Something Funny Happened on the way to Frostgrave!

Much like the hobby butterfly that I am I have managed to convince regular gaming compatriot Ash to try out Joe McCullough's recently released Frostgrave rules. Both of us, whilst growing up in the wilds of Yorkshire, were sucked into the mysteries of the fantasy genre at an early age and my first forays into fantasy gaming were via the majesty of early D&D, Runequest and Warhammer Roleplay.

My Warband comes together - re-purposed GW WFB Figures

So fast forward a few years (*cough* twenty eight to be precise *cough*) and here we are wanting to return to those halcyon days of youth but without the patience to roleplay.

Enter Frostgrave!

If you trawl the internet you'll find plenty of reviews of this game, both positive and a few critiques. The game itself centres around the pursuit of magical artifacts and treasure in a ruined magical city. It's warband based with each warband being led by a wizard of some kind and backed up by a diverse group of warrior archetypes (think D&D). Now where it gets cool is the campaign element with your wizard progressing based on experience and treasure acquired during the game (much like Mordheim).

My Sigilist faces off against Ash's dastardly Necromancer

The game mechanic is d20 based with everything being resolved with a single opposing roll off (like LoTR but with less rolling). Turns are IGOUGO but with an initiative roll off so there is unpredictability. Each turn is also broken into who gets to act in what order, so all wizards act first (one player then another), then all apprentices, then the warriors. What is really cool is the game can therefore have multiple players rather than being limited to one on one (so similar in play to IHMN).

So the system is really easy to pick up with some really subtle tactical elements such as forced charges (you go too close to an enemy model and the owning player gets to force a combat) and movement penalties for picking things up (it’s a game of collecting treasure after all) so you can trudge about and stash treasure then hare off after more.

Meanwhile my Apprentice leads a mission to capture some
 treasure protected by Ash's Dark Amazonian Necro-apprentice

Its simple, quick and easy to pick up, the only minor gripe being that Wizards can gain experience simply by killing folk (which isn’t very wizardly) so if your opponent is a power obsessed loon then the game can quickly out of hand.

My Wizard is incapacitated by Ash's foul sorcery and falls!
Luckily in the after game clean up its revealed it was
only a flesh wound and he's back to fight another day.

However if you like narrative based games where your little toy soldiers come to life and develop then this is a good one, at least for fantasy gaming – think Mordheim but easier!

Getting My Kids in to Gaming!

Ah that most elusive of goals, the holy grail of any gaming parent, how to get your children into gaming. However I must clarify that the goal is to introduce them to the wonder, majesty and sheer outright fun of the hobby rather than cajoling in them in to playing because you want a gaming buddy on tap!

Anyway this has been one of my holy grail’s since my wife and I’s personal world was blessed both 4 & 6 years ago with the two bundles of joy that are our children (Eli & Noah!). As we’ve watched them grow we’ve also been constantly thinking about how we can educate them and make them decent human beings, helping them to understand the notion of right and wrong, being kind, assertive and generally fair to others.

Therefore I’ve decided to teach them all this through the medium of games that involve blowing up other spaceships – that’s right I’ve started playing X-Wing! I know this sounds a little like teaching them to respect life by squashing bugs however I’m working on the basis that they can begin to understand the tricky concepts of right wrong and being fair to others whilst competive in the safe confines of a board game!

And what a crazy, simple game it is too. I’m not going to do a write up of the game as that’s been done to death, however I am going to talk about how well my 6 year old (Noah) is picking it up.

Luckily Noah is a Lego fanatic and can easily while away whole hours building things from his imagination. Now, we have pretty much left him to his own devices in this and usually he builds things that move (cars, planes, trucks, trains) and has very little desire to build or play with “fighty” things. Then both he his brother were given a Lego Star Wars DVD by their grandparents and the rest (as they say) is history. This was the perfect opportunity for me to introduce some form of gaming that would not age (we’ve played Thomas Tracks and Rails, Trouble, Ludo etc.) and could be repeat played whilst they both age.

During his first game Noah was instantly hooked by the models, pre-painted is great as he instantly understood the scale and what they were supposed to represent. Weirdly one of the things that he enjoyed most was setting up the ships, that is putting them on the stands, getting the cards ready and laying out the black playing surface.

He picked up the mechanism of play very quickly, I chose not to use the option of actions after movement as I wanted him to get a feel for the game and see if he enjoyed it first. So far we’ve played 4 games with the largest being two Ties, and an Interceptor versus two X-Wings and a Y-Wing, the results being two wins each and he appears to be enjoying it and thoroughly enjoys handing out "Bang Cards!"

Now here’s the tricky part, how do I teach kids my that it’s fun to play as well as fun to win? And that’s the part that I’m working on, Noah has the desire to play because the game looks cool and he gets to play with Daddy, but I don’t want him to be too disappointed if he loses. But I’m also a realist and want him to have the desire to win, to aim for “success” without being a bad sport. It’s a fine line between making your child either apathetic about winning and thus doesn’t challenge themselves to aim high or they aim to succeed at all costs because that’s the only payback. I also recently picked up a copy of Mantic’s Dreadball with the same intention as this has a direct comparison with real world sports so I’ll let you all know how it goes!

As this whole parenting things is a work in progress, I’d be interested to hear from anyone else that’s having or had a similar experience.

Winter brings…….new ideas!

