Frostgrave Campaign game 2

Second game in an ongoing Frostgrave campaign was against Sigilist warband.

I almost forgot to take pictures in this game, and first one is where enemy Treasure Hunter is closing in on my apprentice Adon. Adon has already suffered damage so he's at five health left. One more, and he'd get injured penalties.

Well, more likely the treasure hunter was after treasure token being carried by my thief.

To the second picture I have placed the vague locations of all treasure tokens.

Since I have such a speedy warband, I thought I might be able to get all four treasure tokens I've numbered. One and two were almost too easy (though not as easy as one token in the Sigilist deployment side) to get. The thief in the first picture is carrying #3, so there was some contesting there.

Treasure token number four was high there on top of the ruin. I thought that using Leap snatching it would prove to be no problem. It would take quite a many turn for Sigilists to get their (relatively) slow troops there. But I had been rejoicing too early - a random arrow or bone dart dealt enough damage to my thug who had leaped up to cause injury.

Crossbowman might have leaped to the treasure next, but I needed him elsewhere. The treasure hunter had injured the only thug I had protecting Adon. To get a more equal standing, the crossbowman rushed in to help and support. Adon summoned an imp to tie up enemy archer.

While the barbarian, Jack and a war hound were able to dispatch warriors who had been sent against them, a bone dart dealt killing blow to the barbarian. Now I only had a possessed war hound, who would not be able to carry treasure. Enemy had already brought a treasure hunter up to treasure #4. If Jack would not have already empowered so many spells, I might have been crazy enough to try and re-take the treasure with my wizard. But he had too little health left, and my possessed war hound also died somewhere, somehow.

Adon had leaped to safety from the scary treasure huntes, and suddenly Jack was absolutely all alone on the field.

He danced a little and leaped 20 additional experience points. I could have used routing house rule, but I chose not to as in this situation it felt almost like abusing it - opponent would get less experience points from treasures his models were carrying.

In the end the result was the same, since Jack could escape before any of the treasure carriers from Sigilists had walked off the board.


So this time I'll write the complete warband roster here, as I don't have to try to remember things. I can just check my sheets.

By now Jack is level 5 with 545 experience.
He has leveled fight by +1 and health by +1.
Fleet Feet spell has been improved by +2 and Fog by +1.

Home base is Inn with Sarcophagus of Healing

Vault has Magical two handed weapon (+1 damage modifier), Grimoire: Reveal Secret and scrolls of Imp and Planar Tear.

Total gold that has been collected is 670, unspent gold is 160.

Warband roster is worth 750 gold (level 5 apprentice is 250) and includes:
Barbarian (with the two handed weapon from vault)
Crossbowman
Archer
Thug
2x Treasure Hunter
Apothecary
2x War Hound


In my background story for this warband, the chapter that relates to events in this game is just below, or here.

Cruor et Caedis chapter IV

Earlier chapters:
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III

- - -

Chapter IV

Jack was thinking about his father. He had to, since his father was looking down to him from the big, yellow and green sky that had small purple spirals here and there. His father smiled. He smiled in that one certain way Jack knew all too well. Jack tried to hide, but he knew it would be futile. He called for great billows of fog to appear in front of him, to screen him.

There were scary, shadowy creatures moving around him. Sometimes he thought he knew them. That one looked like his strongman, but something was wrong with him. He was talking to Jack, tried to warn him of something, but Jack could not make any sense out of the echoing blabber he heard.

"QUIET!" he shouted. "Quiet quiet quiet quiet quiet QUIET!"

Leering, unfamiliar faces appeared in the fog and they were repeating "quiet" mockingly. Strongman and a dog were fighting them, it looked like. But Ís was not quiet. This was perhaps sixth day with no sleep.

He wanted to sit down, so he sat. All of this was not so different from his youth, the days in the glass tub. His father had deemed Jack old enough to perform in the main show. He was supposed to become a mermaid. Jack was being kept in the glass tub for many days. There were some fishes for him to eat if he only could catch them. Eventually he could. In the end he was even able to catch fish with his bare hands in pitch black darkness, and could feel which creatures he touched were fish and which were... something else. Something more sinister, that were inhabiting the physical vessel of a fish.

Finally there were nothing else left than the possessed fish. There was nothing else to eat. So he ate the possessed fish. And became a mermaid. And suddenly he could see...

