Wyrm and I threw down for our first game of Frostgrave, my Summoner versus his Witch. We opted to just play the ‘standard’ scenario for our first game and focus on getting the basics worked out.
The Warbands
Wyrm’s Warband
Wyrm chose a wizard of the Witch school, theming his warband as a group of Wood Elves led by a World of Warcraft style Hunter. His force was wizard, apprentice, four archers, three thugs and a slot spare for his Animal Companion spell. His spells included Animal Companion, Bone Dart and Grenade to match up with his theme.
My Warband
I had a 40k chaos sorcerer conversion that had languished in a box for many years awaiting attention, so he became my wizard of the Summoning school, a wizard focused on the worship of dark gods and trafficking with demons. I also had or acquired various other chaos models which saw the force morph into a barbarian tribe enslaved to my wizard, as sort of a Conan homage. My force consisted of a warhound, two thugs, two thieves, a barbarian (who were the enslaved barbarian tribe) as well as two crossbowmen (who are cultists worshipping the wizard). My spell choices were as follows:
- Summon Demon – for hopefully obvious reasons, I wanted to be able to summon demons
- Leap – this seemed useful and would represent mutations granted that improved my spellcasters movement
- Call Storm – I chose this as my initial thinking was that I’d not take any ranged guys, so I thought this would level it up a little bit. As it turns out, I haven’t really used it and ended up taking crossbowmen and archers so it’s a little relevant
- Telekinesis – moving treasure around with my mind seems like a good idea
- Familiar – I figured the Familiar would be like a mini-demon
- Steal Health – draining the life force from someone seems like the sort of thing my demon worshiping wizard would be into
- Planewalk – moving between planes of existence is likely something necessary for the communication with and binding of demons
- Invisibility – seemed like another mutation that might be granted by the dark gods.
Pre-Game
I cast Familiar with my apprentice but my wizard fails. Wyrm gets two brew potion spells off, a Demon in a Bottle and a Potion of Teleport.
Turn One
I win initiative for the turn.
I do a group activation with my wizard, two thugs and crossbowman, with everyone moving forward. The wizard then casts telekenisis on a nearby treasure, cutting for two to get it off and pulling a treasure into contact with one of the thugs who then picks it up. The Crossbowman shoots at one of Wyrm’s thugs on a flank but misses completely.
Wyrms’ wizard activates along with a thug and two archers. They move forward, then one of the archers grabs a treasure. Wyrm’s wizard fires off a bone dart at my crossbowman, dealing three damage. The other archers fires at my thug with the treasure but misses.
My apprentice, warhound, thief and second crossbowman activate, all moving forward. The warhound and thief each make a second move. The crossbowman fires at one of Wyrm’s thugs but misses. The apprectice attempts to Summon Demon but fails, although not by enough to take damage.
Wyrm’s activates a thug and two archers along with his apprentice, all of them moving forward, with the archers taking sniper positions on the temple of skulls. One archer shoots at my crossbowman, hitting but dealing no damage. The apprentice casts Control Animal on my warhound, comfortably getting it off with a 20. The other archer takes a shot at my crossbowman dealing him five damage and seeing him wounded. The Thug then makes a second move forward.
My Barbarian makes a double move up my left flank, and my other thief makes a double move also.
Turn Two
Wyrm wins initiative this turn.
His wizard and two archers move forward into the middle ruin. One archer than shoots at my crossbowman, killing him. The wizard and other archer then each move forward again.
My wizard activates along with a thug and thief, each moving and then the thug moves again. My wizard casts Telekinesis on another nearby treasure, moving it into contact with the thief who picks it up.
Wyrm’s apprentice and a thug activate, each moving, with an archer passing it’s move. The archer shoots at my wizard dealing six damage. His apprentice attempts to cast Bone Dart but fails.
My crossbowman reloads and fires at Wyrm’s wizard but misses. The apprentice activates and attempts to cast Telekinesis on a treasure but fails and takes one damage.
Wyrm moves my (now under his control) warhound into a thief and attacks him, dealing two damage. His thug then moves towards the edge of the board with a treasure and his other thug wanders around near his wizard.
My thief attacks the warhound and gets killed as the warhound deals him 10 damage. My Barbarian makes a double move towards Wyrm’s wizard, and then a thug moves in front of my wizard.
Turn Three
Wyrm gets the initiative again this turn.
Wyrm activates his wizard and thug and both take two move actions away from me.
