I will admit I am not the largest of fans of Valentine’s day. Going the extra mile to show our loved ones we care I have always considered to be something that we do 365 days of the year rather than 1. With that being said I got a fantastic surprise last week when I received a text message stating….
“PST, wanna play some wargames for Valentine’s day?”
The Handsome Husband
This was an open statement to play and/or learn any wargame in my desired list of games I want to try. I considered several games but do not have any of the other games prepped and my perfectionist ways along with not owning some of the rules books yet prevented me from paying them. I prefer to build, paint, or plan for a game before playing or making an emotional investment first rather than just collecting books this means i’m more likely to play said game as opposed to having rule books sit on my shelves.
In the end we decided to pick up our past warbands that we started last September and continue on in our adventures of the Frozen City, Frostgrave. It has been hard for me to play Frostgrave ever since my warband fell to pieces on the floor (The Shattering Reality of My Miniature Collection). As I still have not had time to rebuild a new one I soldiered on and used the miniatures of what is left of them and a few I glued together.
Overall the Necromancer warband went pretty unscathed with the largest casualty of a zombie thief which was utterly destroyed, so I found a replacement that I already printed glued her on a base and kept moving. My dwarves however are in so many pieces. My wizard doesn’t have a spellbook, and the apprentice is missing a large chunk of his cape , wizard staff, and quite a few fingers. My crossbowmen didn’t have strings for their crossbows. Many were missing arms. It was quite pitiful. But you know what? That didn’t matter, we had an absolute blast and I hardly noticed while actively playing the game.
The Setup
This has become one of my favorite times of playing the game as my husband and eldest son spend a considerable amount of time putting together the board. I love to see the configurations they choose and encouraging my 2 year olds imagination to go crazy is such a beautiful thing to watch. I’m going to make a gamer out of him yet! It might help that he is currently absolutely obsessed with dice and saying “Di” is one of his earliest words. He loves to place scatter terrain on things, in things, and sometimes depending on the mood smash things (we are working on that). My FDM printed terrain is so durable and cost effective I’m not worried about most of it breaking as it is an acceptable loss for the sake of including him and fostering a love of games and birth of imagination. I also never fully imagined how fulfilling it would be to see him play with things I made before he was born.
The Game
The intent of the board was to start the mini campaign, The Hunt for the Golem, from the Frostgrave Folio expansion and play the first scenario while simultaneously utilizing for the first time Ulterior Motives. Ulterior motives is a Frostgrave expansion which can provide a wizard an extra objective. In some cases this can be completely different than just capturing treasure and lead to magic items or experience as a reward.
The game as a whole was an absolute blast and something that I needed. I did feel somewhat rushed due to the time of day and trying to get everything together that was scattered everywhere from traveling and of course the various project states. Overall it was a warm up back into our long casual campaign setting.
In the end we had an even split of treasure 3 to 3 and the Necromancers inched out a magic ring from the ulterior motive card capturing notes carried by a zombie they had to kill. Ironically in the excitement of playing again we completely forgot to do anything relating to the golem hunt campaign. I guess we are saving it for next time.
Game MVP was by far the zombie, Haggatha the necromancer summoned at the beginning of the game. Being not afraid to die again he bravely tanked a wraith and killed a bear and two wolves all on his own all while taking zero damage. I can’t believe those monsters rolled so low. Realizing the poor planning of our ways and being not prepared when stepping into the Frozen City. Between both warbands the Sigilist and Necromancer only had one ability which could apply magic damage to kill Wraiths that have been summoned, Explosive Rune. Having a zombie bravely avoid all attacks by the wraiths was an incredible feat that no one could have anticipated.
Feeling Inspired
After playing this game of Frostgrave I am so excited to create more minis and am really desiring to make my own spell, monster, and item cards for the table to attempt to eliminate excess papers on the table and need to flip through books. One of my goals this year is to paint a complete bestiary for the game and I think its about time to start!
I am also hoping to learn how to better write battle reports and showcase all the great games to read back.
An unexpected fan of miniature war gaming
I have also noticed a significant trend when playing wargames. My cat Turtle always wants to play. Who knew there would be such a large wandering monster. Its a pity he isn’t the most gentle when it comes to my models. As you can see however we tried to deter him off the battle field but the draw of fun was too strong.
Stay Tuned
This is not the last of our adventures into the Frozen City. I am super excited for some of the new things I’ve been working on and FINALLY our frozen battle mat is coming in the mail!
Please share with me your battle reports! I would love to see how others play their games of Frostgrave and document it.
Until next time. Happy Hobby as always.
Crazmadsci the crazy mad scientist
I will admit I am not the largest of fans of Valentine’s day. Going the extra mile to show our loved ones we care I have always considered to be something that we do 365 days of the year rather than 1. With that being said I got a fantastic surprise last week when I received a text message stating….
