Frostgrave, Halo Ground Command and other tabletop minis

[keglo]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Yeah, too many 2 player games that are fun. The good thing about Frostgrave is that it can be played with more than 2 people, same with The Walking Dead All Out War miniatures game.

I actually keep forgetting that Frostgrave can be played by more than two people.

When I first learned of Frostgrave, one of the appeals of it was that that you can use any miniatures for it. So I was thinking that this was a game that I could get into cheap, compared to Malifaux, Guild Ball, etc, because I could use Heroscape and AotP miniatures. I am now realizing my mistake. I have pretty much zero miniatures that I can use for the various monsters. The cost of all of those models combined with the cost of the terrain is going to be much higher than I first imagined.

I'm starting to think that Malifaux would be the cheaper option until I slowly build up a better miniatures collection.

[Hahma]

@keglo

Yeah, it's not cheap. Though, it also depends on how many minis you already have. Aside from some scenerios, monsters aren't guaranteed to even appear in a game, as you need to roll 16+ each time a treasure token is first picked up. They haven't come up much in 3 games. So they are easy enough to proxy.

The terrain thing is more costly and/or time consuming to build and paint. If you already have Malifaux, I would imagine you could just start with that and build up your terrain collection over time. I have sold some games I don't play anymore to get hobby money, and put aside a little bit each paycheck. Also, for Christmas and my birthday, my wife knows that all I really want is game related stuff, so she just has me order $100-150 worth of stuff I want. Plus, now that she started working full-time again for the past 6 months after over 8 years of part time, it helps to have some extra money again.

[Hahma]

I got my Ulterior Motives set today for Frostgrave. The set consists of several pieces of scatter terrain, as well as a deck of 40 Ulterior Motives cards.

When playing with the Ulterior Motives cards, there are some minor rules changes. Instead of each player placing 3 treasures each, 1 treasure will be set in the center of the board (or as close as possible), then each player gets to place 2 treasures each, following normal rules for that. Then deployment is about an inch from the board edge instead of 6, and the treasures are only worth 40XP's (in addition to what you roll on the treasure chart) when taken off the board instead of 50XP's.

Then each player draws an Ulterior Motives card and reads it secretly to be sure they can actually do it based on the requirements. If they can't, they can draw another. There are secret and reveal cards, so if it's secret you don't show it, but if it's Reveal then you have to show it and keep it face up. There will be some thematic fluff to it at the top and then tell you what you need to do and what you get for it. So they are basically optional side missions you can go for in addition to the usual going to retrieve treasuers. They aren't mandatory, but some of them may give the opponent some XP's if you fail.

Some of the cards have a list of Red Herrings, which are what the scatter terrain is for, besides being able to use them in non-UM games. So the card may list a statue and trapdoor as your red herrings, so you can place them out as stated, and they can throw the opponent off to what your real mission is (I'm assuming the red herring missions are some of the secret ones), because some of the missions actually require you to interact with those pieces of terrain, but if they are red herrings, then you don't need to do anything with them.

The pieces are resin, except for the metal zombie figure. They need some cleaning up of flash and whatnot before priming.

[TREX]

Those look great @Hahma . Shouldnt be hard to duplicate with my clay/foam and what not. I really like the look of the cards.

[TREX]

I also checked out walking dead all out war. I would love to use all my zombicide zombies for that instead of buying it.

[keglo]

Thanks for sharing Hahma. That sounds cool and more terrain is always nice.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by TREX

Those look great @Hahma . Shouldnt be hard to duplicate with my clay/foam and what not. I really like the look of the cards.

The rules additions are printed on 2 of the cards, and when it lists terrain for missions or red herrings, it's pretty generic in that while it lists the specific pieces in the set, it also lists other similar alternatives. So if someone just got the card set without the terrain, they could use something similar but not exact. Heck, anyone can make a cardboard or foamboar arch or cut little circular pieces of foamboard etc. So it's nice in that respect that makes it more accessible. And the cards are big and pretty thick. I was surprised at their sturdiness.

Originally Posted by TREX

I also checked out walking dead all out war. I would love to use all my zombicide zombies for that instead of buying it.

I haven't checked into it from a proxy standpoint. Are the rules, character cards and templates available to download from Mantic's site? They also have some dice that are specific to the game.

Originally Posted by keglo

Thanks for sharing Hahma. That sounds cool and more terrain is always nice.

