Between games we use a structured turn order where you have limited actions. You can’t go all out and hit up every magic shop and recruit all the soldiers you want. You have to make some hard choices and are limited to a single action (while your apprentice can help out running off to handle another task). First, I decided to choose an inn for my base of operations. The route my warband was going, I was going to need all the bodies I could get on the table and having an extra warband slot would help. Also this sweetened the idea of getting more expensive soldier followers in the future, as I had room at my inn base to let them heal up if they got seriously hurt.

I first began trying to summon a medium construct which initially failed horribly by my wizard, Elvira. Fortunately it appears that Morgana, the apprentice, had been taking her arcane studies seriously and managed to cast it. At least I’d be able to fill in one missing slot from my two wounded soldiers.

For my two choices of actions I hired a thug for 20 crowns and then had my apprentice see what they could wrangle up at the potion vendor. Making my random rolls, I opted to pick up a lowly healing potion for 50 crowns. Feeling a bit more prepared Elvira likely spent the next evening planning the next expedition into the ruins to follow up on rumors of a mystical well.

My opponent and I decided to play the Well of Dreams and Sorrows scenario. This time around random creatures could potentially show up. One change from the rules was we rolled for a random monster the first time any model approached within 1” of a treasure token rather than when it was picked it up. This broke up the tactic of players being able to secure the area first and then get the fastest model to haul the loot in case a creature wandered onto the board.

I set up my warband into two clusters and my archer with his prized bow of +1 shooting ready to clamber up a tall building ruin. I’d be facing off against a summoner and figured that having a few bodyguards within reach of my wizard would be helpful if the opposing wizard summoned a demon nearby. I went second and scurried about using telekinesis to drag some treasure farther away from my opponent, while my apprentice cast strength on a nearby thug.

Elvira, escorted by her retinue of thugs and a stone construct, eagerly nabs some treasure.

My wizard, Elvira was behind a bit of cover but peeking out to cast telekinesis last turn meant she could be seen by a crossbowman that took a shot. They rolled high enough to take off a chunk of health but my wizard could take the hit, after all I could cast Heal (as well as drink a potion of healing if needed). Meanwhile my left flank moved forward to secure some treasure. Sure enough, my opponent began to summon imps to harass my warband and my soldiers got stuck in.

‘A summoner. Why’d it have to be a summoner? I hate summoners.’

I huddled up my wizard behind a wall and then took a gamble. Across the board another crossbowman was perched atop a ruin. I had a chance for my archer to take a shot against him and my wizard was holding a healing potion. I figured if I could risk being a target for a wild shot for one turn, I could pull a pile of treasure towards me, and next turn quaff my healing potion. I had Elvira peer out to cast telekinesis again, and dragged another treasure to within reach. Both my thieves managed to grab some treasure and began to scramble out of the area.

Then things got all pear shaped. My opponent lined up my wizard in his sights and fired off a bolt… rolling a 20. So much for risking waiting a turn to drink a healing potion. My wizard dropped to the ground doubled over with a bolt through her chest.

‘That crossbowman across the way can’t possibly hit me from he-THUNK!’

The left side began to fold also. My apprentice was getting peppered with Steal Health. I had scooped up some treasure and successfully whisked it away using leap, however both of us had approached most of the treasure on the board. While for much of the piles, no one had quite rolled a 16+ but eventually that was going to happen. Sure enough an armored skeleton was rolled on the chart. Now the way all the warbands were spread out, I was in a better position. For both sides of the board my opponent had moved up their wizard and apprentice. I had a 1 in 4 chance of the skeleton stumbling out of the ruins on my edge of the board… which is exactly what happened.

Morgana the apprentice was just far away enough to be out of its grasp for a turn. I had a choice. Do I have my bowman fire off a shot, hoping to take it out and cast Leap on a thief to get treasure off the board? Or instead do I try to back off, run away, and keep my distance from the armored skeleton? I chose to cast Leap, my bowman missed, and the armored skeleton got into combat with my apprentice. Two turns later the skeleton cut my apprentice down and shambled towards another soldier. To add insult to injury, my opponent’s crossbowman finally took out my archer.

