Wednesday, September 30, 2015

30 Games in 30 Days - Going Out With a Bang

Not really...

But sort of...

We've been trying to play a different game each day in the month of September. My last update was Sunday - which brought us up to the 27th (30 Games in 30 Days - Into the Home Stretch)

On Monday I wandered by the Dragon's Den and used my gift certificate won at ToonCon to pick up Rumpelstiltskin. We played it a few times that afternoon/evening. 

On Tuesday... we totally didn't play any games at all... doh... So close... I think everyone was getting a bit games out and I know I was still damned tired from teh weekend... anyway, just didn't happen. 



Today we played Exploding Kittens... and that was it. 

Did we play a different game every day this month? Nope. As I mentioned we didn't even play a gmae at all on Tuesday!? And there was a day (or maybe two...) where we only played a game that we had already played. In those terms - the original terms of the challenge - we failed... But in terms of the SPIRIT of the challenge - playing more games and more different games - I would say it was a success. While we didn't play games EVERY day - and not EVERYONE (Me, Amanda, The Boy, The Girl) played every game or every day - but we (the Kids and I, at least) did play more than thirty games in the month - and Amanda played a lot of games too. 

Over the month we played the following games:


Rumpelstiltskin x4
Song of Blades and Heroes  x4
Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition) x4
Frostgrave x3
Meridian x3
7 Wonders  x2
Hive Pocket x2
Kingdom Builder x2
Sentinels of the Multiverse x2
Small World x2
The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow x2
Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu x2
Caverna: The Cave Farmers x1
Dominion x1
Dominion: Intrigue x1
Exploding Kittens x1
Five Tribes x1
For Sale x1
GiftTRAP x1
Empires: Age of Discovery x1
Hearts x1
Ice Cream x1
Ikusa x1
Incan Gold x1
King Arthur: The Card Game x1
Knights of Charlemagne x1
Lords of Waterdeep x1
Love Letter x1
Montgolfiere x1
Monty Python Fluxx x1
Patronize x1
Puerto Rico x1
Quiddler  1
Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568-1648 x1
SET x1
Smash Up x1
Space Junk x1
Ticket to Ride x1
Ventura x1

39 different games were played - some of them multiple times! Not bad... Mind you 11 of those were games only The Boy and I played at ToonCon...

I still have an ongoing challenge to add plays to 100 games that I have no plays recorded on BGG by the end of the year.  

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

English Civil War Scots Covenanteers


While I was working away on English Civil War stuff over the last weeks I got eyeing up my bigger battle forces (nominally for DBA-x) and got thinking perhaps I could finish up enough over the next week before the kids and I are reading about it so I could use them for a game of DBA-x or perhaps use One-Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas…? The two forces I had closest was one generic English force (could be either Royalist or Parliamentarian) and the Scots Covenanteers… So I thought I’d have a go at finishing them up. I haven’t worked on those for Three Years!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


An element of Pike (and nominally the “command” element of the regiment) – figures are from Renegade Miniatures. I’ve had them sitting around since the last time I worked on this force…


Backside of the command element of pike – to show the guys hiding behind the banner.


Second element of Pike for the regiment.


Backside of said second element of Pike – showing off their pretty tartan... whatever they are..? blankets?


Two elements of Shot.


The complete regiment of Scots Covenanteer foote.

I have another such regiment of Scots Covenanteer foote from Renegade Miniatures yet to paint. The one above is "marching", the one I have yet to paint is "standing". Perhaps I should push on to finish them up and have yet another force DONE! 


I also happened to pick up a Warlord Games Scots Frame Gun and Crew from J&M Miniatures earlier this year. I’m not sure why….? Perhaps it was in the discount section…?


So here is the entire force so far… One element shy of the 12 needed for DBA-x. Not that I have a clue what it should be. I can’t even remember if this even comes close to conforming to the suggested army list… perhaps I should look that up before continuing


Another shot of the entire force. For One-Hour Wargames this would be three (maybe four) units – the two regiments of foot, the two elements of horse would be combined to form a unit (with a few individual horsie-mens) – and possibly the Gun…


Another shot of the whole force.


