Frostgrave AAR: The Diabolists of Belphegor vs. Tom's (Yet Unnamed) Dwarves

Tom and I reconvened at long last (our last game was in August) for a friendly Frostgrave match, and being a little more comfortable with the rules, we agreed to begin campaign play against one another (and possibly bringing in a few other people; a store league would be something fun).  We gathered around my dining room table, rolled up a scenario, and set into it.

We ended up playing "The Keep," a scenario marked by a set of four teleportation pads located equidistantly around the center of the table, each with a treasure token to be had on it.  Stepping on one of these pads might send your figure to any of the other three pads.  I had four unused 2" round bases, which made perfect teleportation pads, and I picked up a baggie of blue plastic "gems" a while back to serve as treasure tokens.  The remaining two tokens were placed in the center of the table, as per the scenario.

Tom was running an Enchanter warband, with two archers, two men-at-arms and two thugs; I had a Summoner band, with a knight, two crossbowmen, an infantryman, two thugs and a warhound.

We diced off to see who would go first, and I won the roll.  My wizard tried to cast Invisibility on my infantryman and failed to do so miserably, inflicted two wounds on himself from the failed casting.  My apprentice, meanwhile, successfully called up an imp, and one of my thugs stepped onto the closest teleporter and was sent to Tom's side of the table, where he managed to miraculously shrug off a volley from his archers and avoid injury at the hands of one of his men-at-arms before returning with a treasure.

The third turn is when things really started to heat up.  First, Tom's wizard vaporized my apprentice with a Grenade spell, and then my Summoner rolled a "1" while trying to cast "Summon Demon." This meant that a Minor Demon manifested behind him, very upset at being called into the cold, damp Material Plane.  The demon immediately attacked my Summoner, eviscerating him.  On the opposed fight roll, the demon scored a 22 and the wizard a paltry 4, meaning he went down and he went down hard.

Great shot of Belphegor and the demon.

So now we had two uncontrolled demons loose on the board, and all the closest figures for them to attack...were mine.  The Minor demon took down a treasure-laden Thug and a Crossbowman, while the Imp scored an incredible critical hit on the knight, one-shotting her into an early grave.  Unbelievable! I'm just picturing this little two foot tall imp screaming and catapulting itself into her face, clawing, biting and flailing about until it was either dislodged or hit something vital.

Tom was left with simply mopping up the board and collecting the treasure.  So Tom went up a level and collected enough treasure to not only set up shop in a base, but to add a giant telescope to the top of it.  I came out with 60gc, a grimoire containing the spell "Imp," and the lives of all my soldiers - seriously, rolling to see who lived and who died I rolled higher than I had all game.  One of my crossbowmen will have to sit out the next game but otherwise everyone is still in one piece.

All in all we had a great time, and laughed through the entire game.  Prior to the third turn, neither one of us could roll above a 10, from Turn 3 on, Tom's dice went hot; at one point he could barely roll under an 18 on the d20.  Meanwhile I kept rolling crap, but I was having too much fun to care.

Tom and I are thinking about trying to get a twice-monthly thing going at Just Games for Frostgrave to try and rope in some of the other interested potential-players; we've heard a lot from people who have the book and are interested but never quite get around to assembling a warband.

Additionally, Tom bought the two-player starter set for Mantic's Kings of War; while he's likely to put together a Skaven/"Ratkin" force, I'll be buying the undead figures from the starter set off him and putting together an army of skeletons.  I never got a chance to play Warhammer before it died (I could never afford to do so back in the day), but I've always been interested in games with big regiments of figures being pushed and wheeled around the table.  I've got some ideas for a "theme" to my army of the dead and I think it's going to be a fun project.

The Halloween Investigations

Yesterday, my FLGS played host to what might be the largest Call of Cthulhu RPG convention ever held in Western New York.  Three Game Masters (myself, Brandon and Dave) ran a total of five sessions of Call of Cthulhu over the course of nine hours, from noon to nine pm.

Dave ran a pair of Classic Era (1920s) scenarios, one from noon to 4 and the second from 5 to 9.  Brandon, running Call of Cthulhu for the first time ever, ran The Derelict, Chaosium's Free RPG Day offering from this year, a modern day scenario.  I began the day with "The Dark Forest," a game set in second century Roman-occupied Germania, and ended it with something a bit special: an "Elimination Challenge" game, with a scenario designed to kill characters, with some pretty special prizes for the last to die.

