Frostgrave – first game

I brought the Frostgrave rules to the club the other day for a game. Due to some cancellations it turned out that we were only two there. My opponent, Andy, didn’t know the rules and neither did he have a warband. That was a blessing in disguise as we had to go through the rules together and that gave me a well needed refresher. Anyway, I have to say I’m very satisfied with the rules as they were really easy to teach and making a warband with a brand new wizard and an apprentice was done in a rather short time.

We did a straight up game with six treasures to catch. Terrain is some of the stuff I have recently made and some stuff we found at the club.

My warband, from left to right: Archer, wolf animal companion, tracker, crossbowman, infantryman, witch, apprentice, 3 thiefs.

Andy's warband: 3 man-at-arms, apprentice, necromancer, 3 thiefs (I think that was what he choose, I might be wrong here). One problem was the total lack of soldiers with ranged weapons. A big mistake. The necromancer raise a zombie before the game also.

The board after turn one. The six treasures in red circles. Necromancer and warband in green and witch and warband in blue.

Crossbowman and tracker shoots at one of the opposition soldiers and the first man falls. Hooray!

My apprentice moves up and tries a Telekinesis spell on the treasure by the ruin, and fails miserably and takes a wound.

A new round and the wolf attacks the necromancer apprentice while my infantryman moves forward.

The evil (they are Necromancers, after all!) opposition takes all three of 'their' treasures. Things are not looking good.

The zombie shuffles forward and engages my infantryman.

My two thieves secures one treasure.

While my lone mini-thief secures the second treasure and starts to run home while the apprentice covers him. And by the way he fails another spell, this time a Poison Dart to slow the soldier with the treasure.

That wolf doesn't do much damage but neither does the necromances apprentice. Stalemate as the just bang away at each other.

There goes the zombie!

Man-at-arms rushes my shooters and is attacked by my tracker. 

My thief rushes in behind the apprentice, who is now surrounded.

The battlefield. The necromancer is peppered with arrows as soon as he shows himself and he wisely draws back.

The man-at-arms draws back and engages my thief. My witch tries to use Telekinesis on the treasure, fails and is hurt for one health. 

The necromancer apprentice wins over the wolf and pushes him back while the man-at-arms fells my thief. The apprentice rushes up the pyramid to try to stop my thief running away with treasure.

Meanwhile my tracker does what she is good at, and one enemy is down.

Things start to look grim for the man-at-arms.

My bowmen attacks the necromancer. Not looking good for him at all. 

Another man down! My witch finally moves the treasure with a successfully cast Telekinesis.

The necromancer show what he's made of and runs away.

With a well aimed crossbow bolt the necromancer apprentice falls and with that the game is over.

My treasures turned out to be 290 gold coins, three potions (healing, strength and invisibility), a Grimoire with Planar Tear (making it possible to learn that spell) and an Orb of Power. A decent loot I think.

Everything went really smooth even though this was our first game, and I have to say that is entirely due to the really good rules. We forgot a couple of things during the game but figured it out rather immediately and could backtrack (we forgot to deduct the armour value from the damage made the first time I hit and instead of taking out two soldiers I only manage to take out one – not too bad though).

Also we forgot to check what happened with the fallen figures after the game. A fallen fig is not necessarily dead, but he could recover between games. Not a big problem for me, as I only lost a measly thief, but Andy lost his apprentice and a lot of soldiers.

Anyway I let my son witness my dice-rolling and checked for the thief, and he did survive unscathed.

One thing I didn’t think of when I choose spells for my wizard was that you get experience points for taking out enemies and I built my witch as a mostly supportive wizard. So I don’t have any spells that do damage. Well, I bought crossbows for wizard and apprentice and I’m saving money so I can buy and learn Bone Dart. Just a couple of hundred more gold coins and I’m there.

All in all a very enjoyable game and I’m sure to play Frostgrave many more times.

Rice Paddies

Gothcon XL is in just a couple of days and so is our game of Chain of Command set in Dien Bien Phu – Hell in a Very Small Place. It’s a participation game where you will play either Viet Minh or French Colonial Paras, like we did in our test-game a couple of weeks ago.

Here we have the finished rice paddies in fallow we started working on during our terrain weekend. It’s amazing what some paint and water effect can do.

I used this water effect for the first time. It didn't look too good as is, so I added some of the red-brown paint to get a muddy look. I wouldn't have minded one more layer of the guck, but it takes a couple of days to dry, though, and I don't want to risk it being sticky when I have to pack it up.

With that, everything on my list is done and packed. I’m ready for some games and if you happen to be at Gothcon do come by and say hi! We will probably set the game up on Thursday evening and play all through Friday and Saturday, even though I’m off to play some other stuff also.

Viet Minh showing just how good clear bases are :-)

Baldric the Wizard from Zombicide: Black Plague

Baldric ready for action.

It’s a joy to play Zombicide: Black Plague with painted figures. Well, it’s obviously a joy to play any game with painted figs instead of unpainted.

Halfway into the game and we're having serious problems with the fatties. At this stage  only the dwarf coould take them out.

Anyway, Thomas and I had two games (one very fast and humiliating defeat and one victory) on Wednesday and it was great fun. There were unfortunately a lot of unpainted plastics on the table, but I’m working on it.

