Return to Frostgrave

 I drove out to Set's for a game of Frostgrave today - and right into a storm! I knew rain was in the forecast and we were supposed to get about 2 inches of rain over the course of the day, but it was dry and the sun shining when I left my house. I forgot, of course, that Lewiston is its own micro-climate unlike a half-hour south where I live. Halfway there, I started thinking, "Wow, the sky's sure looking dark..." and then got hit with rain coming down harder than anything I've driven through in years. And then the emergency alarm went off on my phone; I pulled over because it was raining too hard to see, and I see that the alarm is a tornado warning! 

Hoo, boy.

But I made it to Set's unharmed, and look at that table!

 We had a four player game - myself, Set, Chris and Brad - with a central premise of, we've been hired to clear out this hobgoblin-run forced labor camp and free the human slaves, especially a farmer's family that was freshly abducted and kept in a magically-locked cage in the center of the table along with the hobgoblins' accumulated loot. Freeing the slaves on the chains took a series of attack rolls (magic weapons cutting through the chains automatically) to cut slaves free. 

To complicate matters, every three turns a wyvern would swoop in to collect lumber harvested by the slaves, and potentially attack us. 

The magically-sealed cage would realistically require our wizards to work together to break the wards. 

We all spent our first few turns working on cutting slaves free and moving wizards up to the central cage to work on breaking the seals. 

On turn 3, both Chris and myself rolled a "1" when the wyvern appeared, and each of us had to nominate one of our figures for the dragon to attack. One of my newly hired thieves ended up in its mouth.

 Eventually the truce broke - well, I broke it. I noticed Chris lining a lot of figures up to swoop in and seize treasure once the magical cage was opened, and decided to attack. It, uh, didn't go great for me. Because everyone Chris had in place to seize treasure...was also in place to attack me, and then Set's warband jumped on me as well for being the aggressor. One after another, my crewmembers fell until just my knight, Shojo, was left on the table. Gina texted me around that time about whether I'd be able to pick dinner up for her on my way home (weather permitting), and I decided that it was time for me to bow out and make the long drive home (and pick up food). 

I didn't score that much treasure (ironically, Brad's warband swooped in and grabbed much of the hobgoblins' treasure as soon as the cage was deactivated while Chris and I were fighting), I didn't completely free one chain's worth of slaves, and I didn't earn that much XP through spellcasting or my wizard slaying members of other warbands personally. 

So I definitely could have played smarter (and probably less aggressively), but live and learn! I still have to tally up my XP and figure out what kind of treasure I actually got. And see who survived... 

A Less-Than-Frosty Frostgrave

 I went out and met up with Set (the host of our fizzled Dracula's America campaign, with an absolutely awe-inspiring terrain collection) for a game of Frostgrave today - or rather, a game of houseruled Frostgrave, incorporating some aspects of "Ghost Archipelago" and in a homebrew setting. As you can see, there's not much frost on the table!

 I brought a wargame comprised of some of my recent samurai figures, whose snow-covered bases wouldn't have been out of place in the game's original setting. We had a multi-faceted mission - hobgoblins had been raiding caravans and taking captives, and the merchants were paying for dead hobgoblins, rescued captives and retrieved artifacts. Rather than "treasure tokens," there were investigative tokens strewn across the table  - once we interacted with these, they might yield treasure, a monster, or nothing at all. 

Early on in the game, one of Set's warband members interacted with one that yielded a monster, and a roll on the table yielded a pterodactyl that over the course of the game ended up taking out a third of his warband, including his wizard.

 Meanwhile, my crew accidentally brought a pair of armored skeletons and an ogre on to the table.

 I won't get into a direct play by play here, since a lot of the particulars of what happened when seeped out of my brain on the half hour drive home. But the overall gist is that we originally focused on our objectives - taking down hobgoblins and collecting treasure. One of my Thieves unlocked the cage the captives were in, and with the help of one of my Thugs, began ushering the two captives to freedom. 

And then we started trying to kill each other. I inflicted very little harm on Set's warband, only managing to kill his warhound, while he killed outright or at least finished off most of my warband (at least, those that the ogre didn't splatter!). 

 At the end of the game, I'd killed two hobgoblins, retrieved two parcels of treasure (one containing one of the artifacts we'd been hired to go after), and rescued one captive, while Set killed two hobgoblins, retrieved two parcels of treasure (both artifacts) and managed to make it off the table with zero captives. 

 

In the post-game, my treasure resolved itself into a grimoire containing the spell "Miraculous Cure," a magic dagger that gives the wielder +1 Fighting, and 250 gold coins when combined with the rewards for the artifact and captive.  Of those in my warband who'd fallen, everyone made a full recovery except for my Archer and my two Thieves, who will need to be replaced before next game, whenever that may be. My Witch gained two levels, which I used to improve her Fighting stat and made it easier for her to cast "Curse" in future games.

All in all it was a great game and I had a lot of fun. Hopefully this turns into a more regular thing - in part because I visit Set's house so infrequently that I keep making a wrong turn on the way home that adds an extra three miles to my commute and I'd like to get accustomed enough to the route to stop making that wrong turn! 

