Frostgrave AAR: Dark Alchemy mini campaign 3: The spreading flames

 

 Racing through the burning and collapsing factory the two warbands notice movement down an adjacent wing.....and the glint of arcane treasures. 

The 3rd game in our (mostly) cooperative campaign has the crews on a time limit to get in, grab what they can, and get out before the complex is finally consumed/explodes. 

 

 Notably, within this wing are some automatons, whose purpose somehow involves flaming nearby objects with arcane heat. 

I loved the artwork from the book, and apparantly someone with real skills did as well because I was able to find an stl of a flame flinger and print out a couple for the game. A pretty basic copper paint job went on them. I'll probably return to it one day and add some additional colour and basing.

 A pictorial essay of the game to follow...

 

 

Frostgrave AAR: Dark Alchemy mini campaign 2: Skeletal Run

 Part two of our Dark Alchemy campaign sees the two warbands working together to escape the Alchemical Factory. It's been established that a fire has started which is driving the warbands, and various wandering monsters, out. This second adventure sees the warbands needing to traverse a wide area infested with undead.....who are strangely on fire. Is this some sort of petrochemical greek fire concoction fueled by magic to burn eternally? I'm sure our wizards would love to know!

Cleverly Garret matched the tower we escaped into last game as the starting location for this one.

 The two wizards cast their appraising eye over the terrain and spy the exit. The greedy nature of wizards in general see our natural antagonism develop as we start trying to sneak the treasures that 'ought' to belong to one another away from them.

 

 

 The exit resides between the two statues. Largely this is a pictorial essay with brief notes after this. Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Red Skies AAR: First impressions

The elusive Doug in his element

Back in late February when the powers of darkness were still ascendant (hail to the spring!) Doug came over for a gaming weekend. Friday night we went over to Garrets house for some beer and pretzels gaming and to try out Blood Red Skies, by Warlord Games. In a shameful display of winter hibernation I'm only getting this pictures up to the blog now. Oh well.....

We started with Doug and I getting an orientation game with Garret counseling us.  3 vs 3 planes (Germans vs Americans I believe). The rules are simple enough to make sense within two or three turns. The end of the mission typically comes from loss of nerve/confidence/morale rather than shooting down all the fighters. This is a good thing as lots of games of swoopy planes can DRAGGGGGG. Morale is lost everytime the enemy gets a good line on you and manages to fire on you. The shooting resolution is via fists full of dice and looking for fairly high numbers (I think successes are on a 6). The early war planes have much lower offensive dice pools so it's actually pretty hard to splash your opponent.

The bases are pretty clever with a tilt built into the stem. Nose up is advantage, level is neutral, and down is disadvantage. Pilot skill tells you who moves first, followed by (dis)advantage, and then finally actual airplane max speed. It rarely gets to that point. 

As actions you can choose to gain advantage, maneuver (which tries to force your enemy within a certain range 'down' in advantage), or shoot. You can only shoot someone with less advantage than you. You can only take out a plane that is disadvantaged (I think otherwise it's forced lower still). So you end up with team work to hit the enemy by 'maneurvering' to lower it's advantage rating, and then a wingman to clean him up. I think this is the only mildly jarring aspect of the game to me: it makes sense for your high skill pilots to maneuver the enemy down, and then the lower skill (moving later) pilots to shoot them down. Who knows, maybe this is actually how it happens but it seems a bit odd. In terms of game mechanics though it works very very smoothly. 

Next up we fought a three way melee. Japanese vs British vs Russians. Another nice touch is upon the start of the game you make a skill roll for each pilot which dictates what advantage level they start at. You will notice my green plans in the bottom right are all disadvantaged.....the Red airforce believe in training by doing!

We all elected to hold some planes as 'high cover'. I think this is scenario dependent, but basically they can show up on the board edge within a certain distance of marker on whatever turn. If they don't show up you can move the marker along the edge a certain distance. It's like aerial flankers!

Happily I brought in my high cover, who happened to be the highest skill planes, very early. And very very right behind the British. Garret knows the game; it's best to thin our his planes early.

Clouds are very interesting as when you enter them your advantage goes neutral immediately. So they are a safe harbor for planes in trouble, but neutralize your advantage if you are doing well. 

Coming out of the cloud you have a choice to gain advantage, maneuver or shoot (like normal). This means that planes in advantage are pretty safe from things emerging from the clouds.

 The number of markers are very modest. It's important to mark who has and hasn't gone though. With so many planes, that change advantage, it's pretty easy to lose track of who has gone (we had a few times where we noted a plane we missed.....nothing that would have changed much). 