“PST, wanna play some wargames for Valentine’s day?”
The Handsome Husband
This was an open statement to play and/or learn any wargame in my desired list of games I want to try. I considered several games but do not have any of the other games prepped and my perfectionist ways along with not owning some of the rules books yet prevented me from paying them. I prefer to build, paint, or plan for a game before playing or making an emotional investment first rather than just collecting books this means i’m more likely to play said game as opposed to having rule books sit on my shelves.
In the end we decided to pick up our past warbands that we started last September and continue on in our adventures of the Frozen City, Frostgrave. It has been hard for me to play Frostgrave ever since my warband fell to pieces on the floor (The Shattering Reality of My Miniature Collection). As I still have not had time to rebuild a new one I soldiered on and used the miniatures of what is left of them and a few I glued together.
Overall the Necromancer warband went pretty unscathed with the largest casualty of a zombie thief which was utterly destroyed, so I found a replacement that I already printed glued her on a base and kept moving. My dwarves however are in so many pieces. My wizard doesn’t have a spellbook, and the apprentice is missing a large chunk of his cape , wizard staff, and quite a few fingers. My crossbowmen didn’t have strings for their crossbows. Many were missing arms. It was quite pitiful. But you know what? That didn’t matter, we had an absolute blast and I hardly noticed while actively playing the game.
The Setup
This has become one of my favorite times of playing the game as my husband and eldest son spend a considerable amount of time putting together the board. I love to see the configurations they choose and encouraging my 2 year olds imagination to go crazy is such a beautiful thing to watch. I’m going to make a gamer out of him yet! It might help that he is currently absolutely obsessed with dice and saying “Di” is one of his earliest words. He loves to place scatter terrain on things, in things, and sometimes depending on the mood smash things (we are working on that). My FDM printed terrain is so durable and cost effective I’m not worried about most of it breaking as it is an acceptable loss for the sake of including him and fostering a love of games and birth of imagination. I also never fully imagined how fulfilling it would be to see him play with things I made before he was born.
The Game
The intent of the board was to start the mini campaign, The Hunt for the Golem, from the Frostgrave Folio expansion and play the first scenario while simultaneously utilizing for the first time Ulterior Motives. Ulterior motives is a Frostgrave expansion which can provide a wizard an extra objective. In some cases this can be completely different than just capturing treasure and lead to magic items or experience as a reward.
The game as a whole was an absolute blast and something that I needed. I did feel somewhat rushed due to the time of day and trying to get everything together that was scattered everywhere from traveling and of course the various project states. Overall it was a warm up back into our long casual campaign setting.
In the end we had an even split of treasure 3 to 3 and the Necromancers inched out a magic ring from the ulterior motive card capturing notes carried by a zombie they had to kill. Ironically in the excitement of playing again we completely forgot to do anything relating to the golem hunt campaign. I guess we are saving it for next time.
Game MVP was by far the zombie, Haggatha the necromancer summoned at the beginning of the game. Being not afraid to die again he bravely tanked a wraith and killed a bear and two wolves all on his own all while taking zero damage. I can’t believe those monsters rolled so low. Realizing the poor planning of our ways and being not prepared when stepping into the Frozen City. Between both warbands the Sigilist and Necromancer only had one ability which could apply magic damage to kill Wraiths that have been summoned, Explosive Rune. Having a zombie bravely avoid all attacks by the wraiths was an incredible feat that no one could have anticipated.
Feeling Inspired
After playing this game of Frostgrave I am so excited to create more minis and am really desiring to make my own spell, monster, and item cards for the table to attempt to eliminate excess papers on the table and need to flip through books. One of my goals this year is to paint a complete bestiary for the game and I think its about time to start!
I am also hoping to learn how to better write battle reports and showcase all the great games to read back.
An unexpected fan of miniature war gaming
I have also noticed a significant trend when playing wargames. My cat Turtle always wants to play. Who knew there would be such a large wandering monster. Its a pity he isn’t the most gentle when it comes to my models. As you can see however we tried to deter him off the battle field but the draw of fun was too strong.
Stay Tuned
This is not the last of our adventures into the Frozen City. I am super excited for some of the new things I’ve been working on and FINALLY our frozen battle mat is coming in the mail!
Please share with me your battle reports! I would love to see how others play their games of Frostgrave and document it.
Until next time. Happy Hobby as always.
Crazmadsci the crazy mad scientist
Getting young kids into gaming is one of the most rewarding things I have experienced. They payoff when they grow up proper nerds is pretty amazing.
Agreed. I am currently loving seeing my sons showing interest and even at such a young age. I can’t wait to see the stories they come up with and random requests they will make for 3D printing things for their own games. We are absolutely going to embrace nerdy games an activities in this house!