Low-Tech Aliens

Here are some miniatures that I painted for our Deepnight Revelation campaign; they will be used as one of the several species of aliens the crew will come into contact with during their journey. In this case, they are a race of aliens with a pre-Columbian American level of material technology.

Since many of the alien races in the campaign were created for just the campaign, it was not possible to find ready-to-use figures. I did a bit of googling, and decided that the Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Tribals figures and the Tau heads from Zealot Miniatures gave a good likeness of the aliens as represented in the illustrations in the module.

Ideally I would have liked to make them "civilian" figures, holding tools instead of weapons, but since the set was made for wargaming, I had to make do. The staff in the "shaman's" hand came from a Frostgrave wizards sprue, while the left arm, in what I call the "Professor X pose" was supposed to be an archer's arm, I think.

These figures will probably be used for only one or two sessions of our RPG, but I imagine they can be used for other games to substitute for lizardfolk or some sort of frog-people in any of the classic TSR D&D modules.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Games 9 and 10

 

After a short hiatus due to work, we finally managed to play the last two games in the campaign last week.

The first scenario was rather easy: with no real ranged attacks and a limited movement range, the banshees were no real threat to us and easily defeated, which gave us time to set up the second and final scenario.

The final scenario looked rather intimidating: there were armoured skeletons and cultists to overcome, before we can get at the Lich Lord, who was protected by wraith knight bodyguards.

We made a quick plan and got to it: Adrian's barbarians dealt with the skeletons, while FG's medievals went for the cultists, and my skavens, fastest and armed with the best Undead-slaying weapon we have, charged straight for the Lich Lord.

While the two other warbands made short work of the resistance, my skavens arrived in the end zone: some charged at the wraith knights to prevent them from interfering, while the three skavens with magical weapons engaged the Lich Lord.

At one point things looked grim as one of the skaven warriors was killed, and the Lch Lord fended off the other two attackers, leaving him free to cast spells the next turn... then FG's magical construct made it into melee, and cut down the already wounded Lich Lord.

Over all the campaign was fun, but with each successive game the challenge became weaker. A lot of it had to do with the fact that we were not very competitive in our play after the first two or three games: there was plenty of treasure to go around, and since we all knew that the final scenario was against a powerful villain, it made little sense to weaken each other.

FG has bought the next campaign in the series, and I have yet to have a detailed look at the scenarios, but I think we will need to build the competition into the rules, or else have one player take the role of the bad guys, either permanently, or on a rotating basis.

We will be playing the Ogre boardgame next, while we wait for Adrian and his friend to paint their Blood Bowl teams. In the meanwhile, I will need to learn the game rules - not easy as I will need to abandon the preconceptions from the previous edition - and the league rules.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 8

Game 8 of the campaign was again a bit of a push-over, even though we doubled the number of zombies spawned by the Dark Cauldron. Part of the reason was because Adrian's barbarians charged right into the cultists and engaged them before to many zombies could spawn, which gave FG's medievals a chance to tip the cauldron over very early in the game. My skavens, entering the table from further away, did not even make it to battle. 

With just two more games left in the campaign, we should be able to wrap things up before the year ends. The next campaign we plan to play is a Blood Bowl league, using the latest version of the rules, which we will have to get and learn.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 7

 

Game 7 of the campaign has the warbands lured into a dungeon by the Ghoul King and trapped inside. Each turn a ghoul would appear, so if the warbands do not defeat the Ghoul King and activate the levers by his throne that will open the doors to allow them to escape, the number of ghouls would become so high the warbands will all be overwhelmed... Except it didn't happen like that.

Without even discussing a plan, Adrian's barbarians moved into the line of sight of the Ghoul King, who moved towards them. Meanwhile, my skavens have moved up to near the throne (but out of line of sight), and once the Ghoul King was distracted, they sprinted to the levers and opened all the doors. At the same time, FG's humans took care of the ghouls that spawned.

Adrian's barbarians took a few casualties from the Ghoul King and a wraith that appeared to their rear, but fortunately they were the expendable soldiers.

I do feel that the challenge rating of the game is lower now that we have reduced the frequency of wandering monsters, and also because the programmed monsters are scaled to two warbands and not three. and of course, our spellcasters are not more proficient, and we all have some form of magical weapons that can affect monsters that are immune to non-magical attacks. For the next game, we will use the higher challenge wandering monster table, as well as double the number of programmed monsters, which should see a more epic battle.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 6

Game 6 of the campaign featured teleporting doors, so we decided to dust off the old Dungeon Command tiles and use the magical glyphs on some of them as the teleportation points, as we did when we playtested the game.

