More for the Plastic and Lead Alps

Earlier today, I received my June order from North Star Military Figures. The Gnolls are (primarily) for my 'remixed' version of Rangers of the Shadow Deep, the Goblins for mixing in with my LotR Orcs (and providing extra archer arms for the Gnolls), and the Halflings are for my 'Frodo's Quest' Shire spin-off (more about it in a later post).

The Hell Crows are for RotSD (some kind of Crows, the name eludes me right now), and the Frostgrave Barbarian with the two-hander is for Emil's Sellswords & Spellslingers warband.

The Magmites and the Thief are just bonuses, but I shall probably find some use for them.

Some Loot from North Star Military Figures

This time it took 13 days for a parcel to reach my secret lab from Lenton, UK - seems that delivery times go up by a couple of days for each successive order 😆

I have been stockpiling rulesets lately, mainly because I need some small games to motivate me for painting a few minis here and there, and partly because the summer holidays is a great time for reading, as when sitting in front of the camping trailer somewhere in central France, I cannot rush off to search through some obscure box for some long forgotten mini I suddenly see a use for.

I have been wantint to get those (Frostgrave) Rangifers ever since they were released (I have a lot of ideas how to put them to use), and I took the opportunity to order them along with Thud & Blunder.

As soon as I have painted a Mines of Moria plastic Gandalf and a metal Moria Goblin Shaman, I shall assemble and paint the Rangifer Shaman (you can never have too many Magic-Users for small-scale skirmish gaming 😈), but I need a Wizard for my Gondor SAGA AoM warband (and also for Age of Fantasy Skirmish, for all that matters), and the Goblin Shaman is also sorely needed for both games.

All in all, I am pretty content with today, as I have both printed a lot, finished some re-basing (later post), blogged quite a bit, and received this little lot (and it is even hot and sunny outside!).

SOLD: Frostgrave & Tales of the Frozen City

SOLD

Happy to trade for GW LotR Rohan Royal Guard, Foundry, Copplestone, or North Star Darkest Africa, GW Lizardmen, GW Beastmen - or make me an suggestion.

I also take money (Paypal). Make me an offer.

If trade, both parties pay their respective postage. If sale, buyer pays postage.

Frostgrave: My Thoughts so Far...

Well, I've not played any further games than the test game almost two weeks ago, but I have been following what other people have been writing/discussing about it, and my current opinion is:

• I really like the scope of the game. The whole idea of fighting for treasure/knowledge against other wizards and their warbands has a nice old-school dungeoneering vibe to it.
• The magic system seems well thought off

BUT

• I absolutely loathe the combat/damage system. It is, in my opinion, FAR too random with 2 d20 rolling off against each other, highest roll wins and also determine damage done (if any).

I am thinking about making another system for fighting, but it will also affect some of the spells, and I'm not sure that I can come up with something that doesn't disrupt the use of magic.


I do feel though, that instead of the opposed roll, the attacker should roll against a fixed target based on his own Fight and the defenders Fight (and maybe Armour, unless the Armour becomes a number for the defender to roll under to save a hit), and that the Health stat could be changed to 1 Hit Point per 5 current Health. If the attacker meets his target roll, he does 1 HP of damage, 2 on a Critical. If the defender is still around, he gets to attack right back.


We'll see. This weekend is Attic Attack III, and I should be able to dicuss the matter with some of the participants.

Frostgrave: Angry Monks and Scarecrows

Got this parcel from West Wind Productions in the mail while being sound asleep today:

Four packs of Vampire Wars Brotherhood, for my Thaumaturge Frostgrave warband (and Chaos in Carpathia), and two different packs of Killer Scarecrows, to use as constructs in Frostgrave (and probably also Chaos in Carpathia, and other horror themed settings, such as Strange Aeons).

Frostgrave - A Cold Fish?

Well, instead of a game report, I am just going to state that I am somewhat disappointed by the way the game plays.

First of all, the d20 vs the multiple Health points is a feature that at first glance promises some durability for your models, but in reality the models could just as easily have 1-3 'wounds', and the winner of the combat inflict 1 point of damage, 2 for a critical hit. Would be simpler, and less random.

The large 'outcome range' presented by a d20, combined with the variable roll to succeed (have to beat your opponent's roll + modifiers), means that you can roll over average, and still loose a model to a single attack (actually, even if you loose the opposed roll by only one point, your model may still die horribly, as it is only the winner's combat roll vs your armour that decides how much damage you take, your combat roll does not influence the damage).

On top of this, you pay exorbitantly much for models wearing any kind of protection - while armour is at the same time rather ineffective (leather armour gives +1 to a base value of 10, mail a mere +2).