On the other side of the board, the summoner in the opposing warband rolled decent for summoning a demon, but decided to push the casting roll for a higher result. Now a minor demon was rampaging about rather than a lowly imp. His warhound and demon rushed my other thugs and construct to engage in a melee. After a few rounds the demon tore through my troops, but not after losing much of its health (and the warhound getting cut down).

On the left side of the board I decided I had enough, having my buffed up thug climb the ruined building and take out the enemy crossbowman. My opponent obliged and ended up getting another two thugs to join the fray. At least in that combat I made a lasting impression, cutting down the crossbowman and and two other thugs, only to be taken out by his health being sapped away from a Steal Health spell. The game ended on the sixth turn and all of my warband members being either killed or off the board with treasure. To add to my trouncing, the summoner teleported up to the edge of the well and was able to drink from it before the game ended.

‘FOR WANDA! Er… Morgana!’

The proof was in the pudding. I only managed to cast 3 spells to my opponent’s 8. A horrible outing combined with falling behind in the league further, as I did not get enough experience to level up but a few. I took a risk and got trounced with my wizard, and the same could be said for my apprentice. I’m a bit eager to get all my soldiers out and about to secure treasure. I likely need to have a few linger, especially for those random creatures that might pop up.

Fortunately all of the warband recovered, except for my bowman that died taking this magic bow with him (and 300 gold crowns!). I also lost my potion of healing I picked up for my wizard, Elvira. For the most part I’ve been very lucky with losses and got a feeling I am pushing fate. Eventually I am going to get hit with much of my warband succumbing to their wounds. I need to try and curb my losses some in future games.

Treasure was a nice haul though. I gained a grimoire of Embed Enchantment, got a little cash, and couple of nice potions of Invisibility and Invulnerability. I bumped up my health and fighting stats. I might consider looking into buying and learning Enchant Armor. However I am only sitting on 350 crowns and am worried if I get hit with a really bad game, I might be wiped out budget wise if I pick up a grimoire as they cost 500 gold each.

The good news though was since my medium construct was still alive I could risk casting a few superfluous spells and was fortunate to successfully cast Write Scroll twice. I ended up with a scroll of Healing and of Elemental Bolt. At least with those scrolls combined with the potions, I can ensure I have some defense (and a little offense) for the next engagement.

Our campaign kicked off a few weeks ago and the first expedition into the ruins by Bitches’ Brew was a complete disaster. I faced off against a chronomancer who cleverly used an old ork Mordheim gang for their warband. I started off with a gamble trying to summon a medium construct before the game which fizzled horribly despite having a casting number of 11. Fortunately it was an out of game spell, so my wizard’s head didn’t explode. However it pretty much set the tone for the game which went into a downward spiral from there.

I mostly flanked one edge of the table with my apprentice and had my wizard head off to the center to scoop up some treasure.

My opponent got two warhounds which headed off my apprentice and a barbarian that managed to get into a scrum with my wizard. Fortunately my wizard had a man-at-arms and a thug within melee distance to get into the fight.

Unfortunately for my apprentice, the thug accompanying her tried to make a grab for some treasure and left her high and dry.

All the while those precious turns I was locked in melee, my opponent could cast freely. While he wasn’t doing many direct damage spells, leaping a few crossbowmen up to a tower to try and snipe off my soldiers wasn’t pleasant. I managed to take out his barbarian and a thug from the game, but not before his warhounds dragged down my enchanter.

In return he took out my entire warband save for an archer and two thieves that got a haul of treasure off the board (thank god my leap spells worked at least). In the end he cast 8 spells to my 3. I fizzled a lot of 8-10 casting spells too and had a fair share of abysmal rolls.