As far as prizes went, Chaosium sent us several copies of the "Quick-Start Guide" for 7th edition, and a couple copies of "Alone Against the Flames," a solo play adventure resembling a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.  Golden Goblin Press, a licensee for Call of Cthulhu, offered a $50 gift certificate for the Elimination Challenge as well as providing an adventure to run.  And finally, I purchased a bunch of Reaper Bones' "Eldritch Demons" and painted them up as patina'd bronze statues to provide trophies.

"The Dark Forest" has the players taking the roles of a Roman long-range reconnaissance team, sent into the German forest to follow up on rumors of bandits preying on caravans and threatening open rebellion against Roman rule.  I had five players at the table, including my sister, her boyfriend, and Sandor, a Cthulhu veteran who made the drive from Albany to Rochester to participate, a good four-hour drive.

The scenario got a bit madcap once the players realized the "bandits" were in fact zombies, raised and commanded by a small group of cultists.  Rather than run from the zombie horde and take refuge in a nearby abandoned hill fort upon discovery that a gladius is a poor choice of zombie-killing weapon, they invented a series of schemes involving fire and barricades before finally taking the hint and retreating from the horde.

After circumventing the zombie horde and confronting the cultists, during which one investigator died to a massive, supernaturally-induced heart attack (there was a Magic: The Gathering event going on at the store at the same time, and the Magic players all stopped what they were doing to listen to my narration of this death.  It was pretty cool), the rest of the investigators took one look at the summoned monster presiding over the ceremonies and decided that two German kids didn't need rescuing that badly, opting instead to retreat, make their report to the prefect, and let someone else deal with the cult.

I decided to deal out the statue-trophies as a Player's Choice award, allowing the players to vote on who they think earned the trophy through good role-playing.  The players decided that Sandor had earned the trophy, and I awarded a Keeper's Choice prize, a copy of the 7th Edition Quick-Start rules, to the person who got the second highest number of votes - who happened to be my sister.  Honestly no playing of favorites there, she got the second most votes so I gave it to her.

After a brief break, we came back and I set up for the Elimination Challenge.  Six players sat down at this table, with Jen, Greg, Patrick and Sandor returning from my afternoon session, and joined by John and Chris.  John had not played Call of Cthulhu in close to fifteen years, and his two sessions today were Patrick's first experience with Call of Cthulhu period.

The premise of this scenario, "The Owlglass," is that the investigators are on a cargo ship traveling between New York City and Southampton.  A fellow passenger, archaeologist Hutton, has brought a large crate on board, and becomes agitated when it's damaged in the hold.  The crate contains "the Owlglass," a large, teardrop-shaped mineral deposit resembling an enormous fire opal, with a curious black spot that looks like the pupil of an eye.  Unfortunately, the damage to the crate allows the Owlglass to "see" the night sky through the open cargo doors, and a meteor streaking across the sky gives its former owner the point of reference needed to track it down.

There was a distinct air of "comedy of errors" in this session, most notably after Patrick's character had a run-in with a slug-like blob of animate, mutated human flesh; the slug-thing shot him in the calf with a dart, and fearing mutation, he proceeded to hack off his own leg below the knee with a butcher's knife.  It was only through a miraculous series of good rolls that he survived at all; as is, he spent the remainder of the session at a single hit-point.  Worst of all, when he managed to laboriously crawl to the infirmary (having hacked off his leg in the ship's galley) in search of painkillers, he discovered that the morphine was in a cabinet on the wall...about five feet off the ground.

The rest of the party went to incredible lengths to try and find a way into the aft cargo hold (where the Owlglass and the inflatable dinghies they would need to escape were located) without having to deal with the Owlglass' mutant servitors, who had gathered around in chanting and praying.

