I’ve been muddling around with miniature gaming stuff
lately. By muddling, I mean endlessly
thinking about it when I should be focusing on larger projects.
Saturday
WMTG and I set up for a good old game of frost grave. We’d been planning something like this for a
while and then it came together at the last minute. We opted for the first mission in the Thaw of
the lich lord campaign. He played a
summoner with leap, summon demon, reveal secrets, possess, and
telekinesis. I played an elementalist
with elemental bolt, wizard eye, strength, scatter shot, and leap. We had more stuff but it isn’t relevant to
this story. The game ended when I tabled
his warband claiming 4 treasures (3 of mine and one of his.)
I had a couple huge advantages in this game. In no particular order, the line of sight
limiting element for the scenario meant telekinesis and his ranged element were
severely hobbled. Elemental bolt smokes
unarmored starting troops and characters.
Wizard eye plus elemental bolt is way more powerful than I thought it
would be (it’s absurdly more powerful when you can use wizard eye to extend
line of sight past the scenario limits.)
Since this was game I, he hadn’t had time to raise his wizard’s fight
score which left him and the apprentice vulnerable. Finally, we haven’t been deploying treasures
before choosing table side…which means we usually end up on whichever long
board edge we belly up to at setup. That
means I don’t have to focus on 30% of his warband because they’re off the board
before I can get in range or contest.
Nothing
about that victory felt good. Oh, frost
grave is a great game. WMTG is a great
opponent. I had fun…but I did not enjoy the
technical aspects. My goal going into
this campaign was to skip the random utility and engine building I tend to
default towards. I noticed in our last
campaign (hunt for the golem and sells word) that I was relying on my marksmen
to apply board pressure but that by relying on 2 warband members to aid my
wizard (who cast bone dart a lot) I had a 66% chance of the NPCs stealing the
kills and bonus experience. Also, they
sat there on elevated terrain raining death from above but didn’t actually help
me take objectives. I found myself
looking at spells like enchant weapon and imbed enchantment to build a janky
resource engine while WMTG jumped on absorb knowledge and reveal secrets. This time I wanted to skip the intermediates
and go right to the bloody work. It felt
weird going in without a bunch of if-this, then that, utility spells but it
turns out I didn’t need them. WMTG had a
round of honestly bad luck—His wizard critically failed his summon demon roll
putting him in combat at the worst time.
His apprentice lost a couple rolls putting him at 1hp in front of my
wizard eye but most of the game came down to me having a toolbox that was
Taylor made to exploit my opponent’s unleveled characters and the scenario’s
particular restrictions.
All of that might have been fine but then I rolled up mind
control as a spell from my only grimoire drop.
Ever get a reward that you really want but you know is going to suck all
the joy out of your life? Well that’s
how I feel about mind control. It’s a
feel-bad spell and not just because I lost my wizard to my own mind-controlled
knight in our LGS’s league during the finals a couple years ago (no, I’m not
over it.) Mind control lets you steal
your opponent’s scoring models especially easily when combined with wizard eye
on a 2-player game. WMTG might have
handled it well but I would have felt guilty.
That moment has forced me to look back at what I actually
want out of mini gaming as opposed to just playing anything available. With covid I miss people and want to spend
any time I can justify with friends and family.
If you give me a shot at gaming on top of that…well I’m in. The problem is that I don’t want the same
things I used to savor from 1-1 wargaming.
We game so rarely that a bad taste from poor rules or a blow out feels
way worse than it used to. I’m not in a
tournament any more so nobody is paying for the right to have me try and kick
their metaphorical teeth in. I want to play
my figures, have a drink, and generally let fortune send her slings and arrows
where she wills. I also want my opponent
to enjoy the experience such that both of us are champing at the bit for the
next game. I want a certain amount of
book keeping and upkeep. You can call it
army building, character creation, or crunchiness but I like having choices
during and after games. So, what to do?
It turns
out that frost grave’s author wrote a cooperative campaign game called rangers
of shadow deep with a recent deluxe version.
I read a couple reviews, WMTG was down, and that’s our next
project. It has a lot of things I love
between narrative development and actual character building. This lets me bring out my 3d printed frog
folk villager models I kick started recently.
So, here’s my first ROSD ranger and companions:
Sir Selver, knight of the realm
Move 7/6 (+1bp), Fight 3 (+1bp), Shoot 1, Armor 10/12, Will
+5 (+1bp), and Health 18.
Heroic abilities:
DISTRACTION
The ranger may use this ability whenever an evil creature is
called upon to make either a random move or a move towards the Target Point.
The player may instead move this creature anywhere he wishes following the
standard rules for movement, provided this move does not cause the creature
direct harm or force it to make Swimming Rolls (i.e. no walking off a cliff, or
moving into fire or deep water).
FOCUS
The ranger may add +8 to any one Skill Roll. He must declare he is using this ability
before he rolls.
Spells:
AMPHIBIOUS
The target of this spell automatically passes all Swimming
Rolls for the rest of the scenario.
STRENGTH
The target of this spell does +1 damage in hand-to-hand
combat for the rest of the scenario. In addition, it receives +5 to any
Strength Skill Rolls it makes.
TELEPORT
The caster may immediately move up to 9” in any direction,
including up. This may not take the figure off the table. The figure may take
no actions for the rest of the turn after casting this spell.
Skills (2bp):
Acrobatics +2, ancient lore +0, armory +2, climb +0,
leadership +2, navigation +2, perception +2, pick lock +0, read runes +0,
stealth +2, strength +0, survival +2, swim +0, track +2, traps +0
Base Recruitment points 100
Equipment: heavy armor, two-handed weapon, rope, and spell
book.
Companions (3 max for 2-player game)
Gorf the arcanist +3 Swim
Forg the rogue +3 Swim
Crunchy the bloodhound/stag beetle
I toyed with making a paladin build with all the holy spells
but It seemed rather niche. Instead I
chose to play on the frog theme with his spells and abilities while focusing on
personal combat and survivability. His
companions cover skills he doesn’t have and can act as backup combatants.
This will probably all blow up in my face but such is gaming😉