Firing ranges are fairly short, so despite playing on a 3x3 table with a lot of planes the opportunity for fire wasn't overwhelming (lots of planes aren't legal targets as they are at the same or higher advantage). By far maneuvering and gaining advantage are the most common actions taken.

 

 Planes have some character to them, with differences in offense/defense and, more notably, special abilities. These abilities give you some cards you can play to do a bit extra. Lose advantage to move extra far. Similarly, the aces (rare as they are) come with a special ability which is much more powerful. One of them could use maneuver AND shoot in a turn. Nasty bit of work that could solo enemies on his/her own (Russians had female pilots anyway).

 

As the enemy gains numbers on you there is a bit of a snowball effect. But skill is quite important. Since you move and do actions it makes sense to move first, and the first movers can often make their opponents lose the advantage they need to take their shots.

Overall I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed the game. While I don't know that I'd select it as a primary choice for a game night, it makes for quick games: so on a short night, or while killing time for the main event it seems like a great option.

Frostgrave AAR: Dark alchemy mini campaign game 1 - Alchemical Monstrosity

 

Local gamer Garret managed to inspire me to complete painting a small warband for frostgrave in a timely fashion. Mainly he did this by texting me videos of him filling in a pie chart showing his own progress. In December we were ready to start playing. We have chosen an introductory campaign, Dark Alchemy, found in the Frostgrave folio.The notable changes are that it's cooperative, there is no downtime phase between games, and it's easier to carry chests. 

Garrets well painted set of (ordered) 3d prints certainly looks the part for a fantasy post apocalypse city. 

His warband is led by a Sigilist mage. My own (on the right) is more of a druidic tradition which seems to map to 'witch' in the game. 1st mission we can bring but 2 helpers with our mage or apprentice. Why wouldn't you bring you wizard? I'm not sure.....maybe story only. Or hard mode.

 

In the background we can see the other star of the game.......an alchemical monstrosity. The alchemical factory we were exploring collapses and catches on fire. We must move quickly and help each other to escape. In hindsight the monster should have been more like chaos spawn/john carpenters 'the thing'/protoplasm and tentacles. Oh well. 

Dougfest 2022 - Zeitlessheim (pt4) Conclusion

The battle for Zeitlessheim (Bleinheim in disguise) has reached a climax. Across the entire front both sides commands are making morale checks to remain in action. Already numerous 'hold' results have stymied assault plans, and even some 'fallbacks' have complicated matters on both side. 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

To the Left the Prussians have depleted the Italians who are left covering in the villages and staging a flagging attempt to stop the lancers from seizing their supply line of communication (bottom left near the tents). 

In the centre the French and Italians massive struggle to break the British has been delayed when the British, fortuitously in this case, suffer a withdrawal result and recoil. The extra space relieves the pressure while the British allies attempt to crack the Franco-Italian wings. 

Top Right the Saxons pulled pressure off the British for much of the day as a force in being. Finally their counter attack has pushed the French to the edge....at the cost of the same for the Saxons. With all armies exhausted there's more space for the few effective formations to move about and try and create rational lines. 

Dougfest 2022 - Zeitlessheim (pt3) Struggle for Centre

Yikes, how overdue is this? I'll tell you.....I started the draft in early September. 

How is my recollection? Not good enough. 

 Update: Links to previous battles! part 1, part 2

Centre field (and right flank) we have the French under the command of Seth facing off against the Saxons (upper right corner) and the Brits (centre upper). The Franco-Italian brain trust decided to try and crush the British and force a withdrawal before we were driven from our victory sites (the various towns). 

Seth chose to hold the town on his right flank heavily, which sufficiently deterred the Saxon command that they did very little for most of the game. It later came out that Peter (commander of the Saxons) felt the town fight was a pointless meatgrinder and merely screened it. This would cause challenges for the French to persecute an attack with a strong fresh flanking force hovering menacingly.

 

Dougfest 2022 - Zeitlessheim (pt2) Left flank

 On the Franco-Bavarian left flank the Prussians had finally finished eating up the space from the refused flank. Whilst the French were focussing on breaking the British in the centre it would remain a question could the Bavarians hold the line against the Prussians now in firm contact with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 Contact was initiated with the lancers duelling it out in front of infantry in square (technically in front because all sides of a square are the front, right? right?!).

Tied combat results are usually highly undesired as both sides lose 2 pips immediately and are locked in place. In our case the units were depleted by artillery fire and vaporized in an orgy of charges and counter charges and horses dragging dead riders off the field.

 Another cavalry unit was dutifully fed into the grinder by the Bavarians, wiggling through the narrow gap between the village and the squared infantry. 