For One-Hour Wargames I thought I’d add the two individual Scots Horse I painted last month to make it four elements. Though the four separate elements aren’t exactly even in size, it is four elements and it ends up having about the same frontage as a unit of infantry… I thought I’d make every unit four elements. And removed an element for every 4 hits taken (this would increase the total hits taken to destroy a unit to 16 – rather than the 15 suggested in the game).

Though Artillery isn’t listed as an element in the Pike and Shot section of the book I thought I might include them but have a single element and have it removed if it takes 4 hits. Neil Thomas seems to be all about tweaking rules to fit your own requirements or writing your own damned rules, so I'm sure he won't mind too much... 

I do need to do a bit more work for the English to be ready for either game…


I also finished up a few English Pikemen from Old Glory


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More English Civil War stuff likely… despite the loads of ECW stuff I already own, a small order from Warlord Games arrived on Friday (taking advantage of the Free Shipping in September promotion). It included some Clubmen – local villager that formed into a local militia organization of sorts to defend their lands from the armies that scavenged their provisions from wherever they could! I also have a few dragoons and Irish inbound that… well… they were a terribly good deal! I’ve also been thinking of ordering a few miniatures from… well… somewhere…?  to get a few civilians and some artillery crew – as I have guns with no crews and civilians are always fun to have poking around the edges of battle fields – or right in the middle of them if it’s a skirmish in a village!

I have a Game Report yet to write (for the final play-test of the Tooncon game) and an article about the boardgames I played with the kids for Volume Two of Story of the World.

Monday, September 28, 2015

30 Games in 30 Days (Into the Home Stretch!)

For the month of September I have decided to play a different game with the family (or at least the kids) every day of the month. You can read about the previous weeks here:

Week One
Week Two
Week Three



Saturday, 19 September 2015 - We played Frostgrave on Saturday (there's a more extended write up about this game here: Frostgrave: The Cemetery) This is where our challenge started to fail in the playing a different game each day department... this would have been way easier to do last month when I wasn't doing a regular game night - but I suppose it wouldn't be a CHALLENGE if it was easy. So while we didn't play a different game every day of the month I'm still saying it's been a success in the spirit of the challenge - which was to play more games more regularly and play some different games... 



Sunday, 20 September 2015 - We got together with our friends the Genets, that we ususally play games with on Sunday afternoons, and I ran them through the Song of Blades and Heroes scenario I was planning to run for ToonCon. I took a bunch more pictures and meant to do an blog post about the game... but I just haven't gotten to it. I think it was the funnest of the playtests I did, so I'll hopefully get to it this week. 



In an effort to try and keep with the play a DIFFERENT game each day (even though we'd already failed in that regard) we tried out Quiddler. I think a friend had gotten this for The Boy for his birthday a year or two back and we STILL hadn't gotten around to trying it out. I read through the rules and thought is seemed easy enough and a game that everyone would like and might become a regular "hey, we got 20 minutes to kill why don't we play Quiddler?" type game... But instead the kids were thoroughly frustrated by it and rounds ended in tears...!? I have no idea why... they're quite articulate kids with huge vocabularies.... perhaps it was because it was at the end of a very long tiring day and they just couldn't see the patterns in the letters...? Ah well... I had hands like this one above and then before it got back to me, Amanda would win the round! So I don't know what the kids were complaining about!?



Monday, 21 September 2015 - On Monday we played Dominion. WE played a LOT of it over teh summer so I was a little surprised when I looked back at the games we'd played over the month and realized we hadn't yet played it! Does anyone else get hands like this!? Ugh... 



Tuesday, 22 September 2015 - Amanda, The Girl and I were just able to squeeze in a quick game of Hearts between eating supper and running out to their Karate class and me having to run out and fetch The Boy from his Drama Class... 



