Into the Ruins - A Frostgrave Battle Report

My son and I had our first game of Frostgrave last weekend. My son was a bit taken aback when I killed his wizard in the first turn with a critical hit and for the next round or two he was consequently a bit overcautious...which I took  full advantage of! But my sneaky son managed a draw despite being my being fairly confident I'd actually win it right up until the end! It was great fun...brutal and action-packed, just the way we like it!

Anyway, without further ado here is the Battle Report...

Here's a Dropbox Link and a Google Drive Link to an easier-to-read PDF version.

All miniatures were painted for me by the inimitable Matt Slade of Glenbrook Games. The terrain is mainly Battlefield-in-a-Box stuff with some aquarium decoration trees and a few bits of scatter terrain made by my own fair hand!

First Game of Frostgrave!

They boy and I had our first game of Frostgrave this afternoon. And we loved it! Fast-paced and full of action...lots of fun. I'll do a proper AAR sometime over the next week but in the meantime I thought I'd post a few pics of the ruins of Frostgrave...

...and the two wizards with their warbands!

Black Angus the Necromancer with his apprentice, Magaidh, the barbarian brothers, Fingal and Connor, and the ranger, Hamish.

Arzhel the Elementalist with his apprentice, Sterenn, the knight, Marrec, the templar, Tristan, and the marksman, Alan.

Frostgrave Thaw of the Lich Lord Nickstarter is Live!

The Thaw of the Lich Lord Nickstarter is now live here! I've gone in at Level 3 but shall be adding the Spell Card Deck, Snow Troll and White Gorilla as well as the Wraith Knights, Armoured Skeletons and Ghoul King.

Snow Troll

White Gorilla

Wraith Knights

Armoured Skeletons
 

Ghoul King

Some really lovely stuff!

Frostgrave Treasure Markers

Just a quick post today. I finally got around to painting up the Frostgrave Treasure Markers from the Nickstarter in preparation for our game this weekend. Not too bad for a ham-fisted beginner like me...I'm pretty happy with them.

Now I just need to remind myself of the rules as it's been a while since I read through the rule book...

[edit: added a new pic]

Someone advised me on the LAF forums to add a thin line or two of pure white to the bottle to make it look more bottle-like so I've given that a go...

Ready to enter the Frozen City!

Matt finished my latest lot of Frostgrave figures a couple of days ago and they arrived today in all their glory!

Thaumaturge (Red Box) and Apprentice (Red Box)

Soldiers (Red Box, Hasslefree, Red Box)

Soldiers (Red Box)

Soldiers (Otherworld)

Soldiers (Otherworld)

Soldiers (Otherworld)

Soldiers (Red Box)

Between this lot and the ones Matt sent me last month (see here), I now have plenty of figs to get me started in both Frostgrave and Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish. So the game is on for this weekend!

All figures have been painted by the inimitable Matt Slade of Glenbrook Games!

The King is Dead from Osprey Games

Not strictly wargaming but yesterday my copy of The King is Dead, the new boardgame from Osprey, arrived. And very pretty it is, too.

The blurb:

"The King is Dead is a board game of politics and power struggles in dark Arthurian Britain for 2 to 4 players.

King Arthur is dead. The nation is divided. The Saxons are coming.

Now, more than ever, Britain needs a ruler who can unite the kingdom, but who will take the crown? Players work behind the scenes, marshalling their limited resources to give power to competing factions and gain influence within their ranks. Players owe loyalty only to themselves, however, and are free to shift their allegiances as they see fit. Whoever has the most influence over the most powerful faction will rule Britain from the shadows. But be careful - too much infighting will give the Saxons an opening and put the entire nation at risk."

Game time is from 30 to 45 mins and it is for 2 to 4 players. You can download the rule book here.

This is the first boardgame from Osprey but more are planned with They Come Unseen, a game of submarines and subterfuge during the Cold War, due out in October, Odin's Ravens due out in February 2016 and Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space due out in May 2016.

Osprey have really branched out over the last year or two with both Osprey Adventures and Osprey Games. And both seem to be doing well if the upcoming production schedule is anything to go by. I'm a big fan of what they're doing...reasonably priced games and books with high production values and, in the case of wargames, a low cost buy-in in terms of figures. In fact, it was their release of In Her Majesty's Name a few years ago and the realisation that I only needed a couple of dozen figures to actually play that got me into wargames in the first place.

So long may their success continue!

Broken Legions

This looks interesting! Osprey Games posted this pic up on their Facebook page. No info as yet but I'm certainly intrigued!

[edit: added some more info below]

The author has just posted up some more details on his blog here which I've copied and pasted below:

Next up, we have two games published by Osprey, due to hit the shelves in 2016 (announcement here). The first, and the one in the best shape currently, is Broken Legions, a game of fantastical skirmishes in the Roman Empire. The idea behind the game is that the Roman Empire teeters on a gladius-edge, and has sent out hard-bitten bands of legionnaires under the watchful eye of the Frumentarii (Roman secret service) to retrieve occult artefacts of great power. This, they believe, will stop ancient, foreign gods from threatening the supremacy of Rome, and secure Roman rule for a thousand years. Of course, the servants of those ancient gods aren’t best pleased, and so everyone from Egyptian cultists to druidic warbands are out to stop the Romans. There are even secret cults within Rome who believe that dabbling in the affairs of gods is unwise, and so they too oppose the legion.

This is a fantasy skirmish game, which has at its heart a granular D10 system, with a campaign play mode reminiscent of my old Legends of the Old West game. The faction-building rules are pretty freeing, drawing upon a wide range of ancients and fantasy ranges, and it occupies an ‘alternate history’ space, allowing you to field werewolves in your band of Germanic barbarians, and khopesh-wielding mummies with your Settites. Oh, and in some scenarios, you might encounter wandering monsters controlled by a simple ‘AI’ – anything from Minotaurs to flocks of Harpies.

Sounds very much along the lines I was hoping for!

Frostgrave Lich Lord Released...plus Upcoming Lich Wizard and Apprentice

For those that missed out on the Lich Lord during the Nickstarter, North Star just posted on their Facebook page that he is now available to buy here.

They have also posted a pic of an upcoming Lich Wizard and his apprentice which will be available as part of the Thaw of the Lich Lord Nickstarter starting September 25th. Reminds me of a certain Melnibonean!

Gothic Ruined Walls - Battlefield in a Box

Ever since Frostgrave was announced at the beginning of the year I've been picking up as much of the Battlefield in a Box Gothic range as I can get my hands on. I did manage to get quite a few pieces before the release but even then many of them were impossible to get hold of. One box I would have loved to get was the Gothic Ruined Walls...so when I saw a secondhand set on eBay and at a reasonable buy-it-now price I was faster than a speeding bullet!

These pieces will tie the rest of my Battlefield in a Box Gothic stuff together really nicely! Now if I can just get hold of some of those Corner Ruins!