Frostgrave, Halo Ground Command and other tabletop minis

[TREX]

Here's my Broken down cart for a scenario in the Lich Lord book.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

The cart is basically a toy that came with an old western set that one of my kid brothers had and I got a bunch of odds and ends that went in my bits box a good year or two ago. This particular piece was already broken courtesy of my kid so it worked out great for the broken cart. I just made a base for it, added it to it with a bit of hot glue, spray painted it black and then drybrushed and did a little detail work to finish it up before I clear coated it with a matte varnish.

[TREX]

Here is a little building that I found in the fairy garden section at HOBBY LOBBY on one of my days off this week. Its perfect. It was 15 bucks, but I used a 40% of coupon on my phone to pick it up for much cheaper. No painting or modding required. Its sweet. Here are some pics.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

Here is my silent tower for that scenario along with some pieces hooked to it for some buildings for the scenario, most of these are just being showcased. I might get the other pics on here soon.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
These buildings were made with cardboard industrial tubing, popsicle sticks, the shingles are just cardstock with hot glue ridges to make texture and make them harder. There is actually an LED light in the top of the tower as well.

[TREX]

Next up is my Mausoleum Building for the Mausoleum scenario
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

Here are some demons and Cultist I painted up for the game. The cultist are heroclix with custom made robes and asscessories that I did up with Greenstuff.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

Also a couple of Heroclix I transformed into a Necromancer and Apprentice for a new player as a gift out of greenstuff and even used a couple of bits from my cultist box to asscessorize them.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

[TREX]

Ok so back to the game I played last night with my brother the summoner. We played the Keep scenario from the core frostgrave book. We also added in the Genie in the Bottle Scenario in there with it for some added fun. (The other time we played he never came out)
Here are some shots of the battlefield. I took them as the game was getting finished out.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

We started the game, I had failed my raise zombie spell before the game taking a wound. I ran my wizard out towards the first teleport pad anxious to get XP for moving on one. I rolled for one and went to the one on the left. My wizard then cast a raise zombie spell so he could have some protection with him on that side of the board. I also moved an archer, knight and my thief as a group activation. My archer went on the teleporter as well and popped up next to my wizard. My thief stopped within an inch of the teleporter and claimed the treasure on it. The genie then appeared from the treasure. For my knights second action he moved in closer to be able to engage the genie to help protect my poor thief. My brother went in immediately after my wizard with his wizard and an archer and a ranger. He also had a treasure hunter with him. My apprentice concentrated his power on getting my thief off the board, I succeeded a leap spell jumping him to the edge of the board. My brothers apprentice went after my wizard and sent his minions over to catch the treasure on the other middle edge of the board. One of his thugs grabbed the treasure on the teleporter closest to him without stepping on it and made for his edge of the board. I sent my war hound and some other minions towards the treasure on the right side of the table and sent my other minions up towards the treasures in the middle. At the end of the round the Genie engaged my knight and my thief and lost to them. The genie doesn't take damage from non magic weapons but I was able push him back. There were also some skeletons spawned on my edge of the board and some of my archers took them out that last round, my zombie also engaged my brothers wizard and dudes to slow them down from killing my wizard. I was able to get my wizard out of the way a bit and leap another one of my minions over to some middle of the board treasure before being pelted by arrows and Elemental bolts from my brother after he murdered the zombie with his treasure hunter and a plus 6 for the 3 guys helping him murder the zombie. My wizard was going down. My apprentice was trying to whittle down the genie with an elemental bolt and rocked a 6 damage on him. I was just glad that my knight was able to knock him away from him. That round I secured 2 treasures, one by my thief and another by the archer that followed the wizard from the teleporting device. My brothers apprentice just started pelting my wizard with another elemental bolt. My brother finally ko'd my wizard. I had ran my hound cajun style up into the mix of my brothers guys trying to get the other treasure next to the teleporter on my left and slowed them down. He did get ko'd but managed to hold them there and not allow them to get the treasure. I had an archer pelting his guys killing one of them then I had another archer pop up on the teleporter next to them killing another one when one of my brothers rolls went bad. I popped up an archer behind my brother on the teleporter on his side of the map as well. I ended up killing the Genie with my Apprentice getting my team a load of XP for not only finding his lamp but killing him as well. Even though it didn't do my brother any good he popped off my apprentice as well ko'ing him after I ko'd the genie. At this point I had another treasure off the board and was working on two more from the middle. I had leaped one of them closer to the board edge My brother ended up killing one of those guys too, but I ko'd his apprentice to get him off my back after that. I pulled that treasure off the board with a back up archer that was headed over to get the treasure because I knew my brother was gunning for him. I ended up ko'ing my brother wizard with some archers because I was getting sick of him trying to murder all my minions. After I knocked out his wizard I started heading for the table edge with my guys, hiding them behind whatever I could. I ended the game with 5 treasures. One of them was the Genies lamp worth 300 gc. I ended up rolling fairly horrible on the treasure table. I ended up getting a magic bow with +1 shoot and a magic dagger that had +1 damage along with a little more gold. One of my treasure rolls was a 1. Right after my brother yelled roll a 1. Both of us were very lucky with not getting completely screwed on our rolls for damage. Both our wizards and apprentices came out pretty. I had a badly wounded knight, thug, and archer. My brother lost a thug, and had a badly wounded treasure hunter. My Elementalist leveled up quite a few times. He is now a level 16 wizard. He is equipped with a Staff of Power (3) and a Bow. His stats are 6M, +5F, +1S,10A,+4W,16H. I have my Elemental bolt down to a 10, my leap is down to a 6, I learned the push spell the game before that,and brought it down to an 11 this game. Fleet feet is down to 11, and I modified my raise zombie spell down to an 11. We decided to get a captain for the next game. I dismissed my badly wounded thug to hire him. I know you lose magic weapons when given to the captain but I loaded him up with a magic dagger and a magic Bow. I'm super stoked to get to play some more scenarios. I'd like to finish playing through the rest of the base book before I get started on another manual. You guys wanted pictures, I hope that was enough to hold you over.