Wednesday, 23 September 2015 - On Tuesday we'd read about The Warlords of Japan in our study of World History - Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the end of the Warring States Period, the Japanese invasion of Korea, the battle of Sekigahara, the siege of Osaka,  and the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate... so on Wednesday afternoon we sat down and played Ikusa (formerly known as Shogun and Samurai Swords). We'd actually done extra chapters of reading on Tuesday so we'd have all day to play Ikusa  - as I expected it would take a lot longer to play... we finished it up in a couple hours. I totally crushed them both... I've actually played it before and knew not to waste money on ninjas and turn order and castles in the first few turns and to concentrate on consolidating an area of control... and I tried to articulate that to the kids and tried to point out they might want to gang up on me... but sometimes they have to do their own thing and find stuff out for themselves the hard way.



Thursday, 24 September 2015 - Thursday we played a quick game of Ticket to Ride between The Girl's bedtime 



Friday, 25 September 2015 - Sunday, 27 September 2015 - Friday was spent pretty much getting ready for the weekend - The Boy and I were at ToonCon 2015 all weekend - there wasn't much to prepare for the convention itself, but there are a lot of errands I usually do on the weekend that I had to try and cram into Friday afternoon... 

A complete report of the weekends activities at ToonCon can be found on a separate blog post:

ToonCon 2015

Amanda and the girl didn't totally miss out on gaming over the weekend - Friday evening was the regular Savage Worlds Realms of Cthulhu that Amanda and I play in. Because The Girl wasn't going for a sleep over at my folks (as the kids usually do on Cthulhu night) The Girl actually got to PLAY in the game - she actually just played one of the Characters who weren't able to make it (not mine, MY character DIED in our last game!). They were still playing when The Boy and I got back from our evening of gaming...

Three days left in our challenge... Whatever shall we play...?



ToonCon 2015

This weekend The Boy and I attended ToonCon 2015 - I know, it sounds like it has something to do with cartoons... but it is actually our local annual gaming convention here is SaskaTOON! I missed last year, but at ToonCon 2013 I ran an Ambush Z (Zombie Skirmish) game, A Force of Force game (moderns skirmish set in Africa), and helped run a 19th Century Wargame, and the year before that at ToonCon 2012 I ran a Savage Worlds Weird War Two game. This year, because we've been playing a LOT of boardgames all year I thought I'd go along with The Boy and mostly just PLAY games...

Here's how our weekend went...



Before even heading out to the con, The Boy sat down and watched a couple of How-To-Play videos on YouTube for some of the games we were signed up for, but hadn't played before - Not having played boardgames there before I wasn't entirely sure what percentage of the folks going would have played the games we were signed up for and if they'd be annoyed by people who didn't know what was going on. My concerns were completely unnecessary - most people playing most of the games we were signed up for had also never played the games before and, for a few of them, we were "the experieinced ones". The play was very friendly and everyone was always willing to help out, answer questions and point things out things we might have missed.

Friday Night  



The con was definitely way more people than at the previous ones I've attended - and the facility is WAY better than the previous location (especially the lighting - the previous location was so dark!). anyway - I think there was 120-150..? Not bad for a smallish city on the bald-ass prairie!



Our first game of the evening was Seven Wonders - a game we've played a bit... It was really fun to play with new people though and see the different approaches they took. I can't remember what my plan was in this game... I usually go for science stuff, but I think here I was going for a little bit of everything I guess - I at least finished my wonder.



We switched up with some people from another table and played again with the Seven Wonders Leaders expansion. I was going for yellow stuff as I had a leader that gave me extra gold every time I played yellow stuff... I can't remember what my other leaders did - one game me guilds for free...?



After Seven Wonders we played a new (to us) game called Space Junk where we played stars/contestants on a reality TV show were we were launched into space and tasked with salvaging junk floating in orbit to make our own spaceships better and race around the planed ramming and shooting at each other. It was a hoot! definitely being added to the Games Wishlist...  While everyone else mostly stayed in low orbit and raced around collecting up a lot of points for laps around the earth - my character had a really high search value so I pretty much stayed in high orbit just collecting up tonnes of junk to improve my spaceship - or just store in the cargo bay. I think I only did one lap in the whole game, where The Boy - who was in low orbit - was screaming around the Earth 2-3 times per turn!