We're down to four adventurers here, everyone is hurt and it looks rather grim. All those zombies are heading our way and they're after our brains... We get another loss but manages to finish the game with very little margin.

Baldric was barely dry when he had to do his duty and fight during yesterdays’ game. I had a chance to take a couple of pics of him before I left for the club.

I tried to paint him like the illustration in the rules-book to make identification easy on the gaming board, and I think it turned out quite well.

One down, three to go (plus the abomination, the necromancer and a lot of zombies, of course...)

Raven Clan from Blood Rage

I have a small problem.

I got a big box of goodies a couple of months ago – the loot from the Blood Rage Kickstarter. Great stuff, lots of minis and I started painting them.

Then another big box arrives – more loot, this time the first batch from the Zombicide: Black Plague kickstarter. Lovely figs and I started painting them.

And then another big box – the first batch from the Mercs kickstarter. Nice figs and I started to assemble and paint them.

Hey, hold it! That’s a lot of figures (and more to come) and I can do a little bit of everything and never be finished or I could concentrate on one game at a time and actually play with painted figs in at least one game. The last option is what I went for.

I guess you think I decided to paint my Blood Rage stuff first, but nope. Zombicide is what I’m concentrating on and these Blood Rage figs are those half-finished ones I just wanted to rid the painting table off. So I finished these in an evening and they are the boss, two soldiers (of a total of eight with these two sculpts) and the final mystic (I painted one before).

As you can see they are full of details and they really take some time to finish. Blue is the clan colour and I will let everyone have blue coats to be able to easily differentiate them on the gaming table.

Next post will be another hero from Zombicide and after that it will be a mix of Zombicide and other stuff. There is just no way I’m just painting stuff for one game…

Female Apothecary for Frostgrave

This is Olivia, Female Cleric sculpted by Werner Klocke and made by Reaper (Reaper Bones 77396 or Olivia, Mercenaries Cleric from the Warlord range, 14328). She was one of the minis I received from the Bones II kickstarter and she ended up I the plastics mountain without much chance of seeing paint as she looked a bit bland compared to the other action-packed miniatures.

Then comes Frostgrave and I start looking for ‘works as’ soldier figures and remember this one. And I find out that it is such a beautiful mini. I didn’t really appreciate her before but when she stands cleaned on the painting table she is looking great.

Anyway, here she is. Painted and ready for action as an Apothecary. In Frostgrave she should have a staff and a potion, but I think this is close enough. There is really no question what she is.

Female elf archer from Reaper and female half-orc assassin from Otherworld

The female elf archer comes from the Reaper Bones II kickstarter is a rather nice little figure (but her nose was rather flat and probably miscast), she is called Allistrilee, Elf Archer and is sculpted by Bobby Jackson (Bones 77205 or Dark Heaven Legends 03166). 

She got a more impressionistic paintjob as I’m trying out a couple of new techniques and she volunteered J. Decent result.

This is DAD17 Female half-orc assassin from Otherworld’s Dungeon Adventurers series and sculpted by David Soderquist. Another great figure from Otherworld that is suitably dressed and equipped. 

Minas Tirith Townsfolk from Mithril

I picked up a couple of different packs of miniatures from Mithril on a sale at Alphaspel a year ago. Fantastic miniatures and it’s time to get some more of them painted.

These two gentlemen are the occupants of the M203 Minas Tirith Townsfolk pack. Innocent bystanders that will probably meet far too much action for their taste J

Great looking minis, as is everything from Mithril.

Viet Minh/Viet Cong from The Assault Group

Viet Minh from TAG

The Dien Bien Phu project for Gothcon later this March is progressing. I got three packs of Viet Cong soldiers from The Assault Group last week and they will serve well as Viet Minh soldiers.

Pack #VCS001 Viet Cong with PPSh 41

You mostly have to buy Viet Cong soldiers as DBP Viet Minh but you have to be careful to get their weapons to match those in use at the time.
I picked three suitable packs from their Up Country/Viet Cong range. They are armed with the Soviet PPSh 41 SMG and French MAT 49 SMG and MAS Mle 36 rifle.

Pack #VCS002 Viet Cong with MAT 49

The figures are sculpted by Richard Ansell and rather pulpy in style. I intend to use them in pulp-games in the future, so they all got clear bases.

Pack #VCS004 Viet Cong with MAT Mle 36

Fast paint-work on all of them. Essentially just block painting with a wash.

A couple of pics of a test-game we did this weekend. The terrain is obviously not ready yet, we had to use some Soviet Winter War figures as Viet Minh and the Chaffee doesn’t really look like a Chaffee.

Viet Minh in their works-as-trenches

Tha back-end of the table with not quite finished rice paddies. The French forces' objective is to exit at least one unit off the left board edge.

French Colonial Paras attack. The white ovals will be bamboo-groves.

We use Chain of Command rules from Too Fat Lardies and play-test the Indochina lists.

Anyway, we had great fun and our courageous Viet Minh beat the snot out the French troops. I guess there weren’t that many Viet Minh left after the fight, but that usually didn’t concern the Viet Minh high command.

How about close combat against a foe on overwatch. We're elite after all, and French. For the glory! What could possibly go wrong?

Ooops.
To be fair, the Viet Minh human wave attack didn't fare much better... Close combat is short and brutal.

This is where you find us on Gothcon.