[TREX]

Originally Posted by Tornado

PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

please

Lots of pics up now. Through my google drive. @keglo , @Hahma , @darius23__14.
You'll have to excuse the quality of some. Not sure why the camera on my phone is taking some in focus and others not. I was focusing the camera the beer goggles.

[Hahma]

Great pictures! Lots of cool terrain pieces. I like the wells a lot, those are cool. The little house was a nice find too, as was the stage coach usage. The wizard's tower is perfect for that scenario.

Wow! level 16! You guys get some crazy XP's. Of course, you're always killing each other's wizards and apprentices, so that's a lot more.

5 Treasures! You crushed your brother in that regard. That will teach him to keep attacking your guys. He gets stuck with one treasure for his troubles.

Sounds fun!

[keglo]

That is some awesome terrain you have there @TREX . I think I might have to go get me one of those buildings from Hobby Lobby. It looks great!

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by TREX

We started the game, I had failed my raise zombie spell before the game taking a wound. I ran my wizard out towards the first teleport pad anxious to get XP for moving on one. I rolled for one and went to the one on the left. My wizard then cast a raise zombie spell so he could have some protection with him on that side of the board. I also moved an archer, knight and my thief as a group activation. My archer went on the teleporter as well and popped up next to my wizard. My thief stopped within an inch of the teleporter and claimed the treasure on it.

Hey Trex, I learned that you don't take wounds from an out of game spell, you also can't empower it and you don't get XP for it if you succeed. Found that out on the Frostgrave Facebook page.

Why did you claim the treasure on the teleporter with your thief without getting in base contact with the treasure? Did you guys come up with a houserule where you only have to get to within an inch to pick up a treasure?

[TREX]

I didnt know about the not taking wounds for an out of game spell. Thats good to know. I also think we confused picking up treasure within an inch with it being contested within an inch. I may have mentioned something like that to my brother as something I was thinking about before the game. That would have delayed the game just a hair but would have made it even more fun. I was jumping my soldiers around like crazy. We only grabbed the two closest to our board edges that way. I grabbed the rest by teleporting to them.

[Hahma]

I have Raise Zombie also, so it was good to learn that you don't take wounds from a bad roll out of game. Can't empower or get XP from it either, as with the other out of game spells, but the good thing is that those don't cost in-game actions, so there's a good trade off.

Yeah, the 1 inch thing with treasures is that you can't pick one up if an enemy or creature is within 1 inch of it. Having to move onto the teleporting discs to get the treasure really makes it crazy because you can teleport somewhere else where there is another treasure but in enemy territory, or teleport to a disc without a treasure. Telekinisis is a great spell to have for this scenario. The neat thing about this game is that there are some scenarios where different spells are more important, so it makes it nice that the same spells can't be huge for every situation, which would make spell selection limiting. Sure there are some that are pretty good for all situations, but it's nice to have ones that can be useful in a pinch.

[TREX]

I think that's where we confused the 1inch for picking up treasure. Generally I have a decent amount of move space left over when I pick up treasure. Can you move the remainder of your move after picking up treasure. Say you move three inches to pick up a treasure with a move 6 guy, would you get to move 1 and a half after with the treasure. Right now we don't do that. The teleporting discs made me think about that because it says place them in the middle. I really enjoyed the keep scenario. I think we scored a ton of xp off that one because we essentially played two scenarios in one with the genie in the lamp. The wizard gets xp once for moving on a teleporting pad, and the warband that finds the lamp gets xp and also the warband killing the genie gets xp. Then you have the xp from treasure. Then there's xp from casting spells. Here's the cool part, after we've upgraded our favorite spells enough times, they are low enough to where your going to be able to cast them. I can cast leap on a 6 with my wizard and an 8 with an apprentice. Cutting up to 3 puts that at a 3 and a 5. My wizard also has a staff of power (3). That allows 3 more numbers of love per game. In short, the higher the wiz is the more fun this game becomes. Less failures, more successful casts. My summoner brother's wizard is a 13. During my vacation week from work I was able to make up a couple of decent card templates for monster spawn cards. One has a figure picture, and one is blank. After much thought, I believe I'll just use the non picture ones so more people can use them with their own figures/proxies. I've also come up with a system in which the wizards get xp from killing creatures based on a bunch of predetermined stuff out of the lich lord book on scenarios that give xp to the wizard in which warband kills monsters such as zombies, skeletons, vampires, and special creatures. I even came up with a back story in how the wizards are studying the cadavers of the dead beasts to gain knowledge about them.(hence the xp) It would also make it quite fun to have more of an incentive to hunt the monsters instead of run from them. I'm going to make it a PDF download, and probably put it on boardgamegeek. It will have all the legitimate monster cards along with all the scenario monsters with their special rules. I'm also going to do a bunch of custom dragons, creatures, demons, etc. All those will have some custom encounter tables. I'll be doing a bunch for heroscape figures along with quite a few others. I just picked up a couple more massive dragons from the Safari Toy line along with the huge 5 headed hydra that they have.