... he could see the great fists of his father raining down from the sky. His wrathful bellow almost drowned the monotonous shriek of Ís. Celestial father was apparently trying to hit Adon and Ís, he was not after Jack! ... yet. That part would come next. And indeed, he could already see fingers of his father, single digits only, flying towards him from the ruins. They were sharp and cruel, like arrows from a bow.

Jack was alone. All alone.

So he left. Jumped off a cliff, and he fell, he fell for a long time. He smiled. There at the bottom was a coffin. He knew he would hit the coffin, and get some sleep at last. He hit the coffin, and Ís was silent.

-

When Jack opened his eyes, he was dizzy and couldn't see anything. He was tightly confined somewhere... it was some sort of a metal box. Box, and not a crawlspace. But the box was in motion, so Jack assumed he had not been buried alive. He knocked on what he thought was the lid. Motion stopped and the lid was being lifted.

Grim face of the strongman and the mask of Ennu were looking at him.

"Jack! You're awake! How do you feel?" Ennu asked.

"Silly you. I feel fine. Can somebody explain why I am this... what this box is, anyway?" Jack said as he arose from his confinement. But just as he was stepping out of the box, the shriek of Ís pierced his skull, and Jack fell back to the box.

"I... uh, I think I'll be here for a while. Now, explain."

"Well, mister... you haven't been alright for a while. You were quite out of you mind. Sleep had escaped beyond your reach. For a week or so. We tried to follow your orders as best as we could, but, forgive me for saying this, but they were rather insensible. We were going to escape the city when we encountered some resistance. We could not fight them, for your condition was our primary concern. In the middle of the fight we found this curious artefact and thought it best to keep it with us. You were following it with great interest, and once we were sure we were not being pursued, we began to inspect it. When we opened the lid, you climbed there before we could even remove the desiccated corpse. I'm afraid your cloak might be a little filthy, for we could not move you."

"Oh. Oh. I'll get to that later. I just don't feel like getting up just yet."

"You've been sleeping for over two full days, sire. You could not give us orders, so we left Frostgrave."

"Good, good. Find an inn or something. We need some supplies anyway. Wake me when we're there."

Next chapter.

On a campaign (Frostgrave)

Last Thursday was the beginning of a campaign of Frostgrave.

The rules are slightly modified version from the actual rulebook. Some folks at Bad Karma dot net (for some reason the site gives me database error at the moment of writing) had already compiled a set of house rules for their enjoyment, and they had raised some good points about where campaign system was lacking. They were not incorporated as is, but were great inspiration for many rules of this campaign.

So here's a summary of our set of rules:

- Victory condition is Transcendence
- Injured rule is used, but critical hits are not

Actual house rules:

- Rout: If half of the treasure has been carried off the board and 50% of the warband has been put out of game by damage, a player may declare rout in wizard phase. At the start of next round all the remaining models from routing warband are removed from board. If they were carrying a treasure token, the token falls to the ground. If the models were in melee combat, other participants may force combat if they wish. Routing models cannot gain supporting melee bonus from other routing models. Note: the models still escape whether forced into combat or not. This just ensures that routing is not used just to escape freely from melee just to save that injured apprentice or high cost warrior with no threat whatsoever.

- Recovering treasure: Only treasures that are actually carried off the board are considered "recovered" for experience gain purposes. Treasures that are left on board when game ends are recovered by no-one, but every wizard who took part in battle gain 25xp. If a tresure token is being carried by a warband member when game ends, wizard gains only 25 experience from that. This is to encourage treasure hunt instead of head hunt.

- Wizard experience: Wizard gains only half of the listed experience from kills made by spells. In melee combat wizard still gains full experience from kills, since wizard is actually risking something (his life) in melee combat. Wizards gain 25 experience from using non-offensive scrolls.

- In-between the games: You have four options when spending treasures.
1. Purchase one item and/or sell as many items as you want.
2. Recruit new soldiers and/or sell one item.
3. Buy a base upgrade and/or sell one item.
4. Scour the ruins for treasure: If warband was unlucky enough not to get any treasure tokens at all during game, one option can be used to gain one treasure and 25 experience point.

You always get one action. You get two actions if either wizard or apprentice survived the game without being removed from game by damage. If both wizard and apprentice survive, you get three options.

