Frostgrave - The House of Longreach

This past Sunday we played our final scenario of our current campaign. This was game 18.

We had 3 warbands take the field (a couple of folks had to cancel as it is that busy time of year)

We played the House of Longreach, so I could utilise some of the terrain pieces I got from the Frostgrave Terrain Kickstarter that was run by Tim Hollier.

I did modify the scenario to only have 4 portals on the main board, with the last inside the vault. When players entered one & were transported to another of the portals on the main board, we rolled a d6 to determine both which door & which side of the door they emerged on.

So the 3 warbands in play were 

Ludwig (Chen)
 

Eben (Me)
 

Bob (Scott)

So without further preamble, here is the story!
 

 

 

 

So after the game, we tallied up the spoils & experience to determine the winner of our campaign.

Chen - 365xp, 400gc, Ring of Life (Campaign Total 6665xp)

Scott - 1140xp, 100gc, Gloves of Casting, Vial of Starlight, Grimoire - Enchant Armour (Campaign Total 9440xp)

Terry - 670xp, 40gc, Magic Spectacles, Fire Heart Gemstone (Campaign Total 9290xp)

Therefore congratulations to Scott! who was the winner of our campaign.

So some afterthoughts of the campaign.

The game runs similar to Mordheim in that you only want to play a limited number of scenarios, otherwise the wizards get so powerful, where casting spells is pretty much matter-of fact.

We like having creatures spawn each turn, as it prevents some players from hiding at the fringes of the board....they now risk getting swarmed!

Also for my next campaign in the new year we will be increasing the odds of a creature spawn on treasure pickup. It will get more likely as more are grabbed.

We do have soldiers garner xp for killing things, this leads to a higher amount of xp per game, but is counterbalanced by the fact you can only improve/lower a casting cost by 1 per game. So we don't see this as an issue.

Thanks for all of you who participated & I look forward to beginning a new campaign in 2019!

Also thanks to all of those who visit the blog to enjoy our adventures!  

Bit of Catching Up

It's been a bit of a hectic gaming period these past couple of weeks what with club nights & swap meets, culminating this weekend with Kefcon!

So I've been a bit behind in posting the events that I've been able to participate in.

So here we go! The weekend prior we had one of our Saturday gaming affairs. Starting off with a swap meet, we then  spent the remainder of the day gaming. So I brought out Village Attacks, a recent kickstarter arrival.

This is the game where the players cooperate as various monsters of myth & legend to defend their castle's heart from the rather angry mobs of peasants, hunters & Town Heroes who have finally had enough!

Each turn more villagers storm into the castle trying to slay us. We roll special dice that determine which actions we can perform. As well we can purchase traps to set up.

Indiana Jones, eat your heart out. The huge stone sphere is set!

The surge continues...we were not having much success with getting melee symbols.

A Mimic chest is deployed...great against greedy town heroes!

Having swarmed the Castle Heart, we were in trouble, delaying the inevitable!

With Bruce having all his Western stuff out from the Remembrance Day Game, he found an old set of Rules "Hey! You In The Jail!" for us to play at the club.

There is a bit of pre-game set up as we determine what features will be on the grid.

Based on the results, the overview map is created. This setup we got wasn't the best, as once the main square is determined, each side has forces deployed at the other 2, which must roll each turn to move towards the main one.

 I only managed an initial image of the advance to contact occuring.

And now we have caught up to Kefcon, a weekend of boardgames for the most part, though our group did manage to have a table of miniature games to demonstrate & perhaps draw some new blood too.

Friday Night - So for Friday, I got into games of Massive Darkness & Rising Sun.

Our initial start...

Of course our first room revealed a bunch of chaos dwarves...though they rather looked like Garden Gnomes to me!

Having cleared the first chamber, it was onto the next. Lots of chests...& more swarms of denizens.

  

We then had a wandering critter arrive in the form of a Giant Spider!

Followed the next turn by a Lamia! Most of us still had our starter gear, thanks in part to a Wizard who kept grabbing all the chests!

 We were able to eventually defeat the spawns & were able to complete the game & get a mark in the 'win' column.

The next game I got into was Rising Sun, however apart from the box cover, never got any photos of.

Hmm 2 CMON / Guillotene Games....is this a theme?