This scenario was particularly interesting, as the random nature of the portals meant that a warband could easily get separated and become vulnerable. Having read the scenario rules, I decided to go meta and instead of going for the treasures in the final chamber, focused my strength against the cultists coming to prevent us from looting the chamber. It was a decision that almost turned into disaster, as three of my Treasure Hunters were cut down by the zombie troll, the cultists, and a wild boar that wandered into the dungeon; fortunately, they all made the recovery roll and will be present for the next game.

With just four more games in the campaign, our little group is thinking about what to play next.

Blood Bowl 2020 is the next campaign we are looking forward to, but so far there has been no news of a release date. Between then and when Adrian has a team painted, we are hoping to play some boardgames.

Further on the horizon are the upcoming Frostgrave campaign The Red King, and of course Stargrave. I am not actively planning to get Stargrave at this point in time, but I suspect Northstar's plastic minis that will launch alongside the rules plus the hype around it will convince me to.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 5

We have come to the mid-point of our Frostgrave campaign.

For this scenario I broke out all my Russian cardboard buildings to fill the table, but it turned out to be a bit of an effort for not much of a return.

The scenario looked interesting on paper, but once the game started it was a typical "grab the two treasures nearest to you and get out" game. We did co-operate towards the end to kind the Wraith Knight just because, but there was little challenge or player-vs-player action otherwise, and the game ended after a little more than an hour

The next scenario promises to be more interesting as it features teleporting doors. FG and I had used Dungeon Command tiles as the magical glyphs on the floor in those tiles as teleporting circles during our play-test for the first edition of the game, and we plan to do the same this time round.

The random nature of teleportation means that two figures that pass through a teleportation point consecutively may not end up at the same place. This makes it very hard to protect a treasure-carrying character, and makes a "frigate bird" strategy more viable.

We have enjoyed the campaign so far, and now FG is eyeing the upcoming Frostgrave campaign book The Red King. The information so far seems to suggest that this will be a more co-operative campaign than previous ones. It will be fun to try a different warband with it.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 4

Game 4 in the campaign was another one where the treasures were to be had in the centre of the table. I set the table up as a graveyard, and ignored the set-up rule about leaving the central square foot of the table with no terrain - the result was the scramble in the photo above.

We all made for the central sqaure, with my skavens arriving first and grabbing two of the four treasure chests there, but they were attacked by the other warbands and had to abandon one of them.

I equipped two of my Treasure Hunters with magical items which I picked up in the earlier games, and both of them were "killed" during the game, forcing me to assign extra warband members to grab the items and try to make it off the table instead of staying and contesting the treasures, on the belief that a known magical item is better than the contents of a random treasure chest.

At the end of the game I am still at the bottom of the table, just 5 Experience Points short of level 11, but the surprising thing is that the other two wizards are within 35 points of my wizard.

My grab-and-run strategy has not put me too far behind the other two warbands, but I am definitely having difficulty coping with the area effect spells from FG's wizards: the Grenade spell which can take out several of my soldiers in one shot, and the Mud spell which negates to a degree my speed. I will need to change my strategy if I am to get a edge...

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 3

Game 3 of the campaign featured a cultist cart at the centre of the table which our warbands had to rob, so the game saw a headlong rush for the centre and some conflict between my normally skittish skavens and FG's medievals. However, as random monsters began to appear on the exit sectors of Adrian and FG's warbands, they had to abandon the struggle in the middle and pull their forces back to ensure that they could get their treasures off the table.

My skavens suffered appalling casualties, chiefly from the Grenade spell from FG's wizard - I must learn to make them keep tactical distance between each other. Only five of the original eight soldiers made it off table, with one of my treasure hunters going down and nearly losing his Gloves of Strength to the other warbands (we played that any character with a magical item could be looted). On their way back they were attacked by a wraith, which was immune to non-magical weapons - another weakness in my line-up.

After the game we realised that random monsters should only have a 50% chance of appearing with every treasure token looted, instead of being automatic. This would change the complexion of the game - with fewer monsters to worry about, we can focus more on robbing each other instead.

Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 2

We played Game 2 of the campaign last week. The game once more saw a skirmish between FG and Adrian's warbands, with my skavens skulking on the sidelines until the NPC wizard was weakened by the barbarians before I moved in for the kill.

Unfortunately, I ended up with the least amount of experience points from my strategy, but I did have fun using my Control Construct scroll on the construct that FG's wizard created!

Also of note was the fact that both Adrian and I actually forgot about one treasure token which was hidden from our real-life lines of sight, and FG got an easy treasure!

We are planning to play Game 3 this week, and I think my skavens will have to take a more aggressive strategy if I am to not fall behind.

