Frostgrave - the first few games

Guest post by Dahl Botterill from "Rats East"

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Our third and final guest blog by one of our Write NOWW: Web Compositions panelists.

Today's post is from Dahl Botterill from "Rats East": www.ratseast.ca

Write NOWW: Web Compositions
Friday, March 18th, 7pm
CommuniTea & Coffee
108 Frederica St. E

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Tyler and I were joined last week by a mutual friend. With only one game under our campaign belts, we opted to use our previously fielded warbands while Chris brought a fresh list he’d put together for his first game. Tyler’s Illusionist, my Chronomancer, and Chris’ Illusionist prepared to go treasure hunting…

Chris on the Northeast edge, Tyler on the Southeast, I was on the Northwest.

Lots of ups and downs here. Chris was at a bit of a disadvantage, although it seemed to be less the fact that we were a game ahead and more the fact that it was his first game ever (and his first miniatures game in a very long time). He also wound up on the third side, between us, and we hadn’t really considered pincer issues.

Tyler's Pathfinder Pawn crew goes up against Chris' motley medley

Still, lots of fun for everybody, and we were all looking forward to our next game…

Conan squares off against Barechest.

… And that next game would follow only a week later.

One Week Later...

Over the course of the week, we all built new warbands with level 0 wizards. This way we’d be on the same foot starting out. We also tweaked the deployment zones a little to try and provide the middle squad with some breathing room.

North and south got the 2' closest to the west side; east got the central 2'

Definitely helped. With three of us on a 3×3 battlefield, we also increased the ‘seedable’ portion, allowing treasures within 7″ of the edge. With telekinesis in play, though, we may have to try playing that as written next time.

She (Who Will Not be Named) prepares to lead Beatrice, Skrixx Aeon 'k, and Tannhauser into battle!

I brought a Necromancer this time around, and had a rough go of it. I missed a few rolls where I really needed them, and came away a bit of a mess. The early game was going okay, but it started to fall apart after the first few turns.

Until an Enchanter's telekinesis spell ruined her day, Beatrice was standing next to a treasure.

My dog Tannhauser was first to go, cut down in his very first round of combat. I did manage to get a fog up to interfere with some of Tyler’s archers, but his wizard was still able to see a fair bit, and the fog wasn’t high enough to block the apprentice and archer he’d put on a tower. My lone archer, Wren the halfling, started trading arrows with Chris’ crew early, so my energies were split across two ends of the board.

She (WWNBN) managed to cast Bones of the Earth on a fleeing treasure-laden thief (they almost killed her, but she escaped on her second attempt), and a fairly effective Plague of Insects on the archer in the tower, but was then hit by a devastating Grenade spell from Joey the Apprentice (Tyler’s children named his warband members). My apprentice Morrigan did less well, successfully casting Crumble once and falling at everything else. She died shortly after She, also in turn three.

I was also unfortunate enough to have every creature we rolled turn up right next to me.

This would be Rikkits the thief facing a Strengthened infantryman, a ghoul, an ice spider, and a raised zombie. He actually survived quite a while, all things considered

The above ghoul and spider tore into my already overwhelmed thief, and later a pair of ice spiders would stumble directly onto an Infantryman of mine (Jaeger) as he moved to escape with a treasure.

Mostly I think I just overextended myself. My forces were very split up, and I would eventually lose a bunch of soldiers to multiple combats and overwhelming odds. Beatrice was taken out while surrounded by enemy soldiers (I tried to lock Tyler’s wizard in combat while preventing two other soldiers from claiming a nearby treasure); I’d have been better off letting some treasure get picked up by others and regrouping, rather than trying to keep the pressure on after I was already significantly reduced in manpower.

Finally, I decided at the end not to run Jaeger off the board with his treasure, instead trying to claim everything by dropping that treasure and attacking Chris’ remaining soldiers. With two archers all on the board, he was a little too strong for me to attempt that tactic.

I ended the game with one treasure and only four spells cast. And Tannhauser the dog died.

Definitely my worst game.

My wizard was badly wounded, but I had a little luck in the end. My treasure included an Orb of Power I could sell and the Treasury I moved into netted me a grimoire and some extra gold, so I was able to get She patched up and hire a couple of extra soldiers. Hopefully I can get caught up in the next game (Chris’ six treasures and three levels means a commanding lead). If I’d had more money to pay with I’d have given Wren a promotion (he was a brilliant maniac with that now), but that will have to wait. The cost of an archer is just to much to toss away buying a ranger, so instead I upgraded Skrixx Aeon ‘k to a Knight and hired a Barbarian. Undecided at the moment whether to get another dog right away or wait until I have kennels…

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Dahl is a father and gamer born and raised in Thunder Bay. He spent some time in other places and drifted from one kind of gaming to another over the course of several years. As an undergrad he played a lot of classic videogames, and then shifted into board and card games during post-secondary. Miniature gaming followed shortly after.

He loves to read, and to write, and enjoys a great many hobbies during his free time, which there's a lot less of since he started a family, and he's pretty okay with that. Blogging gives him an opportunity to meld several hobbies together, and a small outlet for the writing bug, to boot...