Ultimately, Jen, Chris and Sandor's characters met a variety of ends (including Chris, having hoisted the Owlglass up on a crane, riding the artifact into the briny depths like Slim Pickens riding the bomb after failing to secure himself while cutting the cable), and Greg, John and Patrick were feeling the mutation take hold.  Patrick and John both succumbed to their mutations, transforming into servitors of the Owlglass (it having not been destroyed, only relocated).  Seeing this, and recognizing that he would face the same fate, Greg's character opted to kill himself rather than become one of them.

Since Greg was the last one to die (and I counted "mutated into a servitor of the Owlglass" as "dead" for the purposes of the Elimination Challenge), he walked away with the grand prize, a $50 gift certificate to the Golden Goblin Press webstore.  Based on the speed at which they mutated, I determined that John was our second place winner, and Patrick came in third.  John took home a Cthulhu statue/trophy, and Patrick a copy of "Alone Against the Flames," a solo-play scenario from Chaosium.

Everyone had a phenomenal time, and we helped move some product on the store shelves; Brandon easily spent $200 on Cthulhu merchandise, buying a complete set of 7th edition materials as well as one of the Golden Goblin books, and Sandor purchased a 7th edition Keeper's Guide; I'm sure some of the other players bought Cthulhu material as well, plus other sales; one of the players in my afternoon game purchased a significant quantity of Savage Worlds material.  I think this might become a regular Halloween thing.

What's Ahead in 2017?

So I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to see happen in the next year of miniature painting.  In the last year, I didn't really have any sort of solid plan to my purchasing and painting; for 2017 I'd like to have dedicated projects I'm working towards.  I want to focus on just a couple things and try to really accomplish something with them.  My list, in order of importance, is as follows:

Frostgrave

My game tonight didn't end up taking place, as Tom was feeling under the weather, but this is the big one.  I have three finished warbands (Summoner, Necromancer and Elementalist), two that are assembled and primed, but unpainted (Witch and Sigilist), and have purchased a couple figures towards two more (Illusionist and Thaumaturge).  I'm thinking about trying to encourage some sort of league-play at Just Games; we've got a number of people who've bought the book and shown interest and I'd like to see more of those people at the table, pushing figures around.

I may eventually finish building warbands for every school of magic in Frostgrave, but seven might be enough for now.  I want to finish assembling and painting the four warbands that I have that are unfinished and build more terrain for the tabletop.

I'm also looking towards building up a bestiary of monsters for Frostgrave's wandering monster rules, for which I think Reaper Bones are probably the best suited.

Lion/Dragon Rampant

I've had the rulebook for this game for almost a year.  I've thought about building generic medieval forces out of 1/72 scale plastics, but I'm starting to reconsider; 28mm seems to be the scale gamers locally go for, and I think my chances of getting someone to play against will go up in 28mm.  I'm still probably going to end up building two armies for this.  I think it's probably worthwhile to pick a conflict to model on a small scale with Lion Rampant and do just the belligerents of that conflict.

I've always liked the look of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, so maybe the Baltic Crusades are in order.  Fireforge has some really beautiful Teutonic Order plastic sets, and they recently released a line of Medieval Russians, who would provide a nice splash of color against the monochrome of the Germans.

EDIT: Adam reminded me that a fantasy version, Dragon Rampant, exists, which might be an easier sell at the local gaming store than a strictly historical game.  For fantasy races, I think I'd look first to Mantic Games' Kings of War line, especially their Orcs and "Abyssal Dwarves."

Rogue Stars

This is kind of the lowest priority for the moment, especially as the book isn't actually out yet, but I like what I'm reading about this sci-fi skirmish game from Osprey.  I have a couple alien figures from Reaper's Chronoscope line to use as the beginning of a sci-fi gang; I may pick up some packs from Copplestone's "Future Wars" line for use with this at some point.

Terrain will also be something to look at with Rogue Stars, and for that I'm looking at Pegasus Hobbies' "Hexagon" snap-together terrain pieces.

