Friday, March 8, 2019

Starting the Frost Grave Folio, The hunt for the golem


              There are some games that pull you in like a good B movie.  You know they aren’t polished gold but you just can’t help coming back for more.  That’s frost grave—reasonably well written—simple enough to play quickly—and a resource management mechanic which gets me every time.  A couple days ago WMTG and I kicked off our inaugural 2019 gaming season with a fresh new campaign working through the 15 adventures in the frost grave folio.

              Building starting warbands is its own minigame.  I agonize over how to spend my cash, what spells to pick, whether I want to focus on meta mechanics, and how to put my own spin on things.  I feel a compulsion to try something new with every warband just so I can feel like each iteration is unique unto itself.  This time I went for a less physically aggressive witch build focusing on board control.  My starting lineup was an apprentice and wizard with staves and the following spell list:
              POISON DART, FOG, ANIMAL COMPANION, TELEKINESIS, LEAP, BONE DART, BEAUTY, and HEAL
This gave me a variety of ways to control the board, mess with movement, block line of sight, and get out of sticky situations.  I learned last campaign that wizards always want a cheap magical ranged attack to pick off opposing warband members hence bone dart.  I’ve learned to pick spells with reasonable casting requirements (preferably 10 or less) because the higher the target number the more health you are going to spend to bring the noise on average.  I wanted to keep my spell casters out of combat so I focused my resources on boosting my warband.  My starting roster was 2 thugs, 2 thieves, 2 war dogs, a marksman, and an apothecary.  Apothecaries are essentially a free healing potion every game which means they pay for themselves in 2 deployments.  I like having that potion around in case I have to empower a spell early on.  I love marksmen.  Pop them up on a building or covering key territory and they don’t have to move.  They have an outstanding ranged presence on a body with excellent defensive stats.  This means they are pretty hard to kill while projecting threat.  The dogs are just place holders till I get my animal companion spells off.  The thugs are warm bodies for combat and blocking.  The thieves are for grabbing treasure.

Game 1 of the hunt for the golem—the attack sight:
              The board was pretty standard with a huge central tower and random ruins evenly covering the rest of the table.  WMTG did 3d printing magic to create a wonderful selection of home-grown terrain which always makes me feel smug even though I didn’t do anything to put it there.  We placed 5 tokens each which when revealed could become up to 6 treasure, 1 survivor, 1 golem notes, and 2 zombies (randomly rolled upon an attempt to pick them up.)

              This game when very quickly.  I got off one of my animal companion spells netting me a bear replacing one of the war dogs.  WMTG got an initial hot run grabbing 3 treasure and the golem notes.  However, I was able to bully the board with my larger warband and managed to take out 2 soldiers while resuscitating the survivor and grabbing the three remaining treasures.  One of WMTG’s infantrymen killed a thug which was totally acceptable all things considered.  I ended up with the golem notes and command of the board for a total of 280exp and 3 treasure.  That netted me 250gp and grimoires of time walk, planes walk, and undead control (none of which I particularly wanted.)  I took an inn as my base and spent my 2 level upgrades on fight and HP.  I spent all my gold on 3 treasure hunters and a discounted thug for 10gp due to rescuing the survivor.  That left me with a warband built from 1 bear, 3 treasure hunters, a marksman, an apothecary, 2 thugs, and a war dog.

