Frostgrave 2025 Campaign Game 1

 Good morning! Ziggy, David and I played our first campaign game of Frostgrave yesterday. Two years ago we played in a Stargrave campaign that was a lot of fun so we're running it back with swords and sorcery. I put together a Chronomancer group, Billy Thorpe and the Children of the Sun. Ziggy's running an Elementalist group and David's got a Thaumaturge. 

We played The Mausoleum as our first encounter. I was sandwiched with David's group on my left and Zig on the right. Those ruined buildings in the pictures we completed during the week ahead of the start of our campaign. I picked up this box from TT Combat rather inexpensively from Noble Knight.

My group. The bizarre names are a long tradition Ziggy and I have over our 30 year gaming history, with its roots in Blood Bowl.

I kind of got loot-screwed and was essentially forced to rush the center in order to get a claim on two treasures. I got Jimmy Changa onto the treasure at the lower right corner of the Mausoleum pretty easily with the help of a Fleet Feet spell. David made a play for my other target at the lower left corner of the Mausoleum, sending two Thieves towards it. Dropping a Wall in my work area was kind of a pain the neck. I couldn't believe David was trying to take four of seven treasures for himself! This act of selfishness by the Thaumaturge's gang kicked off an almighty brawl between our groups.

David (in yellow) and Ziggy. We played up at Roll the Bones games store again, the same place we played Alpha Strike back in November.

I got a Petrify spell to stick on the thief running away with MY treasure. My troops subdued her buddy, the green-clad thief.

David threw up a wall of Fog in order to protect his ball-carrier but to no avail! Sweet Dee summoned an Animated Skull into combat with the Petrified thief, then Betty Toothpicks, the javelineer ran in to assist. 

We took care of the thief while under the watchful gaze of a filthy archer a block away. Good grief that guy was annoying!

Having sorted out two of David's thugs and two thieves, I press the brawl with the Thaumaturge, sending Sand Panther and Betty after the Apprentice and working Meat Cheetah, my thief, around into contact with David's Wizard. I grabbed the loot bag with my Archer and kept her close to both Billy and Dee, hidden in the Fog bank. At this point I'd lost two thugs KIA.

No picture, but I rushed my empty-tube Crossbowman into melee with the Apprentice to pin him and promptly got sent to the infirmary by a critical hit by Dave! UGH.

I chase the spellcasters while working to extract treasure from the tabletop.

Last licks... Betty is taken out by David's Apprentice in melee but she is then avenged by Sand Panther!

So, at the end of the day, I had five group members KO'ed, the Crossbowman, Javelineer, two Thugs and my Thief. Only Betty the Javelineer was really hurt and has to miss the next encounter due to injury. I claimed two treasures and earned 245 experience.

Failed Casts Causing Injury - 9 x5

Successfully Cast Spells - 7 x10

Participation Trophy - 1 x40

Treasures - 2 x40

Monster Kills - 2 x5

My treasures totaled 80 gold and two Grimoires, Blinding Light and Absorb Knowledge.

My two level-ups will be +1 Fight and a -1 to the Casting Roll for Petrify, though I might re-think the spell cast modifier, Fleet Feet is also tempting particularly since it lasts the full length of the game. Billy and Co. are setting up a base in an old Laboratory they saw while heading towards the Mausoleum.

David took six casualties, five thanks to me and one courtesy of Zig, so we really laced into each other. None of his were permanent injuries. Ziggy took no casualties. 

A Snow Day?

 Like many others across the southern US, we got a good bit of snow dumped on us last evening! It's been a few years since the last one, but four inches of snow in Savannah Georgia is pretty crazy. I hear New Orleans and those areas got much more!

And this poor egret looking for lunch in the ditch near our house.

So, working from home for a couple days because southerners + icy roads = bad situation. Be well everyone!

Frostgrave Oddballs

 I've been working on MDF Frostgrave terrain for the last few days. Pics of that later. I did finish a few small odds and ends for FG last weekend. Some bears my son made for me on his new 3d printer, a floating skull because, well, if you take the spell, you need the model, and some crates. 

Since painting these up, I've re-rolled my Wizard and warband so I won't have any immediate need for the bears, but they'll be useful. I'm going to use a Chronomancer. Seems fun and I'm happy with the spells and selection of soldiers. 

That's Italian!

 Hello hello, I hope everyone's had a good start to 2025. Mine's been fine so far, with just a major work go-live looming ahead on January 21st. I must have faith in the talent of the team.... I must have faith in the talent of the team.

Enough of that, on with the hobby stuff! So, those Bolt Action Italians that I got at the end of 2024 are table-ready! Two weeks, 40 infantry, 3 support weapons and one armored car. Not bad, especially for me. I still have to put the Semovente 75 together and paint it, but I'll get there. It would have been a distraction from painting infantry. To recap, this is two squads of 10 regular army infantry and two squads of 8 Blackshirts, along with HQ-types, platoon commander, medic, medic and assistant. I've also got an 81mm mortar, an HMG and a 47mm ATG. The AB41 armored car is a resin 3d print picked up for $20 on Etsy.

I mounted the HMG on the tripod backwards and because of the fragile nature of the model, there was no reasonable way to fix it. Oh well. Overall I'm happy with the look of the group and look forward to putting them on a tabletop to duke it out with my Canadian force. 

Travels and New Armies

Happy New Year all and I hope you had a fine Christmas.

 The wife and I had a terrific time up in Washington and Oregon. We needed a get-away after a 2024 filled with headaches and drama.

