A discovery of frost, stone and the arcane

[Westloar]

Hi all, first post here!

My partner and I discovered Frostgrave 3 months ago and played our first few games with printed standees that used bullclips for their base and corrugated cardboard terrain! Needless to say we fell in love with the game and spent the months proceeding putting together our warbands, wizards and constructing a table of terrain we were proud and happy to play on.

So if you'll indulge me, I'm uploading some pictures of our progress and skirmishes so far, neither of us are experienced painters or terrain crafters, so this is all new to us, but hopefully you'll agree we've done well in a short period!

The lay of the land before our paper standees contested the treasure surrounding the Mausoleum of Felstad, created with the first examples of terrain we crafted, made with cardboard and some dense foam:



After our first games, we knew we had to invest in miniatures for our battle hardened Felstad adventurers and so I present to you the two opposing warbands painted and ready to face the chilling wonders of Felstad (yet to be joined by their illustrious leaders!):



With time and more passion developing for the world of Frostgrave, we started to get a bit more proficient putting together terrain and painting miniatures. Below is a picture showing this off and also my sigilist
and apprentice (sadly deceased):



Our appetites for bigger projects grew, as did our warbands desire to take on the more lucrative, but increasingly dangerous larger targets. We put together a board of terrain for an assault on the Silent Tower (see if you can spot the custom treasure markers!):









Sadly, this skirmish was the last my Sigilist would embark upon. After ordering her archers and apprentice to harass the filthy and unwashed trying to steal "her" treasure and secure the Silent Tower for themselves, she led her mightiest infantry directly into the fray to secure the final treasures for their rightful owners.

Only moments after leading this charge, a mountain troll and white gorilla chose an inopportune time to set aside their differences and set upon chasing the sigilist and her warband directly into the arms of the elementalist's warband, with dire consequences. Seizing the opportunity, the elementalist released a burst of arcane energy in a scattershot killing the sigilist outright and incapacitating both of the warbands burglars (my partner rolled a nat 20 on her attack roll against the sigilist!!).

Although her sacrifice was not in vain and the sigilist's warband escaped mostly intact, recovering the sword in the stone from the top of the tower and three other treasures to boot, shortly after the battle and the treasure dolled out amongst the survivors, they wandered into the wastes, disbanding. The loss of their leader too great to recover from, but with a vow in their hearts to return and seek revenge against the elementalist who struck down their wizard.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope it's been at least moderately entertaining! We played through the "Haunted Houses" campaign yesterday evening and are planning through "the worm hunts" shortly, but I think this post is long enough as it is!

Let me know if you want more updates/battle reports like this and I'm more than happy to post more!

[Bloggard]

great looking board - all coming together very nicely. Shame about your Sigilist etc... but as this is Fantasy, well they aint' really deaded ... resurrect them 

[Westloar]

great looking board - all coming together very nicely. Shame about your Sigilist etc... but as this is Fantasy, well they aint' really deaded ... resurrect them 

Thanks Bloggard, glad you like the look of it all, I have a lot more terrain planned, trying to tread the careful line between form and function whilst balancing adding loads of detail and actually having a table of terrain in a half decent amount of time!!

I've made a Chronomancer now, who managed to attract some of the more experienced members of the previous warband, all too willing to exact revenge on their rivals!

I think it's telling of the nature of Frostgrave, that my wizard losing a toe and eventually dying only made me excited to make a new warband (and hopefully have the new warband survive long enough to earn individual names for it's members!).

[Bearwoodman]

Welcome to the forum Westloar!

It's great to see your obvious enthusiasm for this fun game. The set up looks great, all the scratch built terrain is excellent. I played a campaign where a wizard died, but as the figure had only just been painted by my friend in the next scenario he was replaced by his identical twin looking for vengeance!

I look forward to seeing the new warband!

[Westloar]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

Scratch building it has taught me a lot on the way about modelling, having a lot of fun exploring terrain crafting.