So this is where I think my wish-list stands:

• Reaper 02459 "Ava, Female Templar"
• Reaper 02390 "Templar Standard"
• Reaper 02330 "Templar Knight"
• Reaper 02513 "Templar Knight"
• Reaper 02339 "Templar Knight"
• Reaper 02433 "Omar Al-Kafour"
• Reaper 02497 "Jasmine Silverveil"
• Reaper 02447 "Sallah, Arabian Hero"
• Reaper 02749 "Jade, Dancing Girl"
• Reaper 02501 "Mirari the Seductress"
• Reaper Bones monsters
• Pegasus Hobbies' Gothic Scenery
• Pegasus Hobbies' "Hexagon" scenery
• Fireforge Teutonic Knights
• Fireforge Teutonic Infantry
• Mantic Games' Orcs or Abyssal Dwarves

I should note that I am taking part in Ian's annual "Secret Santa" exchange this year, and so this list isn't *strictly* for my own use.  I have a pretty good idea what I'm getting for my target wargamer, and I'm pretty excited to be a part of this.  

Paint Table Saturday: Black Phillip of Frostgrave

So this Wednesday I've got a Frostgrave match scheduled against my friend Tom, and I've decided to bring out my Goetia-style Summoner warband, the Diabolists of Belphegor to try and best him.  Tom has years of wargaming experience on me, but as I'm just looking for a friendly game, it doesn't faze me.  I did, however, try to reflect on what I'd learned from my last match-up with Tom, and adjust my merry band of hellions appropriately.

As I played around with different combinations of figures, weighing my options based on what I had painted, I kept coming up with a deficit - two slots left in my available ten, and enough gold to make filling those slots a matter of honest debate.  I had a couple options, including going with a smaller force composed of higher-value troops or buying and painting more figures to fill in the gaps.

I decided to pay a visit to my Friendly Local Gaming Store, Just Games, last night, and peruse the racks of Reaper figures and see if anything jumped out at me.  And jump out at me something did!

I've gone with a very traditionally occult/Satanic look for my Summoners (and in my repeat use of this warband, and especially while painting this figure, I've had to repeatedly reassure my girlfriend that I'm not some secret Satanist), and a Reaper Bones "Beastman" popped out at me as having a very Baphomet/Goat of Mendes sort of look to him.  And thus "Black Phillip" joined the Diabolists!

He looks a bit more blue here than he does in person - I basecoated the areas of fur and bare skin with black, then highlighted with drybrushes of Reaper "Stormy Gray" and "Cloudy Gray," then drybrushed the horns and picked out the belt and arm bands in "Lonestar Leather."  The loincloth is Reaper "Blood Red" to tie him in with the clothing worn by the rest of the warband, as are his eyes.  His lips and gums are "Dusty Rose", his teeth "Yellow Bone" and the axe handle "Leather Brown," matching the crossbows and weapon hafts used by other members of the warband.  The base is coated with "Army Painter" medium grit, then a layer of their snow flock.

The last coat of varnish is drying on him now, and on Wednesday he'll be ready to follow the wizard Belphegor into glorious battle.

Frostgrave Fiction: The Diabolists March

Belphegor, Wizard of the Black Ring, sighed and waved a thin, bony hand.  Uttering a few words in a language most men would blanch to hear, he tore open a small hole in the Material Plane, from which emerged a small, unctuous demon of the variety commonly called "imps."

"Hail, Belphegor, Master of -" the imp began, before being cut off with a wheezing gasp as it was impaled through the back, gigged like a frog by Oriax, Belphegor's apprentice.  The younger man smiled behind his cowl, and held the still-squirming demon over the glowing coals of their fire.  Foraging for supplies amidst the ruins of Felstad had proved fruitless, and Belphegor was forced to rely on sorcery to conjure meat for his band of mercenaries and cut-throats.  Eating the flesh of demons seemed to have done the men little harm, though the knight Barbatos' skin had turned an unearthly shade of red and he had grown horns and a tail; likewise, the warhounds Belphegor had purchased now sported horns and tusks, their skin red and hot to the touch.  But it was of little matter.

The crunch of booted feet on the snow outside sent every hand to a sword-hilt; when the wool blanket strung up as a curtain over the ruined wall pulled aside to reveal the florid face of Big George, one of the tavern-brawlers, the crew of mercenaries relaxed as one.

"What news from your scouting trip, George?" Belphegor said quietly, drawing his cloak more tightly around himself and, instinctively, feeling for the weight of the iron-bound grimoire at his hip.

"A new warband enters Felstad," Big George said, catching his breath.  "Dwarves.  Big beards, smelled of lager. Not more than ten of them."

