Hello chaps, quick post from me today… So, I had my first ever game of Frostgrave on Monday night, and what a laugh! I didn’t do much in the way of recording a blow-for-blow account, (too busy figuring out how to play!), but I can tell you that it is good fun. I think both Ross and I were quite conservative throughout – Ross lost 2 chaps while my Warhound bought the farm, and we ended up with a 3-3 draw on the loot front. Our wizards/apprentices never even set eyes on each other, so we were being over-cautious I think :-)   Highlights were Ross ‘Leaping’ a thug up to claim treasure from a very high ledge, only for me to ‘Crumble’ said ledge out from under him, (and then the falling, the screaming and the dying), and Ross’ wizard killing my Warhound with one hefty whack of his staff.

Objectively, it seems rather easy to play for a draw in a standard game, and that was a little disappointing… We realised that we were on for a draw pretty early on, so we pretty much went for damage limitation after that. I think we’ll be going for some scenarios next time to make it more interesting. The game mechanic itself is pretty slick, and the d20 roll can really chuck out some crazy results. Magic, and the use of it is key to the game (duh!), so choose your spells wisely, and don’t be afraid to get stuck in! We only managed one mook-fight, and apparently archers are pretty ineffective…

One big surprise was how much fun we had with all the ‘out-of-game’ stuff, (we decided to start a campaign, so we did all the injury rolls, treasure rolls, etc. right after the game). All in all, despite the ‘pick up and play’ billing, it is quite a rich game with plenty to think about on the strategy side and a fairly simple mechanic that is easy to get you’re your head around and that doesn’t get in the way of play. My warband is already expanding, because I rolled up a ‘magic crossbow’ as one of my treasure items, so (of course) I needed a crossbow dude… with crossbow that looked like it might be +2 better than a regular crossbow… in a techno-barbarian style…  I had a quick rummage in the lead-pile for a mini that fit the feel of the warband last night, and then got busy with the cutting, the gluing and the sculpting:

Compressed air-powered crossbow with sniper scope? Yeah, that’s got to be +2 better than a regular crossbow, right? Now, to get him painted for the weekend! :-D

Happy Monday chaps, I’m happy to report that I have a) completed the thugs & warhound that I needed to finish up my starting Frostgrave/RT warband, and b) I’m due to take them out for spin tonight in my first (rescheduled) game of Frostgrave. Double-yey! So without further ado, here are the thugs & hound:

I’m pretty happy with this group – the guy on the left had his left arm swapped out after some feedback from Wudugast when I posted up the WIPs – a significant improvement I feel (thanks mate!). Middle guy is a case of making the best of things really! He turned out ok I think, but he’s a real odd-ball sculpt, and I really wish I had done something about his left arm – that’s three ‘pointers’ in ten figures, which is an excessive level of pointy-fingeritis in my opinion… Ho-hum, he’s just a thug so I should be able to swap him out early in any campaign. The guy on the right is another one where I wish I had done something different with the left arm, but other than that I think he’s pretty solid. I’m pretty chuffed with the warhound – he’s also a Marauder piece, but I went with one of the Dark Elf hounds rather than the more bizarre but obvious chaos warhound. I tried to paint an exotic but believable coat on this little fella – I think it worked out? Anyhow, here’s a shot of the whole starting warband:

As a side note, I also cranked out another building over the weekend – an MDF hab-unit from ‘Charlie Foxtrot Models’. It needs two soft-drink cans to complete the curved side sections, and it’s quite a big item! I added a few bits here and there, most notably rungs up the sides to encourage roof access. Here are a few pics of the warband posing on and around it :-)

So, that’s all for now folks – I suspect that my next post will be a skirmish report from tonight’s Frostgrave intro!

Happy Thursday people, and another cheeky little FrostTrader update for your viewing pleasure! This time it’s the turn of the Archers… see what I did there with the title? No? It’s a British wireless show… oh, never mind.

Anyhow, here are two as-yet-unnamed bowmen:

I’m quite chuffed with these guys – the compound (?) bows really work for me in terms of blurring the line between the sci-fi and fantasy genres, and the conversions just work well IMO. The bows came from a cheap set of ‘apocalypse survivor’ women from Wargames Factory, and really the entire project kicked off once I had found these parts! I’ve also introduced some green into the warpaint for these guys… not sure if I like it or not, so I may be changing that at some point…

I also finished Hawk-Wind, the treasure hunter:

Again, I’m pleased with the conversion itself – nice techno-bow, plus a scanner/staff thing that looks as if it might be used as a scope of some kind… y’know, for hunting’ treasure ‘n’ stuff? I’m assuming he’s blowing his unfeasibly large horn to a) let the waband know he’s found something shiny, or b) because he’s about to get his head kicked in… Again, I’m trying green for the warpaint, and again, I’m not 100% on it, but he’ll do for now.

And here’s a shot of all the bow’n’arrow types together, and a complete group shot so far.

Finally, I know I have been banging on about the ‘Mutes’ from the Amtrak Wars being an inspiration, so I thought it might be useful to show yawl what the Jeff-Jeff I’m talking about! Here’s a posse of Mutes from the Amtrak Wars illustrated guide by Fernando Fernandez:

And ‘the real’ Mr Snow and Cadillac:

So there we are chaps, hope you are enjoying the project as much as I am! Next time, we’ll be meeting the thugs and a warhound that complete the warband. Peace out.