This is to limit what you can do between the games even a little, because it feels a bit goofy that if you got the cash, you can do pretty much anything. This doesn't seem to limit early stages of the campaign at all, but hopefully it will stop instant and absolute power boost if one player gets lucky and gain ridiculous amount of gold in one game.

- Death of a wizard: If wizard dies completely before reaching level ten your new wizard is assumed to find the base of your earlier wizard. You don't lose any items or base upgrades, but you lose your warband and all gold.

This is to keep the threat of death always present, but only few things suck more than losing all of your progress especially in a campaign.

So. I played two games, but I'm writing only the first one here because of reasons.

My wizard was almost the same as it was in test games. Let's still list important statistics for completeness' sake.

Warband World Renown Circus Cruor et Caedis

Ringmaster Jack Saturn, summoner with hand weapon and dagger. Apprentice named Adon is carrying a staff.
Spells:
Summoner: Leap, Imp, Possess
Necromancer: Spell eater
Illusionist: Beauty
Elementalist: Elemental ball
Chronomancer: Fleet feet

Soldiers:
2x Thug
2x Thief
Archer
Crossbowman
Barbarian
War hound

Leftover gold: 5

Again I've crudely photoshopped the approximate treasure locations into the first picture. Opponent was playing Necromancer who had at least Bone Dart, Leap and Raise Zombie.

Initially I thought treasures from locations 1-4 would be fairly easy snatch for me. The treasure from location #1 was a first turn grab, when wizard cast Fleet Feet on thief, and thief then advanced 9" to the treasure and picked it up. Apprentice cast Leap on the same thief. Simply beautiful.

But no plan survives contact with the enemy. After I had taken the treasure #1, opponent scored a couple of brutal hits against all soldiers I was going to bring to location #4. Namely that was just my crossbowman. But I had had great plans for that crossbowman. Reinforcements redirected their course to the location #2. The yellow star in the picture is inaccurately placed to wrong place. But some kind of enemy soldier has leaped there, but barbarian counter-leaped to block.

I had thief there at location #2 who was supposed to pick up the treasure, but he was shot down to injured status by a stray arrow. Thug had to do the job, then.

From the Necromancer side a flying zombie (well, technically a leaping one) went to pick up treasure from behind the white building on top. Some turns later the zombie jumped off the building, dying again in the process, but at least it got the treasure token to the ground.

Location #3 was a fierce battleground. Kind of fierce, at least. Well actually there was very little fighting being actually done - my apprentice, Adon, had cast Possess on my thug, who managed to kill opposing warrior.

I had earlier cast Imp to harass the two warriors up there, but since the other died to possessed thug and another warrior ran out of sight, the imp had no other target than my own model, the thug who had picked up treasure. Nooo!

Luckily no damage to either side was done by the pesky little demon (or aide, as Jack calls them) and later I patched up my mistake by summoning a new imp to location #4. Which was a new mistake. There was a duel between enemy war hound and my own war hound, and when imp finally activated, my dog was closer. Noooo!

When opponent had carried off two treasures and had lost five members of his warband he decided to declare rout. Situation was fairly bad for the necromancers, because I had fast troops and more of them. It seemed likely I'd be able to swarm the treasure #4.

That campaign evening three games were played, and this was first time our set of house rules had some real impact in the outcome. So let's discuss.

With regular set of rules I would have been the clear winner with four treasures and 200 experience points from them. Opponent would have gotten two treasures and 100 experience points.

With our set I got three treasures and 150 experience from them and opponent got two treasures and 125 experience from them. At least this time the house rules seemed to give more balanced ending.

I really didn't want to, but I had to choose the Inn as my base of operations. No other base made any sense for my little circus.

I'm writing up some kind of a disgusting story about this particular warband. Events that relate to this game being played are just below this post, or here.

Cruor et Caedis Chapter III

Earlier chapters:
Chapter I
Chapter II

- - - -
Chapter III

Ís was shrieking. Ís was still shrieking. Nothing Jack had done helped in that matter.

Other didn't seem to bother about it too much, but Jack had the impression they didn't hear the shriek continuously. Late at night Jack stuffed Ís' mouth with a filthy rag, but that didn't help. Voice was so loud he couldn't sleep.