My opponent was able to only get 3 piles of treasure off including a grimoire and several choice scrolls. I managed to snag a +1 shooting bow. As for my other treasure I eagerly rolled to see what loot I found and rolled… a 1, just a measly 160 gold crowns. Even the gods of fortune were mocking my warband.

The good news thankfully was that my wizard and apprentice survived the encounter with only bruises to their ego. I managed to escape with much of my warband intact except for some scrapes and bruises. However one of my archers and the man-at-arms were far too injured to make another go and would have to sit out the next battle. I decided to hole up in an inn and make it my base of operations as I planned out my next expedition.

While my opponent got almost 4 levels of experience, I only got one. I decided to double down on enchant construct and lower its casting cost by one to a base of 7. I limped away from the battle with a couple of painfully learned lessons. I need to keep one caster well out of combat. While I wasn’t worried too much about losing my wizard, the simple fact that I could not cast anything several turns locked in a fight killed my chance for getting that precious experience from casting spells. Tactically I was fairly solid, as my soldiers were within range from both spell casters for most of the game. But I slipped up when I forgot they could do an intercept move. When my wizard and apprentice were rushed, I could have had another soldier step up to cut off my opponent. Something I need to remember next time.

I never managed to get a decent shot off between my two archers (mostly due to horrible rolls). But they did provide a threat and kept a few soldiers scurrying for cover rather than rushing to treasure. At the very least they also occupied my opponent’s crossbowmen with a few volleys back and forth as they tried to pick each other off. My man-at-arms though performed well. I have to admit having high armored troops helps a lot. While he didn’t have much success landing blows, that few extra points in armor meant my opponent had to really roll high to get any serious damage through. I might see about getting an armor enchant spell to toughen up my soldiers some in the future.

We’ll be starting our Frostgrave campaign soon. Last time I mentioned my enchanter wizard and the different spells in her spellbook. I thought I’d continue on with choices for how I filled out my warband. As always, I had to also pick up an apprentice for 200 gold. You are really severely limiting your warband by not having one. The other bonus is that they can offer group activation for another three models. However I see it more having her there for buffs and support over raw damage, as they don’t cast as well as their master. That leaves me with 300 gold to fill out my warband. Keeping with my wizard, I’m using a Reaper Bones mini to represent my apprentice.

For my soldier followers I am opting to use proxies. I think a few choice selections from my Saxon and Viking warbands for SAGA will do for now. I’m using primarily figures from Wargames Factory and Gripping Beast. They are each decent plastic kits with the Gripping Beast figures being pretty nice. Both sets are an exceedingly good value though and for practically disposable fodder in Frostgrave, not a bad choice as minis.

You need to get treasure off the board. Having some models that can squeeze out an extra inch of movement is helpful. So I have two thieves that will be my dedicated treasure haulers with their move of 7”. They are pretty pitiful in combat so I am intending to drag treasure towards them and have them work on getting loot off the table. Having two would cost me 40 gold.

Next up are a couple of bowmen. Getting hit by arrows is not fun. Unlike melee where you’ve got a chance to return a heavy blow back, being the recipient of ranged combat means you either get killed or have to hunker down and take arrows being shot at you. Also at a two foot range on a 3’ by 3’ board, a bow is nothing to sniff at. I could have gone the route of crossbowmen, but I wanted the flexibility of being able to move and shoot and right now I don’t expect to need heavy hitting bolts, my opponents likely are using lightly armored troops for now. So two archers are a good buy at the minimum, costing me another 100 gold.

The next purchase was a bit of a extravagance but I decided to pick up one man-at-arms. Not really a heavy hitting soldier but has a little more defense. Buffed up by my wizard or apprentice, they can offer a bodyguard of sorts if needed. Likely they won’t do much but having one within a few inches of my wizard will potentially sway off that odd soldier rushing in to fight my wizard in hand to hand. Getting one would set me back 80 gold.