After that we played a quick pick up game of Incan Gold and then decided to call it a night. Though there were more games going on late into the night we had to head home (it's about 8km from our house... we were on bikes... It was going to be an early start for us the next day and The Boy needed sleep and I needed to finish preparations for the game I was running on Saturday.

Saturday

As gaming started at 9:30 am and we had a long was to ride (and I was concerned about ho wlong i might take hauling by game terrain...) we started out pretty early...



The Boy rolling through the University area of town. I love these tree lined streets in the fall.



That's me hauling the terrain for the Song of Blades and Heroes game I was running in the evening.



Our first game of the day was Small World. The Boy won the first game we played...



...so he ended up playing at a separate table from me for the second game (the "winners table"!). All I remember was I got some sort of trolls in one of the games and they were awesome... oh and Underworld Amazons...



Next we played two games of Kingdom Builder - which was new to us  - though we'd watched the Tabletop Episode of Kingdom Builder  a while back and so we had some blue of how to play (actually having watched that episode is what made us want to sign up for the game and try it out!). It was really fun. I like that the things you score victory points for changes with everygame - though it was a little challenging when after playing our first game (and finally getting our heads around what we needed to do to score points) we played a second with completely different victory conditions and it was hard to rewire the brain to think about the new goals! While simple and easy to pick up, I think it would be fairly replayable with the ever changing victory conditions.

We played a quick game of King Arthur: The Card Game over lunch which we'd brought along. (There was a "Kniziathon" going on all weekend - every play of a Reiner Knizia game got you an entry into a draw for a Reiner Knizia game donated by.. well.. Reiner Knizia! There was apparently a copy of Masters Gallery up for grabs that I really wanted to win... I didn't...)



After that we played Sentinels of the Multiverse - which is one of The Boy's favouritest games ev-ar! What was fun (for him) was that he got to play heroes from expansions we don't (yet!) have and against new (and much HARDER) villains (we've only played level one villains at home - at the con we played level three villains!) The first one looked like it was going to crush us very quickly, but somehow we pulled it off.

For each event at the Con there's some sort of prize for the - usually determined by who had the highest score among all the players of all the games or however. Sentinels, despite being a co-operative game, had a prize too - and the winner was determined by who was voted "most valuable player" and that turned out to be The Boy! So he won a $10 gift certificate for the Dragon's Den!


After Sentinels of the Multiverse there was the Game Auction. there was well over 100 games auctioned off! The Boy and I had spent considerable time Friday evening looking over teh games (and when we got home we looked them up on Board Game Geek and figured out what our high bid would be for each... There was a dozen or so that I bid on. Teh boy was really hoping to get a used copy of  Dungeons & Dragons: Legend of Drizzt - as he's been reading the Drizzt novels over the summer. I was really hoping I might be able to pick up a really cheap (brand new!) copy of Agents of Smersh (the starting bid was $2...) unfortunately others had the same idea and it went for much more than what I was willing to bid... In teh end the only thing I got was a used copy of Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan for $12... ah well... 

After a quick supper we set up for the Song of Blades and Heroes game I was running in the evening. This was the same scenario I'd run for the family a few weeks ago, and then ran again for some other friends the following week, and then ran again last week for yet another group - actually trying it out with the warbands I was planning to use at the convention (but I never got around to posting a report of the game!)


One of the players was Al Schnell (one of the co-owners of Dragon's Den Games - our flriendly local gaming store!). Al was playing the Elves - who were almost all Q 2+ - meaning they could only fail activation rolls on a "1".... So Al started the game and one his very first activation rolls what did he roll...?


Oh yeah... that's THREE ones! 




The game played VERY quickly. The Boy played the Ratmen and charged out fast and furious - on his second turn he had the Dragon's egg in his possession and was heading back towards his side of the table... Al and Amy were playing a bit more cautious (well... in Al's case it was the dice that was urging caution!) 


