How many worms in your (Frost)grave? 11 OCT 2016

Another game of Frostgrave under our belts and straight after the last one! A great way to scratch the Frostgrave itch. We went with the scenario from the main book "The Worm Hunts". We lowered the Target Number (TN) of the Worm appearance to 14 with +1 on the dice roll for every treasure picked up. Also, it's not 100% clear whether the scenario rules can lead to infinite worms or if the intent is that there can only be 1 worm, so as lovers of carnage we decided that there can be up to and including infinite worms. This may have backfired on us somewhat. The worms are basically the same as those Werewolves we kicked to pieces last session, only with more Hit Points. So no problem killing those, right? Wrong. The worms, man, the worms. We'll see them in our dreams.



Yo.



Here's our initial layout. This is my entry side closest to the photo as usual, with Eoghan coming in on my left and Ger picked the far table side from me this time.



This is how I fanned onto the table. My zombie is obediently collecting a treasure chest. Ger brought this cool ship model, so my Ranger stood on the prow for a lot of the game. It afforded a nice view point over some of the terrain just beyond.



Eoghan came in in a nice tight wedge again. He's taking to tactical arrangements recently. He didn't quite get back the to casualty levels of his usual form this game either (he left that to Ger - 6 men down).



I forgot to get a snap of Ger's initial layout. He recently got Leap much like myself and Eoghan have since game 1 and was throwing his guys around with abandon. This poor soul got thrown to the top of this tower to serve as a vantage point for his archery and then everyone in his LOS shot him to pieces.



We needed some worm models so Ger created these great Graboid-esque dudes. When we left Pub Scrawl last night he had 0 and by midday today he had three ready to go. By the late game I think there were 7 active worms, so not quite enough, but pretty great.





Ger's guys collided with Eoghan's right at his initial set-up and kept piling in. I don't know if it's obvious from these pictures, but they almost had a traditional wargame there at some points, there were so many units piling in. 12 of their 20-odd Warband members were probably within the same 10" square, locked in combat for several turns.



Eoghan had a Treasure Hunter that he had spelled up to the gills - this guy had a Potion of Strength downed, was Fast Act-ing and had something else as well (Possession?) but I can't quite remember. There was one last Treasure Chest left and this guy did an epic run for it - running up the wooden stairs you can see in the back of this pic and then jumping across to this stone arch - chased by Graboids the whole way. He made it to the treasure, but died up there, as did many of us.



And why did many of us die up there? Well, the rules for the scenario state that if you generate a worm, it appears randomly beneath one of the remaining treasure chests. But, if, as happened to us, you collect all the chests but one and then start generating lots of worms every turn, they're all going to be at that location. And that location is going to be a death trap. Ger put one of the chests into the ruined tower, which was quite hard to get to. And so it became the TOWER OF WORMS!



If you walked anywhere near the place, you got covered in worms. Covered in worms! It got crazy. Basically, that chest was a loss - but who was it a loss for? Ger, as it happens. Myself and Eoghan walked away with three each but Ger had to lick his wounds with the cold comfort of two treasures.

It was another great game of Frostgrave! This one was punchy, fast. We were all back on form and the worms made it super, super dangerous. Magic flew about and blood was spilled, without it feeling like a horrible bloodbath. There was some nice sharp fighting between Ger and Eoghan without it feeling like they were trying to destroy each other.

Lessons learned - The spell Wizard Eye which I picked up recently and haven't really been using is a fantastic spell. I similarly wrote off Fog in the first few games but have discovered its facility. Wizard Eye gets stuck on the side of a piece of terrain and lets you cast spells through it with a 180° LOS which is crazy. I stuck an Eye from my Apprentice on one high building and one from my Wizard on a facing high building and could then Bone Dart anything in the centre of the table with impunity.

Nothing in the rules say you have to Leap your own guys. We have to check in on the errata yet, I suppose, but at one point Eoghan was able to Leap one of the worms away from his troops, which may have saved him enough to be able to retreat off the field.

edit - You can't Leap anything except your aligned figures, it turns out. The Author covered it during an errata Q&A on Lead Adventure.

More Frostgrave soon!

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