Back To Frostgrave

We played a four-plyer game of Frostgrave yesterday, using our Diet Frostgrave rules. These are designed to give a quicker game with four players: each warband is limited to a wizard and an apprentice and four soldiers, and there are only two phases to a player turn - Wizard Phase and Everyone Else. I think the GP costings of the warband are reduced as well but I've not read the rules so I'm not sure exactly what the changes are there. 

Anyway, Ed set up a lovely section of city for us to explore. There were four items of treasure up for grabs, and wizards and apprentices could gain wisdom by drinking from the fountain in the centre of the board as well. Drinking was OK. Falling in wasn't. Falling in was Very Bad. 

I ran a similar warband to my first game last year. I had an illusionist, Fabulina, with her new apprentice (the previous one died), an archer and a couple of kobold thieves. Instead of an armoured swordsman I opted for a barbarian. Here's Fabulina.

And here she is with the barbarian and one of the thieves wandering through the city. 

I'm not sure what Ed was using but his group covered their flanks with magically generated walls. 

My apprentice and the archer took up positions atop a building (left), whilst Fabulina and the barbarian headed for the fountain. A kobold thief had already grabbed a treasure chest and was dragging it back to the start line. 

When you grab treasure in Frostgrave it can cause wandering monsters to appear. They appear randomly, which is why a ghoul popped up right on my kobold's escape route.

Fabulina cast her trademark Transpose spell, swapping the positions of the ghoul and the kobold. THis allowed the barbarian to charge in.

The ghoul killed the barbarian, leaving Fabulina in close proximity to an angry ghoul. 

However Caesar had an archer on a nearby building so a quick transpose put Fabulina on the building and the archer in the path of the ghoul. 

However the swift archer ran off, and the nearest treat the ghoul could see was my apprentice atop a building. An apprentice who was very surprised to see a ghoul clamber over the edge and attack him. 

So another transpose swapped the archer with the apprentice. 

The archer killed the ghoul. 

Meanwhile my kobold had got the treasure off the table. 

At this stage I decided that it was unlikely that I was going to get a drink from the fountain, since there were a lot of people around it intent on killing each other and anyone else who appeared. However Fabulina did magically push one of Caesar's soldiers into the fountain. A well that is clearly marked 'Do Not Fall Into This Fountain As Exposure Will Cause Weird Magical Death'. The soldier suffered the advertised Weird Magical Death. 

Anyway, things wound down after that, and the survivors of each warband headed home. A few peripheral incidents though ...

My archer lost his bow to a decay spell. So he headed across the rooftops towards Ed's archer intent on taking his bow. He won it after a brutal knife-fight atop a rickety ladder. 

Ed's warband was seriously mauled by a wild dog that turned up close by. 

And my apprentice sneaked back for a quick drink from the fountain and was shot in the back by Caesar's much transposed archer. 

Anyway it appears that future games are going to be part of a linked campaign, so we tested for all kinds of post-game stuff. I got a decent experience total from casting spells, but missed out of the big points from the fountain. I picked up a few coins from the treasure and some robes that will protect someone from arrows. So that was nice. It also turns out that my dead barbarian and dead apprentice were just mostly dead, and a quick miracle sorted them out ready for the next adventure. 

Everyone else got money and nice toys as well.