Thursday 24 September 2015

Frostgrave Scenery - Paper Models

Found some great paper models for making some much needed scenery fast and free.


Test of the Models

Chest:
Observatory:

I thought they were brilliant quality especially since they are free!


Sites:

I found a load of sites that provide templates for free:

Fantasy Paper Miniatures Blog
Onemonk
Cardboard-Warriors - Proboards
Germy - Papermodels
Daves Games
Wargame Vault

Wednesday 9 September 2015

Freebooter's Fate - First Impressions

So first game of Freebooter's fate last night and all I can say is no dice....

....AWESOME!!!

In brief

I played Pirates against my opponents Brotherhood. We both had the basic starter sets except for my specialist (I had Spitfire instead, woman with a massive multi-barrelled gun... devastating)

It's a well tested game and has an in-depth and interesting back story for the crews but with a huge element of insane fun (especially with the Goblin crew). All measurements are in metric (the game is German) which I personally preferred but I'm guessing might dissuade those gamers who still use imperial measurements everyday(naming no countries).

As with my previous Frostgrave review (although this game is much older) the scenery is key. The stuff we had available at the club that my opponent made was fantastic. It really added value to the game so lots of building levels, trees, jungle gangways all adding to a rich and absorbing experience. Rather than dice everything is dealt with (pun intended) by cards. Combat is almost a form of more complex Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. But with corresponding body parts each having an effect on your crew members capability.

For an overview of the rules check out the quick start guide. The Download for the quick start guide is available for free from the website here:


Crews & Starter Sets

I found the Pirates to be good all rounders my crew stood well in combat but had real punch with ranged as well. The brotherhood are sneaky as assassins, they had not a great deal in the way of ranged but compensated by being incredibly fast with lots of special hiding moves, poisons and sneak attack complex moves.

I won't go into each crew but the list of those available is as follows:

Links take you to official crew pages.

The starter crews come in around £25-30 ($35-45) but there were crews going second hand on Ebay for cheaper (more like £15 - 20)

UK: UK:

Overall

A really great game with a fantastic and different combat mechanic. There is scope for some campaign (in the further books) and it can be scaled up to include other players and crews easily. Its meant for fun crazy so a co-op scenario against waves of zombie octopus' is totally plausible!

Wednesday 2 September 2015

Frostgrave - First Game Impressions

Introduction
So my first game of Frostgrave is over and I can see this is going to be fun in a campaign game. This was not a campaign game just an initial basic game with no scenario.

Warbands
I played my Enchanter Warband (previously posted) against a my opponent's Thaumaturge. We both had seven Warband soldiers and an apprentice. It worked well as the wizard and apprentice activations occur first most of the action was happening in these phases keeping our Warband soldiers close by them. I found starting with lots of low cost soldiers (as recommended by the book) hugely advantageous to fewer but higher cost soldiers, especially when I looked at the other games being played.

Table Top
The size of table top I found a bit small (2' x 4'). I would have preferred something more of a square 4'x4' as it would have added better options for treasure placement. As it was all the treasure was in a strip down the centre of the board. Also our terrain was far too sparse, although initially it felt like a lot. We did not have enough levels the highest buildings being a single story.

Overview
So for starters I really like my Warband set up and was pleased with my choices in game. For the board set up we used I found my Warband was balanced for my purposes but I massively overpowered my opponent. I felt sorry towards the end as I had killed a number of his warband (including the apprentice) and the survivors ended up retreating off the board. I lost none of my own men (although one of my thugs took some damage at the beginning). Had this been a campaign game it would have been a crippling defeat.

I had two archers and a crossbowman which were integral to my victory. In addition I also had the Grenade and Telekinesis Spells (both Enchanter spells). This meant I could pull the treasure tokens towards me whilst picking him off at long range. We didn’t even get a chance for a single melee combat.

I did get some very lucky rolls and my opponent had some unlucky ones when casting magic, taking damage for miscasting on two occasions.

Suggestions
It was mentioned that in a campaign the wizard gets experience for killing things. This heavily weights the gaining of experience to those wizards with cheap and effective offensive spells. These include such wizards as Elementalist and Necromancer. Whilst a more buffing spell wizard like a Thaumaturge is less likely to kill things playing more of a support role to his warband soldiers.

Overall
Really great game that I'm glad to have invested in. There are answer to the FAQ's already posted and it is dirt cheap to get into. The community seems to be growing rapidly and campaign expansions are coming out soon (November I believe). I will try to steal the Wizard sheets from my fellow players and post them for perusal (if they let me) so we can all get a balanced view on what makes a good starting wizard.


 Any additions, experiences or suggestions you have let me know. We are constructing our own in house rules for the a campaign and any help is welcome.


Tuesday 1 September 2015

Frostgrave - Warband in progress

Finally started putting my warband together. Got the Frostgrave box set which is really nice with a good variety of options for your soldiers. There are four main bodies eight heads and a multitude of bits. There are four sprues in total in the box (all the same).

Available here: 
Frostgrave Soldiers



This is what I have so far to go with my Enchanter and apprentice (below).


Available here: 
Frostgrave Enchanter & Apprentice
Nothing painted yet and first game tonight, hopefully will get some painting done soon!

My Wizard Sheet if you want a peek is here: