Derbyshire - Ladybower Reservoir

Frostgrave - Run of the Rangifer

"Run of the Rangifer" is the fifth scenario in the "Thaw of the Lich Lord" campaign for Frostgrave. The table was set up as per a standard Frostgrave game except that when we placed the five starting treasure tokens, we also placed five "Rangifers" touching the treasures. Rangifers are a fantasy race of creatures unique to the world of Frostgrave.. they are beastmen, half humanoid, half reindeer - and they hate the undead! The special rules for his game were that the Rangifers were protecting their territory. They would act as normal creatures and attack us, but we would get extra experience points for each Rangifer that was still on the board at the end of the game... meanwhile a Frostwraith would be moving on to the board in the first turn, seeking to destroy the Rangifers. If either of us managed to kill the Frostwraith we would get a load of points. Of course there were also the five treasure tokens to try and grab, and Ulterior Motives to seek to complete... 

The table set up at the start of the game...

   Lizzy had "It Shall Be Mine" as her Ulterior Motive... this meant that if she secured the central treasure token it would be worth loads more experience points and three rolls on the treasure table at the end of the game.. it would also mean that if one of Lizzy's warband picked up the treasure then 3 lots of wandering monsters would immediately enter the board!
   I had "The Transporter" which set up an arcane disc within Lizzy's half of the board.. it could be activated once during the game, and whoever of my team was standing on it at the time would exit the game - they could secure any treasure they were carrying, there would be an XP bonus for every figure that exited this way... and an attempt at a roll for an additional treasure token with a bonus to the roll for every warband member that used the transporter...

Rangifers hanging out with their treasures... plus there seems to be a zombie coming out of a crypt!

A minor demon has been succesfuly summoned.

   So we were trying to secure treasure tokens whilst staying out of combat with the Rangifers. That was the general plan, but things didn't really turn out like that! The first turn saw us all trying to sneak nearer to the treasures, keeping out of line of sight from the Rangifers. Meanwhile the Frostwraith appeared and started moving towards the Rangifers.. Some of the Rangifers saw it and started moving to intercept... a couple of the other Rangifers spotted some of our team members and gave chase...

A Rangifer chases two crossbowmen up a walkway - "Stay back we don't want to hurt you!"

The Frostwraith is intercepted by two Rangifers in a ruined gatehouse...

   Before any of our guys could get near the Frostwraith, it had been destroyed by two of the Rangifers, who came out of the fight severely wounded... Whilst this was going on most of the treasure tokens were picked up, including the central treasure by one of Lizzy's team... this meant we were inundated by a load of wandering monsters all at the same time! Lizzy's Necromancer raised a zombie, and my magic users both managed to summon Minor Demons...
 This was a bit of a crazy game - I don't think we've had so many miniatures on the board at the same time before!

Lizzy's construct heads unseen by a distracted Rangifer towards the central treasure...

Whilst two Rangifers battle the Frostwraith, a couple of Lizzy's team grab one of the other treasures.

As the treasures are picked up a load of wandering monsters come on to the board at once -
a Minor Demon, two wolves, two snakemen and a wraith knight!!

 Lots of fighting broke out all over the board, and the Rangifers all got caught up in it... Lizzy's guys managed to sneak off with their special treasure token, and one of my thieves drank a teleportation spell and then escaped with another... whilst all this was going on my two crossbowmen ran along one of the walkways to avoid the fighting and dropped down and activated "The Transporter" - I was hoping to get more figures on it before it activated, but there was no way that was going to happen...

Whilst treasures are dragged towards the board edges, my wizard is mobbed by wolves and a demon...

   In the end Lizzy got three treasures including her special one, I got two - plus an extra one from a successful roll after using the transporter. Three of my team were knocked out including my Wizard., the Wizard was fine, but the other two have to sit out the next game. All of Lizzy's guys were fine. Only one of the Rangifers survived. I got just enough experience to go up two levels.
   In the previous game we played, one of the treasures that I got was "The Book of the Rangifer" this means that I can recruit a Rangifer to join my warband. It feels appropriate that we eventually persuaded the surviving Rangifer to join our team - there will be plenty of opportunities for him to beat up his hated undead foes (especially as Lizzy's wizard is a Necromancer!).