I figured it would add a little extra to the game when not playing specific scenarios, so it will add a lot to the system as a whole. And having extra scatter terrain is nice too, though now I have to paint it Started working on the building of the Mausoleum, going with a light beige-ish color since a lot of the mausoleums I googled were of a lighter stone color. I also need to paint my daughter's bear animal companion in her warband that TREX sent me. He's primed black now. And also have to get to the Guild Ball figures at some point, as I finished the second game last night and put it away to set up another Frostgrave table to play another game with my daughter over the next few evenings. Oye! Vicious cycle of projects, but it's a good thing I enjoy it

[keglo]

[quote=Hahma;2152426]

Originally Posted by TREX

I figured it would add a little extra to the game when not playing specific scenarios, so it will add a lot to the system as a whole. And having extra scatter terrain is nice too, though now I have to paint it Started working on the building of the Mausoleum, going with a light beige-ish color since a lot of the mausoleums I googled were of a lighter stone color. I also need to paint my daughter's bear animal companion in her warband that TREX sent me. He's primed black now. And also have to get to the Guild Ball figures at some point, as I finished the second game last night and put it away to set up another Frostgrave table to play another game with my daughter over the next few evenings. Oye! Vicious cycle of projects, but it's a good thing I enjoy it

I wish that I could learn to actually enjoy painting. After long breaks I always come back to it because I feel like I should like it, but I always tire of it quickly. That is why I still have over half of my AotP figures primed and unpainted.

Working on the terrain, on the other hand, has been quite enjoyable for me so far. I'm hoping that I don't tire if it too.
-
-
-

[Hahma]

[quote=keglo;2152488]

Originally Posted by Hahma

I wish that I could learn to actually enjoy painting. After long breaks I always come back to it because I feel like I should like it, but I always tire of it quickly. That is why I still have over half of my AotP figures primed and unpainted.

Working on the terrain, on the other hand, has been quite enjoyable for me so far. I'm hoping that I don't tire if it too.
-
-
-

Well keglo, I don't always enjoy painting I know that it's cheaper than commissioning it to be done for me, so that's part of the motivation, but also, if I want to own certain games, I think that I took on that responsibility to make it look as good as I can by painting the minis. But I also do get great satisfaction with the end product and seeing the hard work and time payoff with visual results that make me feel proud and happy that I accomplished something pretty neat. Then when the game is played, it looks better visually.

That said, for me, I have learned to take breaks from it if it feels like too much of a chore. I might take a few nights off and then hit it again on the weekend mornings when I get up and have a few hours to myself. I'm more of a morning person anyway. I also will switch up some projects so that it's not endless painting of miniatures. Working on terrain here and there is a break from working on the minis. Also, the soldiers kit I got from Northstar games for the Frostgrave warband members comes in sprues and several parts and options each. So by assembling a batch of them for a few nights, it is a break from painting, same with the Mantic undead kit. And now working on the Mausoleum building, it has given me another non-miniature thing to work on and paint.

That's what I do to help break it up so that it's not endless minis painting. I did go for a while painting a lot of 15mm Halo Ground Command minis, and that got tough after awhile. Still have some more to do, but when I get back to them after the couple month break, it will be a fresh start again.

On another note, I just made a wall for the "Wall" spell in Frostgrave. I was sifting through my closet in my office/hobby center, and found a piece of black packing foam that was about an inch thick. The wall size for the spell is 6x3x1 inches. So I cut it down to size and it will work wonderfully and had only taken a few minutes. It will look a lot better than the white foamboard pieces I had through together initially that were dual purpose Wall/Fog pieces. Now I need to glue some cotton on those foamboard pieces and they will be better looking Fog

Here's the wall:

[TREX]

I found a pdf of the rulebook but not the cards yet. Also the dice do look a bit different. I did see a size comparison of figures to my zombicide ones and they are the same height. Mantics are a bit fat compared.

[TREX]

Side note. I did start my second fp castle modifications. Its looking pretty good so far.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by TREX

I found a pdf of the rulebook but not the cards yet. Also the dice do look a bit different. I did see a size comparison of figures to my zombicide ones and they are the same height. Mantics are a bit fat compared.

I don't think The Walking Dead would really work so well as a homebrew so to speak. There are 3 colors of combat dice, and while I didn't look at any of the blue ones, the red and white were different. They have some blanks, but also 1 pip and 2 pip sides. There's also one of the 2 pip sides that has a special symbol for headshot. That is significant in being able to kill a zombie instead of just knocking it down, and it also is more deadly against other characters.

There's a threat dial that I suppose could be homemade if you find a good picture of it for reference.

I believe they have blank character cards that can be downloaded, but that doesn't help if you don't really know how to balance them etc.

Also, the biggest hurdle would be the deck of equipment cards and event cards. Both of those are key to the game.

Originally Posted by TREX

Side note. I did start my second fp castle modifications. Its looking pretty good so far.

Look forward to seeing it