A game in which the rulebook itself states that the game is best played in campaign mode, and is about building your warband while advancing your wizard, I find it a tad annoying that warband members gets taken out this easily, as they then have a 20% chance of outright dying.

I did play the game with a warband based on the models I had at hand, so I had not optimized anything, but neither had my opponent.

We did not play further than the first wizard phase in turn 2 in this test game, as it became quite clear that if I pressed on to secure some treasure, my warband would most likely just get wiped out, and there was no point in that, as neither of us is going to use the same warband again, anyway.

I am still going to make my 'crusader' warband, but I am going to alter the composition somewhat, going for more firepower and less armoured might. Then if in my next game I or my opponent gets totally wiped, I'll probably just leave it there - I don't play very often, and thus I want to play games where the outcome depends on skill, rather than some lucky/unlucky rolls with a d20.

Frostgrave: The Crusaders - Part 3

I assembled my 'knight' - which is going to be painted up as a Templar Serjeant - and had second thoughts about the 'templar' model, for which I decide to use an uncowled head instead.

This negates the need for using putty, and I wonder if the cowled heads are, in fact, meant to go with the plain cloaks/capes of the Fireforge Templar Infantry set...

Well, if my angry monks do not show up tomorrow, I shall be taking filler to the bases of these (after trimming some intergral bases a bit),

After noon, Ulolkish is bringing a mock-up warband to play my mock-up Necromancer warband in our first test game, so stay tuned for a game report and some afterthoughts one of the next days!

Frostgrave: The Crusaders - Part 2

I have been doing stuff outside today, as the temperatures rose over 17 degrees Celsius, and no rain was in sight (rare occasion this summer), but I found time to put the last piece (the head) on a Fireforge Templar, dig out my old Citadel 'not Friar Tuck', and rebase him on a steel washer.

Templar, Man-at-Arms, and Apothecary for my upcoming Thaumaturge warband.

The Templar needs some putty-work around the hood (and trimming of the integral base), but otherwise I am quite pleased with this collection of henchmen.

Funny detail: The merry Friar was originally (20 years ago?) intended as an Apothecary for my Blood Bowl team 'The Oakhill Rangers', but never got painted before the Blood Bowl craze at out local club in Svendborg waned, but I remembered him, and now could get him out and back on his career track.

Next up is a Fireforge Templar sarjeant, that I am going to use for the 'Knight' soldier archetype. I expect to do most of the work on him tomorrow, and then I expect the West Wind Brotherhood minis to arrive in a couple of days, so I can probably get these ready for primer in the meantime.

Frostgrave: Table Mock-Up.

Here is a quick test set-up of most of my fantasy ruins:

 As you can see, I actually did not use everything, and Ulolkish's pieces have not been touched.

Between us, I think we can easily cover a 4x4 table, especially when I/we get some snow pieces done to use as 'open ground breakers'.

Ziterdes Ruins!

The Ziterdes order un-boxed:

Two of the pieces are for Ulolkish/Duregar, which is why there is two of each.

Later I shall unpack my ruins and mock up a preliminary Frostgrave board, to see if I now have sufficient scenery to break up LoS for those shooters and combat wizards out there.

I think so, but I probably am going to want to populate a 4x4 table at some point, as I have some ideas for allowing bigger warbands and experience/advancement for soldiers.

Frostgrave: The Crusaders - Part 1

So, July is ending, I am slowly getting used to working my night watch again, and my vacation-induced hobby-stupor needs to be ended.

A couple of days ago, I decided to do something completely different for Frostgrave, as I currently do not feel motivated to work on touch-ups and/or repaints of old models.

I am going to base a Thaumaturge warband on crusading Monks and Templars, and to that end I have ordered all the Brotherhood packs from West Wind's Vampire Wars range (they are going to serve both in Frostgrave and as a Brotherhood warband for Chaos in Carpathia, which I have long wanted to start playing).

Some of the warband will be made up from members of the Order of the Knights Templar, and thus I have cleaned the knights sprue from my Fireforge Templar Infantry box, and a sprue from my Fireforge Foot Sergeants box, so I can make a Man-at-Arms, a Knight, and a Templar, while I wait form my angry monks to arrive from West Wind.

I shall probably start assembling the minis tomorrow, if I get up in time to do so, before my wife returns home from work, when we have to go shopping for some woollen fabric for warm medieval dresses for my daughters.

Preparing for Frostgrave

After ordering quite a bit of ruins from Ziterdes this weekend, today I dug into an old figure case to see what I could commandeer for Frostgrave - and behold: Lots of old role-playing minis from Citadel and Metal Magic!

They will all be re-based, and then I'll go about finding apprentices for some of the wizards (until I find those, I may use some of the thief minis for this purpose).

Ideally, I shall have 3 or 4 warbands ready before Attic Attack, but only time will tell if I can get them done in time.