Meanwhile near the creek the Prussians were screening the Bavarian infantry square. This allowed them to advance cavalry to face the thin Bavarian cavalry screen that had the Prussian foot stuck on the banks of the creek. Shortly all hell would break out for the clueless Bavarian commander whose mental focus was elsewhere.

Steady progress by the Prussians depletes another unit of Bavarian cavalry. The Bavarian commander (me!) was starting to feel exceedingly uncomfortable about the risks developing to my line of communications. 

In the centre the British were starting to make morale checks but were passing them with solid die rolls. The Bavarian morale was starting to get a touch brittle so I could no longer recklessly feed troops to delay the Prussians. 

Looking closely at the troops near the stream you can see (I think I missed seeing it at the time) that the Prussians have set up a long cavalry move to 'close the door' (i.e. flank) my defending cavalry. Not that I had much option, no space backward, infantry in square to the front, and infantry across the stream just waiting to advance given the opportunity.

The door closes and, astonishingly, infantry move across the creek and into contact with the depleted cavalry. Another Bavarian unit disappears and now morale checks now have the possibility of the entire command shattering and leaving. 

Furthermore there is nothing between the Prussian cavalry and the line of communication marker (the infantry base to the right of the picture is actually inside the town as a garrison unit....which means it's time consuming and disruptive to redeploy out of the time....and represents a bunch of lost victory points if I depart).

Another quick look at what happened here. 

The line of cavalry screening the towns and batteries. These batteries have been hammering the Brits all game long to assist the French assautl and try and break the centre.

 

 

 

 

 

Post door closing. The town is now screened by the very last infantry reserve and a mostly destroyed cavalry unit. Finally the Prussians are in a position to start a town assault if desired.

 On the extreme flank the Prussian lights charge foward towards the LOC (in the ambulance wagon near the tents). There is a single unit of infantry behind the town and a depleted cavalry unit (light against the Prussian heavy) which are available to "stop" the advance. 

The Prussians have superiority in all locations. The Bavarian morale is brittle. The Bavarians still have a mild edge in cannons and the Prussians aren't without some morale stresses of their own. 

The battle is winding down with all formations having the possibility of a catastrophic loss of espirit.

 

Dougfest 2022 - Zeitlessheim (pt1)

The main event for Dougfest was a 5 player game. Usually Doug makes us try and puzzle out the battle later but he gave us enough hints to guess on the Friday night: Blenheim. 

Historically the British under the future) Duke of Marlborough  did a fantastically long march across Europe to aid his allies vs the French and Bavarians. Logistics being what they were (weren't really) it was an amazing accomplishment and achieved with no small amount of tactical surprise. 

The Frenco-Bavarians were in camp and caught a bit flat footed by the suddenly reinforced Austro-Prussians who immediately went on the attack inspired by the British under Marlborough.. Picture above we see the Anglo-Austro-Prussians to the 'North' of the picture and the Frenco-Bavarians to the 'South'.

The Bavarians/me will be played by Italians and green clad cavalry (lower left). Seth/French are lower right. Prussians/James (upper left) . Upper Centre are the British/Doug. Upper Right Saxons/Peter. Linear stands of trees help give a clear delineation between commands.

Dougfest 2022 - General du Corp

The battle was thissssss big

After a long COVID hiatus, Doug hosted another summer game. I had missed Enfilade this year so eagerly headed over for some gaming and socialization with the regulars. General du Corp is a ruleset created by Doug and Seth (and arguably approaching it's final status) for fast play (convention slot) napoleonic large battle play (bases are brigades, and a command is a corp).

As usual, the battle that Doug set up was historically based although not a napoleonic battle it was still horse and musket (he has taken everything from 7 years war to ACW). After finishing the big battle we had time to play so we went over the backup table (set up in case people were interested in a late Friday night game....which we weren't as most of us had done a long commute that day) and played out a fun little battle. 

Taken from the ACW the forces are wildly uneven (I've forgotten the battle but I'm sure Doug will comment below to enlighten us). Peter threw the low die, so he took command of the defenders, seriously hamstrung by having a single commander so would definitely be pip starved for movement. Luckily this was a fun times game and can be gauged in terms of how the historical fight went. 

The defenders (British/Rebels) are holding a series of defensible hills vs the dug in attackers (French/union). Apparently the centre troops took local initiative to test the Rebel lines and, finding them insufficient and under fire, continued to storm forward to drive them off.

I'm unclear if  the flanks were late arrivals or part of the probe in force operation. In game terms we had 3 commands (left/right/centre) with numerical and artillery superiority. Cake walk, right?