Frostgrave, Halo Ground Command and other tabletop minis

[TREX]

Are posts allowed without pics As tornado said, nice pics @Hahma . I am going to make a second wizard to play against a friend that we should be doing a complete campaign with just me and him. I'm going to make a summoner. I want to have a easier leap spell. I haven't had a chance to look over the book again for making him yet but I want to try for:
Leap
Summon Demon
Control Demon
Maybe Bone Dart
Telekinesis
Push, Like I said though, I haven't looked in there to see if I can pull all of those out to begin with.
Your last game looked pretty neat. Your right that my brothers would rather try to kill you then make a deal with you. I enjoy reading you guys different strategies. I've decided to axe the castles as terrain options with frostgrave. The 5 player game we played still ended up being a free for all killing frenzy. I've played half games on boards with epic height and the other half with regular height. It seems as if the game flows a bit better with terrain that is 10 inches high or less. One quite fun thing we did do from height was push the loser of a battle off of catwalks for an instadeath. My wizard melee killed one of my brothers soldiers that way. My thief got KO'd that way as well. I think for the time being I'm going to stick to terrain that's roughly 10 inches high or less from here out. I also noticed that my board is turning out to be much more crowded with terrain. I can't stop making it. I have next week off from work. My vacation time generally consists of catching up on home improvement projects, but with a week off, I'm pretty sure I'll have time to post some pics of some of our battles, some of my new monsters I painted and other neat stuff.

[Hahma]

You know the old saying @TREX , "pictures or it didn't happen."

I think you'll find it to be more fun and maneuverable without the epic height terrain. While they may be nice for a one-off game on occasion, I think that there is something to be said for warbands being able to wind their way through terrain at ground level and a little bit of height that is accessible. In general, that's how I see people play in the videos I watch, as well as the many pictures I see on the Frostgrave facebook page.


Sounds like a good idea to start with a new wizard when starting a fresh campaign. Those sound like some good spells, if they work out with alignment and such.

I'm going to run a game for some others at my game group's all day gaming event tomorrow. Fortunately a couple of the guys have the rules already and some figures. I told them to download the wizard sheets and fill out warbands so we don't have to waste time doing it right before the game. My buddy Chris is finishing moving into his new house tomorrow and is going to try to make it to gaming in the afternoon sometime so that we can have a couple Frostgrave games going.

He also preordered that rulebook for Dracula's America. I should get it around the end of the month, along with some stuff for Infinity.

September 23rd, Chris and I are going to demo Frostgrave at a game store in Chicago, the one we played The Walking Dead All Out War at. One of the 2 owners of the store recently got diagnosed with cancer in his jaw and had to have part of it removed, and replaced with some metal and muscle from his chest. He didn't have insurance, so a ton of people are demoing games, having a bake sale and a couple raffles to help raise some money for him.

[Hahma]

I'll spare you the pictures for the rest of the game.

So Morgan and I had made a deal, and then she made things a little tougher for me by having her Wizard use Push to send my Tracker with a treasure into close proximity to the Granite Golem. So as you remember from the last report, my zombie was keeping the Golem busy, but that was a tenuous situation. Man-at Arms was too slow to get between the Tracker and Golem, but the archer jumped down like Hawkeye or Legolas and bravely put himself in harms way. So that's where we left off.

Well Morgan kept trying to deny me the 50 lousy extra XP, as she kept trying to kill the Golem before I could control it with a Control Golem spell. She had already "accidentally" took out my zombie with her archer who was "trying" to hit the Golem. Then after my archer engaged the Golem, and subsequently my Infantryman (Johnny Appleseed) also engaged the Golem for support, Morgan ended up "accidentally" taking out ol' Johnny Appleseed, and my archer got killed after taking arrows from Morgan and attacks from the Golem. So I said that's it, "there will be blood!" My wizard dusted off his Elemental Bolt spell that had may have only been used once so far ever, and cast it at Morgan's apprentice. Bam! I succeeded on the casting, and then with the +8 Shooting attack, I rolled a 17 and after adding the +8 got 25 total, just enough to reduce her apprentice to 0 health after subtracting her armor from 25. She was stunned.

I was like, "hey, you took out my zombie, Pushed my Tracker with a treasure close to the Golem, kept attacking the Golem to deny me 50XP (potential), and taking the chance to hit my engaged soldiers, which she did several times. So it was on like Donkey Kong. I cast a Wall spell with my Apprentice to block off some attacks from some of her closer units. It was nice because she lost her apprentice phase without her apprentice

My wizard later moved toward a doorway after jumping down from the plank above, and he was just exposed enough after Morgan's wizard moved, that she was able to hit him hard with a Bone Dart, down to 1 health left after starting with 16 but having using some to empower spellcasting. Ouch! I said, "that was uncalled for!" and she replied, "don't mess with my wizard's best friend!"