Frostgrave 2nd Edition - Thaw of the Lich Lord Game 1

Even though FG and I playtested for the first edition of Frostgrave, we did not actually play the game after it was released by Osprey. However, having tried a game of Mantic's Vanguard and finding it not quite what we wanted for a fantasy skirmish campaign, we decided to give the newly released second edition of Frostgrave a try instead.

At FG's suggestion, we decided to try and play through the Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign. FG used his generic medieval warband made up of Perry plastic miniatures, Adrian fielded a barbarian warband using his Blood Rage miniatures (supplemented by a few of my Frostgrave barbarians), while I stuck to my Skavens.

The game was as fun as we remembered it, with a lot of tactical decisions to be made, as well as strategic ones due to the campaign nature of the game.

My skavens made it off the table virtually unscathed, while FG and Adrian's warbands clashed briefly before deciding to withdraw with the treasures they have each collected. The end result saw all three wizards gaining between 200 to 300 experience points, so the campaign is still on paper balanced at this point.

Frostgrave Barbarians and Shaman

Here are the Frostgrave barbarians from the box set plus the shaman from the Nickstarter. I started painting them in November or December, but only completed them when I powered through 9 figures in a single sitting yesterday, so I guess they count as the first completed project for the year.

I painted them with white-and-black body paint to represent Avvar barbarians in the Dragon Age world - the next arc of my RPG campaign will be set in The Frostback Mountains and feature the Avvars.

I am not quite sure the decision to paint them with the body paint was a correct one - the computer game version looked more striking because they had white-and-black clothing too; these just look like KISS fans or cast of a Chinese opera. Still, what's done is done, and at least they will be used in my Dragon Age RPG game, and can be used as a generic fantasy barbarian warband whenever I need one. Or Dunlending in fg's Middle Earth RPG.

With these done I can move on to the next project, which will be either the Warzone Imperial Regulars (40 plastic figures, one metal hero figure, a Robogear T-Rex walker, plus maybe a conversion project using the plastic M1117?) or the 20 Black Hat crossbow-armed dwarves which I ordered 5 weeks ago if they arrive in the next two weeks.

The Warzone project is set to become a major project for me this year as, despite the figure-count being only 41 plus one or two vehicles, the ancillary requirements in terms of terrain will be significant; already I have placed orders for card buildings, MDF building and building dressings, resin urban barricade sections, and bought other cheap toys and hardware bits to use for scratch-building purposes. Stay tuned.

Frostgrave - Final Playtest

Last Thursday fg and I got together to play two games of the latest draft of Frostgrave - unfortunately, right after the game I got an email informing me that the final manuscript for Frostgrave has been submitted to Osprey.

Dwarves and goblins scour the ruins of Frostgrave for treasures.

The good news is, even after a lapse of a few months, we both managed to pick up the rules quickly again, and we had fun. I guess over all, "fun" is how I would sum up Frostgrave. The rules are not complex, there are lots of spells you can use creatively, and you can have different strategies, from going after the treasures and making off as quickly as you can, to aggressively going for your opponent's troops; you can go for a small force of elite, or a horde of cheaper troops; you can have mainly offensive spells, to "buffing" spells for your figures.

It is also easy to get into - your warband will probably start off from about five figures, and max out to about a dozen figures, and there are enough troop types for you to get a warband together using whatever fantasy or medieval figures you have. Terrain is important, but many of our games were played on geomorphic 2D tiles.

A goblin thug takes the treasure from the cold dead hands of a fallen dwarf ranger.

Unlike the previous books from the Osprey Wargames series, Frostgrave is planned to be a hardback book, but hopefully it will be affordable.

Frostgrave Playtest 3

With my wizard and apprentice painted, fg and I met for another session of Frostgrave, this time with some rule updates/amendments.

We used the Dungeon Command tiles fg just bought for this session:

The two warbands enter a dungeon.

My dwarves, led by my new figures, bulked to maximum size.

fg's Necromancer has decided to hire goblins instead this time.

"Ooh, treasure!"

"Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea." - A genie is released!

For the second game we decided that the magic glyphs printed on the tiles are teleporting portals which will teleport a figure to another random glyph, and that each turn a magical construct will "spawn" at a random glyph.

The Necromancer casts a 'Wizard Eye' to get line-of-sight on the dwarves without exposing himself to attacks.

The dwarven Runesmith thwarts him by casting a 'Fog' spell in front of his 'Wizard Eye'.

Goblin and zombie attack a dwarf warrior while another goblin tries to drag the treasure away.

The use of teleport portals means the warband members are scattered across the board.

The dwarven Runesmith teleports to the Necromancer's exit area, hoping to rob the goblins of their treasure. On the bottom left corner, a dwarf warrior fends off a magical construct.

