Cirque du Frostgrave: FANTASY WARGAMES ON ICE

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Cirque du Frostgrave: FANTASY WARGAMES ON ICE

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

TheDiceBagLady posted:

I've just made five adventurers out of kitbashing the plastic soldiers box and the statuesque female bald heads. Really easy to do, and the result I think is awesome. I sell the heads and troops of course . Wasn't entirely commercial, was partly to prove some people on another forum wrong (that it wouldn't work) and to find out which of the heads I stock work best. Statuesque heroic are PERFECT. Others are a bit small. And then I actually had fun and did some painting outside of my tin box office!

http://thedicebaglady.net/frostgrave-solider-box-set-of-20-troops/

I particularly love the dual-wielding one. She just looks gnarly as gently caress.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 16:48

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:17

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I think this game looks great fun. Only done one read through of the rulebook and it looks like my sort of thing.

A couple of things I'll be looking to house rule though if I manage to get my group to try this out:

- soldier experience. I know lots of people list that as a big gripe with Mordheim but stat increases are so marginal in this game that providing a modest progression for soldiers doesn't seem like it would be game breaking. I'm thinking that a soldier gains XP slowly and only has a few opportunities to level so will only ever end up with +4 or something total, and maybe no more than +2 in any one stat.

- create a name generator for the magic weapons. The loot table is just way too dull and flavourless!

# ¿ Aug 21, 2015 10:15

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Otisburg posted:

I think the "no soldier experience" helps reduce bookkeeping and bound things for campaign play so no one runs away TOO far. Just treat dismissing a thug to hire an infantryman and dismissing an infantryman to hire a templar as the costs for Edgar the Dull's training and new equipment or whatever.

See, that may be the logical thing to do but only having one guy to get attached to just isn't going to cut it for me. I'll try a vanilla campaign first but will be unlikely to resist having mook experience for long.

I play Necromunda and Gorkamorka so bookkeeping is not exactly going to turn me off. The more bookkeeping the better, I say! I'm the guy who likes to find ways to deepen the post-battle sequence for Necro, so take from that what you will.

Also all my gaming mates are Necro fanatics so will be unlikely to get into a game where you average dudes don't level up.

No Pun Intended posted:

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=magicitem

Nice one, thanks very much!

# ¿ Aug 21, 2015 11:17

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

They look great. I will definitely have a go at making some tokens, although may try make them look compatible with Mordheim.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2015 10:32

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I dropped in to Dark Sphere to collect my FG Soldiers box and ended up leaving with a whole load of Khador Infantry. I think they'll look ace for Frostgrave with all their winter gear.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 17:18

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I saw a bit of chat about it on one of the DS groups but now I can't see the FG group anywhere. What's it called?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 18:41

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Thanks! It should have been obvious...

Edit: For some FG relevant chat - can you guys help me decide what Spell School this guy looks like he's use?

I'm going to swap the staff for something else, not sure what yet.

Squibsy fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Aug 25, 2015

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 19:59

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Yeah I was thinking Elementalist could work. Looking through the spells I think that my favourites are Sigilist, Enchanter, Elementalist. Conveniently Enchanter is aligned with the other two, but this guy doesn't really look like one of those.

I'm also using the Sorscha model where she has her hands above her head for my apprentice. Was just going to replace the weapon hands with a couple of 'gathering fireball' type open hands. I guess that fits Elementalist as well.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 23:34

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I really like random turn lengths in games. I'd say maybe at the end of turn 4 you could start to roll.

The idea of increasingly freaky monsters turning up is great though.

My one game that I've played I failed to grasp that a) picking up treasure is an action and b) models with treasure move at half speed, so both sides swiped their counters at light speed and the carriers hosed off in just a couple of turns. The speed penalty is clearly very important and will make the game last a bit longer, as well as giving a more realistic chance of nabbing it from each other by punking the treasure grabbers.

I also had an awesome couple of turns where an Infantry dude splattered a Crossbowman in close combat, got whittled down to 1 health by enemy shooting, but then every shot made against him missed and he went on to murder the other warband's apprentice. :black101:

# ¿ Aug 28, 2015 12:47

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Not a viking posted:

My mistake, they proposed that wizards can choose to hire as many new henchmen as they want, but they couldn't at the same time buy/sell stuff or upgrade the base (the apprentice could do one of these as well though).

This is a cool idea.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2015 12:47

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Group activation seems great to me; you get to move your chumps into dominant positions before the other player, might be able to swarm some other chump, or even shoot the enemy wizard/apprentice and rob them of an activation.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 11:22

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Springfield Fatts posted:

No I mean the second part of move+move. Since the second move is halved, do you halve the half if you also have treasure? Example: a 6" move trooper with treasure would move 3" his first move, then 1.5" his second?

Oh god, what? Why would that be the case? How horribly and needlessly complicated.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2015 11:43

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

BattleMaster posted:

Are you serious? Dude, it's not like they're asking you to do surface integrals or cross products.