Finally, some real progress!

 I've had a baker's dozen of figures on my table, slowly chipping away at them one step at a time, one hour of painting time a night (if that). No reason for me to rush anything, so I chose to savor the process and really take my time and try to push myself a little bit on some of these. And as of last night, they're finished! I got them varnished this morning and now here they are.

First things first, here are the three Samurai from North Star that came packaged with the ashigaru I finished earlier in the month. Together, these nine figures make a 200-point warband, or buntai, for the Osprey game "Ronin." These are again painted as Takeda clan, and I used a fancier version of the clan emblem decals for the banners they're wearing. The armor got a little more attention plus the lacing picked out in different colors.

 Next up, a set of eight figures packaged as a set from Grey For Now Games for their samurai game "Test of Honour" - these are the Rogues and Ruffians, who can be played together as a thematic gang of bandits, or hired off individually into warbands to provide color and some unique abilities.

 Of these, my favorite is "The Witch" in the first picture, wearing the black kimono with the white sash and kabuki facepaint. She gains differing abilities in game depending whether she's wearing her mask or not, which is pretty cool. The kanji on her kimono reads "DEATH" if I drew it correctly. I decided, as a witch with an enchanted mask, she could afford to be a little extra flamboyant in her personal style. 

I also tried my hand at OSL on the lantern bearer in the last picture. I haven't done it in years, and with varying degrees of success at the best of times. I think this turned out solid, if not perfect. 

Next up, the "Ronin, Shojo" from Bad Squiddo Games. According to the description on their site, Shojo randomly arrives at inns, challenges everyone inside to a drinking contest, and by the time anybody wakes up the next morning, she's gone as if she'd never been in the first place.

 I think she's one of my favorites of this bunch - everything just worked right on her in terms of colors and placement. She's wearing more neutrals and desaturated colors compared to the Takeda samurai above, befitting her lower social standing, the the face half-hidden by the hat is a very neat "woman of mystery" effect. 

And lastly, my big favorite of this bunch. This is an "Ogre Mage" from Reaper Miniatures, but very clearly based on a Japanese Oni demon in appearance. I've had my eye on this figure for a very long time, and finally the time was right to paint him. I really tried to push myself to make him the best figure I've ever painted; I chickened out a little bit at the thought of painting a pattern onto his pants, but overall I'm really pleased with how he turned out, and was well worth 20+ hours at the painting desk to bring out every detail of the sculpt.

 To give an idea of size, he's on a 60mm x 40mm oval base - his pose made him overhang a 50mm round base by just a little too much for my liking! I'm really pleased with the depth of color I got on the shell of the kappa clinging to his basket. These little water goblins have a depression on their head filled with water; if this water is spilled, they're paralyzed until it's refilled. They're nasty little critters with a taste for human intestines but unfailingly polite - if you bow to one, it will automatically bow back, spilling its water. 

So that's 13 figures added to the "Painted" side of the tracker, 14 if we say the Oni is large enough to qualify as two. In fact, let's do that.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 112

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

 

Breaking the Rut

 So I've been in a painting rut for most of the month. Either I've struggled to find enough enthusiasm to even pick up, much less paint a given thing on my workbench (the Mesoamerican buildings, the handful of Maya awaiting paint), or it's a frustrating painting experience (I've got a Wargames AEgyptus chariot mostly assembled and painted, but something went funny with the primer and even the most careful handling is causing paint to flake off, necessitating seemingly endless touch ups). I needed something fast and easy to break me out of feeling like I'm just not accomplishing anything during the time I'm sitting at my painting bench.

Casting about, I found this "Skeletal Samurai" from Reaper Miniatures that I'd mostly primed last fall; I'd sprayed one side of it white, I think a sudden change in the weather stopped me from priming the other side. Either way, I took advantage of the nice weather to finish priming, and then set to work.

Rather than paint him as a corporeal animated skeleton, I opted to paint him as a ghost to make things simpler on myself. A nice coat of GW "Nilakh Oxide" was allowed to settle into the various crevices, creating a very nice "Force Ghost" look - painting ghosts is actually the entire reason I bought a pot of this paint in the first place! 

Once that was dry, I painted the base with my usual brown, and flocked with my regular "dirt" flock from Woodland Scenics. Rather than go with my usual grass patches, I applied a few dry-looking tufts, splodged (technical term) some more PVA on and dipped it in some Army Painter snow flock. 

While I was at it, I touched up the primer on some samurai I've had sitting in a box since 2024, as well as primed a few additional ones, including a set of "Rogues and Ruffians" from Grey For Now Games that my wife bought me last time I got the bug to do some samurai wargaming. I've been seeing some really nice samurai figures on social media lately and been starting to feel that flutter of excitement for a new project again. Thankfully, I have all the unpainted figures from the last time I got the flutter for this particular project, so I can dabble without spending more money. 

Naturally, I ordered the rulebook for "Test of Honor" today anyways. 

Miniatures Acquired: 125

Miniatures Painted: 88

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4