Then the Humans - played by Amy - kicked it into high gear - a group order was issued, three activations for everyone - the first archer moved forward onto the hillside and shot down the ratman carrying the dragon's egg... dead... the second archer moved up and took an aimed shot at another ratman - and scored a "Gruesome Kill" which caused a domino effect of morale tests which saw The Boy's entire warband flee the table! Ouch! (He took it rather well... all things considered... I told him he could play the Dragon if it showed up). 


And show up it did! though rather than being a huge challenge as it had in our previous games, Amy's humans just ran around it and in a turn they were off with the egg and the game was over!? 

wow... 

It was a LONG (but fun!) day and I'd been operating on about 5 hours of sleep (not nearly enough for me) so we decided to pack it up and head home...


Sunday

Once again Sunday morning we were up early (though not QUITE so early as Saturday) and off to the con! Despite that we arrived late - I had assumed teh start time was 9:30 - as it had been on Saturday. On Sunday the start time was 9 AM!? (whose idea was that!?).

The First game we played was Smash Up. As most of the other players were already well into their games The Boy and I played a quick game on our own - I had Trixter Fairies and Teh Boy had... Robot Aliens...? AFter that we got in a second game with some of the other players. This time I played Zombie Magical Ponies...? The Boy had Killer Plants and Kitties?! and teh other two were playing Steampunk Wizards and Alien... um... I can't remember... something with Aliens... Teh games were fast and furious and I totally forgot to take any pictures!? I ended up winning both games and thus scored us a SECOND gift certificate from the Dragon's Den. Wooo! Halfway to Smash Up Munchkin!

After that we played Five Tribes - another cool new (to us) game that we signed up for because we'd seen the Tabletop episode. Again I got so involved in this game I totally forget to take a picture of it - which is too bad, because it's a really neat looking game with a lot going on... ah well... The Boy totally beat down me and the other guy we were playing with - mostly by collecting up two almost complete sets of trade goods!



After some lunch we played a game of Knights of Charlemagne (for another entry into the Kniziathon!)

Lunch was extended a bit so the organizers could have a bit more time to set up for the afternoon games (and for participants to head over the Dragon's Den Games to take advantage of the weekend sale just for ToonCon participants!)



The Den was a bit far for us to nip over on our bikes, so The Boy and I tried out Dominion: Intrigue - we've played a lot of Dominion this past year, but have yet to try out any of the expansions, so this was fun! I think this is the first time we every played a two-player game as we most often play it with Amanda and The Girl...



Finally we played an epic 3.5 hour game of Caverna - which is a reimplementation of Agricola (which I do own... adn we have played... once... in January...). Luckily it was one of the games The Boy had watched a How-to-Play video about and I kind of remembered just enough of Agricola to keep my little swarves fed and working towards making their cave and farm better...

I couldn't tell you how me or The Boy did in most of the games all weekend - we won some, we might have been dead last in some, most of the time we were probably somewhere in the middle - but I can tell you we had a heck of a lot of fun all weekend - so thanks to John and all the organizers and volunteers and all the other players that made it a truly fantastic weekend!

Oh, and i just about forgot to mention - I had bought a few of the raffle tickets - and I ended up winning a six month membership at King Me Boardgamery a new Board Game Cafe that's opened up just a few blocks form my house! So that's pretty cool! (though I'll still have to pay for Amanda and/or the kids if I bring them along to try out some new games...)

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Frostgrave: The Cemetery


Because I’m getting sick of the standard game scenario (and I’ve hardly even PLAYED any games myself – I end up running the games more often than not!) I decided it was time to set up a scenario for this week’s game.

SITUATION

Nester the Weasel, a thug for hire, recently in the employ of the Enchanter Morgok, came staggering into the Frosty Apple – the inn at the village of Bregnall – last bit of civilization before you get to Felstad (if you can call it that…). He’d half walked, half crawled four days through the wilderness, out of the ruins. No food, little water and a horrid gash in his side, which he’d bound, but by the time he arrived in Bergnall it was smelling putrid. He kept muttering to any that would listen a wild story about a graveyard in the city his group had come across – full of treasures – and Grimoires! But it was also crawling with the undead. Only he made it out… and he didn’t live long after his arrival in Bergnall

SCENARIO

The center of the table is a graveyard. In the middle of the Graveyard is a crypt filled with treasures (6 regular treasures, plus one superior treasure – which requires two to carry but scores 100 experience points and contains two grimoires – in addition to whatever else is rolled). The graveyard is filled with undead – plus more wandering monsters spawn every turn. There were six spawning points spread evenly out around the table edge and four inside the graveyard. Players roll for location first as there were two separate encounter tables based on where the monster was arriving from – all of the monsters that could be generated in the graveyard were Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Giant Rats, and a VAMPIRE!

