It Wasn't Me!

[SilverNines]

We recently had a local games store open up (https://www.facebook.com/BattlefieldHobbiesUK/?fref=ts) and to help out with its opening day I ran a demo game of Frostgrave across the day.  Plenty of people stopped by and they sold out of the rules books so we must have done something right!

Anyway, I created a scenario specifically for the event and it worked out really well so I thought I'd share it up.  I remembered Joe sharing up the charity scenario and with Christmas looming thought I'd do something similar.

So, I've attached the scenario and you're welcome to it (I'd love feedback!).  All I would ask is that if you have fun with it then pick a charity and donate a buck (or a pound or a euro, or more if you're feeling generous!), by all means help out with the charity effort that Joe put forward (details here: http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/frostgrave-charity-scenario_5.html) but if you have a preferred charity then that totally works for me.

[SilverNines]

Anyone having trouble downloading the pdf?  I'm finding it wants to download as a .dms file and goes horribly wrong.

Actually, scratch that, if you just rename the downloaded file to "It Wasn't Me.pdf" then it all seems to work.

[Awesome Adam]

It dowloaded as some finky file format, but my virus scan said it was clean, and Adobe was able to read it.

WASN’T ME!

“Click!”, the three wizards pause at the same moment and look at each other in
concern.
Outside there’s a yell, “err, Boss! There’s a blue aura just sprung up around this
place. I can see movement on the other side, but it’s blurry, did you do
something?”.
“Wasn’t me!”, complain the wizards in unison as they look back to the magical
treasure trove they were squabbling over.
“Hey, that glow is getting closer, shrinking… this isn’t looking good, oh, and there
are definitely things trying to get through it now!” continues the concerned
narrative from one of the warriors.

Introduction

So, you’ve done it now. You arrived at the cursed treasure at the same time as the
other warbands and triggered a trap, or someone has anyway. It’s clearly cursed,
it’s obvious now, but that didn’t stop anyone. There’s now a magical field around
this small part of the city and it’s threatening to close in and crush everyone inside,
some of the local fauna got caught in the initial shrinking and it wasn’t pretty.
The wizards are locked in a mental struggle with the trapped treasure and are
fighting to keep the energy field from shrinking while they figure out how to
disperse it. As they wrestle with the fiendish magic an undead horde has been
attracted by the pull of strong magic and are trying to push their way through the
newly created barrier.
As the wizards unravel the trap they weaken the barrier and are getting closer to
pulling it down, unfortunately, the more the barrier is weakened the more undead
can force their way through.
You just have to hold on long enough until the barrier can be brought down and you
can make your escape!

Set up

Set up a 2’x2’ table with a cursed treasure token at the centre, three other treasure
tokens per warband are placed around the table by the players in turn.
Place the wizard from each warband in contact with the central treasure and their
warbands can then be deployed in turn within 6” of the relevant wizard.
The first of the undead have broken through the barrier so place 6 armoured
skeletons per warband evenly spread around the edge of the board, making sure
they’re not stuck behind obstacles.

Special Rules

The Horde
The magic that has been triggered is powerful stuff and is drawing in undead at an
incredible rate, at the start of each turn (before the warbands act) place new
armoured skeletons evenly around the edge of the board. The number of skeletons
per warband increases by one every turn, six are initially placed, before the players
second turn seven skeletons per warband arrive, before the third turn it’s eight, and
so on…
You’ll need a lot of skeletons, around 60 should be enough for two or three
warbands!
The skeletons then act in the usual monster phase after the warbands, they will
head for the wizards if possible but head to the nearest warband member if they are
in the way.
The Trap
Nobody can leave the table, passing through the barrier strips flesh from bone at
the least and often worse, in game terms it’s instant death.
The wizards are stuck putting all their energy into undoing the trap that has been
triggered. They cannot move from their starting places or cast spells without the
magical barrier collapsing and killing everyone inside. They can just about manage
to defend themselves, fighting at a –2 modifier, but if they take damage they
stumble back from the treasure and the barrier collapses.
The trap takes an unknown amount of time to disarm, start with a count of 20 and
after every turn roll a d6 and remove that number, when it goes below 1 then the
trap is disarmed. At that point the magical field thins out and is sucked into a
central point on the cursed treasure and that treasure is replaced by a Greater
Demon, Ghurick Fleshbane, you knew it was cursed right?!
The wizards are obviously in contact with Ghurick already so must defeat him and
then escape off the board.
The Magic
Within the bounds of the magical barrier spells are proving to have a very short
duration. Until the barrier is removed by the wizards, any spells that are not an
instant effect (such as bone dart or leap) must make a 50/50 dice roll or their
effects are dispelled before the monsters actions, even if they pass they are
automatically dispelled at the end of the turn in which they were cast. This applies
to magical effects like Enchant Weapon or Possess, but also lingering physical
effects such as Wall or Fog.
Cooperate or die
The different warbands are in this together, as such they can assist each other in
combat, or not, if they choose to.

Treasure and Experience

Experience
This has been a big deal for the wizards involved and any that escape will get an
extra 100xp.
Whichever warband kills Ghurick will gain an extra 100xp.
Other experience is awarded as usual for spells and treasure.
Treasure
The treasure tokens are handled normally apart from the cursed central one that
dissappears with the arrival of Ghurick. If Ghurick is killed then place a normal
treasure token at his last position.
Only treasure that is carried off the board is claimed, anything that doesn’t leave
with a warband member is assumed to be lost to the horde.

[Drachenklinge]

quite funny idea and the lovely intro scene really brings out this special uh-oh-feeling. 

[has.been]

Thanks for sharing.

[Fencing Frog]

Interesting

[SilverNines]

I hope the formatting has come out better than that for most people

I'm particularly interested in how some of the more developed warbands get on, or if you find spells that break the scenario.  It's meant to put the warbands at the heart of a shrinking area with hordes of one-strike enemies pressing in all around, it worked really well with relatively low-level warbands and a limited suite of spells (I chose ones for the demonstration warbands that I knew wouldn't break the scenario).  I've not tried it with some tooled up warbands that have access to troublesome spells (like invisibility!).

[Timeshadow]

Looks like fun and a blood bath.....which is evin more fun . 

[SilverNines]

Anyone tried this out?  Particularly interested in whether there were any spells that broke the way it plays.