Frostgrave – An Archive For The Steinberg Shed Space Blog

Frostgrave – Prep For A Game (Score So Far +6)

The Plan has number of games listed on it. These are games that we are planning on trying to find time to play this spring. These are mainly games that we have liked, but neglected, for the last few months (or years). We have Frostgrave by Osprey on that list, and recently we managed to get it into our schedule for a Wednesday in the shed.

The last time we played Frostgrave was December 2015. Neither of us could believe we had not played it for so long. I for one, had lost my original paper wizard sheet and had to dig out a whole new crew for this game. As I had to build a new crew, and as I had time to plan slightly, I decided on painting up a new body for use in the game.

As I wanted to field a few War Dogs in my crew a tracker (as their handler/ keeper) would make a nice addition to the crew. Surprisingly, I haven’t got any medieval bowmen with a rural look in my collection and certainly none that were painted. So a slightly more professional looking bowman would have to do.

He got the usual 45min paintjob using whatever colours were in front of me at the time…

Worryingly I dug him out of a box with another 24 unpainted bowmen in it. Lets not get distracted again by models that may have been neglected for the last 4 or 5 years.

A game of Frostgrave is on ‘The Plan’ so painting up a single chap for use in that game can be scored in my favour.

Score for post +1 point / Total score +6

Airbrushing And Getting A Bit Off Plan Again (Score So Far +5)

Now, I should be working on that Great Unclean One… Sadly I am not. The fact that I have an airbrush that actually works now, has distracted me somewhat.

I could try to justify not getting on with the GUO, and validate the task at hand, by claiming that it is worthwhile practice with a new tool. I could also call it further development of the scenery options within the shed. The reality still stands: I am off plan again.

Excuses aside, I am going to have to mark myself down for this against ‘The Plan.’ However, it has been a productive couple of hours. At mid day today these pieces of scenery were cluttering up the smaller bureau at the back of the shed. Neglected and in a black undercoated state (a quick look back in the blog shows they were last seen in late 2015) they were initially supplied by the lovely Veganman who had picked them up off eBay.

They were in slight disrepair even then, with a few broken and missing parts. Thankfully, being old ruins and ancient stonework, they can get away with a few broken and missing details and call it wear and tear.

A basic layer of primer (Mid Grey) started them off as I got used to handling the airbrush and model. A darker and lighter grey were used to vary the tone of the stonework. Direction of spray can get some shadow effects and further variation as well. I should have tried putting in a few more colours but for a first try I like the effect I attained. Variation from dark to light is something I cannot always achieve easily with a normal brush.

Contrasting colours were put on the skulls as I see the flames as being magical in origin and not part of the carved statue. Yellow first then red to the lower half. Airbrushing is fairly forgiving as simply going back over my mistakes with the original lighter grey was a simple way of tidying up the edge of the flame/ skull.

The tower stair has the same base coat of mid grey primer. More colours, in the form of brown tones, have been used to the lower levels and the lighter and darker grey used to get a more varied effect on the column and stairs.

I am still experimenting at this point but, for a couple of scenery pieces in a more fantasy style, these will be just fine (and now usable rather than just cluttering up the shed). The surprising thing for me is that I did not need to use a normal brush at any point on either of these pieces…

With the airbrush proving to be more versatile and effective on larger surfaces than any normal brush technique I have ever used. I can’t see me struggling to use an ink wash to weather larger pieces again…

Worthwhile time spent experimenting but not on The Plan.

Score for post -1 point / Total score +5

Frostgrave Round Three

Even though I have started a new painting project, I still want to get a few games in. The Frostgrave table has now been setup for a couple of weeks and we have played it a fair bit. One thing about the game that I cannot complement enough is the potential to roam everywhere on the game board or table. Roof tops and walls are all fair game.

So, as I cannot yet field a table of ruins and multi level terrain, we tried to get things more mobile by taking the roof of each building and adding a few walkways between them.

It looks a bit odd at first but if I ever get to paint the walkways (perhaps a quick shade of ink would do to weather them) they will fit in more with the remainder of the board.

The addition of the walkways makes a game move upwards as treasure then gets placed everywhere and anywhere.

A couple of the walkways are steep slopes so some balsa strips to allow bases to hold their position fixes the issue of tumbling miniatures when the table gets a gentle knock.

As usual in Frostgrave, I lost my Apprentice to a foolish charge into combat. Again, I rolled a 1 in the post game recovery phase, meaning he was dead and I would need to spend another 300+ gold to get my self a replacement crew member…

To commemorate one of Veganman’s barbarians completing a truly glorious rampage through my crew, I rewarded him with a new coat of paint.

The figure killed off 3 or 4 of my folks whilst unpainted. Who knows how this new paintjob will affect his prowess.

Frostgrave Round Two

Photographing games has become rather erratic lately, due to so many new rule sets (and older ones which we are relearning). I did get game two of Frostgrave on film though.

We trialled the Mausoleum mission for this game, as the inclusion of wandering monsters would be a fun addition to the basic rules.

Its a simple treasure hunt, with the added problem of skeletons popping up every so often to protect the central building.