FORCES

Rick was back with Silverbeard the Enchanter. The only change I think he made was to replace one of his losses with another Ranger – which he had to Borrow from The Girl. I think he names him Lenderby…?

Tim returned to the Fratgrave with his Orc Summoner and… stuff… I have no idea…

The Boy Played again with his Nercomancer warband

Amanda had her Thaumaturge. Because she’d suffered some serious losses in the previous game and was unable to replace all her losses she decided to use the Animate Construct scroll. Because I assumed it would have to be a small construct, I gave her one of those to use. I since discovered that spellcasters can make whatever size construct they want with such a scroll – so next game that will probably be a Large Construct!!

The Girl decided to sit this one out and help me run the wandering monsters.

PRE-GAME

In the afternoon before the game I came up with the scenario, but lacked sufficient Graveyard bits and wanted to come up with something slightly more visually interesting for spawn markers…
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


So I nipped out to the shed to cut up some bits of MDF I could find….


Gluing them together to make so quick and dirty Sarcophagi and ‘Spawning Plinths”


A quick, simple paint job was all I was able to do before the game. Perhaps later I’ll do a little sanding of some of the rough edges, repaint, and to a bit of dry-brushing… but for now, these would have to do.


The Cemetery all set up


Detail of the ruined mausoleum and the treasures within.


THE GAME


Everybody set up and ready to go!

I set out four skeletons, two zombies and two ghouls in the graveyard before the game as well. I was a little worried this might be a bit much, but they were easily taken care of in the first two turns… from then on it was just the wandering monsters that spawned on every turn and the rival warbands…


Amanda’s Elvish Thaumaturge warband heading towards the graveyard…


The Necromancer’s warband heads into the ruins…


Amanda’s Treasure Hunter takes out one of the Zombies. In the back ground arrows start flying between the Elves and Silverbeard’s gang.


The Orc Summoner’s minions skulk their way towards the graveyard.


Things started going poorly for the Orc summoner on Turn One when he tried to summon a Demon and rolled a one. He narrowly escaped death when the deamon took a chomp on him. his Knight – with a magic sword – rushed to his aid – only to die horribly in the jaws of the Demon!


I think this was the end of Turn One – Monster spawned in the area of the graveyard nearest the Orc Warband – The Vampire.

Vampires are nasty… There was 3% chance of one showing up… and he showed up on the first turn.


Necromancers minions battling the undead in the graveyard.


Orcs fighting the undead in their corner of the graveyard.



Silverbeard’s warband floundering against a ghoul. I seem to recall that ghoul selling itself dearly and causing some serious wounds… but after three days my memory isn’t exactly spot on…

He did manage to whisk one treasure out of the mausoleum with a Telekinesis spell and handed it off to a Thug that quickly dragged it off.. 


Silverbeard’s gang and the Elves mixing it up! Silverbeard himself charging into the melee!?

The action got so desperate, Silverbeard’s wounded Archer and Ranger started shooting into combats… which almost always ended up with his Thugs getting an arrow in the back (you think after the first one he’d learn… or maybe the second…? or third…?! I guess thugs are cheap…)


Giant Rat! One of, I think, two Wandering Monsters that DIDN’T show up in the corner of the graveyard that the Orcs were set up near.



Nope, three. Three wandering monsters showed up in different locations – because this Snow Leopard showed up near the Necromancer’s Warband and had a nibble on the Apprentice!


