Frostgrave Sessions pt 3

Here is the final part in my home-brewed solo campaign of Frostgrave. Some other solo games took my attention, and as the release of Frostgrave’s official solo rules loomed, I decided to shelve mine for the time.

Final session of Frostgrave, Feb 2019.

Session Report

Due to a canceled game session, I had some time today for some solo gaming. I’ve been meaning to get this back to the table to work on the AI some more.

Game 1: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/249922/item/6652729#i…
Game 2: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/249922/item/6659093#i…

Here’s a PDF of the scenario and enemy Warband I used (with the AI everyone has been asking for): https://www.dropbox.com/s/pmeebajkfpn8b5n/Frostgrave%20Beta%…

With our newly established base, we needed supplies. A goblin witch has managed to get a farm going in the ruins, so our plan was to go in and rob them of their supplies.

The Farm

Setup
2.5’x2.5’ Board, player Warband sets up within 3” of one side. Choose one side for the Warband. Place a 12”x12” piece of flat terrain near the center of the board—this is the farm’s field. Place a handful of other buildings or ruins filling in the rest of the area. Roll on the Opposing Forces table to determine what currently holds the location. Deploy the enemies within 3” of the opposite end of the table, each enemy cannot be within 3” of more than three other enemy figures and must be no closer than 1” of another figure.
Treasure is placed as normal, but two additional special treasures are placed in the center of the field.

Special Rules
The field is treated as rough terrain.
Treasure is treated as normal, but special treasure tokens represent food supplies along with other treasures. These are worth an additional 50 experience points.

My new Warband, complete with new treasure hunter, Guntard, and our new barbarian, Rhuk. The mini for Guntard is actually one of the ones I used for the previous enemy warband.

Our opposition: 2 goblin thugs, 1 hobgoblin, 2 goblin thieves, 4 giant rats, 1 animal companion (rolled an ice toad), 1 goblin witch.
The table for adjusting enemy warbands based on level isn’t done yet, but for goblins, at my level, one thug was replaced with a hobgoblin (man-at-arms stats) and the witch has +2 health. For the hobgoblin, I recycled the orc that I used as a stand-in for the bandit boss in the last game. The little familiar with the spear is the stand-in for the ice toad.

I grabbed more stands to prop up box flaps I had previously cut off (but didn’t use last time) and re-purposed another box for additional terrain. At some point, I need to do something about covering their sides so it’s not so brown everywhere.

Here is the table all set up. Our view:

Side view:

Enemy view:

First round is uneventful. No successful casts, no ranged hits, lots of shuffling around. Round two saw some spells. Most notably, the witch fired a poison dart at my captain, dropping him to 1 action for the rest of the game since I have no healing. Ouch.

Here’s the board after the first couple rounds.

You can see two of the treasures are marked with dice. This was one of the things I wanted to improve is how the enemy goes after treasure. Once one of them targets a treasure, other members of the warband that run for treasure will pick a new one. I used small dice to mark them and gave a matching number to the figure targeting the treasure. It worked pretty well.

My wizard never quite makes into melee since I keep slowing down to cast spells. Which would be fine, but he miscast a lot of them this time, even my regular 8 cast spells. I did at least get a Telekinesis off on one of the central treasures, pulling away from enemies and behind my team. Sure saves a lot of hauling.

The first casualty is a goblin thief, picked off by my archer, Bree. The next casualty is ours, Arkamon, taken out by two goblin thugs that ganged up on him. The new guy, Rhuk, and my captain, Loka, square off against the hobgoblin. But it’s the dog that gets the kill (vicious little thing).

Here’s the killing roll: 19v1, with +4 in support bonuses, and +1 Fight from the war hound. 24 total against 12 armor and 12 health. Perfect kill.

The witch begins fumbling spells while her minions are being cleared out. The rats swarm Rhuk, but get whittled down before they pose a threat. The real threat is the ice toad. He’s slow, and very slow crawling across the field, but Bree hasn’t landed a hit on him and he’s getting closer. Almost any hit from that thing is a one-shot at triple damage. The dog goes in to try and take it out but… the dog is taken out in one bite. Now the toad is on Rhuk. I’m rather nervous. This thing could legit work its way through us if we don’t kill it. Luckily, Rhuk is rolling with +5 with the enchanted weapon and manages to kill it before it can devour us all. I tried maneuvering my other archer, Ezrin, to the high ground for better LOS (and the treasure), but it took him so long due to bad positioning on my part that there was nothing to shoot when he got there. The witch had started retreating and was no longer in LOS.

Everything else is dead, but we need to slay the witch. Bree’s shots can’t seem to land and everyone is crawling through the field. Finally, Rhuk reaches her and chops her up. The end.

The final tally.

Postgame:
Our total rewards are 650gc, Potion of Speed, Potion of Strength, Hand Weapon +1 Fight, Grimoire of Reveal Death, Scrolls: Shield, Restore Life, Reveal Invisible. No successful brew potion casts. We do find a scroll of Animate Construct in the Library in our base. I sell the potion of speed and scroll of reveal invisible, bringing the cash to 775gc, then Loka takes his cut, which is now 11% after his level up. With my previous funds, it’s time for some shopping.

Add Giant Cauldron to the base (the +1 wouldn’t have helped this time, low rolls). Bought a magic bow (+1 Shoot) for Bree. Hired a Knight and Infantryman to replace my two thugs. Remaining cash: 91gc.

For exp, I made out very well. With the exp I had left, I earn 4 levels. I upgrade health and Fight again with +1 each, then knock 1 from the casting cost of Glow and Brew Potion. When Loka leveled, he took the Coup de Grace trick.

As for the current enemies and AI, it still needs tweaking. Though I adjusted them for my new levels and warband, it didn’t quite feel even. But at the same time, the dice can always make a big difference. It’s hard to tell if the difficulty needs tweaking or if I just had good rolls (at the right time; there were plenty of bad rolls).

If anyone tries it out, let me know how it went.

This sure does take a while. Between fiddling with AI, digging for minis (and cutting them from sprues in some cases), getting out extra tokens, cutting up another box for terrain, setting it all up, playing, cleanup, postgame campaign business, and the write up (which includes tweaking the photos, uploading them), this was basically my entire day. Probably a good 5 hours or so in total? I hope you enjoyed reading all this!

Also, here was the sunset after all that.