Kefcon Saturday -  Home late & up early to begin a full day of gaming. Richard from Calgary asked if I would bring my painted Zombicide Black Plague, so I happily complied.

Initial Deployment. We were playing the Shepard scenario where we need to rescue the villagers (objective markers) to win, however 2 of them are infected & spawn zombies.
 

We opened the first door & had the Abomination Spawn...ok, let's go this way! We scuttled down through the trap door, emerging on the far side.

Of course no sooner were we through to the vault, that a necromancer spawned & started making for the opposite end of the street.

It was then we had our first casualty..the Battle Nun falls due to a friendly fireball? Did we mention she was carrying the hammer at this point? Our sole 2 damage weapon apart from the Fireball spell.

 Trying to get past the Abomination, the Dwarf was next to fall!

We were quickly down to the Elf Archer & Mage, who surprisingly were able to prolong the adventure for quite some time before they too perished to the hordes...we had all the zombies on board & were unable to kill enough, thus they kept getting more activations on every card drawn.

 Good fun & lesson learned...do not cast fireballs into zones with group members! 

Next up was a game of Kick-Ass!

I chose to play Colonel Stars, below is his starting profile & gear (Sophia)

The heroes deploy in their starting zones. This game isn't easy! Most actions will have a negative impact on either happiness (which can lead to the hardship cards kicking in should it  lower too much, a drop in Social network Likes is also a problem. Oh & let's not forget the Ne'er-do-wells which swarm the city!

Of course there are areas the heroes can move to to perform various actions that get them gear, likes & happiness, as well as pumping up for the battles to come.  The zones once filled with the baddies, then overflow into areas adjacent, based on the yellow arrows. Should the city hall area fill, the game is over!

Which is how we lost both our games. These guys fill zones quick & are hard to manage, as we juggle getting bonuses while mopping them up!

 I then got into a Kickstarter game called Barbarians - The Invasion.

 

This game had an impressive layout, with a rondel which could rotate to provide various 'event/perks' The premise of the game is that our 4 tribes which do not engage one another, are persuing fame & vying to garner the most fame by performing various battles, etc. However one can also do well by focussing on buildings & improvements which is exactly how the winner did this game!

One thing about the game is that the colours are very dark throughout & made it a bit difficult to read some of the imagery with the light available in the venue. 

I did like the game however & would like to play it again! Perhaps next Kefcon!

I then played a game of This War of Mine. I forgot to snag a photo & the gamespace is very busy with lots of cards. Not sure this was the best place to play this game as its very intricate & having 4 people whom you've never played games with try to determine the best paths in what amounts to a 2 hour game once the basics are explained doesn't translate well. I will admit that it was my choice to NOT post a guard at the door, that led to the game ending!

Last game of the day was Dogs of War, again just the box cover & no photos of the game itself. It was fun & there was much gnashing of teeth as players screwed one another over! Fun little game, however learning how each of the Mercenary Captains work, will take some more games to grasp the nuances each brings. 

Kefcon Sunday - Started the morning off by getting into a prototype game called Calhexis which the fellow developing it brought out to playtest. In effect it seemed a bit like Civilization with having to send your workers to gather resources, & build armies to fight & hold your lands. In this battle there were 6 towers which needed to be captured to fly your flags from.

You build various military units to march about & bash one another, Swordsmen, Archers, Warriors, Catapults. As well once your structures are build you can get a Wizard & Assassin. In today's game none of us got those.

You can also snag resource & tactic cards to modify various things. These cards can be played on your own faction or others depending on them. I don't want to give away much more than that. It was a fun little game & I would play it again.

The last game of Kefcon for me was Cthulhu wars, run by my friend Craig. This time around I got the Opener of the Ways.

Game initial start, just a lot of cultists!

Cthulhu arrives! This is likely one of the fastest games of this I've played! We had 5 players & it seemed before any of had our full set of books, 1 of the players was close to ending the game. We had to have him pull back & not perform a Ritual that turn as no-one would have won (Though its possible Scott would have gotten the victory as his last book was dependant on the doom track or some such). Either way the game ended in a tie between Cthulhu & the Crawling Chaos!

So all in all, another excellent weekend of gaming. Now its time to update my blog & enjoy the season finale of Walking Dead.

Thanks for stopping by.