We had our first full Frostgrave session over the weekend and it was a lot of fun. Five of us were able to make it out on the snowy night and so we split into two groups. I started writing up my session report but it mutated into some long narrative instead. I was having fun writing so I figured I’d keep the non-traditional report but will need more time to edit it a bit more. In the meantime, my friend Colton was able to write up his own report of the other game that was running on the other table:
Reese and I played The Mausoleum scenario in the core book. In this scenario, a crypt in the center of board stands silent watch over several valuable pieces of treasure. But something foul has gone wrong in this ancient tomb and the undead are restless.
We printed up sablebadger’s Necromancer Mausoleum/Crypt from Thingiverse. Chris painted it up replete with thematic tea light.
Since we were a bit short of skeletons, we needed something else. We put on our creative hats and took inspiration from the Dark Age Z board game, where inexplicably a portal from another world has opened and zombies from the future are pouring into this realm. Our strange monochrome zombies where shambling right out of the world of The Walking Dead, replete with their “strange artefacts” such as “thunderstones” (grenades) and “cold torches” (flashlights). Such things didn’t impact the game but as a house rule, we might find such things on a 15+ roll after defeating one.
My warband started out as a necromancer complete with his undead, but after studying the spells in closer, I decided I really wanted a summoner. While my warband is all made up of undead models for flavor, we have (thus far) treated them simply as the hirelings straight from the book. If it comes up in later games we’ll have to see if spells like “Control Undead” will work on them. But, since the summoner is all about demons, I figured my warband would still work very well.
Prior to battle, my apprentice and wizard successfully brewed a potion of invisibility and teleport. I decided I’d give them to my two thieves and make them “treasure runners.”
I positioned a thief with the teleport potion to run in and grab a nearby treasure token right away. He grabbed it early on and on the subsequent turns, quaffed his potion snap to the board edge and then left.
My other thief, accompanied by my wizard and a thug, made for another treasure, but found some of those colorless walkers stood in the way. To lend a hand, my wizard summoned a demon. With an extra point of self-inflicted will he managed to push his summon from an imp to minor demon.
While the thief with the invisibility potion attempted to slink around for the treasure, my thug and his new minor demon friend rushed into combat with a walker; but my demon was a still bit disoriented from his recent summon and whiffed his attack. His lowly thug buddy showed up the minor demon by taking out I think two walkers before being taken out himself. My demon surveyed the carnage and laughed at these foolish mortals.
Now getting his full bearings, my minor demon wanted some fun too, and rushed into combat with some of Reese’s guys. The thief managed to grab his treasure amidst the chaos and drank his potion of invisibility and slowly made his way off the map over the rest of the game, unmolested.
Reese had positioned his archer and wizard high on a rampart to oversee the battle and plink at hapless foes. I sent a couple archers to climb up and distract them, though, being piles of sightless bones, they only managed to distract over the course of the game, only taking out Reese’s archer out towards the end of the game.
Down below, my minor demon started fighting Reese’s hirelings. He had no interest in treasure but knew Reese’s guys did, so he stood guard next to the treasure (we weren’t sure if he could pick up treasure and played as he couldn’t but later found out that demons can, so he may be more interested in such things in future games). With the help of a Strengthen spell, my demon started hitting very hard in combat. He managed to kill off a few of Reese’s hirelings, but Reese’s wizard and archer were not having any minor demons at ALL and took liberal shots at him. While they did manage to eventually bring down the demon, some of Reese’s own men were caught in the crossfire and dropped as well.
Across the board, Reese and I both had some hirelings scuffling over treasure in the ruins as well. I stupidly sent a treasure-laden thug to go toe to toe with one of Reese’s treasure-toting soldiers, who in turn was beset with walkers. Eventually nearly everyone in that brawl all succumbed to the madness of battle and fell. Those that didn’t were either shot by a pair of archers I had in an elevated position or from bone darts sent from a wizard eye Reese’s apprentice had positioned high on a stone wall early game.
By now, so much of the battlefield was littered with bodies and unclaimed treasure that my wizard greedily ran in to claim the spoils. But Reese’s apprentice was still watching from afar. Fearing what horrible things my wizard might bring forth to this world if he got access to more power, she took a carefully aimed shot with a bone dart—and rolled crit to knock him out cold.
My apprentice, who had been lurking in the shadows all game, working on her summoning spells, managed to slink onto the battlefield and drag her unconscious master to safety.
In the end, our game was brutal. Both Reese and I lost most of our forces during the game, and I even lost my wizard. Some good rolling at the end after the game though found my wizard and band of undead unharmed. Reese lost a soldier to the battle. Despite us both going in with eyes on the treasure, we only managed to get out with one treasure for Reese and two for me.
However, for our custom game, Chris has a table ready to tell us about a few strange artifacts from the future we managed to pick off the strange monochrome walkers…
Thanks Colton! It sounded like a brutal match and I’m glad you and Reese could take photos and capture. I’ll finish up my narrative and post it then follow up with the more traditional report like Colton cooked up.