Belphegor stroked his chin.  While he wasn't certain Big George could count higher than ten, he liked the idea of being able to get the drop on an unprepared, untested warband.  Maybe they had supplies he could help himself to.  He surveyed the motley crew of hellions in front of him, mentally calculating the strengths and weaknesses of each.

"Mademoiselle Zenith, Black Phillip, Big George, Johnny Seven-Fingers, Bull and Ace.  You will accompany Oriax and myself into Felstad.  We're going to give those dwarves a proper welcome to Frostgrave."

The shaven-headed albino woman looked up from polishing her sword and grinned wordlessly, her teeth glinting red in the firelight, and the goat-headed half-man bleated greedily, eager to gorge himself on the steaming entrails of fallen foes.

Belphegor stood, stretched, and winced; the bitter cold of Felstad did his rheumatism no favors; why couldn't it have been the sand-swallowed city, bleached under an unforgiving sun?

***

I have a Frostgrave match coming up next week - a rematch against Tom, who I played with awhile back using two warbands I'd painted.  Tom's got his band of dwarves ready and the free time in his schedule to devote an evening to gaming, so we made plans for Wednesday night.

When I got home from work, I took a look at my warbands, thinking about which to bring to bear, and I decided I'd take the Diabolists of Belphegor out for another spin.  I'd tweaked the army list a little bit since Tom and I's last go, and I tweaked it a little bit more tonight.  I think I've got a fairly well-balanced force that can deliver a beating to Tom's dwarves.

Famous last words, right?

I've got one new figure to paint this weekend, and I'll be sure to take pictures at Wednesday's match.

Kickstarter Notice: Forge of Ice's "Sleepy Sentries and Sleazy Merchant"

I figured I should give this one a plug here, since I am backing it (and doing so a bit higher than I had originally planned for), so here goes:

Forge of Ice, a small miniatures company based out of Alaska, is running a Kickstarter to fund a production run of their latest figures, a set of six guards (two alert, four asleep at their posts) suitable for various "Lost World" and "Sword & Sorcery" settings, along with the fat, sleazy merchant they work for.  Various other figures from Forge of Ice are available as add-ons.

I'm currently backing it for the four sleepy guards, with the two Snake Priestesses as my add-ons.  I say currently because I believe some stretch goals are still to be added as well as additional add-ons.  So I may be adding more to my pledge before the Kickstarter ends (just two weeks left!) and adding more figures to my order.  We shall see.

Samurai Archers Rebased

I recently picked up a pack of Reaper Samurai figures from their Dark Heaven line of metal miniatures - I saw them on the rack at Just Games and couldn't say no.  And I immediately began planning *yet another* Frostgrave army.  I haven't decided yet if I want to go with Sigilist (for the calligraphy connection) or Enchanter (for the almost mystical amount of work that went into forging a katana) as my wizard's school, but I do have an army list drawn up, one composed of, appropriately, Seven Samurai.  Just about the only thing I needed to track down was a pair of appropriate archers.  Nothing I was turning up on Google appealed to me, so I put out a call on the Frostgrave Facebook group, and a kindly gentleman offered me a pair of samurai archers, from the "Legend of the Five Rings: Clan Wars" miniatures game, now long out-of-production, for $3 apiece plus shipping.  I swiftly took him up on this, and they arrived yesterday.

Today, I trimmed away their metal tabs (I'm not a fan of slotta-bases), cleaned up the flash and mold lines that I could find/access with my X-acto, and glued them down to my preferred bases, 25mm Renedra flat rounds.

I can't keep the cat away long enough to open the porch door (our apartment has a screened-in porch where I do my priming) and prime these fellows, so hopefully tomorrow morning I'll get them out there and get a quick coat of primer on them.

I think with this I'll have all the Frostgrave warbands I intend to paint - I have a primed-but-unpainted Witch warband based on the 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN, these samurai, the Choosers of the Slain, the Undying Host of Sutekh-Ra and the Diabolists of Belphegor.  How many more warbands do I need?

Don't answer that.

I might hold on to the Seven Samurai and the Cult of Set warbands until the Painting Challenge begins this year.  I think that might be a good beginning to my participation this time around.