885]

Excellent stuff! Love the minis, terrain and batrep - bravo!

[Azzabat]

Excellent battle report and lovely terrain, especially the Tavern sign. I love the cobbled mat. We've used 2 of those glued side by side to make the Frostgrave table at our club. Are yours the same rubber Aquarium ones?

[m4jumbo]

Thanks.  The cobblestone mat is vinyl and made by Lemax.  It's typically available in craft stores and such around Christmas.   With a little dry brushing they do make nice bits to put down.

[Mo!]

WOw sooo pretty!

[Jennifer]

Awesome!

I really love the following piece and might recreate.  I guess I'd do it with stacked layers of 1" rigid insulation.  Don't have any layer templates for this do you ?   Gorgeous!

[Azzabat]

I did something similar for my little brother a few years ago. I took a central column made up of 2" pink insulation foam bits glued together and then stuck 20mm wide popsicle sticks into it in a spiral in irregular increments in height. I then hot glued a load of 25mm square bases on the popsicle sticks for the stairs, and then covered the underside with paperclay/papermache.

Just make sure you allow enough headroom for a figure to stand on the step once you've filled in the underside of the stairs. I didn't on my first attempt and only halflings could climb it.  = (

[m4jumbo]

Jennifer,  That tower is a pre-painted piece from Pegasus Hobbies, so I don't have any templates for it.  But if there are some specific measurements you want I can take a look.

[Nooblord]

Good stuff and nice photos. I particularly liked the POV one of the crossbowman aiming at his target through the ruins.

[Jennifer]

Jennifer,  That tower is a pre-painted piece from Pegasus Hobbies, so I don't have any templates for it.  But if there are some specific measurements you want I can take a look.

 I guess the overall height, the stair diameter and then the inner diameter would be nice  I really wanna duplicate this with 1" rigid insulation if I can.