I was later able to heal 5 points of health back onto my wizard to get him up to 6, but it cost my apprentice some of her health.

There was some crossbowmen volley's back and forth, and we were each able to get some treasures off the board.

Since this scenario takes place in a crumbling construct factory, there is a chance for falling debris. There is a special rule that during initiative, if a player rolls a 1, they get to choose a figure that is not a wizard or apprentice to take a +5 shooting attack from falling debris. There is also one that if you roll a 20, you get to choose a piece of terrain to use a Crumble spell on, which makes a doorway through a wall or something, or has a floor drop out of a building from under a figure and sending it falling below. Well during one initiative, I rolled a 1 and Morgan rolled a 20. I choose to have some debris fall on her thief about 6 inches from the board edge and with a treasure, and it was a huge chunk of debris as it killed him She had another soldier nearby and was able to recover and exit with the treasure. For her 20 roll, she just had the floor collapse below my crossbowman. It wasn't high enough to hurt him, but it did take him off a good piece of elevation with good LoS.

Eventually we each made our way off the board, and I was able to get all my figures off the board (or killed by the Golem) while she still had one treasure left to carry off. But if anyone gets all of their people off the board, the game ends and the other player gets the treasure that is remaining on the board. So we each got 3 treasures.

As for XP's, I got 80 for taking out her apprentice, in addition to 90 for 9 spells cast and 150 for 3 treasures. Morgan only got 150 for treasures and 40 for only 4 spells cast, as it didn't help that her apprentice was gone for much of the game.

As for treasure, she got a grimoire with the spell Furious Quill, a couple scrolls, one of which she sold for 100 gold, and a magic crossbow +1 Shoot, which she gave to her crossbowman to have him have a shoot +3 now.

I got a potion of Teleport and one of Invulnerability. I also got a couple scrolls and the last treasure was just 110 gold.

Afterwards, she rolled for her thief and apprentice that were knocked out of the game, and both were fine and good to go next game. I rolled for my archer and infantryman, and my archer was fine and my infantryman was badly wounded and has to miss the next game. Good news is that my warhound that was badly wounded and had to miss this game, will be able to play in the next game.

Glad to get this one done and wrap up the campaign, as I had to break down my table and tabletop to load into my car for tomorrow's game day, as well as roll up the mat and pack up the terrain.

[TREX]

Good stuff. Once there is blood at my place everyone goes into a frenzy. Its good to get that in a bit. I cant wait to get another game in.

[Tornado]

Not sure if you heard of the cool Metal Nanofigs for Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Street Fighter ect. but they have released a couple playsets that may work for war gaming.




Reviews on youtube if you search nano batcave & nano harry potter.

I want to say they were $25 at Walmart.

[Hahma]

Cool find Tornado.

I guess it depends on the scale. But the price seems good.

[TREX]

Yeah, the Harry Potter one looks cool, but you'd have to double check if the scale is close. Also, for Frostgrave the height on terrain is optimal when it is lower than 10 inches. The two big castle play sets I have converted into miniatures terrain don't work well for it because it takes the characters quite a few turns just to get up and down on them slowing down the games. 25 bucks is a good deal though. On a side note. Any of you players that want to get into frostgrave have a cheap alternative for miniatures by buying the 3 sets of Arena of the Planeswalkers board game sets. After looking through them it seems that there are figures for wizards, archers, thiefs, thugs, crossbowman, demons, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and ghost type figures. On amazon you can get all 3 sets for under 30 bucks shipped. You then also get to have a couple of 20 sided dies, and some playing boards you can use with a little HS terrain. On top of that, the Arena Boardgame is pretty fun just to play on its own. I recommended this combination to a buddy of mine just getting into miniatures. Its 75 miniatures, and all the other components for under 30 bucks. I may just finish painting my 6 sets to use for a little variance in more figures to use in frostgrave.

[Tornado]

They are in scale. The figures are slightly bulkier than Heroscape but about the same height. Kind of like how Heroscpae figures are a bit bulkier than standard 28mm.

[keglo]

Originally Posted by TREX

On a side note. Any of you players that want to get into frostgrave have a cheap alternative for miniatures by buying the 3 sets of Arena of the Planeswalkers board game sets. After looking through them it seems that there are figures for wizards, archers, thiefs, thugs, crossbowman, demons, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and ghost type figures.

Thanks for this TREX! I had the same idea when it came to the wizards but I didn't realise that these sets would work for so many of the other needed miniatures. I have all three too. Maybe I need to get back to making terrain.

Dracula's America looks really cool to me too but with that one, unlike Frostgrave, I would be starting from scratch when it comes to miniatures, terrain, etc. Although it might be another excuse to buy some of Wyrd's Malifaux figures that I love so much, as I think that some of them would fit right in with Dracula's America. Hmm...