On a side note. I think I beat my brother because of using other spells rather than opting for just trying to shoot him with an elemental bolt. He did end up knocking my wizard out with his wizard for some extra xp though. An offensive wizard with killing spells like that can level up a lot from killing a bunch of enemy models though. Are you getting excited for the new frostgrave game coming this fall? I haven't preordered it yet.

[Hahma]

No, you cannot continue to move after picking up a treasure, because picking up a treasure is an action. You only have 2 actions, so if you move and still have move points left over, too bad because once you are done with your move action, that action is complete. Just like you can't move 3 inches and then attack with a ranged attack and then continue with your remainder move allowance and move the final 3 inches.

Getting XP's from being a killing wizard is fine, but at some point, someone is going to lose a wizard for good or an apprentice for good. Then that player will be taking a big hit. And to houserule it otherwise would totally change the game and eliminate the use for much strategy or spell choosing. If a player gets their wizard or apprentice permanently killed, it should hurt a lot.

At some point, even though you are going to be making your casting numbers really low after leveling up a lot, the other player should have harder to kill wizards and apprentices and better soldiers. Raising your fight and health will make it harder to hit the wizard/apprentice and give them more hitpoints to take longer to kill. The more experienced they are, the more treasure they should have and more money to buy healing potions or defensive stuff. So then a player is going to be wasting more time and effort to try to kill for XP's. Also, getting a bunch of high fight/armor/health soldiers makes it tougher to get the easy 40XP kills. All it takes is one player to get a Fog or Wall spell and then it takes away a lot of a killy wizard's ability. There's also Blinding Light and other spells that will screw up your wizard/apprentice. Mind Control also can be fun to turn a soldier against their wizard. Imp is a nice one too, as you can cast that and maybe it becomes a distraction for the other player's wizard. To me, if I'm playing against the same people and they have a certain build strategy, I'm going to find some stuff to counter it, because if you let a player get away with having their way all the time, then there will be a big separation in levels and treasure accumulated and then it can become less balanced.

I'm sure you've noticed, that when you guys kill each other's wizard or apprentice, that it can be a double whammy, as then that player loses their wizard or apprentice phase. That allows for the other player sometimes to get double activations in a row if they happen to have initiative. So they can go wizard phase and right to apprentice phase if the other player doesn't have their wizard anymore, or go from apprentice phase to soldier phase if the other player doesn't have an apprentice any longer. So it can be a dangerous thing and as long as it's balance to where both players get their chances of double activations over the course of several games, it can be fine. But if one player starts getting a lot more levels or treasure benefits over the other player and the balance gap gets farther apart, then it can become less fun for the player left behind.

As far as XP's for creatures, that can be cool, and I like your back story for it. It might also help a player that may be behind in treasure for the game have something else cool to work for.

For me personally, I have no desire to vault up to level 30 after 10 games. At some point, all stats are going to be maxed out and then spells will be auto-cast and it takes some of the risk and strategy out of the game, making it less fun for me personally. I prefer to have to really think about using certain spells that may be more risky, and I like to have more time before my wizard and apprentice become uber powerful that I don't have to worry about being smart with their positioning. But that's just my personal desire for how I want to experience the game. The great thing about this game is that everyone can tailor it to their preferences. Some people want to see more creatures appear, so they lower the d20 roll for the chances of them appearing. Some people don't like how killy ranged weapons and spells are, so they give the defender better chances with the benefit of the doubt of counting more intervening terrain, or raising the + benefits from cover. So everyone tunes it to the way they like.


As far as the new version, Ghost Archipelago, the Nickstarter for it should be in September. I'm going to wait to see what will be included in that, as it might have different backer levels depending on your budget. Nick Eyre, the guy in charge of Northstar Games and Nickstarter said there will be a good bit available and that we should save our pennies because it will be pricey. Aside from the main rulebook, I'm sure there will be a soldier kit for the crewmen, as well as models for all the Heritors and Wardens. There may be some specialists as well, and some lizardfolk and some other specific creatures available for it. So we'll see. I'm sure that it wouldn't be necessary for people to buy the crewmen kit if they chose to use their figures they use for Frostgrave. Or people can use other figures as well for the Heritors/Wardens/Specialists/lizardfolk/creatures etc.