Rufus's expedition to the frozen city

[rufus sparkfire]

Firstly, my new Frostgrave miniatures: ice toad, chronomancer and apprentice, snow leopard


My plastic soldiers are assembled and waiting to be painted. In the meantime, here are various models I've had for ages that seem to fit the game nicely.

Barbarian, templar, knight, warhounds! Though I think this barbarian might look implausible in a frozen city, unless he's unnaturally cold-resistant


Sigilists


A boar and some wild dogs


Small constructs

[JohnDSD2]

If your barbarians are from Yorkshire or further north, not a problem.
After all its grim up North and winter is coming.
 

[rufus sparkfire]

That's a good point! He's probably fine then.

[tyrionhalfman]

Yeah as a Yorkshireman I can confirm that you know when it gets really cold up north coz we wear socks under our sandals.
Nice looking collection of miniatures.thanks for sharing

[rufus sparkfire]

Thanks! Also, I do in fact live in Yorkshire.

I've just found out that Wargames Emporium in Sheffield is starting a weekly Frostgrave night, so I need to get on with painting my plastic henchmen. I might try something like this as a starting band: chronomancer, apprentice, treasure hunter, thief, 2 thugs, dog, infantryman, 2 archers.

[rufus sparkfire]

I've finished five of my henchmen:




So, with a couple of stand-in archers, I have a completed warband to use tonight (assuming someone will actually play me!):



I'm intending to have my chronomancer use fast act, fleet feet, time store, reveal secret, bone dart, elemental ball, leap, and heal.

[tyrionhalfman]

Nicely done.I'm just loving the varieties coming from this one kit and how even without kit bashing with other sets no two warbands need ever look the same due to different combinations of weapons, heads and equipment and different paint jobs.thanks for sharing

[rufus sparkfire]

Thanks! I found them time-consuming to paint, due to all the different layers of clothing. But they turned out quite nicely.

I played my first two games last night at Wargames Emporium. Thank you to my opponents and to the shop. I really enjoyed it, though unfortunately I made some major rules errors - wizards can't cast spells in combat! I was sure that I'd read on this forum that you could, but it's right there in the rulebook. I must have mixed it up with talk of casting spells into combat. So, while it was amusing, my wizard couldn't actually leap out of combat onto the roof of a nearby building.

[Photos borrowed from the Wargames Emporium facebook page]



My wizard did quite a lot of lurking behind buildings...


...as did my apprentice.


I used bone dart a lot more than my chronomancer spells. I should have chosen a necromancer! Though, for some reason, I found myself buying the illusionist models after the games.

[rufus sparkfire]

The shop is planning to start a campaign in a couple of weeks, and I think I need to reassess my spell choices before it starts (I have so far used fast act, fleet feet, time store, reveal secret, bone dart, elemental ball, leap, and heal).

I don't think I made good use of the chronomancer spells. Fleet feet is an obvious choice, and I feel as though fast act could be powerful if used at the right time - it's also the only 8 on the list, which gives my apprentice more of a chance to be useful. As for time store: I have this fantasy of using it, and then later in the game unloading two bone darts into an enemy wizard's face. But at 14 it's too unreliable to begin with. Perhaps I should take decay instead. I wish there was an out of game spell on this list.

I'm happy with leap and reveal secret (even though I failed to cast secret in the two games I played).

Taking bone dart and elemental ball was a bad idea, because bone dart on 10 was always more appealing than elemental ball on 14, even if there was a group of enemies suitable for fireballing. But do I replace these with raise zombie and elemental bolt, which means giving up on having an easy damage spell? Or keep bone dart and take something like wall, which is easier to cast and might be useful in a lot of situations? I'm not sure.

I think I'll replace heal with familiar, which has the advantage of being an out of game spell.


Or I could change to the Illusionist school. I like the idea of taking glow, transpose, illusionary soldier, write scroll, reveal secret, shield, animate construct and raise zombie.

[JohnDSD2]

I've been on the receiving end of Decay and found it most annoying. I suspect it is a good choice for early in a campaign when there are no/few magic weapons about.
It can reduce any of the high cost soldiers to unarmed (and tears) and make them look like a waste of money on a roll of 8 or more and no save.
Why don't these guys carry backup weapons? 

[Harry]

Good stuff. Some nice mini choices.
Where are your wild dogs from?

I have that exact pair of sigilists lined up waiting for some attention.

[rufus sparkfire]

Thanks for the comments! The wild dogs are from Crusader's dark age Irish range. I think they contrast nicely with my more heavily-built warhounds. The sigilists used to be scroll caddies in my Warhammer Empire army.

I think I will try decay for my Chronomancer. But first I'm going to try out an Illusionist warband, to see if I like it better.


Illusionists! The photo is a bit dark, but I'm quite pleased with these. I thought the wizard looked a bit odd with two empty hands, so added a walking stick... that will surely turn out to be a sword!



Zombies and a tracker.


These are old Heroquest zombies, which didn't come out too badly considering the detail on the models is rather soft. The tracker is a Copplestone Tibetan who was included with a pack of baggage yaks. I only wanted the yaks, but by adding a bow and quiver he's quite suitable as a tracker.

[rufus sparkfire]

Last night was Frostgrave night. I found the illusionist much more enjoyable than the chronomancer - transpose was amusing and useful, while glow greatly boosted my shooting power. I also enjoyed having five out-of-game spells, even though my cunning plan to use write scroll/animate construct to call up a large construct failed. I actually failed illusionary soldier and raise zombie too, but I still prefer that to having eight in-game spells when I'm only likely to use three or four of them at most.

Highlights of the game: one-shotting the enemy necromancer with an archer while he was trying to hide behind his zombie friend; the small construct teaming up with a thug to defeat a treasure hunter, while the wizard and tracker defeated a bear; the apprentice and a thug transposing each other to quickly move treasure around; after the necromancer's apprentice used leap to escape to the top of a building, casting glow on him and then shooting him down.


Expedition from the College of Winterhold:


Possible minions - small construct, large construct (having now seen the size of the official large construct model, I think mine is far too big), illusionary knight, zombie):


Illusionists again, along with the trusty walking book construct:


The campaign is due to start next week, so I need to decide on a starting lineup. I think I will go for the illusionist. I'm just wondering if I need to take bone dart instead of raise zombie, so that I have an attack spell available.

[bandit86]

I like the guy with the scrolls

[sunspear]

Nice looking minis! really like them. I am wainting on the rulebook. Cant wait to get a game in.