Frostgrave Stairs

 Its been ten years since I have made any terrain out of styrofoam so it was a bit of a learning curve to make these stairs for Frostgrave games. My friend and I have found that having stairs would help models move on top of buildings as it movement intensive. Plus a lot of gameboards seen online, and with official Frostgrave terrain, show ladders/stairs/ramps.

So here are the six sets of stairs I made, with a Mr Freeze miniature (unpainted) from the Batman Miniature game because it was what I had readily available.

Part of the inspiration came, courtesy of a link from a friend, from this youtube video by BlackMagicCraft. 

I started with blue foam, from a hardware store, sliced up with a regular hotwire.

I then measured out steps to climb three inches of height with steps big enough for 30/40/50mm bases. I could have made it more realistic looking but that would sacrifice allowing models of all bases being stable on the stairs. 

To rough them up, I used the method in the above youtube video and got a coffee tin with rocks and shook them up with one styrofoam stairs inside. It was INCREDIBLY loud but I had ear protection. Unfortunately the rocks I used were chalky so I had to wash the styrofoam afterwards. I was not completly happy with the weathering marks on the foam so I used a rolled up ball of aluminum foil and that did they trick. In the future I will use river rocks in the tumbler as they will resist breaking up and create better indents.

This was the result of the stones and aluminum foil. They were then glued using craft glue to sheets of plasitcard I had cut to better stabilize the stairs on the table. The pink styrofoam terrain will be shown in a future post.

I also made a mix of small rocks, craft glue, and dollarstore paint and applied it on various pars of the terrain. This gave rough rubble areas.

After that I painted the stairs and base with black Temera, that I had lying around. It didn't quite cover the blue so I used some black dollar store paint. Unfortunately it was kids window paint and when I started drybrushing grey, the dollarstore kids window paint started to come off and blend into the grey. I had to cover the model with regular dollarstore paint. Then I heavily drybrushed the stairs dark grey then drybrushed it grey. The ground around to was painted dark brown. I then used snow effect powder with craft glue to finish the terrain. I can use these stairs for other games as well, but because they were easy to make I will make more generic ones without snow.

One final note. I used my older snow effect, from GF9, but after a night drying it mostly disappeared. I then picked up some Army Pinter Battlefield Snow and that gave the effect in the picture above. The second snow expanded with the glue where the GF9 one did not. I will still try to find a use for the GF9 product at some point.

One Small Step

 One Small Step is a game that I pre-ordered about 11 months ago. Its a worker placement and resource game about the space race between the USSR and the USA to go to the moon. I like many of the Academy Games products for their ease of play and ability to learn about events their games are about. Even Board Game Geek has rated many of their products highly.

I started with the beginner setup, which includes a simpler Earth board and does not include the technology deck. BTW, When I purchased the game I went all in and got the plastic satellite, crew and astronaut miniatures as well as plastic tokens and two expansions (Hidden Heroes and Mission Control). 

Here is a better overview of the beginners setup. The satellite tokens give bonuses for completing satellite missions or specific actions. Each turn four events are available to choose for each players 2 engineers and 2 administrators. The Earth section has options for engineers and administrators but each box can only be chosen by one model, therefore once selected another model cannot choose the other option in the box. There is a media track in the upper right that determines initiative as well as gives bonus media tokens that can be spent anytime for benefits. As some satellite and most crew missions are completed you place a token on your side's moon track and if it was unselected before, receive the crew token. Once a player/side places gets tokens leading up to the moon, it indicates game end at the completion of the launch phase of the turn. The game can be played with two to four players and if more than two, they divide up their space agency workers (engineer/administrator). The game is won not by who placed their token on the moon space first, but by highest victory points at the end.

As the game progresses you receive temporary tokens (white) for Agency, satellite, and crew resources. These can be upgraded to be permanent ones (black) that refresh during phase 2 of a turn. Cards cost resources to buy or are used to complete satellite/crew missions which then grant benefits. Personalities once procured remain and can be activated with resources for benefits. However players can only have three personalities. 

In my first playthrough game, the USSR won. As you can see in the image below, the USA caught up by some risky completed missions.

 

However the USA failed to get enough victory points to beat the USSR, missing it by nine points.

In my second playthrough, I went with the regular setup. 

 

There are a lot more options in the Earth section and more bonuses are opened up after upgrades are activated by events and mission completion. 

 

In this game I went with two different strategies for both sides. For the USSR, I decided on a slow and steady approach: turn temporary resources into permanent ones and focus on the satellite missions until later in the game. Here is the USSR area at the end of the game.

 

The USA approach was one of risk, going for more crew missions earlier. This meant that at the beginning they were further ahead but in the end they could not sustain the pace. Once era two and then three events were revealed, they could not afford the technological breakthroughs as quickly as the USSR. This led to being surpassed in victory points by a very wide margin. The USA redeemed themselves somewhat after dealing with many hazard cards being placed upon them by the USSR with the "Heroic Effort" card which gives two victory points per hazard card, but the jump in points was not nearly enough.

 

After the two playthroughs I want to play this game more. It is one of the most detailed games from Academy Games and the rulebook could be better organized and written, so I am expecting one to be done soon from them with a robust FAQ. It is also educational with facts written below each card as well as the progression of this era of history.

