Trying Out Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago

The board -- which feature my temples and Jeff's plants, along with Steve's Saga Dark Ages figs

I had been seeing lots of posts on the Lead Adventure Forum, as well as on Facebook, about the Frostgrave rules. From what I could gather, it was a set of fantasy skirmish rules with a strong campaign and a bit of role-playing element. Each player controlled a wizard and his band of hirelings searching for magical treasures in a frozen city. It sounded interesting, and I had been wanting to try the rules out to see if the game was fun.

My Heritor in the bear-skin cloak, leads some of his followers towards the temple ring in the distance

So, when Steve P invited me over to his house to play a game, I jumped at the chance. Steve had played in my Beaver Wars playtest, and I had known his friend Jeff for a long time. When he emailed requesting we bring jungle terrain and dinosaurs and other assorted, appropriate monsters, I scratched my head a bit. I thought that, well, maybe he doesn't have any winter or ice terrain and was going to set it in a jungle. When I arrived, I discovered that there is a spin-off edition called Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago, and that was what he was running.

Jeff and Steve spent much of the game attacking each other, which made things easier on my group

I expected Steve to have our wizard and bands of hired fighters chosen up beforehand. He didn't, though, saying he wanted us to experience that aspect of the game, too -- choosing your wizard's band. It also turned out that the game itself has changed in this edition. Your leader is called a Heritor (not a wizard), and has developed innate abilities. We could choose any 5 abilities from a list of 40. So, no longer does your leader choose one of the 10 schools of magic as in the original Frostgrave rules. Everyone also has a Warden -- the equivalent, I guess -- of the Apprentices in the original. However, I found my Warden to be every bit as tough as my Heritor. With these, you do have to choose from among five types of Wardens. You select 3 spells from that type, and any one from another type's list. I chose a Beastmaster, of sorts.

Two archers of my force, guarded by an infatntryman, line up shots against the enemy in the distance

Next, you finish out your force of 10 figures by purchasing 8 fighters to round out your band. You get 250 gold pieces to hire them. I choose 3 archers, 2 infantrymen, and rounded out my force with 3 "free" standard fighters. I did not pick any of the more expensive types, such as Hunters or Guides, wanting to minimize the learning curve.

The central ring of raptor eggs quickly became a hotbed of action

Steve had selected a scenario from the book where we blunder upon a circle of dinosaur eggs. We placed the 6 treasures -- half of which had to be within the ring of dino eggs. Every turn, there was a 25% chance 3 of the eggs would open up, releasing baby T-Rexes (raptors, in this game). We entered from three of the board edges and quickly advanced towards the middle of the board where the eggs were. I split my force up to go around a small temple in front of my force. I immediately used my Heritor to "Wraith Walk" through the back wall and inside where he picked up the first treasure of the game. Jeff and Steve's forces began exchanging bowfire quickly, and began to draw blood.

My Beastmaster Warden took control of the raptors mentally, and sent them after Jeff's force, where they began to chew up his hirelings

I caught on quickly with how combat worked. Each player essentially adds the roll of a  d20 to their Fighting bonus, along with some tactical factors. Shooters add their shooting bonus, with the targets adding for cover. This opposed die roll mechanic becomes deadly when you consider you are using d20s. A swing of opposed rolls of 20 vs. 1 is probably going to kill all but the Helitor and Warden, who will be grievously wounded. This is mitigated by the fact that most characters have an armor rating of 10-12 or so, which is then subtracted from the winners total roll in the opposed die roll. Nothing happens to the winner -- only the loser takes damage.

Two more of my hirelings investigate a brick temple for treasure

When the first raptor eggs began hatching, I used my Beastmaster Warden to take control of the vicious saurians and move them into contact with Jeff and Steve's figures. Earlier, I'd summoned an animal, but rolled only a Mountain Goat. Since none of us had brought goat figures, I pulled out a Komodo Dragon figure, who bravely pranced into battle alongside my hirelings. When raptors hatched next to my figures and things began to look grim, the goat/dragon charged into them, and over the course of several turns, killed both raptors menacing my figures. Go, go goats!

The dice eventually fell against me, and two more raptors woke up next to my troops. The Komodo dragon bravely charged and killed one, then followed up on the other

In addition to snatching the first treasure token, I did fairly well in picking up other ones. I even snatched the Major Treasure token from the middle of the Dino Egg circle and was able to get it to my side. When we called the game, my force had four of the six tokens under control or off our board edge. It was a smashing victory for my guys. Having never played the game before, I do not claim to be a savant or anything. I know I had very fortunate die rolls at times, and Steve and Jeff attacked each other mercilessly. Whether it was my use of cover or their blood-grudges against each other, my troops took little fire or attacks from my enemies.

The chaos of the late game phase of the battle

All in all, I like the game and think it will make a nice addition to our regular Sunday night gaming. However, I think 10 figures per side will simply be too much for a game involved six-plus players. I read up on it some, but likely whittle down the forces. Speaking of which, I was thinking that this could be a place I could use my individually-based, Splintered Light Miniatures anthropomorphic animals. They're pretty much 20mm, and fit with the whole forest-jungle world. I could call it "Furgrave," for the heck of it!  They have wizard figures and a big variety of fighters. I already have a number of factions painted up (savage jungle rats, frog-men, giant bears and wolverines, and more).  I was excited enough by the idea to go out and buy the rulebook at a local gamestore that same evening. So, look for me to be painting and posting pictures of more Splinted Light animales I'm painting!