Lastly, to have a few more bodies I ended up getting some cheap thugs. At 20 gold each they hit a little harder than a thief and can drag off some treasure. Ganged up they can also deal out some damage, so I expect them to flank along with my thieves or possibly work as a team together. Getting two would cost me another 40 gold.

Finally I am going cheap and using my enchanter school spells for all their worth. I plan on casting enchant construct for a medium construct before the game (and hope I am successful getting the spell off). A nice bit is that they stay around until destroyed, just like a hireling. Although the bad part is I have to roll for their fate just like a soldier if they are removed. I’m hoping to save a little cash in between games and be able to scrounge up for one or two heavy hitters. So it’ll be risky but allow me some more cash to replenish casualties, or pick up more expensive soldiers later.

The entire warband is 460 gold, leaving me 40 in my treasury. Going with a powerful enchanter wizard and her aspiring enchantress apprentice, I can easily see the hired thugs taking up a rough and tumble name. Likely it was something muttered jovially over a few mugs of ale, out of earshot from their employers. But I expect after a while the wizard took it up with some grudging endearment. So I’m eager to start up my campaign and see how Bitches’ Brew fares exploring the ruins of Frostgrave.

As I last mentioned I’ll be starting a Frostgrave campaign soon. I also sort of sketched out how we will play out the campaign some. So I sat down and tried to figure out how what wizard to play.

Given we are playing a campaign, that opens up a lot of potential spells to consider. Spells that would allow some greater mobility such as leap and teleport now are a lot more important since it’s all about getting the treasure. Also out of game spells have some more use with stuff happening between games to maintain the warband.

As miniatures go, I managed to snag some Reaper Bones. They are pretty cheap and have nice detail. They are somewhat a soft plastic and even with boiling and bending (followed by a good dunk into ice water), some parts will be a little droopy. However you do get some nice figures for the price. As spellcasters go Reaper also offers a plethora of choices.

I decided to used a female wizard and latched onto the idea of her being more a subtle caster rather than some fireball flinging figure of raw destruction. Taking that to heart I looked into the enchanter school of magic. Really for the most part I fell in love with the idea of creating constructs. I realized they were clunky and not too useful, but the concept of having a soldier that could just be summoned was pretty cool so animate construct was a must.

The other spells in their school are pretty supplemental to a warband, adding a small bonus here and there to their profiles. I’ll picked up strength to add some teeth to my soldiers (especially the rather timid hitting medium construct). None of the other enchanter spells called out to me so much. The exception of course was telekinesis. I saw it not only as a way to ferry treasure to my thugs, but also scoot it away from my enemy’s warband.

I see enchanter as saving cash for picking up more and better followers, casting enchantments to provide more permanent buffs though magical gear, rather than using found treasure. The kicker of course is I have to hope that I can get grimoires as treasure and luck out rolling the spells I need. Unlikely, but I can always dream big.

I now needed to select a spell from my aligned schools. From witchcraft I chose fog as I wanted some area effect type of spell and figured being able to throw up something that would block LOS for those pesky archers would be helpful (not to mention spell slinging wizards). From the sigilist school I chose write scroll. It’s an out of game spell but a useful way to keep a heal or movement spell in my back pocket for when I absolutely needed to get a spell off.

Lastly I chose elemental bolt from the elementalist school for my final aligned spell. Just straight up damage and you can’t ignore that +8 shooting attack. It’s going to be a bit tough casting as an aligned school but I’ll just have to make due (and it might be something to scribe in a scroll).

For my final neutral schools I went with some low casting number spells. The penalty (especially with my apprentice) is pretty steep and most likely trying to cast a 12+ level spell just ain’t gonna happen. I chose the thaumaturgy spell, heal, as it’s always helpful trying to keep a wizard on their feet. From the summoner school I picked up leap which is just such a useful spell to cast. I’m hoping with the casting value of 8 for those spells I’ll have better luck getting them off.

