My Frosty Grave - A Frostgrave AAR and lamentation

Hey boys and girls! It has been awhile but true to form I am going to write about another game system in this AAR, this time it is the seemingly popular Frostgrave. There is one interesting wrinkle in this article...this time I will be playing against...wait for it...ACTUAL PEOPLE! I have brainwashed convinced Big Rob and the Deuce (both fellow Demons) to come and have a go at the Frostgrave mini-campaign "The Hunt for the Golem." I played my summoner warband
"cleverly"designed for speed and consisting of the wizard Gordon the Summoner, Andy the Apprenice,  Stewie my captain, a treasure hunter, two thieves, and two warhounds. Big Rob chose to play a Chronomancer (Gondor), an apprentice (Kaden), captain (Kratos) a couple of treasure hunters, a couple of crossbowman, a couple of thugs, and he summoned a zombie in the pre-game phase. The Deuce chose to play a Necromancer (Mordus d'Acheron) and accompanying apprentice (Quintus), he also chose a captain (Cromwell hint:it's B), an archer, a crossbowman, a treasure hunter, a warhound, and he also summoned a zombie pre-game.

One of the things I have read and observed about Frostgrave is becuase it is a objective driven game speed seems to be very important for characters. Therefore, my plan was to use speed to lock down as many treasures as possible (in this scenario they are actually corpses) and then use my magic to get them back safely...as you will see, this did not work. at. all.

So the quick set-up is the wizards and their band come upon a scene of great carnage (in this case 15 corpses) and they set out to gather is much info as possible . In game terms each corpse counter could be A) Treasure B) a Survivor C) a Zombie or D) the Golem Notes (big xp). Guess who pulled all three zombies...We set up the table using almost all paper terrain assembled by yours truly and consisting of Dave Graffam, World Works, and Fat Dragon pieces. The figures used are either the Northstar Frostgrave soldiers or Reaper Bones.

So with no further ado...to the game!

These are the starting positions...my Summoner is to the left, Rob's Chrono is at the bottom, and the Necky is to the right. Notice how the high walls bisect mine and the neck's forces...that will be important-ish

Better look at Rob's chrono warband

Not-so-good shot of the Deuce's Necky band

My ill-fated soldiers

This is the board after the 1st turn or so...I have run my soldiers towards the bottom edge while the necromancer apprentice and captain are moving toward the fountain. My wizard can be seen all by himself next to the ruined tower...

Here the necromancer captain moves to reveal a corpse in the fountain, while one of his thugs finds a survivor and, true to form, leaves him to die...

here is my apprentice being attacked by the first of the three possible zombie corpses in the scenario...

The necky's crossbowman on the left was able to hit nothing...the red bead denotes he is unloaded...

Remember my wizard hiding by the tower? Yeah, this is him being murdered by the Chrono's captain Kellog (Kratos, whatever...)

My possessed (that's a good thing) treasure hunter offs the Chrono's zombie and grabs the treasure he will eventually make it off the table, yay!

Rob's crossbowman drives the Neck's captain back from the fountain...

As shown here...

The Deuce sends his necky archer to the top of the column to shoot over the wall, he also misses alot (also note the survivor to the right, also found by the necromancer, also left to die). 

My thief climbs to the top of a mauseleum to check a corpse (which is a zombie) 

while Emi the attack dog guards one as my apprentice approaches, my captain has already claimed a treasure to the left. My plan is unfolding just as I intended!

The necky apprentice moves forward to protect the critically wounded Cromwell...

My archer climbs onto a bridge to search a corpse...what is not pictured here is Rob's wizard casting crumble on the bridge leaving my badly wounded archer to be finished off by his treasure hunter. 

My brave captain Andy runs away.

After dispatching my Apprentice with a Bone dart the necky's forces converge and finish off most of the rest of my band...

The Chronomancer ascendant!

In the end, Rob held the field but the Deuce actually got the edge in XP with 300+ . I barely got 100 xp and my Wizard received a permanent injury...psychological scarring, how apropos! Despite my poor luck we had a really fun game, Frostgrave is pretty neat!

We are going to play the second scenario in a few days so stay tuned for part deux of "How not to play Frostgrave."