The next night Jack tried to sleep as far from Adon and Ís as possible, and eventually there was almost one kilometre between the two. And that didn't help.

Three full days without sleep and Jack could take no more. He raided their medicine supplies where there still was almost a full bottle of pure alcohol for cleansing of wounds. He drank it, and ate everything else. Even bandages. He started screaming himself, tried to make enough noise to drown Ís' voice. Finally he started to summon little... aides from another dimensions, and called for demons to inhabit any poor soul from his circus who happened to cross his path. He set fires and caused explosion. And finally, he collapsed.

But even that didn't help. Jack saw drunken dreams, or actually only one dream that lasted all through the lack of his consciousness. In that dream Ís was still shrieking.

Once he sobered up, he rose with murder in his eyes. He stormed to Adon and started beating Ís. Repeatedly, without mercy. "Nnnuh... Nnnnuhh", Adon was crying and shaking his head. Jack did not stop hitting. No, he would not stop it until there was silence. But he could not stop, for the voice pierced his skull. Insane, he suddenly saw his own face to appear where Ís' head should have been. That only doubled his rage.

He did not stop out of his own volition. His own face changed to that of his father. His beautiful father. His beautiful, perfect father that he had murdered. Now Jack stopped and fell to the ground and cried in foetal position. His father would not stop shrieking.

Somebody shook him gently. Jack opened his eyes, but could not see through his tears. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Don't you know me, it's Ennu. Are you alright, sire?"

"Your name is Ennu?" Jack sobbed. He didn't recall he had ever heard the name of this genderless person who wore pink even though they had known each other for years.

"Yes, Jack" Ennu said with alert, yet empathetic voice.

"Ennu, I... I cannot concentrate. I can't focus. I can't think, not until that horrible noise is gone..."

"... I understand. But you need to raise up. We need you. We have a matter in our hands of most troubling degree."

"What, what is it?" Jack said while he tried to raise his failing body and mind. Ís was still shrieking.

Ís was still shrieking, and Jack couldn't believe his eyes.

Ís was still shrieking, and now this.

Out of all places in the whole wide world... A competing circus. Rivals. And what a miserable circus it was.

First, they got no style. Second, they were ugly.

"Who are they? Some amateurs I see. Their stage hand look more like some savage militia!" Jack spoke, recovering from his mental breakdown with each word. Savage militia had driven off Cruor et Caedis many times from different towns where people were not quite ready for Jack's rather... exquisite show.

"I'm unsure... look there. They don't look like beginners to me. And they have a wolf" Ennu said.

"A wolf? What kind of circus they think they are? Sorry, I must laugh this off" Jack said and pretended to laugh. The laugh had just a little bit too high pitch.

"Anyway. You mean those in dark robes? And is their hunchback... dead? Ugh. They're a disgrace. What kind of a circus would save off their audience? We need to teach them a lesson."

"They seem to be searching for something. They're not performing here. Remember the houses you ordered us to investigate? In my judgement looks possible they after the treasures we found, sire."

"What? My ring! They're going to steal my ring! They must be stopped! Hide my treasure somewhere and kill everyone!"

Then Jack saw the zombie gracefully flying through the air after necromancer had cast a spell upon it.

"Oh... they do have some tricks up their sleeve after all. I must learn that one. The dead. Flying through the air instead of being buried in the ground. So beautiful."

Chapter IV

Cruor et Caedis - Chapter II

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a Frostgrave campaign. That calls for second chapter of the story of our beloved, if slightly deranged ringmaster Jack.

Follow this link for earlier chapters.

- - - - - -

Chapter II:

There was nothing poetic about it.

Their father had always wanted a daughter. Would a daughter have made father more... well... stable? Would Adon and he have received less beatings and... other things?

Probably not. Definitely not.

But there was no daughter, there was no mother. Jack didn't even know what a mother meant until he was eleven. None of Jack's fathers' girls had stayed around long enough for anybody to suggest she should be called a mother. Though that's not the issue here. The issue is, or was? ... no, still is that he wanted a daughter. Since birth Adon had been horribly disfigured and hideous, so he had probably been twice the disappointment and had to suffer the violence that would have been lethal to just about anybody else other than Adon. Now... Jack was the girly one of the brothers, at least much more so than Adon.

So father would use cruel hits of his fists as tools to shape Adon into a daughter.