Move is halved from the model's base when you have treasure. Its second move is half of its move. Yes, if it's carrying treasure then its second move is a quarter of the base (half of half), but come on it's not hard.

Well it turns out my problems originate at a much deeper level because I failed to grasp that the second move order is at half speed anyway. No wonder my only game so far ended so quickly.

That said I do think that working out halves of movement and moving half inches and poo poo is needlessly complicated for a board game. It's not that I don't know how to work it out, I just think it takes away from the game to be working it out, however short the calculation period may be.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2015 14:57

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Throbbing blob posted:

Where do eurogoons order their Northstar soldiers from? Directly from the manufacturer? Surely there must be somewhere that can beat �5 shipping to the EU.

Also, my group is set to test out the rules later this month with a full-blown campaign starting in October. Kind of stoked for a small side-project along all of the huge never-ending army projects that never seem to get finished.

Dark Sphere also sells them within the UK and I assume without, with I believe a �4 shipping fee for domestic. They also sell the box at �18 so it ends up at �22 shipped.

That said the Dice Bag Lady owns and she posts here so you should support her. I only go with Dark Sphere because it's the closest thing I have to a FLGS.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 07:15

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Surely you can use a mule as proxy?

# ¿ Sep 21, 2015 15:23

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Cross-posting from the terrain thread - some FG terrain building that I got up to at the weekend...

ineptmule posted:

Spent a good chunk of the weekend making Mordheim/Frostgrave terrain. So far just a house and a couple of small pieces of scatter terrain.

Basic shape design; starting the timber-frame detailing.

Starting on the roof frame. Getting that central cross beam to stay still for gluing was a pain!

Adding more timber-frame details to the 'North' aspect. I felt it was looking a little sparse. Pictures of historical houses have timbers all over the place but it's hard to do at this scale.

While waiting for some glue to dry on the roof frame I used some offcuts to build small wall-piece scatter terrain.

One side finished! I think the tiling looks pretty good.

Almost complete now. I want to build a crumbling stone exterior chimney breast on the exterior of the 'South' wall, and some kind of little fenced enclosure at the back, but those will have to wait. I need to think about how I'm going to texture the walls - there's a kind of stippled effect that I want to replicate the lime-washed walls of older buildings, as well as thinking about how to get some hint of floorboard texture on the upper level, and some kind of flooring texture on the ground floor. Anyone got any suggestions for those bits?

But it's ready to play on and that's what matters for now!

# ¿ Sep 21, 2015 16:48

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Yeah it's sexy black foam core. Probably more expensive but I saw a guide that said it was preferable for use as if it gets chipped or damaged in use then it's less obvious than glaring white foam showing up in the holes.

Also I really like drawing white on black for some reason, so my guide lines are really satisfying.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2015 17:06

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Z the IVth posted:

Just saw this and had a look at the rulebook. Looks nice and simple to play, maybe I can persuade the other half to join me this time. It would be a good way to use all those random Fantasy miniatures that I keep collecting.

Anyhow I also wanted to chime in that Hasslefree Miniatures would do well for the front page as well. They're carrying a bunch of miniatures from Red Box/Artemis Blacks that have that low fantasy flavour about them (many of these guys are sculpted to look properly medieval ugly). There's also their own Fantasy line, which are more conventional. Their sculpting and casting quality is amazing, though some goons might not like the cheesecake.

Plus 20% off until 15th October!.

I'll see if I can cobble together a warband from all these Reaper goons I have lying around.

The Red Box minis are absolutely gorgeous. I really want to get some when I have a bit more cash on hand. One thing I've heard though is that they are really small. Do you have any you could take scale shots with?

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 18:30

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I like the idea of a dungeon raid type game where one player controls the monsters in order to give the lower level player some chance to gather loot and XP.

Still no inherent mechanism for determining power level of warbands and monsters though.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 12:07

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Stoked to get my cultists. Gonna be a fun week next week.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 18:09

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

What I'm less confident about revealing to you goons is that at the moment, I won't be using it for FG but for Mordheim. FG is ace but my groups not amenable yet.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 19:31

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Sulecrist posted:

20 XP for casting with no bonus if it results in a soldier kill, standard XP (40) for mundane soldier kills, standard XP for all kills of spellcasters. Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.

I'm gonna go with this. Seems a good spread.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2015 21:17

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Otisburg posted:

Anybody got spoilers on the new soldier types, now that some people have books in hand?

I asked on the FB group and everyone's trying to one-up each other with a "cute" and "clever" unhelpful non-answer.

I don't understand this, it's a board game, how can you spoil a board game.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 08:53

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

muskets posted:

They showed him on the nickstarter page - he's a sort of morose looking dude with a hammer:

The unpainted mini doesn't look nearly as morose. They somehow gave him crippling depression with that paint job.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 11:27

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Where are you London Frostgrave goons playing? Gravitas Shortfall's mention of Orc's Nest has just prompted me to think of the club where I'm gaming at the moment, which is on the same street, and well set up to absorb some more players. We don't have a Frostgrave scene yet, I'm currently playing a Mordheim campaign there and of course the majority of players at the club are 40/30K. I'd like to get some FG going as I've not yet played anything to date!