I'll be honest, my chronomancer war band looks surprisingly similar to my sigilist warband. Some would say they were the same warband, they would be wrong 

I am planning on adding a knight and templar to the roster once I can scratch enough gold crowns together, hopefully that'll prepare us to face The Worm!

[marcnelsonjr]

That's some good-looking terrain - keep it up! Looking forward to what you did for the Haunted Houses.

[LiamFrostfang]

  very cool!!! more please!!!!

[Westloar]

More was asked for and more you shall have!

Should have taken some more pictures during the game, but I'll remedy that when we get round to playing The Worm Hunts!

After finding and cracking a magical orb in their last adventure by virtue of the Chronomancer unceremoniously leaping a warhammer wielding infantryman directly at it, the newly found warband is starting to feel they've got the hang of this magical adventuring malarky. Additionally, they have named their first member, the infantryman, now being given the moniker of "The Cracker".

As such, after hearing rumours of the haunted remains monk abodes on the outskirts of Felstad, the band couldn't resist, besides a few lonely ghouls are hardly a match for this crew and surely, no other warband could of heard of this isolated location, least of all that pesky Elementalist...

The set up for the game:



I'd constructed two more buildings for this scenario, to have the required amount of stone huts that the scenario calls for (central building and the one in the top right of the photo).

Having functional terrain that I can use for many purposes is one of the driving forces behind me creating my own pieces, as such you may recognise two of the circular round buildings as part of my Silent Tower, they were made to come apart to change the height of the tower, allow you to move models around it and so they can be used separately as they are here.

The opening of this skirmish was quiet enough, there was little to no wind, allowing the light dusting of snow to settle quietly amongst the shells of the monk's abodes and for the eeriness of the place to settle into the bones of the warband. Partly out of respect for the dead, but mostly out of the fear that they were indeed not alone, the Chronomancer's warband proceeded carefully, with the Apprentice leading a group of the bands swiftest treasure hunters to carefully pick through the ruins:



Erring on the side of caution, the Chronomancer cast protective magic over his bodyguard, giving Benrin "The Cracker" fleet feet and the remaining infantryman combat awareness. Feeling light as a feather, Benrin danced his way through the snow with newfound dexterity and bolted up the stairs of the ruined central hall. From his vantage point, Benrin could see that this expedition would perhaps not proceed as simply as he would have liked.

Horror filled Benrin's being as he saw both his thief and infantryman colleagues enter their respective huts, only to be immediately beset by wraiths, to make matters worse, not only was the central hall home to it's own spectre, but he could spot the rival warband piling into the remaining houses.



The time to contemplate his decisions and brash rush towards the hall was cut short by the wraith appearing through floorboards and reaching for his very heart, cold and emptiness he had never experienced washed over him and only the glint of treasure on the floor below him prevented him from giving into it's comforting embrace. Alone and on death's door, Benrin knew he may not be long for this world.

The Elementalist's warband wasted no time in taking advantage of the rival warband beset by the undead, quickly dispatching the ghouls they encountered and converging on the central building, safe in the knowledge that it's occupant was otherwise engaged.

With two treasures already secured and the central treasure in the grubby mitts of the Elementalist's barbarian, it seemed that this was the start of a very bad day in the city, not to mention the infantryman and theif being set upon by their own wraiths. To add insult to injury the pesky Elementalist had blinded an archer and slain a thug.

Just when all looked lost and the wraith renewed it's assault on Benrin, he felt himself pulled out of the hall out into the open air and landed on the walkway behind him, the Chronomancer's apprentice sending a knowing wink as he sailed overhead.

It's quarry flung from it's grasp, the wraith turned his attention to the barbarian stealing the treasure from it's home and seeing this the Chronomancer's warband found reason to rally and secure the two treasures from their side of the complex.