Elves hauling away their booty. The Summoner and apprentice only just made it into the mausoleum – he’d created a wall that kept himself and the Necromancer out of is for most of the game – later they used leap to get over the walls and into the mausoleum. There they found the Elf Treasure Hunter waiting to ambush them and try to claim another treasure for her master.


The Necromancer’s Warband calling it a day and heading home treasureless…


Treasures left behind by the Summoner’s crew – the imp dropped on when it was dropped by the Elf Treasure Hunter, the Summoner’s Apprentice dropeed one when he was taken out by a parting gift from the Necromancer’s Apprentice. The Treasure Hunter had hoped to grab one and make a break for it… but the Vampire caught her and ended her…


Wild Dog attacks the Elves and they try to haul off their goods… they very nearly didn’t make it…


This was a first – Even though we started with less treasure than we normally do the game ended with treasure still left on the table – it had been a bit of a bloodbath and most warbands lost half their number to injuries – the rest slunk off with what they could or decided discretion was the better part of valor and decided to leave it to the Vampire!

We’re not finished with that Vampire – I ‘m quite certain he’ll be showing up in games again!

I was worried the scenario might be a bit tough - but it turned out just about right. I like placing all the treasure in the center - it guaranteed a bit more contact between the warbands. I honestly though some might make some temporary alliances - at least until the wandering undead that started in the graveyard were taken care of, but the combat between he warbands started off right away! I briefly thought the Orcs might ally with the Necromancer - when the Necromancer sent in his knight in to help against teh vampire - being the only model who could actually cause the Vampire any damage (after the summoner lost his own knight - who carried his only magic weapon!) but after the Summoner's Tracker started taking out members of the Necromander's warband - one per turn, every turn - including the Necromander himself! - that ended that possibility...


POST GAME

Well…

Aamnda’s Treasure Hunter – that was taken out near the end by the Vampire - was never seen again. The rest of her wounded - a Thug, both Marksmen, and the dog - all recovered from their injuries. Most of the rest of her crew staggered off the board with only a few points of health left… Among the three treasures she collected (including the big one!) she found only gold and the two bonus Grimoires – but she found a LOT of gold – 605 gold! The Grimoires she found were for Fast Act and Poison Dart. She also gained 250 experience (50 for spells, 200 for treasures).

Tim’s apprentice survived, but his knight (with the magic sword – that had rushed to the aid of the summoner when the Demon spell back-fired) died. He’d also lost the Snow Leopard, Warhound and three thieves – two of the thieves were seriously injured and would miss a game, the rest recovered. In the single treasure he hauled off he found 20 gold and a Horn of Destruction. He gained 210 experience though (40 for the level difference, 80 for spells, 50 for treasure, and 40 for killing an enemy soldier) which brought him to a total of 690 – just shy of another level-up!

Rick had lost every member of his warband except the Wizard and Apprentice and a thug that had carried off his sole treasure early in the game. (shooting into combat seems to not be the best idea ever!) The Wizard and Apprentice ended the game wounded as well (less than 4 health!). All recovered from their wounds except Sam, who died… Makes me wonder if they were really wounded at all or if there’s some malingering and lack of commitment to a Wizard who orders his men to shoot into combat with other members of his party…. In the solitary treasure he found120 gold and a Grimoire containing instructions for the Glow spell. The wizard gained 160 experience (50 for the level difference, 50 for treasure, 60 for spells)

The Boy’s Necromancer fully recovered, but his apprentice suffered a permanent injury (smashed leg). A Thug died, but his Knight and Infantryman fully recovered. After losing his Necromancer his heart wasn’t in it and the warband started to retire – when the apprentice went down, it became an all-out rout! They left the table with no treasures, but the wizards did gain 130 experience (20 for the level difference, 80 for killing a couple soldiers, and 30 for spells).

Won’t be back at Frostgrave for a couple weeks as this weekend in ToonCon!


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

We also played A Song of Blades and Heroes over the weekend (play testing my ToonCon game again – with the Warbands I’m thinking I’m going to take along) I should have a game report for that up soon-ish…

If I get any more painting in this week, I should have a post with a bunch of Englsih Civil War Scots…