Frost Grave, With Magnetic Force
Several weeks ago, WMTG and I hit the table for our fifth encounter in our ongoing Frost Grave campaign with a little help from pidge. The scenario was “With Magnetic Force!” It featured standard deployment but with the added rule that whenever a 19 or 20 was rolled on a spell cast, magnets would turn on or off. With the magnets on, each spell inflicted one damage on the caster, movement for figures in heavy armor was reduced by 1, ranged attacks were at a -1 penalty, and there was an experience bonus for casting spells while the magnets were active.
This was a quick game-3 turns and we were done. I’m not going to hit every element-no models were killed and there were only two rolls that impacted the game in the long run. Pidge placed WMTG’s treasure so I got access to more tokens than usual since he wasn’t trying to maximize one deployment over another. WMTG got reveal secrets off, leaving his deployment with access to 3 treasures, 3 for me, and 1 token near to the board center. I won first turn which was the first important roll. This let me use my wizard to climb a building and cast telekinesis on the central treasure, drawing it toward my deployment zone. The rest of the game saw each of us grab 3 treasures with one token on the right board edge contested by our mobile elements. Each time the magnets came on unclaimed treasure was moved in a random direction; so you would think the magnets would only come on and off a couple times right? Nope. The magnets were activated at least 5 times which seriously messed with the board state. I hammed it up a bit as WMTG seemed to always activate them at the start of my turn and Pidge seemed to get a kick out of my frustration. However, despite my protestations, the random magnet action was kind of fun as we never knew how things would play out. The game came down to one random roll in the third turn that dropped a treasure in base-to-base contact with one of my models on the board edge. I opted not to cast any spells after that just to make sure I could claim that fourth treasure without triggering another magnetic move…and that was game over.
I netted 270 experience, 150gp, 3 scrolls, a bow of +2 damage, a staff of power 1, and a grimoire of blinding light. I sold the scrolls and the staff and used my 2 upgrades to buy imbed enchantment and enchant armor. This loadout does not directly boost my in-game utility but it does give me an economic engine for enchanted items and extra gold if I sell them. I have 32gp left…so I am probably going to focus on less expensive upgrades going forward-especially since we are almost 40% of the way through the campaign. Put another way, we only have 8 more chances to lower spell costs and purchase new resources…so the payoff for picking up new spells and upgrades grows smaller with each game.
While I enjoy any kind of miniature gaming at this point, the last 2 games have been less interesting as there has not been a narrative element driving the action. At some level FG boils down to who gets the most tokens…which is fun and all but gets somewhat repetitive after a while. It is very difficult for a player to not get their 3 tokens if they build their warband well, especially since we have avoided spells like mind control which take some of the friendliness out of the experience. I am looking forward to playing again. I am really looking forward to moving into some of the more narrative parts of the folio like un to the hunt for fthe golem.
This was a quick game-3 turns and we were done. I’m not going to hit every element-no models were killed and there were only two rolls that impacted the game in the long run. Pidge placed WMTG’s treasure so I got access to more tokens than usual since he wasn’t trying to maximize one deployment over another. WMTG got reveal secrets off, leaving his deployment with access to 3 treasures, 3 for me, and 1 token near to the board center. I won first turn which was the first important roll. This let me use my wizard to climb a building and cast telekinesis on the central treasure, drawing it toward my deployment zone. The rest of the game saw each of us grab 3 treasures with one token on the right board edge contested by our mobile elements. Each time the magnets came on unclaimed treasure was moved in a random direction; so you would think the magnets would only come on and off a couple times right? Nope. The magnets were activated at least 5 times which seriously messed with the board state. I hammed it up a bit as WMTG seemed to always activate them at the start of my turn and Pidge seemed to get a kick out of my frustration. However, despite my protestations, the random magnet action was kind of fun as we never knew how things would play out. The game came down to one random roll in the third turn that dropped a treasure in base-to-base contact with one of my models on the board edge. I opted not to cast any spells after that just to make sure I could claim that fourth treasure without triggering another magnetic move…and that was game over.
I netted 270 experience, 150gp, 3 scrolls, a bow of +2 damage, a staff of power 1, and a grimoire of blinding light. I sold the scrolls and the staff and used my 2 upgrades to buy imbed enchantment and enchant armor. This loadout does not directly boost my in-game utility but it does give me an economic engine for enchanted items and extra gold if I sell them. I have 32gp left…so I am probably going to focus on less expensive upgrades going forward-especially since we are almost 40% of the way through the campaign. Put another way, we only have 8 more chances to lower spell costs and purchase new resources…so the payoff for picking up new spells and upgrades grows smaller with each game.
While I enjoy any kind of miniature gaming at this point, the last 2 games have been less interesting as there has not been a narrative element driving the action. At some level FG boils down to who gets the most tokens…which is fun and all but gets somewhat repetitive after a while. It is very difficult for a player to not get their 3 tokens if they build their warband well, especially since we have avoided spells like mind control which take some of the friendliness out of the experience. I am looking forward to playing again. I am really looking forward to moving into some of the more narrative parts of the folio like un to the hunt for fthe golem.