Trying Out Frostgrave

Hello Folks.

Got to try out a couple of games of Frostgrave over the weekend to test the game out a bit. Duncan already posted some battle reports over on his site, so I am going to be lazy and just link to that:

Frostgrave Battle Report!

So instead of doing that I will just put up some pictures and give my thoughts on the game.

My Wizard and her soldiers ready for treasure

Battle Mechanics:

The mechanics of this game are very simple, basically whenever an action happens both sides roll and opposed d20 and add some modifiers and the winner might kill the loser. It almost seems to simple for such a small game at first look, but the real game is about the Wizards. There is something like 80 spells in this game and it really revolves around this. So the idea is that the main interest comes from spell choices and I think that is ok. I have started to like simple games more and more lately as you can only remember so many games, and it makes it allot easier to just get down to playing.

The Yeti (Bear) picks his Victim!

Missions:

This is the weakest part of the game for sure, the book has a bunch of different missions included but they are all variants of the same. Get as many of 6 treasure tokens as you can off the board and don't die. Then they mix it up with teleport pads and different things to add a spice. But all the missions are basically the same. We played with the modifications limiting it to 6 turns which helped in my opinion since you had to act fast and couldn't do everything. But this also didn't leave much room for sword fights.

But due to how simple things are I am betting that we could come up with some very interesting missions our selves, perhaps borrow from the Mordheim ones and maybe change things around a bit.

The first game we played with the teleport pads was much more fun then the second, so I think the more complex and interesting you makes the missions the better things will be. You could even fit in some co-operative ones with a GM controlling some random monsters.

An archer tries to feather a Wizard

Campaign System:

The campaign system seemed fine to me, we played with the enhancements suggested by some others that have played it allot. Basically it just restricts you a bit between games so you can't just buy everything you want right away. So with that mod everyone will have different stuff and everyone will improve so that seems to be what we are looking for. Since this is a game where only the wizards matter only they can level up which may or may not become a problem for a long campaign.

Battle in the streets

Size of Game:

This is a small skirmish game with only 10 models per side. SO it is very easy to make up a little force, in fact you can probably do so with models you already own, maybe adding in a wizard or 2. So that is very good, I like playing these smaller force games since you can finish a project quickly and keep up with allot of variety. So this is kind of the perfect game for me.

Conclusion:

So as you can probably tell I am a fan of this game, it is fast small and easy. This means it's easy and cheap to get going and doesn't demand allot. Seems ideal to me as a side game, you can paly a bigger game like flames of war, and then use this to fill out the afternoon. Or come up with some wacky scenarios and play a campaign in a day. I will be looking forward to giving it another shot sometime, keep my Chronomancer advancing down the path to ever greater power!

Thanks;
Mike