But as we didn’t have any skeletons some dinosaurs would have to do as stand in models. We used skeleton stats and rules but these rather nice children’s toys (available from Toys R Us) based up for some war gaming fun.

The monsters added an interesting aspect that affected the game to a larger degree than expected. Instead of focusing on attacking each other, we spent a lot of the game avoiding the monsters and trying to get the treasure off the table. Meaning we did not have so many crewmen killed during the game.

One admission though. Although I have said in the past that the game is balanced, if we don’t rush in, but plan our attacks.

Sadly (or foolishly) I have had my apprentice killed in every game that I have played so far… And in the post game injury rolls he has never recovered… I am on my 4th apprentice so far…

Maybe I will learn (unlikely).

Frostgrave First Play

So, with a crew chosen and painted, the aim was to try out the rules in some simple test games. Therefore a table would need to be set up…

I am playing Frostgrave as a summertime (less frosty) location! None of my large selection of scenery is frosty! Whether I decide to build a table for this and frost it up… Only time will tell.

Also my collected scenery has very few ruins in it. I play a lot of town/ city based skirmish games that are NOT set in a warzone or derelict word, so never needed ruins. That’s something I may see to before long as well.

Frostgrave does need a lot of scenery (thankfully on a 3 foot by 3 foot board that is not so hard to achieve). Multi level scenery would be good too but that is harder to achieve with the selection I have.

As you can probably guess by now, I got lots of pictures of the board we used, but was so wrapped up in getting the game played, and getting the rules right, that I never took any of the game itself.

Lets say that we found the game to be very good. We played the basic encounter game without a mission for our first try and the rules were easy to follow and simple to understand. As it uses a D20 for all tests the range of success and loss was huge. This lead to some effects that either had nil effect or were instant kills. It has been said in some forums that this needs to be roped back in to make it less random. Personally I feel that if you want to risk a crew member in combat, or try something risky, the game either rewards the planning you make to ensure you outnumber your opponent, or punishes you for not planning ahead. As it is a campaign based game the effects of these rolls can impact on your next game but any differences that develop should even out after a few games.

I am very pleased with the treasure tokens I have to use with this game. My only decision is whether to base them or not.

Any suggestions?

Frostgrave First Impressions And First Figures Found

So Frostgrave has arrived and the world of chilly wizards beckons us.

Soon after its release the Derby Game show was on and we set out (or at least I did) to find myself a couple of bits for this simple but novel new game. It reminds me of old AD&D games we used to play in the 80’s. Wandering about looking for treasure and not getting eaten by Big Angry Gribblies in the process.

I decided to invest in a couple of figures to represent my wizard and apprentice. Although I have plenty of henchman types I found that the shed had minimal magical support of this low fantasy type. (I can field techno and steam wizards but wanted a more traditional look for this game).

The Soothsayer and his Young Apprentice have a great ‘magic with no weapons’ look to them, so are just what I wanted.

A simple undercoat (while the weather was drier) got me started within a few days of returning to the shed. My other purchases from Derby were set to go too.

Although he is a Soothsayer, the wizard looks to me like he could hold mastery over any number of magical schools. Just what I wanted to portray with this figure. Very easy to paint and a great pose. My only grumble with this one is that the mould lines run down one side of his face and the flash was quite thick. It has left him with a somewhat scarred appearance

His faithful apprentice is again a nice generic spellcaster pose, with a look that makes me think of mind reading and telekinesis (shall I kill you with my mind bullets…)

After some thought I decided not to snow their bases, as then they should fit into any game world.

The other Frostgrave purchases from Derby were these treasure piles supplied by the lovely Dice Bag Lady. They paint up well, I just wish I had the ability to paint gemstones to look like they are gemstones…

Does anyone have the secret to painting gems and glass?

I am willing to learn if you are willing to share?

40K Followup And Falter/ Frostgraves Infiltration.

Our first game of Warhammer 40,000 was a large force (1,500point) game that allowed us to get lots of toys on the table. Our second game was a smaller affair (1000points).

The lower point value made me drop some of the heavier units. No heavy support means the need for a faster, flexible strike force. The Terminators remained in play with a razorback to provide some long range firepower. My fast options changed from assault marines to a squadron of Land speeders. This included a newly painted speeder with Typhoon launchers. A scout squad also adds some pinpoint firepower that may be required to pick of high value or harder targets.

I have often looked at my marines force and wondered why I painted some units with a bright yellow undercoat (I had a good reason I am sure when I did it) the speeder and scouts show the original Green/ Yellow camouflage that was my plan. I guess that marines should not really be dressed in camouflage but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was unable to take photos of the game we played but I can tell you it was a hard fought game. My opponent brought out his Spacewolves and played a force of Terminators and Elites with a leader that was in fact a Venerable Dreadnought.

He played a reserved tactical game but then failed to hold his objectives and opened him self up for a heavy hit to the Dreadnought which left him without a leader.

Soon after this game was played a small game called Frostgrave was released and hit the shelves with a huge wave of interest.

Frostgrave will, I am sure, be our next major investment. In this case the investment will be minimal on miniatures as only ten can be played in a crew. The investment may be made in wandering creatures and scenery to play the various missions listed in the book…

Only time will tell…