THE Coast of Washington. Windy, rainy and  just gorgeous.

A fine house porter at the Astoria Brewing Company.

We parked here to tour the Flavel House Museum. I immediately recognized the black Jeep from Goonies. Moments later I realized that the building is the jail that Jake Fratelli breaks out of at the beginning of the movie. 

BULLET HOLES!

I love the colored glass on this fixture.

And the detail on the central element.

Certainly looks haunted, right?

We of course visited the Goonies house the following morning. You cannot go in, but it's fun to visit such an iconic location from my childhood memories.

A 3-hour drive to Seattle for some more touristing. The Space Needle of Course!

While waiting to go up, there are a couple of scale models showing stages of construction. Appears to be about 1/100 scale judging by the people. Need to get this model into a game somehow. 

The views from up top are impressive. The weather was even starting to clear!

The trip was fantastic and aside from wrecking my right knee walking back to the parking garage on Sunday after the Space Needle visit, everything was easy and pleasant. There's a lot to be said for travelling without an agenda.

And awesomely, I had a new pile of minis waiting for me when I got back home. They were ordered just before we left on our trip.

Bolt Action Italians. Huzzah! An opfor for the Canadians for sure. I just couldn't do another German army. I painted a bunch for FOW, pre-blog days, painted plenty of 1/72s and just wanted something different. Canadians and Italians fought plenty in Sicily. The AB41 armored car is a 3d print ordered from XPForge via Etsy. Very nice model. 

The infantry are being organized as two 10-man squads of regular infantry and two 8-man squads of Blackshirts along with regular army support elements (mortar, MMG and ATG). 

Paintings

 This'll probably be my last update for the year. Between Christmas then a trip to the Northwest right afterwards, not much room for hobbying. There's been a bit of conversation about possibly playing Forstgrave with some of my gaming buddies so that got me in the mood to paint up some Pathfinder and other minis Wayne dumped on me many months ago. Also in the mix is a 3d printed Yoda my niece needed some paint on. 

The gang

3D printed this miniature is. fairly low resolution so the uneven surface makes for frustrating painting.

A rogue or assassin and a woodlands witch. I need to paint that crescent thing on the witch's forehead that showed up like a lightbulb in the photograph when I cropped it.

.hctiw dna eugoR

Evil Smurfette and a warrior woman.

Heroes.

Heroes backs.

And something for the new year... Mmmm, bases. 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Safe Travels!

Donnybrook AAR: Goblins and Halflings, FINALLY!

 It's been a long time coming, but the pair of 28mm fantasy armies I've been collecting finally got a chance to slug it out last evening While the Assad regime fell and Georgia fought hard to win the SEC. I picked up the Donnybrook rules in early 2023 and after a quick read-through realized they'd probably be excellent for what I was hoping to do with these forces. So there we are, two new armies, a new set of rules.... let's see what this is all about.

Ziggy chose the Halflings and selected his four units - Drilled Pikes and Archers, Recruit Cavalry and Elite Highlanders. He also had a mounted Commander. For my Goblins I chose Recruit Spears, Archers and Cavlary and Drilled Orc Warriors to accompany my Mounted Commander. I set up the tabletop as a farmstead with some nearby woods. We just played a basic "kill em all" scenario to familiarize ourselves with the rules.

A full view of the 4x4 battlefield. Granted, that picture was taken after a turn or two of movement, but you get the point.

The Halfling Highlanders take possession of the chicken pen and coop! Minis and MDF buildings courtesy TTCombat.

GRRRR! My Orcs charge in. "It'll be eggs for dinner boys!"

But as luck would have it, the 'Fling pikes were in position to react quickly, throwing the Orcs back and saving the poultry!

Feh. I only accounted for three of 'em.

It wasn't all bad news though, my archers and spears did manage to account for the Halfling archers in the field. This interaction was not well-documented in photos.

Meanwhile, over on the right flank, the Wolf-riders and Goat-riders prepared to do battle.

Things were very evenly-matched and first-round results were a tie. Both our commanders were involved in the engagement so the stakes were high!

My archers and spears lined up, ready to take the chicken pen. The archers peppered the pikes reducing them to just two troops. Surely eleven goblins could take down three halfling nutters, right?

Before that question could be answered, the goat-riding stunties on the right had a terrific second round of combat. One failed morale test later, my wolf-riders and commander were off the table. The rest of my forces slunk back from whence they came. Curses! Just when things were looking quite doable. 

Damn fine game, we had a great time and it was worth the sporadic painting and collecting effort of 20 months. 

Thoughts - Donnybrook is really good. I was curious how the card activation and random turn length would work out and I got my answer. As with all things random, the law of averages takes hold and everyone gets a fair shake by the end. Dice and other mechanics are simple and effective. Troops die really quickly if they don't have armor or cover, much like Blood and Plunder. We didn't think about using cover heavily given the rank & block nature of the forces but lesson learned! Unarmored troops die like dogs in melee, just ask the halfling archers.

I want to add a few extra units to each side in the next game and start playing around with magic and magic-users. There aren't any magic rules in Donnybrooks but after playing a game, I feel confident that I could put something together with little trouble. I also need to look at applying the different faction traits to my forces - Donnybrook includes faction army-build information that I ignored but those faction rules could easily be applied to halfling and goblins. I just need to see what looks like some that would be appropriate.

I did paint this scatter terrain up yesterday before the game. I've had them since Skirmish game con last March. 3D prints. Always useful!