For now, let's just say, I have plenty of stuff to work on, even without breaking out the official minis, but I also have to paint some treasure tokens, so that the warbands have some loot to carry away.

As I also want to finish the last skeleton unit for God of Battles in time for Arttic Attack, I think I shall have to work on a rather strict schedule - but I am often most effective when given a deadline, so I hope to be able to get everything ready.

Another Skeleton Horde

I am currently working on my second Skeleton Horde unit for my God of Battles Lords of Undeath army.

The first lot was assembled many years ago, but did never make the cut to the painting queue; They have been rebased the usual way, to 20mm steel washers, given some filler and a white spray primer, and are now in the shown state of completion.

The second lot had been painted, but is now also rebased, and I am giving the bases a coat of beach sand.

When the above skellies have been touched up with white, everything is going to receive a Devlan Mud wash, before the last bases are sanded, and all the bases get painted and flocked.

Below are the leader and musician of this unit; the bugler seems to have lost his right hand at some point, but as he, obviously, also has no lungs, I do not see that impeding his value for the unit (for martial impact, he can always stab opponents in the eye with the arm stump).

All these guys can, of course, also be used for Frostgrave, and, actually, I think I shall be mocking up a Necromancer warband using various undead as the retainers, just to try out the rules.

Well, 'nuff said, time to get back to work!

Frostgrave Arrived!

Ulolkish/Duregar and I bought a level 5 and a level 1 Frostgrave Nickstarter deal, and because of  my family vacation in Italy, I asked North Star to delay sending the stuff.

It arrived today, and I am already reading through the rules, hoping to be able to start making a warband later this week.

I have a Skeleton Horde unit to finish for God of Battles, before I delve into the frozen city, but it is well underways, so I should finish it before Friday - if nothing goes awry, that is!

I am slowly getting back into 'normal mode' after having spent 15 days away from home and country, and getting accustomed to the somewhat unstable Danish summer after experiencing almost tropical conditions on our way through Europe, and although I miss the hot days of Italy, the somewhat cooler weather here IS more forgiving to the hobbyist, so I can actaully get something done, instead of just siesta-ing the day away.

JDMG: Street Rumble, Take Two (2015-05-27), Part 1

This game was (started) before I put up the last light bulbs, and the decorative shields, and I had not finished moving stuff around, either. As a consequence, the attic still looked a bit messy, but most of the mess has since been sorted, so no worries for Attic Attack!

Before moving the Sci-fi stuff to the attic, I assembled the buildings and barricades from the Necromunda Outlanders supplement, so I could almost fill the board with industrial buildings and ruins.

I am planning a big purchase of ruins from Ziterdes later this summer, as I have just entered the Frostgrave 'Nickstarter'  at wizard Lvl 3, and some of those ruins will be very fitting for sci-fi gaming, too!

I shall not make this purchase until after we return from our summer holidays, though, as I need to take the financial state into consideration, that the vacation leaves in its wake.

Below there is a link to the 'Nickstarter', should someone be interested in the game; it seems to have a theme similar to Mordheim, but in a ruined, frozen city, and with much more focus on wizardry:

http://nstarmagazine.com/FROSTGRAVE.htm

For this Street Rumble, I made a gang from my painted apes (purchased second hand from a LAF member some years ago).

Groucho, the Gorilla, with the Chimps Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo.

Ulolkish again played Trixie's Midnight Runners, and I was heavily outnumbered right from the start - but I have corrected some cut-and-paste errors on the girls' roster, as a lot of them were recorded with a non-existent armour value, so my apes should at least have more staying power than the opposition.

We started out using the following House Rules to try them out:

1: Moving and Shooting
It is possible to combine a move action with shooting; with a -1 modifier if moving/shooting without having moved first, -2 if moving/shooting after already having moved this activation.

2: Moving Target
It is more difficult to hit a moving opponent than one standing still. Thus, each Move and/or Move/Shoot action during an activation gives a model a +1 Agility modifier for rolling to avoid being hit (thus, up to a maximum of +2 per Phase). This modifier is immediately lost when the model is activated in its next phase.

The red markers are movement markers, one for each movement made.

The game started with my apes crawling all over the industrial tower near my table edge - the Apes treat vertical surfaces as horisontal for moving, as long as they can end their move on a horisontal space - and Trixie's street girls fanned out to cover as much open space as possible.

Chico faced a 'Runner on the far left

Some 'Runners moved closer, using the ruins and the barricades for cover.

A rain of lead was exchanged over the central area.

One of the 'Runners had to buy it! Groucho grinned, and slipped another clip into his Spit Gun.

Two 'Runners closed in to avenge their fallen comrade.

This concludes Part 1 - stay tuned for the next episode!