It’s going to be a challenge going the route of more support for a main school over another that is raw damage. We’ll see how it works out but I am looking forward to seeing what other schools my opponents select and eager to see how our first game shakes out in the next few weeks.

So after a small local gaming event (Alleycon 2016) folks I played with were keen to get a short campaign running. Nothing major, just 5 or so games to see how a longer, continuous game with wizard advancement would work for us. So much of the game is geared to having out-of-game spells, which have a role more in maintaining and supporting your warband over raw power on the table. I am eager to see how these type of spells impact the larger game, if you will.

As much as I enjoy Frostgrave and appreciate the approach of a fast and loose wargame, I felt we needed some better ground rules. There is some stuff open to abuse and I’ve got a crafty gaming group. If they see an advantage that they can game, they’ll pounce on it. So I thought it better to try and lay a groundwork for the campaign that we’d all agree with.

Modified campaign rules – Frostgrave seems to have a Mordheim problem with warband advancement. After a few losses, you are likely going to fall behind and never catch up as the rich just get richer. So I worked with some community stuff out there and whipped up a version we’ll be using for our game. One particular thing I like about the rules people have thrown together is that the campaign management actions are limited. You can’t buy just anything and have to carefully choose to spend your time preparing for the next battle. I dig that.

There are a couple of changes I made to my older version of the campaign rules, one was the game length. Now instead of likely 5 turns there is a 50% chance of having a turn 6. After that there is a 10% chance of the game getting further turns. I like this as there is certainly a time limit and you have to push to get things done, but if you need to squeeze out another turn of movement, you have a decent chance of getting one.

Rules for placing treasure – Some campaign changes revolve around rules for placing treasure. First off placing treasure can be abused. Models carrying treasure can exit any board edge and the official rules state you can place treasure at least 9″ from your table edge. To curb any abuse plopping treasure a couple of inches from the side edge, treasure also must be at least 6″ from a neutral table edge. This means that players are going to need at least 2 turns to get treasure off the table. Another change is that at least one treasure out of the three must be 12″ from the player’s table edge.

Choosing sides for deployment – A last change to ensure a more fair game is that players both set up the terrain and treasure first, then roll to determine deployment zones. Both roll off and the player that rolled the highest can decide to either go first, or decide which table edge they want to deploy from. So this makes for a fun choice. They can choose to get the initiative on the first turn, or instead opt for the side that they think gives them the best terrain layout. And since no one knows what option is available, they will try to set up terrain and treasure so that no one has a distinct advantage (unless they want to gamble on winning win the first roll).

Winning the campaign – This likely isn’t a perfect system but we are working along keeping a running advancement total. This is determined by the sell value of treasure, gold crowns, and XP of the wizard, with base improvements (as per listed costs) also being added in. The player with the most advancement points wins. So it’s all about cash and XP basically. The tough choice was to include improving the warband, but I decided against it. Folks can hoard their cash if they want to, as spending crowns to get soldiers won’t help their advancement total. But having more bodies means you can likely get treasure off the board, so in a roundabout way, the advancement points lost (as spent gold) buying a thief likely pays in spades if you get more treasure during a game. We’ll see how that works out.

Select scenarios – Mostly this is due to available terrain, but I also wanted us to have the same number and types of scenarios we would all play. The first and last games would be regular battles without any special rules or terrain. The three games in the middle of the campaign would be three specific scenarios that could be played in any order. The Living Museum, the Well of Dreams and Sorrows, and the Complex Temple were selected as they don’t require much of a special table layout (like the Library or Silent Tower) and something we could work with given our available models.

I’m looking forward to our winter campaign. I am hoping to get some battle reports written up but likely they will be simple recaps. I usually get so wrapped up while gaming I forget to take pictures. However I hope this will end up being a fun little series of posts to put up and document how my warband fares through the campaign.