Game 2 of the hunt for the golem—Field Research:
              WMTG picked up absorb knowledge and a laboratory base which left me a little concerned.  That plus reveal secrets was a strong economic engine.  The opposing ground game featured shield to armor casters and a couple 2-handed weapon users.  Teleport gave good reach.  It’s easy to look at my warband and my offensive capacity and think I had the upper hand but I think WMTG was well-placed to outpace my wizard if I wasn’t careful—especially since many of those spells were designed to take out my models for a turn or 2 like petrify.  We both glommed on to the value of +2 damage weapons which means the game is a lot more lethal than it has been previously.  That means I have to think about which models I want to throw out as blockers because one infantryman assisted strike can put my troops down.  It means I’m having to team up more often which leaves me covering less ground than I’d like.
              This board featured a central square with a “Golem” represented by Lego Thanos for the fucking win.  The terrain did not offer many chances for elevation or heavy line of sight blocks.  In addition to the normal treasure, we had goals to hit the golem with a non-damaging spell, get our wizard close, engage it in combat, and get one of our soldiers close to it—all without killing the golem.  If the golem died, we got no experience and the mini adventure ended.
              I started off by successfully bringing in my apprentice’s animal companion (another bear.)  This game went off the rails right from the beginning.  By turn 2 my marksman managed to 1-shot WMTG’s apprentice because crossbow.  We were throwing random models all over the board in an attempt to draw the golem’s attention to less valuable (i.e. easily replaced) models while key pieces grabbed treasure and got the extra mission experience.  Thanos got pushed toward me while I blocked line of sight using fog.  I managed to hit Thanos with poison dart seriously limiting his output.
              The game ended with WMTG leaving the field after getting half the treasure and both of us earning all the bonuses.  I ended up with 250 experience which gave me 3 more levels.  The treasure rolls netted me 260gp, grimoires of invisibility and crumble, and a bow of +2 damage.  I spent 5gp to upgrade my base with carrier pigeons so that all my future soldiers cost 1gp less.  I spent 99gp on a second marksman and another 99gp on a ranger so I could do something with the magic bow—leaving me with 57unspent gold.  I upgraded fight and health again and spent my final upgrade to reduce bone dart’s casting cost to 9.  This left me with 9 soldiers comprising 2 marksmen, 1 ranger, 1 apothecary, 3 treasure hunters, and 2 animal companions.

Post session thoughts:
1.       It took a bit of work to get back into the swing of things.  WMTG had to gently prompt me a couple times because I’ve played so many miniature wargames at this point that turn order and certain rules get crossed in my head.  That being said, it amazes me how clean this rule set is and how most often a misunderstanding is due to my own error and nothing on the designer’s part.  The strategic and tactical elements combine in subtle ways to make the game self-balancing in interesting ways.
2.       This session proved to me that where possible I’m going to use the google assistant to roll my dice.  At first, I felt bad because I wasn’t using my braille dice but more and more, I like the energy surrounding a role that both of us learn about at the same time in the same way.  It feels honest and freeing in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time what with having other people read my dice for years.  Also, Google’s luck is way better than mine and it makes the die rolling noise.
3.       I find it interesting that both of our first moves were to pimp our warbands to the highest level.  When I started my first campaign my driving instinct was to pump up my wizard with magic gear.  Now I’d rather just have competent help that lets me address problems in different ways.  I’m only on game 2 and I’ve already maxed out all my warband slots with top-flight minions.  I feel like I powered up because buying crap for squishy characters doesn’t actually help sometimes because you’re just making them a bigger target.
4.       I enjoy the way scenario requirements make competition challenging and different every time.  Wizards who focus too much on a single mechanic or spell will find themselves in trouble sooner rather than later.  I feel like this game lets WMTG and I put our decades of gaming experience to use solving complex strategic problems as our initiative ebbs and flows separate from our board control.  It gives the experience a spice that is lacking in some legacy games like blood bowl—especially as the season gets on towards the end.
5.       There is a pacing to scenario play that I have only recently come to appreciate.  The game ends when someone doesn’t have any more models on the board or all the treasure has been moved off a board edge.  This means that while I have a better ranged game, WMTG actually controls my window of opportunity.  Since 2 of my soldiers can’t carry treasure, I have to mix it up quickly if I want to keep even.  Although we didn’t do it this time, I am going to suggest we try the random monster rules after the third and final mission of this pack.  I want to see if it changes how we approach our deployment and strategy.
6.       I need to read the rules—again—paying attention this time.  The excellent rum is no excuse.
7.       I really really love being able to use random miniatures.  This time I went with a plastic bag full of pre-painted minis from magic the gathering the board game and its expansion.  It is so nice not to have to glue my guys back together again or worry if one falls off a building.  My wizard and apprentice even have little spells coming off their hands.

The next game is slotted for early on March 16th.  My dream is to finish the last game of this pack and finish the next pack for 4 games total but road to hell and all that…Frost grave scratches lots of itches—the need for a stimulating competitive game—my love of resource management—my love of story gaming—but best of all it’s a judgement-free place to talk, drink, and renew a friendship I wish I had more time to enjoy.  At 42, I know my time miniature gaming won’t last for ever but while it lasts, I’m loving having the disposable income, friends, and opportunity to make the most of this excellent product.