Its winter down here in NZ so the long dark has fallen and the storm clouds are gathering, shrouding the lands in darkness, things move unseen in the shadows and Sauron sends forth his legions for the forces of Mordor have little love of the sun (oops I went all LoTRy then.)

Anyway I haven’t been completely idle as can be seen from the picture below, both Ash and I are about to explore a new gaming genre and have been eagerly throwing together buildings and awaiting delivery of mini’s from the far corners of the globe.

I’ve a few more in progress so I’ll share shortly, suffice it to say that there’s helicopters involved (Ooohhhhh!), I suppose if you look closely enough you can make out what the mini is that I've inlcuded for scale.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Arghhhh, hobby drought!

Yup, that’s right I’m currently on the slippery slope to hobby burnout, I can feel it sneaking up on me like some kind of giant purring tomcat that you can’t quite see in your peripheral vision but you know is just about to pounce and dig its needle like claws into your arm, and I’m bloody well allergic so will end up sneezing with runny eyes, trying to get the slippery little bugger off me cursing all the while.

Sorry, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, hobby funk/burnout. Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to make sense of our garden and therefore I’ve not had much energy to motivate me to paint and as any of you know, once you lose the motivation it turns into a mammoth task just trying to muster up the focus required to pick up a paint brush. Arghhhh how bloody annoying. In addition I’m still trying to find a decent place to store all my hobby stuff in the new house, my plan to convert part of the garage has been put on hold whilst everything else gets done. Even more annoyingly many of my prized painted mini’s have been damaged in some minor way during our move (that I am only now finding out as I root through my stack of stored stuff) and they have to move over to the “repair“ pile on my painting table, which is slowly growing to Kilimanjaro proportions.

Maybe it’s not a hobby drought but rather a blogging drought (although that is firmly part of my hobby now)? I’ve been listening to the Behind Enemy Lines Podcast quite a bit recently in which they talk quite candidly about their experience of it and it would seem that being a member of a

positive gaming community is pretty much the best way to overcome any sort of hobby slump (and maybe just having the kind of self motivation that kicks you up the ass!). Having a group of hobbyists that you meet regularly is great inspiration and a good way to lift your mood.

Anyway go check them out at http://bel-podcast.blogspot.co.nz/, they laugh a lot!

I have however had a couple of games of Saga with Ashley, which is turning into a bit of fun as we both learn/re-learn the rules and come to grips with the complexity that is the battle boards. Ash’s Anglo Dane Warlord keeps kicking my Saxon Warlord in the teeth, which is evidenced by the really poor pictures below.

Let battle commence

Saxon Hearthguard try to sneak through the marsh

Saxon warriors fancy their chances against some Viking Hearthguard

The left flank, also trying to be sneaky through the trees

Hmm, fatigue on saxon levies, not good!

Trust me Saxon Warriors versus Viking Hearthguard does not end well

Saxon Warlord vs Viking Warlord - what do you think happened?

I’m building stuff again – this time its Walls!

So as part of my renewed interest in Flames of War I thought it may be prudent to have some 15mm scale terrain for my little toy tanks to fight over. Its all well and good playing with other folks stuff however what happens if I want to be the host.
"I'm the host, you're supposed to bring the terrain"
"But this is NZ, we brought a plate"

So prior to shipping out from the UK I was involved in organising a Bolt Action campaign day for my local club, this required the usual admin shenanigans (booking the room, organising players, terrain etc). As the setting would be the D-Day landings we needed a wide spread of terrain options, most of which we could cobble together from club stocks. However the one thing we were missing was ruined buildings suitable for WW2. In steps Ed, club member and also proprietor of www.wargamestournaments.comwho manufacturers laser cut mdf terrain, amongst other things. For an idea of his products visit his website or pop on over to Simon’s blog to see the set up he’s bought for Necromunda.

Anyway to cut a long story short Ed had a waste bin full of sheets that hadn’t quite cut right which he donated to the club however there few people willing to sort through and actually build anything from the off cuts. So both Geraint and I spent a good portion of one weekend in the summer of 2014 cobbling together some ruins out of the stuff Ed had donated. The campaign day went off without a hitch, we had two full boards of ruined city to fight through and everyone was happy.

Ok fast forward a year or so and here I am with a box full of mdf “junk” left over which I completely forgot about. So after sorting through I identified a load of scenic dressing from some ruined building sheets that look just about right for rendered walls.

A little cereal box basing and some liberal dry brushing and “voila” …….battered walls for FoW!

Now I just need to make some hedges, so bring on the scouring pads!

Cake...err...Dragon.....err.... Cake!

My wife found this on one of the many cake sites that she follows and I thought I'd share it simply because its cool!

Plastic Soldier M5 Stuart

Following the extravaganza that was Panzerschreck I decided to paint some more toy tanks. Thats right, weirdly playing in a tournament had not put me off painting (which it normally does) and I have recently had a very nice experience with Ash's Stuarts, so therefore I decided to paint mine.

Prior to coming to NZ I had stocked up on Plastic Soldier goodies at my local stockist which were then packed into furniture for the long sea journey around the world. Since arriving here I have managed to complet 5 Panthers and now 5 Stuarts, however I still have Stug's, Panzer IV's and Shermans to paint so there's plenty to do.

Anyway I digress, I painted these little devils in the usual Olive Drab, wash with Vallejo Sepia and then successive dry brushing and weathering. I may have gone OTT on the mud but I quite like and really gets across the idea that these guys rush around acting as recon....