Mantic Treasure and Battlefield Objectives

 From a few Mantic terrain sets, are some shiny items from the treasury and battlefield objective sets. I am mainly going to use them for Frostgrave but they are equally useful for other games. The major treasure is represented by the taller one in behind and to the right of the Warmachine model, Madelene Corbeau.

Mats by Mars

 I recently picked up three gaming mats by Mats by Mars, three by three feet in dimensions. They were the Sunny Caribbean, Abandoned City, and Frosty Cobbles. The latter two had an overlay of 3E Malifaux lines. 

This is what it looks like with some 40k scenery I have put together but still needs paint, to stand in for Frostgrave terrain until I make some.

Here are the 3E Malifaux lines, which are not as noticeable when not looking for them.

I'd buy more Mats by Mars products again.

Walking Dead Barriers

From the Walking Dead Scenery Booster are the barriers. I picked up two of these during a sale Mantic had for use as Batman Miniature Game scenery but the tire barrier could equally be used for Gaslands and the wood and crate barrier can be used for any type of game. 

This set is well made and inexpensive, plus comes with wrecked cars too. I'll create a post on those at a later date.

Ancient Standing Stones

 These three ancient standing stones came in the Mantic Vanguard kickstarter. I painted them mainly for the Frostgrave game I've started to play but is handy for all my miniature games. They are also available in the Battlefield Objectives terrain set from Mantic.

I used black spray primer. Stones heavily drybrushed grey, drybrushed light grey, and lighly drybrushed mix ivory/light grey. Over the runes was lightly brushed green then an even lighter brush of light green. The earth was painted with dark brown, drybrushed brown, and an even lighter drybrush of light brown.

Firestorm Armada Beta Rules

 Wayland games bought Spartan Games a few years ago and have revealed their beta edition rules for the third edition of Firestorm Armada.

They are up to 0.03 at the moment and have changed several aspects of the game. I will not go into detail here as it is still an evolving ruleset that is being clarified as playtesters add their input. Why not give the free rules, templates, and ships a try. You can take a look at the new designs for the ships and races of this universe here on the Warcradle Firestorm Armada blog. It looks pretty cool.

Venetian Statue

 I picked this up with the TTCombat Carnevale second edition kickstarter. It can also be picked up in a two statue set from TTCombat.

I used for the base black primer, dark grey rough drybrush, grey drybrush, and light grey light drybrush. For the statue I used Dwarven Bronze and a wash of GW technical Nihilakh Oxide. Altogether it makes a great looking aged statue. 

I also used the GW technical Nihilakh Oxide for an older statue model that I had and it also did the trick.

I like what it does for models.

Frostgrave - First Game

I played a game for second edition Frostgrave, at a distance, with a friend. Its a fantasy themed campaign skirmish game in a recently thawed lost city of magic and danger. Each player has a band of models led by a wizard of a particular school of magic. Quite fun and looking forward to playing again.

He used mostly Guildball Hunters guild models with two D&D figs. I used mostly Warmachine Khador models with two D&D plastic figs. All the monsters were D&D plastic figs.

Here is an overview of the three by three foot table.

My barbarian trying to engage two wild dogs. It didn't end well...for me.

My thief grabbing treasure.

My friend's wizard and models going around and over an old statue.

My field's apprentice wizard moving through an old crematorium. 

A massive skirmish around the major treasure. It ended up being unclaimed after my models were either reduced to zero health or left the table.

My thief attempting to sneak up to the treasure while my fields archer was engaged with a wild dog. 

A fun first game too three hours and am looking forward to playing again, which should play faster.

Ice Walls

From the 1980's, Otherworld Artifacts' Caverns terrain was purchased by myself from the now defunct Liquidation World about 15 years ago. After I read the 2nd Edition Frostgrave book, I realized I still had these unpainted and thought I would give them the icy look the game could use. I am quite happy with the results and can use them for other miniature games, like Malifaux, Mr.Freeze's lair for the Batman Miniature game, or even Horizon Wars and RPGs.

They are made of gypsum and other materials so are fragile when dropped. They were primed black, painted dark blue, drybrushed blue, and lightly drybrushed light blue.

I used various Warmachine miniatures which are perfect for Frostgrave games.

Frostgrave 2nd Edition

 Frostgrave 2nd Edition is a great skirmish fantasy themed game from Osprey and its creator, Joseph A. McCullough. In it, you make a wizard (one of several schools of wizardry) and his band in order to go into the rediscovered lost city of Frostgrave. 

The campaign system looks like a lot of fun. There are also 20 scenarios to try for variety rather than the basic scenario. You can level your wizard up and improve your band, lair, statistics, and spells. Other books provide rules for solo play, cooperative play, more scenarios, more creatures, people to hire, large and small campaign stories, etc and are compatible with changes mentioned in the back of this 2nd edition book. 

Best of all even though North Star Miniatures makes official Frostgrave wizards, figures, creatures, and terrain...anything you have can be used. Being a roleplayer and miniature gamer of many decades, I'm looking forward to dusting off some painted and unpainted figures and terrain and seeing them on the tabletop.