But there was nothing poetic about it. No, because that's what happened literally.

A hunchback Adon had been through all of his life. But a siamese not. When Adon was seven the abnormal hump on his shoulder started to show some facial features. Sinister energies that flowed through their lineage had caught the underlying psychological tones behind this inhumane domestic violence. The hatred and disappointment in the will that dominated the laws of nature caused those knuckles to beat a physical manifestation of their father's wishes out of Adon. Every time a hit landed in Adon's face the hump resembled a human face a little more. Father was literally beating a daughter out of Jack's brother.

Father was oblivious to this. Weirder things had happened in the circus during his reign, so he wouldn't try to solve the cause of this what appeared to be human budding. But Jack knew. Or if not, at least he understood.

In Jack's mind the name of the new "face" that would later become a fully fleshed out head, was Ís. That's the name father had wanted for his daughter.

Ís never spoke. Not that Adon technically spoke either, but the second head never made voice or showed any signs of sentience. If the head suffered an injury, Adon would sob. Never Ís.

Until now. Ís was shrieking, though the sound was devoid of any emotion. Eyes were staring, though they were not looking anywhere in particular. Jack sighed and rubbed his tired eyes with the back of his hand. How to shut her face for good?

Journey to this region called Frostgrave had been long and arduous. But he was not a leader that gave up any goals he would set. His crew would not abandon him either, no matter what would happen. To be honest, some performers were probably brainwashed and otherwise insane to all intents and purposes. After all it was rather... taxing to the mind to be used as a repository for demonic beings beyond mortal realm during feats of exceptional performance in the world renown circus Cruor et Caedis.

But then again. You have to suffer for your art. Everybody has to. Though to what extent?

Only a handful of performers were still alive. It had not been a clever idea to start travelling just before winter arrived. Especially without much rations or anything of value to exchange for food and supplies if they happened to cross any city or village where they had not been outlawed yet... which was unlikely.

Once magnificent zoo had been reduced to just few mangy dogs. Elephant had had to be eaten first. Dymbô was going to starve anyway.

Then went the lions.

Then the dancing bear, Yogy, had killed one of the white mares in its hunger while the animal trainer had been riding the horse. Both had died. Yogy was put down and all three made for a fine feast to raise declining morale of the troupe. Though at the start the effect on morale seemed to be quite the opposite. Jack didn't understand why. As far as he knew, animal trainer had not been a well liked person.

So, one by one repertoire of highly trained and skillful animals was sacrificed to keep the rest going forwards. Mules and horses were top priority to keep alive, though. Once there was nothing else left...

Then circus midgets went missing one by one. Jack wasn't particularly proud of that. Many of the midgets had felt like his own children to him. Devouring your own children is something no parent should ever have to experience. Though on the other hand... Jack Saturn was quite catchy stage name. Perhaps it had happened for a reason.

If anybody refused to eat, Jack called a demon to possess him or her, and ordered the demon to devour allotted meal. Jack was not very proud of that either. It was terribly cost-inefficient. That particularly furry fellow had made for quite a fine blanket, though.

But finally! Finally they were here! They may be insane, they may be undernourished, they may be bloodthirsty soulless lunatics with a taste for human flesh, but finally they were here, at Frostgrave!

"Well done ladies and gentlemen! Now, let's make this worth the trouble!" Jack had boasted.

And then Ís had suddenly started screaming, and despite having seen such horrors already, everybody was terrified.

Damn it. How to make her shut her mouth?

Chapter III

The Harbinger of Talisman

As I usually do, I make a separate post once I've finished an expansionful of Talisman miniatures. This time here are the figures from latest expansion; The Harbinger.

So here they are. Possessed, Celestial, Ascendant Divine and The Harbinger himself.

I went the lazy way and just dipped them to Army Painter Quickshade.

I put a few scenery pieces in the picture that were finished with the Talisman figures. The fountain gets an honourable mention. That has been sitting on my shelf for, what, five or six years. It became an oppressive symbol that was quietly judging me and everything I ever did.

Deadzone walls were probably the reason I finally finished this phantom that was slowly draining the life out of me. Ha.

Victory.

Mid-autumn(blade) Warmachine/Hordes

I played against Cryx twice in a quick succession against different opponents. I had nearly the same list in both games, so I'll put both games to same post.

