Tournament Report – Frostgrave Campaign Day: Hunt for the Golem (Lords Of War 2016 Summer Tournament)

I finally finished painting up my Frostgrave Cultists and got in my first game of Frostgrave. Just like the first time that I played X-Wing, my first game of Frostgrave happened at a Tournament. For me, playing Frostgrave in a tournament setting is a bit of an odd thing because it seems more like a casual “beer and pretzels” sort of game. I believe the tournament organizers feel the same way and for that reason referred to the event as a Campaign Day. I am really happy that they held the Campaign day and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The campaign that we played through was the one in Hunt for the Golem. My Warband contained a Necromancer as its Wizard and also employed a Captain throughout the entire game.

In the final battle with the Golem, even my Wizard piled in for Close Combat. This is not a place most people would want their Wizard in a game of Frostgrave.

I was very impressed with the Lords of War Tournament Day. One thing that is really cool, is just the number of games that they had running at the Tournament. On day one, the organizers ran Age of Sigmar, Infinity and Guild Ball. On day two, they ran Horus Heresy, Malifaux and Frostgrave. I was there only on day two because I went for Frostgave.

At my usual gaming location, Forbes Hobbies in Cambridge (Ontario, Canada), I am used to a large amount of Terrain. Normally I play Flames of War, Bolt Action and other games that require lots of terrain. When I arrived to the tournament my jaw dropped because I saw the following tables…

As soon as I saw this table, I knew I was in trouble. Many reviews for Frostgrave already complain that shooty characters are too powerful. On this table, there is no where to hide. That said, more trees were added to this table before the games started, but it was still pretty sparse compared to how I usually play.

I thought, okay this doesn’t look like Frostgrave, but maybe the store is going with what they have and that they don’t have much for Frostgrave yet. Regardless, I wasn’t going to let that to deter me from having a great time.

This was one of the heavier tables for Terrain and I found myself wondering if I can enter the houses and use them for cover as I do in Bolt Action. I was worried that the games would too short due to a lack of terrain.

Soon, my fears were answered. I had arrived to the tournament early and after some time, I was relieved to see them setting up the following two tables. This is more like the tables on which I am used to playing. I was ecstatic to see tables denser in terrain. It turns out that the tables I was looking at earlier were for Malifaux.

This is more like it.

And the second table had scenery similar to the first.

My opponent for the campaign was Jordan. He brought a Chronomancer who really liked to cast elemental spells. His Warband was painted by Ash of Guerrilla Miniature Games. The two things that I found most enjoyable about Frostgrave today were the stories that developed as we played and leveling up the Wizards between games.

A picture of my opponent’s Wizard.

In my first round, this bear (proxy-ing as a War Hound) engaged three of my Warband simultaneously and won most of the engagements. How well this dog did was quite embarrassing to my Captain and her chosen comrades.

Although I won my first and second games, my Captain ended up going down below 0 health both times with just a single kill. She was not proving her worth. Nevertheless, I kept her around.

My Captain did not shine until her third game. She had Sprint and Furious Attack as her skills.

Before the match, I thought that my main spell would be Bone Dart. It was not. Instead, I found myself casting Fog a great deal to block line-of-sight. In game, this is a great spell and kept most of my Warband safe throughout the campaign.

Using Fog, I was able to shield my side of the board while my quick moving soldiers searched bodies, found treasure and carried that treasure off of the board. My opponent found both Zombies amongst the bodies and attracted some of the random monsters too. Due to heavy use of fog, I was able to get most of my guys and most of the treasure off of the board safely.

For the second game, I set up as follows…

A Templar and a Marksman deployed to the far side to take advantage of some terrain further up the board.

My Apprentice deployed with a Zombie and an Infantry Man near the centre.

My Wizard, Small Construct and a Ranger took the other flank.

And my Captain teamed up with my two Thieves.

The Thieves, Construct and Zombie all captured treasure and took it off the board. Fog was advantageous again, but my opponent discovered Mind Control and started to turn my own soldiers against me. This was super deadly and one of my opponents top soldiers was actually my Marksman.

This guy here was guilty of “one-shotting” one of his alleys after having his mind controlled by the enemy. It was a Natural 20. We played with the Critical Hit rules, so a 20 will kill pretty much anyone.

In the same round, this crossbowman also “one-shotted” one of my soldiers with a Natural 20.

To take out the crossbowman that “one-shotted” my guy, my Captain rushed up a ramp to get close to hand-to-hand combat. Before her next turn, she was “one-shotted” by an Elemental spell from the enemy Wizard.

The Golem from the Campaign.

In the next game, the Golem would not help my side out so much. In fact, I ended up in combat with the Golem very quickly and had to rush the Wizard into hand-to-hand combat in order to save the other two soldiers. The Templar died, but the Ranger was saved and my Wizard managed to kill the Golem with his two weapons. Throughout the campaign, I had been upgrading my Wizard’s fight skill so by this point he was a +5 (includes modification from two weapons) in combat.

My Necromancer took out the Golem in two rounds of hand-to-hand combat.

My opponent won this match as my guys were badly wounded from the battle with the Golem and I had to flee my Wizard off the board to prevent an easy kill. My Captain stuck around and was able to take out the enemy’s apprentice.

I had a great time at this event and would like to thank the organizers for running the event. Below is a picture of the swag that they gave for attending and under that is a picture of my award for bringing the “Best Performing Warband” to the event.

Free Swag for Attending!!!

I won first place!  🙂

Below are a few more pictures of the miniatures that I brought to the event.

I used these little guys as my treasure markers. The big stone in the background can be a piece of scatter terrain or a large treasure token, but it didn’t hit the table during play today. All of the miniatures in this group are from Reaper.

A close up of the little guys carrying away their magical shards of rock.

A closer look at one of the guys. He turned out great!

My “Random Monster Zombie.” The sculpt is by Mantic Games and he looks great!

A look of the Zombie from the Front. I am pleased with my work painting him.

This figure is by RAFM and would represent the Spell Effect for the Beauty spell. I took a different spell from the Illusionary school of magic, so this figure never came into play.

Finally, below is a picture of my entire Warband for the tournament. There are a large number of figures because I brought many options to use between games. A typical Frostgrave game will have 10 figures to each side. My Wizard finished the campaign at level 7.

I hope that you enjoyed my post. For posts coming up, I plan to do a post of my thoughts of Frostgrave as a review and then I will likely be switching over to Bolt Action for a while.