# ¿ Nov 26, 2015 15:15

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I'm just imagining a Debenhams board meeting in three weeks' time where the directors are poring over reports to try and figure out why all the nerds bought their toy castle.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 18:38

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Nash posted:

I don't have my book handy, but I thought you could choose to only do one action if you wanted.

Pretty sure you can elect not to move with you compulsory move action, but you still count as using it to move.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 08:52

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Oh my

Can't wait

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 14:32

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Indolent Bastard posted:

I didn't figure it would be white power, but I had no idea what HATE could stand for.

Thanks.

It's kind of an unfortunate club acronym, if you ask me. I've always been a little hesitant to go and check it out despite living in the same city... *

* Not really, it's actually because anything even remotely out to the East is a pain in the arse for me to get to.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 16:59

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Not so easy in plate and mail I'd have thought.

stoked that ruin kit is available again. Awesome.

# ¿ May 16, 2016 00:14

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I waaaant iiit. The Gnoll minis are so cute :3:

I have to decide if the �74 tier fits in with my new Austerity programme though. Of course it doesn't.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2016 12:46

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Make a rad warband of dudes; steal loads of treasure; a good time will be had by all.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 16:25

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Why do you taunt me Germ. I would buy the gently caress out of your poo poo if you'd only ship to the UK :orks:

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 08:42

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I wouldn't be able to afford it with my post-Brexit funbux anyway. TAKE BACK CONTROL :marc:

# ¿ Sep 23, 2016 09:09

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

This and the Gnoll release are so cool. Does anyone know if the Nickstarter ever includes discounts on previously released stuff?

# ¿ Oct 2, 2016 14:29

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

All that new poo poo sounds super cool. I need to try and get my mates to plate Frostgrave.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2016 13:32

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

My Frostgrave Folio arrived, with the very nice freebie Sigilist & Apprentice, and sprue of barbarians. The wild men look fantastic! A major step up in quality in my opinion from the original Frostgrave soldiers kit. Nice work.

I wanted to get a set of the Gnolls as well, might have to pull the trigger on that one some time.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 18:38

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

danwon posted:

And I want to do something other than watch PowerShell training videos, so here we go!

The structure of the game is pretty Frostgrave-esque. You build a warband and play out a pre-agreeded upon number of games with the other players. 15 of them or so is what the game recommends. At the end, the warband with the most legend points wins the campaign. You get those points by winning missions, completing quests, writing books, having powerful characters, having fancy funerals, and getting lots of money.

You build your team by first picking an objective. It's set in a fallen fantasy empire, so your group can be dedicated to rebuilding the empire, carving a little chunk out of it for yourself, protecting the people, making as much money as possible, etc. All the options give you bonus points on certain missions and quests and blocks you from recruiting from one of the races.

The you put together five heroes. It's pretty RPG like character creation. There are a handful of races in the game, humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs, undead, and beastmen. That last one is super flexible. You can make lizardmen with it, minotaurs, skaven, dragons. If you want an eye-laser shooting beholder and a bunch of goblins? No prob. The figures just shouldn't be more than 5 inches tall or so. You can also customize your guys by making them spell-casters, tanks, give your team victory points when they heal other heroes or find treasure, give them followers that tag along, etc.

In a mission, you're mostly going into the terrain on the board and trying to find any treasure within. Each type of terrain, there's a few dozen or so, has a different table of things you can find in them. Finding treasure, taking out opponents, and doing any special actions you bought during hero creation all get you victory points, having the most victory points gets you some legend points. You also get XP, with a big bonus if you were fighting more powerful teams.

After a mission, each of your heroes gets to take one action. You can recruit more heroes, replace killed followers, buy stuff, trade with other players, go on quests you unlocked during missions like escorting peasants to safety, craft new items if you have someone who's good at that, etc.

The die system is a 2d6 + modifiers vs. a target number that's usually 12, so there's a bell curve. It's on wargamevault if you want to check it out. If you're looking for something with smaller, more detailed teams than Frostgrave, and more flexibility in how they are put together, Rack and Ruin sounds like exactly what you are after.

This sounds amazing and I've bought the rules. Now I just need to convince my friends to play it...

# ¿ Jul 7, 2017 16:57

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

Pac-Manioc Root posted:

I looked for this on Amazon and all I see are S&M romance novels.

I only found it on Wargames Vault

# ¿ Jul 7, 2017 21:50

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:17

Squibsy: Dec 3, 2005; Not suited, just booted.; College Slice

I got my Rack & Ruin rulebook, rules look fun. The fluff at the start is sooooo clumsily written though. Tempted to set my group's campaign in the Warhammer World because we all know it so well. Or maybe come up with my own :toot:

# ¿ Jul 19, 2017 08:41

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