Fist game was last Sunday.

To some of you the armies involved may look familiar. Yes. They're both my own armies. We got a "new" old player who's about to start Cryx, but since his army is still in an unnamed freighter somewhere out there in the big world, I loaned my Cryx for this game.

My list is vaguely the same as earlier, though I made it a little more useable in the warbeast department.

My list was:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
- Argus
- Rotterhorn Griffon
- Riphorn Satyr

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
Tharn Ravager White Mane

Objective: Arcane Wonder

Opponent had:

Pirate Queen Skarre
- Seether

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 1x Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Skarlock

Objective: Bunker

... and that's all. The way War Room handles warjack points caused opponent to build a 29 point list instead. Well. That's probably a mistake you make only once. High model count managed to make Cryx army look "big enough", so it didn't raise my suspicions either.

That being said, the game was far from a one-sided faceroll anyway. Circle of Orboros started game and first picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1. Morvahna cast Regrowth of Wolves of Orboros and Harvest on herself.

The platform in the picture blocks camera's Line of Sight to Bile Thralls, who ran to top-east corner. We had agreed that the walls were obstructions that give cover as one would expect, but the platform was accessible otherwise from all directions.

Anyway. Turn 2 Wolves of Orboros continued to move to east, as far from Bile Thralls as possible. They're just too cancerous for Regrowthed targets that mere sight of them gives instant tumors.

Rest of my advancement was cautious, too. I went to contest the zone and wanted to place Riphorn Satyr so it would be able to wreck enemy objective next turn and that no Seethers and/or Bane Thralls would charge it just yet. Morvahna cast Restoration on the goat. Druids put up some Vortex clouds and anti-magic field.

I wasn't expecting Skarre to use her feat just yet, but I think it was the right moment to do exactly that. Wrecking the objective was kind of out of question now. Skarre cast Hellfire on Riphorn Satyr, which was interesting since I had anti-magic field on. I need to make a better reminder token for that... Otherwise Cryx just advanced, though a couple of Bane Thralls charged Wolves of Orboros. A Bile Thrall purged Druid of Orboros dead and caused corrosion on Argus and a Shifting Stone. Or perhaps not... somehow I don't remember anyone using purge. Did RAT 3 really hit DEF 14?

Turn 3 Morvahna upkept all spells and brought three Wolves of Orboros back. White Mane and Blackclad Wayfarer tried to fill Morvahna with fury by killing soft targets. Soft armor 17-18 targets. Well. They were not enough, so Argus ate some rotten Bile Thrall flesh also. Morvahna finally activated and used her feat. She cast a couple of devastating Eruption of Lives and was left with no fury points for transfers.

Since opponent didn't have anyone to repair Seether, I thought that maybe with a little bit of luck Riphorn would be able to tear off an arm and throw the jack away with chain attack. Shifting Stones teleported Riphorn to brawl with Seether. Plan was a half-success. Damage was laughable even when I boosted it on a couple of occasions. I got mixed up in my calculations and had forced Riphorn full when I resolved chain attack. Satyr had no Fury left to boost, so everything relied on a 7+ with two dice. This time it worked - and I'm glad it did, since total damage being done was five or less.

Druids of Orboros tried to shoot some random thralls, and they managed to kill two. Then Wolves of Orboros activated and started poking Bane Thralls. And that's all they did, really. Harmlessly poked around. Two Bane Thralls who were outside of Morvahna's feat went down easily enough, but then either every attack missed or didn't deal enough damage to punch through Arm 15 and 20. So... Morvahna didn't get any forest templates from her feat. A feat well spent!

Bane Thralls must have had some sort of spell on them - outside of the game, I mean. Three thralls killed Riphorn Satyr, and not a single thrall missed attack roll against Wolves of Orboros.

Last remaining Bile Thrall purged Gallows Grove and a Druid of Orboros dead. This time I'm positive that Argus took the corrosion.

There were only two Mechanithralls contesting the middle zone, so turn 4 I made all efforts to start securing scenario victory. With Riphorn gone and Wolves of Orboros stuck in an endless fight against Bane Thralls, there weren't many models for me able to cut through even the pesky Arm 17 of Seether.