   

Derbyshire - Stanton Moor and Nine Ladies Stone Circle

 

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Burning Light - Part II

We have moved on to "The Hospital" for our second scenario in the "Burning Light" campaign for Rangers of Shadow Deep...

 
(There are some spoilers here - so if you are planning to play through this mission yourself, maybe don't read this until after you've had your own game experience...)

Our crew are slightly battered from our encounters with the undead in the courtyard... hopefully we can find some medicine or something in the Hospital to help us out!

On entering the building we discovered that the whole room was covered in sticky spider webs... there were six beds in the room with large cocoons on them...in the far corners were two large closets that appeared to be locked, and in front of those locked doors were two giant spiders!

Set up for "The Hospital"

A Giant Spider lurks by a locked door...

It was very slow going - The special rules for this scenario stated that we had to treat the whole room as "rough ground" because of the webs everywhere... so we were all at half movement.

Both our Rangers reached and searched beds in the first turn. Jennifer my ranger found a couple of magic arrows that do extra damage... unfortunately Alfie's Ranger was attacked by a swarm of tiny biting spiders, he was slightly damaged and poisoned! This reduced him to one action for the rest of the game unless he could be healed back to full health... The two spiders started to move across the room towards us as we slowly moved towards the far wall... The first event card was turned over - and everyone apart from Fern and Hattie failed a strength roll, and ended up getting tangled in webs and having to forgo their actions in the next turn...

Whilst no-one could move, a Spider runs across the room and attacks Seb...

Caught up in the webs, everyone misses a turn apart from Fern and Hattie...

The spiders ran to attack my Ranger on one side, and Seb on the other... My Ranger killed her spider with ease - but Seb was injured and poisoned by his... Hattie and Fern moved further across the room..  The next event saw hundreds of tiny spiders dropping on us from the ceiling... this was the end for Seb - and he was knocked out... Hattie, Geoffrey and Archibald all took minor damage... but were also poisoned, reducing them to one action each!

Two more Giant Spiders appear from under some beds!

Poisoned by spider bites half our guys can only do one action per round!

Jennifer moved further into the room and cast a healing spell on Arthur - returning him to full health, and restoring his actions back to normal... Malvolio blasted the spider that had attacked Seb with a fireball, and that was the end of that!.. That was when two more giant spiders appeared from under the beds we had just searched...

Whilst everyone else was struggling through the webs to get to the other side of the room, Jennifer shot one of the spiders using up her "Steady Aim" ability for this game, and Arthur and Malvolio ended up in combat with the other spider.. Arthur took damage, and ended up being poisoned again!!

Another spider appeared on one of the beds on the other side of the room...
 

Here comes another giant spider!

A giant spider attacks Arthur.. Malvolio jumps in to lend a hand...

With his one action, Arthur used his "Frenzied Attack" ability to kill the spider that had just poisoned him... Fern and Hattie made it to one of the closets and broke down the door - finding something interesting which may be of use later? Two more spiders appear...

Geoffrey was knocked out by one of the spiders, and Archibald ran to help... Jennifer shot the other spider and moved further across the room.... everyone else tried to move nearer to the unsearched beds..

Alfie decided that he wanted Arthur to shoot the spider that was fighting Archibald my archer. He had a clear line of sight, but the rules state that you can't target a figure that is in combat. We talked about it and decided that if he really wanted to do it it would be 50/50 whether he would hit Archibald or the spider... Alfie thought it was worth the risk! I didn't... but I said it was Alfie's decision. Alfie rolled for it, and luckily he hit the spider... and it was very lucky, as he rolled a 20 as his shooting roll!! Phew! - I hope Alfie isn't setting a precedent here with his blase attitude to the lives of my companions!!

Slow progress across the board... can we search all the points of interest before we run out of time?

Jennifer the Ranger searches a web cocoon...

Archibald has failed to search the webs on this bed... luckily Fern is close at hand to have another go...

All the spiders were dead, but now half of us were poisoned, and couldn't move very far... between us we managed to search the rest of the beds, we found some interesting things, but no medicine or clues to the location of the special Decanter we are searching for. We run out of time before we could make it to the other closet. We will never know what was in there....