-
-

[TREX]

Arena Of the Planeswalkers Base Set
Wizards/Apprentices-Most Planewalkers look great for these though Gideon looks more like a soldier of sorts.
Red-Hellcats-could work for wolves or player warhounds
Phoenixes- could work for the crow type monsters in one of the books
Blue- The apparitions of jace could be ghosts of some kind
-The four armed apparitions monsters could be a few different types of game specific monsters
Green- The elementals are constructs, there are tons of constructs in frostgrave
Elven archers- Archer player mercenaries
White- Kor Hookmasters could be thugs or thieves for player mercenaries
Rhino men- Thugs or other mercs
Black-Zombies-zombies
Black- Blighted reavers-ghouls
From the Zendikar set
Eldrazi scions and ruiner would be great demons as well as the Demon looking black planeswalker Ob Nixilus. Got some vampires in there, some more elf warriors etc. All the sets have lots of good stuff to use, but my break is over now.

[Hahma]

Had a fun game of Frostgrave last night with a friend Steve at our group's all day gaming event.

Steve put together a warband with Chromancer wizard and apprentice, a treasure hunter, Man-at-arms, archer, infantryman, a thug and a thief. I put together a warband with a Thaumaturge wizard and apprentice, treasure hunter, infantryman, crossbowman, archer, thug, 2 thieves and a warhound.

We played The Keep scenario, where there are four 2 inch teleporting discs, with each being 12 inches from the center of the board and each having a treasure on it. There were 2 more treasures placed, with one on the roof of the he center building and one on an elevated position about 8 inches from the center building.
For this scenario, anytime your figure ends it's move on a teleporting disc, you roll a d20, where 1-5 sends the figure to the disc to its left, a 6-10 has it go to the opposite disc, an 11-15 sends it to the disc to the right and a 16-20 it stays put.

We rolled a lot of rolls that sent us into enemy territory and it caused plenty of conflict.

Steve's wizard was deadly with his Bone Dart spell. Took out my Crossbowman right away, then later took out my apprentice and a couple other warband members. I used Telekinesis to get the treasure off a teleporting disc and have my archer grab it. I later used a Leap spell to get him out of harm. A thief teleported to a disc on Steve's side and he was able to grab the treasure and was getting chased by a couple of Steve's troops, but my wizard was able to get my thief out of trouble and off the board with a Leap spell.

I had a thug that teleported to the wrong side of the board get engaged by Steve's treasure hunter and they went at it for a while but the thug eventually died. My warhound raced around the center building and engaged Steve's archer. Steve brought in another figure to support the archer and eventually they killed the warhound.

So thus it went for awhile. I got 3 treasures off the board and Steve got one. Then when my wizard Leaped to the roof of the center building and grabbed the treasure up there, he survived a couple attacks (including a Bone Dart attempt that failed bad enough that it killed his apprentice that tried to cast it) turned invisible with an Invisible spell. He was the last one of my warband left alive or on the board. So Steve couldn't do anything to him unless I attacked or cast a spell. We conceded the rest of the game since I would eventually get him off with the treasure and that left Steve with the remaining treasure.

Lots of fun.





My wizard, last man standing for my warband. After this picture, he moved and picked up the treasure. He survived a Bone Dart attack by Steve's apprentice that only had 1 HP left. He failed the roll by enough to kill his apprentice. His archer missed afterward. I won next round initiative and had my wizard turn invisible. Steve had a soldier near the center edge of the 3 exit points I could take the treasure off with, but since he couldn't attack or cast a spell on my wizard while he was invisible, I could have just walked off the board, eventually after a long walk down the only walkway leading up there. I would become visible again if I attacked or cast a spell. I wouldn't attack, but as soon as I got to within 10 inches of a board edge, I could cast Leap and leap off with the treasure. So we called it there because it was already a long game due to the craziness of the teleporting discs and Steve got several calls from work that he had to take.

[TREX]

Found out how to somewhat easily share pics from my phone through my google drive.
I played a game of Frostgrave last night with my one brother with the summoner wizard. Before going on about it here are some pics of the different stuff I've been working on.
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
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L...ew?usp=sharing

These are some modular 3 part wells for one of the scenarios in one of the frostgrave books. I made them with a well section, an LED light, and a foam rock formation with a LED insert. I made 5 in total. If you have the Well on top of the foam rock platform you can light it up. You can also use the foam rock platforms in other configurations to have other items sitting on them. These were super easy to build and very sweet looking. The 2inch Diameter green discs with the vortex swirling pattern on them are my Transportation Discs for the Keep scenario. I made all those things with easily done techniques with hotglue and simple recycle able materials.