The infantryman managed to push back his wraith and make a daring leap from the top of the building to exit the complex safely, similarly the thief gave his wraith the slip and when it engaged with the Elementalist's tracker in the building opposite, seized the opportunity to dash inside and grab the treasure.

With their rivals finding their hands full, the Chronomancer and his warband decided to cut their losses and escape, two treasures in hand and only their newest recruit left lying in the snow.

With the scenario over, just a moment to reminisce on the ridiculousness of rolling a 17, 18 and 20 respectively when entering my haunted houses, spawning 3 wraiths, whilst my partner found only ghouls, which she easily dispatched!

The Worm Hunts looms on the horizon and I'll try and take more pictures for that battle report. Hope you all enjoyed!

[marcnelsonjr]

Having functional terrain that I can use for many purposes is one of the driving forces behind me creating my own pieces, as such you may recognise two of the circular round buildings as part of my Silent Tower, they were made to come apart to change the height of the tower, allow you to move models around it and so they can be used separately as they are here.

That's a great idea.

I see some dice from Arena of the Planeswalkers - have you used any of the minis?

[Westloar]

That's a great idea.

I see some dice from Arena of the Planeswalkers - have you used any of the minis?

It's working quite well so far, it's one of the reasons I haven't put snow on my terrain so I can use it for things like indoor locations and other games like DnD etc. Also leaves me open to branch out to other skirmish games in the future!

You sir have a good eye!

We did use some of the minis from Arena, they are quite oversized for the scale though. It's a shame the game isn't more well developed, the dice come in useful for buff markers though!

We did make use of some minis from the original D&D boardgame (the one with Tordek, Redgar and Mialee) for the wraith though.

Might not be using them for much longer, just created some laminated sheets to record current hp, track whether a model has activated and track status changes such as fleet feet or poison etc.

[AxolotlQuestions]

Sounds like a great game. Nice table too!

[LiamFrostfang]

  way cool!!!

[Troll Player Fun]

Your terrain pieces look quite good. I am particularly interested in a few that appear to have been made from individual cut bricks.

One young man over in Finland has a YouTube channel named Bard's Craft. He uses a simple kitchen knife honed on a whetstone and sharpened with a file to cut all of his foam. His results are quite amazing, whimsical, and impressive.

I have been researching projects on Pinterest and watching several videos.

Seeing your work is motivating.

[Westloar]

Your terrain pieces look quite good. I am particularly interested in a few that appear to have been made from individual cut bricks.

One young man over in Finland has a YouTube channel named Bard's Craft. He uses a simple kitchen knife honed on a whetstone and sharpened with a file to cut all of his foam. His results are quite amazing, whimsical, and impressive.

I have been researching projects on Pinterest and watching several videos.

Seeing your work is motivating.

Glad it motivates you!

I have indeed seen this young man, along with a bunch if others, however being from the UK the sort of XPS foam that many youtubers use is difficult and expensive to get hold of, so I'm having to come up with my own alternatives.

The way of the single brick is a path that brings great results, but the journey is long and arduous. Happy to talk you through what I've learnt if you like?

[Troll Player Fun]

Glad it motivates you!

I have indeed seen this young man, along with a bunch if others, however being from the UK the sort of XPS foam that many youtubers use is difficult and expensive to get hold of, so I'm having to come up with my own alternatives.

The way of the single brick is a path that brings great results, but the journey is long and arduous. Happy to talk you through what I've learnt if you like?

Oh please do enlighten me !

I am considering getting some new foam board at Lowes all the crafters are raving about on their website.

I thought I might try the block by block method based on quarter inch thick MDF.

I am considering making it a modular layout of crumbled castle scatter pieces that would double duty as dungeon walls, similar to what the guy on "Black Magic Craft" YouTube channel has done with his modular ruins.

Perhaps I may even magnetize the bottoms of the pieces so that they can then be arranged onto a 3' x 3' metal board display covered over with two painted Lemax Cobblestone Vinyl Mats.