I activate my wizard, thug and thief, all of whom move for their first action. The wizard then attempts Summon Demon but rolls a three, and takes one damage for the failure, which I guess is what happens when you attempt to summon forth demons from the immaterial plane. The thief moves back again with the treasure and the thug moves into contact with a nearby treasure.
Wyrm’s apprentice attempts to cast Bone Dart at my wizard, which goes off, but he misses with a terrible roll.
My apprentice phase sees me activate my crossbowman, who reloads and shoots at one of Wyrm’s thugs but misses. The apprentice then moves out towards Wyrm’s wizard and attempts to cast Summon Demon. He succeeds and also empowers the spell using two health to make it a Minor Demon.
Wyrm’s thug makes it off the board with one treasure. One Archer fires at my wizard but misses, a second archer follows up, hitting but causing no damage. The controlled warhound moves into contact with my Thug and attacks. We tie rolls of 20, with the warhound getting his jaw around my thug’s neck whilst the thug plunges his axe into the warhounds neck, both models being taken out of the game. Wyrm’s other thug moves up and grabs a treasure. The archer hauling a treasure moves towards the board edge, almost making it off.
I have my barbarian and demon run at Wyrm’s wizard, each getting fairly close.
Turn Four
I win initiative for the turn.
My wizard moves into contact with a treasure and picks it up. My demon moves into contact with Wyrm’s wizard and attacks, we both roll 14 and tie, so each take damage.
Wyrm’s thug moves into contact with my demon, but I roll a 19 which sees the thug splattered by the demon. His archer takes a speculative shot at my barbarian, rolling a 20 which sees the barbarian take an arrow right in the eye and being immediately out of the game. Wyrm’s wizard drops his Demon in a Bottle potion.
My apprentice moves and then casts Leap to get into combat with Wyrm’s thug with treasure to prevent him moving. My thief runs towards the board edge with his treasure.
Wyrm’s apprentice casts Bone Dart at my wizard, it goes off and I roll a one for the fight roll, and seeing my wizard out of action for the rest of the game. The apprentice then moves onto the now vacated treasure.
My thug moves off the board with his treasure. My crossbowman runs to the edge and jumps off the building, then sneaks up behind Wyrm’s thug whilst the apprentice distracts him. He makes an attack against the thug and I roll a 20, with the crossbowman using his dagger to slit the thug’s throat. My demon attacks Wyrm’s wizard and just wins, dealing five damage to the wizard.
Wyrm moves his archer into contact with my demon and attacks, my demon wins and deals nine damage to the archer. Wyrm’s demon hits mine for eight damage and kills it. One of archers then moves off the table with treasure, whilst the other two shoot at my apprentice, one missing and one hitting for no damage.
Turn Five
I win the initiative.
Wyrm’s wizard archer and demon move towards my apprentice, the wizard attempts a Granade spell, but fails.
My apprentice picks up the treasure the thug dropped and moves off the board with it.
Wyrm’s apprentice makes it off the board with the treasure he was carrying.
My thug moves off the board with his treasure, which sees the game end as all treasures have been taken off.
Post-game
My wizard and barbarian both make a full recovery (luckily!), the crossbowman, thief and warhound are badly wounded (meaning they will have to miss the next game), and my thug is dead.
Wyrm’s thug makes a full recovery.
I roll for my three treasures and get 135gc, a Candle of Summoning (perfect), a Potion of Teleport, and a +2 damage hand weapon.
Wrym rolls up 170gc, a Grimoire of Circle of Protection, a Staff of Power (3) and 3 Explosive Cocktail Potions.
I think we each got two levels, and I elected to up my health by one and improve the casting value of Summon Demon by one as well.
Conclusion
This game was a lot of fun. We spent a bit of time over the course of the game looking up the rulebook but only to make sure we were playing correctly, not because things didn’t make sense. The game feels intuitive and plays relatively fast, and even though I felt up against it with some poor dice for the game, I always had options and the game ended in a tie with three treasures each. One thing that surprised me was how hard it was to cast spells during the game. I had expected it to be challenging, but only hitting a few spells across the game felt a little bad.
The campaign progression is straightforward and it’s quite exciting rolling up your treasures to see what sort of loot you get. Despite effectively losing four members of my warbands, I ended up with enough loot to recruit replacements and still have a small amount left.
As I said, a lot of fun and laughs had and I’m looking to the next game.
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