Argus and Blackclad Wayfarer cleared the zone, and then Morvahna charged the objective herself. It took quite a few attacks to chew through it, so she wasn't able to cast any actual spells. In the end Shifting Stones teleported her to safety inside a druid's Vortex cloud.

Rotterhorn Griffon charged Brute Thrall and killed it after spending all available fury. Yay...

Scenario was 3-0 for Circle now.

There wasn't much else for Cryx other than to try and stuff the zone full of random models and hope Circle would have a major dice screw next turn.

No dice screw, and 5-0 scenario victory for Circle.

Granted, Cryx was playing six points down against a warlock who does attrition pretty well in right circumstances. I should have probably left Seether alone on turn three and saved Riphorn to actually counter Seether and not throw it around like basket ball. After all Seether wouldn't have been able to charge anywhere itself either from behind the obstacle. But I got to make throw attack, the joy... almost a throw move.



Game 2:
Finally I had to admit that I'm wasting Rotterhorn's potential here, and I don't want to give me impression that it's a poor model. With a heavy sigh I dropped it from my list and got the following list instead last Tuesday:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
- Argus
- Riphorn Satyr

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
2x Gallows Grove
Reeve Hunter
War Wolf
Blackclad Wayfarer
Tharn Ravager White Mane

Opponent had:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Nightwretch
- Defiler

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
2x Pistol Wraiths

Scenario was Close Quarters, and opponent let me go first. The usual turn 1 happened again, Regrowth on Wolves and Harvest on Morvahna. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1. Cryx ran forward. Three Mechanithralls try to bait my forces into charging and over-extending. And they succeed. I clump a big chunk of Wolves and various other models closer to enemy friendly flag. Only two of the Mechanithralls die thanks to certain double pip.

Morvahna cast Restoration on Riphorn Satyr. Druids cast Vortexes and put up anti-magic field.

Cryx turn 2 Deneghra plays a little too safe when she uses her feat. Morvahna is out of her control area plus most of the Druid of Orboros. I had been afraid that Deneghra would advance straight forward and use Withering to deny me casting anti-magic field next turn. Yeah. Even after all these years I always initially think Withering forbids special actions also... which it doesn't. But hey. At Least I got a little bit of extra thrill.

Mechanithralls and Pistol Wraiths make impressive job in reducing Wolf count. From a full unit of twelve models only four remains. Bane Thralls who are up there in the picture miss their attacks against War Wolf and Ravager White Mane, so Wolves remain the only real casualty.

Turn 3 most of them just jump right back, though. This meant Morvahna was at zero fury even before activations began. To fill her fury pool I tried to teleport Riphorn Satyr so that it might be able to kill Maelovus and Tremulus and a lone Mechanithrall. Eight inches weren't quite enough to do that, so instead Riphorn was teleported to kill three Mechanithralls. Such fine use for a nine point warbeast.

Gallows Grove in north teleports itself to deny tough rolls from three Bane Thralls. White Mane kills one, but War Wolf is just as good at killing Banes as Banes were killing it. I think I activated Druids of Orboros first to score a few kills from easy targets, and of course to add anti-magic to the equation. No, actually that's not what happened. Druids knocked down and pulled Defiler to melee with Wolves of Orboros. It has had to be Blackclad Wayfarer who sprayed single Bane Thrall or something.

Morvahna finally activated and used her feat. She cast Eruption of Life twice - once on Bane Thralls and once on Pistol Wraith.

Wolves of Orboros charged (except for the two or three who were under Withering) and formed a nice wall of forest between Cryx and Circle. Well, except for the Riphorn Satyr who felt a sudden gush of loneliness and isolation when there were no friendly models in sight - only the dead, and the trees. Anyway. One of the Wolves managed to kill the second Pistol Wraith, who were greatest threat to anti-magic field.

Cryx then charges with Bane Thralls (who had Ghost Walk from Skarlock) but they fail to have any meaningful impact. Honourable mention goes to the three Bane Thralls who all miss their attacks against War Wolf.

The scary moment was when Withershadow Combine activated. I had been telling me throughout the game that "don't bring Wolves and Riphorn Satyr both close to Admonia". Well. What can I say. I really, really wanted to charge Mechanithralls, I guess. There went Regrowth and Restoration. Morvahna took two damage from the removal.

Deneghra cast one Scourge on Argus, but it missed and deviated back. It did take one Druid with it.