There were some rule changes as the author considered the feedback from the playtesters. To me, the biggest change in the dynamics came from restricting figures carrying treasure to half-moves - this made it possible to let others do the sometimes risky work of collecting the treasure and just robbing them later. Slower movement rates also compelled other figures to hang around the treasure-carriers to provide security, and makes the game very different from the mad rush to grab treasure and then run off before the opposing warband can get you.

With fg's wizard hitting level 20, we have decided to restart the campaign with new warbands, perhaps wizards from other schools of magic.

Scibor Dwarf Sapper OR Frostgrave Runesmith Apprentice

As promised, the second Scibor figure:

Again, this is a very nice sculpt, although there were some casting issues in the form of flash and bubbles. The scroll he holds in his right hand was actually a stick of dynamite (as are the ones in his backpack you will see below), but I shaved of the fuse and I think it looks passable as a scroll. I painted his cloak grey as those of my dwarf rangers, and I think he can do double duty as a messenger/courier for my dwarf army. I gave him a standard blue robe but added a yellow trim to the hem as a mark of elite status.

"It's getting dark, master - do we really have to explore the ruins at night?"
Master and apprentice use backpack from the same range, as evident by the stitching.

As my Frostgrave warband is dwarf-themed, and my wizard is an Enchanter or artificer type, I am thinking of adding some sort of Iron Golem ("construct" in game terms). Time to trawl ebay for some cheap plastic figures then...

Me experimenting with a bit of creative lighting and post-processing.

Scibor Dwarf Miner OR Frostgrave Dwarven Runesmith

As many other wargamers who have blogged about their New Year resolution, I too am aiming to buy as few figures as I can this year. I try not to start any new army, but additions to existing armies is fair game.

With that excuse, I bought myself a dwarf miner figure from Scibor to use as the wizard of my Frostgrave warband.

The dwarf wizard searches the ruins of Frostgrave for ancient magical artifacts.

As my left foot is in a cast, I couldn't get out of the apartment to spray-prime. Fortunately, fg brought over some brush-on primer so I could get some painting done. I really like the result and will definitely be using brush-on primer for my more detailed figures from now on.

The figure was a nice sculpt as usual from Scibor; the beard was a delight to paint. I did the minimum work on the figure: snipped off the pipe on the back of his hat and also candle on the front of his hat and filled in the bowl of the reflector, and he looked less like a miner and more like an Orthodox priest. He had a vest of scaly leather, which I painted in the copper that I use for all my dwarf figures - I guess it was made from the hide of a Copper Dragon. I was tempted to convert the pick-axe to a hammer, but then the pick-axe looked nice and I figured it wouldn't look out of place on a wizard who is exploring an arctic environment.

Hmm, is this the way? The backpack is well-sculpted. I stained the hem of the greatcoat with some Devlan Mud.

Or is it that way? I should really have brought a compass...

I've also ordered the Scibor Dwarf sapper to be his apprentice. Hopefully that figure arrives soon and I can get it done this week.

Frostgrave Playtest 2

fg and I played two more games of Frostgrave using our same warbands.

The set up for the Wurm Hunt game

The Necromancer's men are attacked by the giant wurm while hunting for treasure.

Opposing warbands waiting round the corners of a ruined building for the other party to make the first move.

The Necromancer's rag-tag band enter and search a building.

We realised we played the game wrong late into the second game: movement is halved for the second move in a turn. That aside we found the basic rules robust. The use of d20 means combats aren't a sure thing, and a +2 advantage in Fighting still makes a fight risky.

The first game saw me gaining a huge advantage over fg, until my recklessness saw both my wizard and her apprentice put out of action. The aftermath saw fg's wizard gain a huge lead in experience, which after the second game saw him reach level 12 versus my wizard's level 7.

I enjoyed the games enough to want to continue with the warband, and maybe even try a different one from a different school of magic.

Frostgrave Playtest

I recently had the privilege to become a playtester for Frostgrave, a game of dueling warbands led by wizards in a lost city that will be published by Osprey in 2015.

The rules are pretty easy to learn and involve not too much die-rolling: almost everything is resolved by the single roll of a d20, sometimes competitive.

I managed to play a game of it with fg just yesterday, using the Dwarven Forge dungeon terrain he bought.

The game as it stands has 10 schools of Magic for a player to choose from, and a list of 100 spells. Wizards gain experience points and 'level up' with the progress of the campaign and warbands can grow in size and even buy 'building upgrades' much like in a computer game. We will definitely try the game again in the near future.

Dwarven Forge terrain. Took a while to set up, but the result is worth it. The central crypt is from Thomarillion.

The Necromancer's warband, led by a professional Tomb Robber.

Skeletons stream out of the crypt to protect the treasures. The tissue represent the Fog spell cast by my dwarven wizard.