Turn 4 was rather brutal. Riphorn kills both Tremulus and Admonia, and Wolves of Orboros used Power Swell to take care of the Defiler. They also blew up Cortex from Nightwretch. Morvahna re-cast Regrowth on Wolves of Orboros and Restoration on Riphorn Satyr.

We didn't continue the game after Circle turn 4, since there didn't seem to be any potential even for an awkward assassination.

A Story of a Thug and a Dog.

Last Thursday I played last practice game of Frostgrave.

We're trying to set up a campaign next with new warbands.

Anyway, it was a four player game. One was a completely new player. Game took three and half hours to complete. Considering it was a four player game and game system was somewhat unfamiliar to every player it wasn't too oppressive length.

Yet again it's difficult to give a complete coverage what happened between all of the warbands. I won't even try, I'll just stick to my Summoner.

I've written down the deployment zones for each player and general location of treasures. Wizards present were the same Sigilist, Summoner and Necromancer we had in last game, plus one additional Necromancer.

Originally I had thought I might be able to escape with four treasure tokens fairly easily. However... only one of them was piece of cake. That's the #1 treasure on the tall building. My crossbow equipped coupled with my apprentice snatched it without any difficulties.

"My" treasure #2 could have been an easy grab, but I somehow managed to mess up my activation orders for next turn by moving a thief way too far from my wizard.

Now, treasure #3 went away completely by surprise. Just as the building blocks camera view, it blocked my personal line of sight, too. There's a dirty thief or treasure hunter or something like that from Sigilist warband behind that building, moving steadily towards my precious. Initially I had anticipated toughest fight to be at treasure counter #4, which is behind that crumbled corner of a building.

Sigilist had cast Draining Word on Leap, as that was a spell all his adversaries had in common.

A warhound from Sigilists wanted to come and contest my treasure #2, but I may have overreacted when I sent my barbarian to handle the dog. Or perhaps not, as we'll see...

I had cast Possess on one of my war hounds who was heading to the treasure #4. A barbarian from Necromancer team #1 ran to engage this hound from hell. The hound forced combat and sent Boris the Barbarian reeling with only two hit points remaining. If I don't remember completely wrong, War Hounds have caused much trouble and distress especially for Barbarians in earlier games, too. I guess I was lucky when my barbarian succeeded in killing the hound during second round of their personal combat.

Sigilists on the bridge were occupied with an Imp my apprentice had summoned plus members of Necromancer team #2. Necromancer team #1 also was hesitant to come to treasure #4 because of the unexpected result of fight with dog versus postman. Treasure #4 fell to my hands.

My game had been going relatively well. That's a good way to make me greedy, so I started dreaming about seizing treasure in the middle of the bridge. The place was full of Sigilists, but if I only could distract them long enough for somebody to take up the treasure and the Leap away...

Well, some member of the sigilists had already picked up the treasure, so I needed to block his advance somehow. My wizard cast Leap on Barbarian, who jumped pretty much to where I drew black circle on the picture. My possessed war hound and a thug were already fighting their way to get through.

Barbarian held off for a while, buy couldn't crack any skulls. Demonic war dog also died. I don't know if that relates somehow to the fact that my thug became possessed too - without the spell!

I'll go fast forward with this write up, since by now Necromancer teams had been wiping each other pretty much out. Necromancer #1 was still teasing my and Sigilist's fight in the middle with Crumble spell. I got three treasures off board in the end. Sigilists probably took four. I don't remember how treasures went between the Necromancers.

However.

The thug. The Thug. The lowliest 20 gold coin soldier you can get.

He beat the ranger (or something like that) in front of him and attempted to come and help barbarian, who was still alive then. Barbarian died, but this bought time for The Thug to enter fight over there.

He killed the thief who was carrying treasure.

He was outnumbered and there were multiple supporters in fight against him. A crumble from Necromancer #1 fell somebody to the hole, though I forget who he was. Probably the archer in the upper picture. But whoever that brown guy in front of the hole is, was beaten to injured status by the thug. Finally Sigilist apprentice charges in to the thug, and fall to just one hit point remaining.

All this throughout multiple turns of combat. That thug was frenzying like no other.

Finally he fell, though. Furious Quill poked him in the eye and hampered his performance too much.

But respect the thug. And the dog.