Geoffrey and Seb both recover after the scenario, but are at reduced health again. We got just over 40xp for this scenario... still not enough for us to level up, but Hattie and Archibald are now on 10 progression points each - so they get to chose to get +1 on either their Fight or Shoot stats. Hattie chose Fight, and Archibald chose shoot.

Alfie has decided that we should go up one of the staircases for the next scenario... up to "The Dormitory"...

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I created all the floorplans for this campaign using the fantastic free resources available from

  2 minute tabletop.

More miniatures for Rangers of Shadow Deep / Frostgrave

I've been painting a few extra fantasy miniatures suitable for use in Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep... 

These first three pictures are official Rangers of Shadow Deep miniatures from North Star...

Temple Guardians - North Star Miniatures

Skeletons of Shadow Deep  - North Star Miniatures

Rangers of Shadow Deep (set 2) - North Star Miniatures

And here are some other random miniatures I've been painting for fun, that I'm sure will find their way into future games... 

Wizard (plastic Frostgrave Wizard from North Star) and Apothecary (Reaper Bones Miniature)

"Ram Raider" from Alternative Armies Miniatures

Minor Demon - Wargames Foundry Miniatures

A scenery piece for a future Rangers of Shadow Deep Mission - "Ghost Stone"...
(made from a Christmas decoration and air drying clay)

Skeletons - Warhammer Underworlds

   This is my 6th and final team for Warhammer Underworlds - It's a fun strategic deck building skirmish game... these are the Skeletons - really great models, and lovely to paint...
   There is a whole new wave of sets coming out right now called "Beast Grave"... but I'm not going to get any of those. I'm not playing this competatively - just occasionally for fun with some friends, so six teams is by far enough for me!

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Burning Light - Part I

BURNING LIGHT is the campaign mission that is included at the back of the Rangers of Shadow Deep rulebook. After a few months break, my son Alfie and myself decided it was time to get back into playing some more ROSD... The campaign is potentially 9 games long - so we will be playing this well into next year... I am going to do an overview of our games here as we play them - and due to the mysterious nature of the campaign, and how things play out, there will be some SPOILERS here... so if you are thinking of playing through Burning Light yourself - you may want to wait to read this until after you've had your own experience with the mission!

Our team of two rangers and companions have been sent into the Shadow Deep again... this time to explore the ruins of a convent and hopefully locate a powerful healing artifact - the Decanter of St. Emilia.. Unlike the previous missions we have played, Burning light is not played out in a straight forward linear way. It is up to the players to decide which order to play the scenarios. There is a map of the layout of the different areas of the convent, and once an area has been investigated, then that area can be crossed off and moved through freely. Each scenario is played over 9 turns, and there are 8 event cards for each one - six specific cards for the scenario - plus two mission cards which ramp up the difficulty as the mission progresses... This is a fantastic idea for a game system, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the story develops.

At the very start of the whole mission we are given three possible starting areas. I asked Alfie where he thought we should start, and after studying the map he decided that we should begin in the courtyard of the convent as that would give us more choices of where to move on to for the next game...

The table set up at the start of the game.

The courtyard scenario is played on 2.5' square table. There are five points of interest to search here -  a fountain in the middle surrounded by 4 skeletons, there are two shacks to either side of the center - both with locked doors, a broken cart in the top right corner, and some writing on the wall in the top left corner. Two skeletal knights are also on the table in the top corners...

Entering the courtyard...

Alfie was back with his usual crew: Albert the Ranger, Fern the Woman at Arms, Malvolio the Conjuror and Hattie the Recruit. I had Jennifer the Ranger, Archibald the Archer, Geoffrey the Warhound and a new dude Seb - who was one of the characters from the Blood Moon mission who survived the terror of the werewolves... he is +3 fight, and has a two handed warhammer... Our rangers are now level 6. These are the characters that we will have for the whole mission, unless any of them die - or we find anyone else to help us on the way...

Skeletons guarding a sinister fountain..

Taking on the skeletons... as more skeletal knights approach from the corners..

In the first round we moved cautiously towards the skeletons in the middle of the room - both rangers failing to do any shooting damage... we had more success taking them on hand to hand, taking out two of them straight away... the event card at the end of the first round brought a pair of skeletal knights on to the table from one of the corners behind us...

Take that bone bonce!

In the second round we finished of the other two skeletons that had been lurking in the center of the table... the Skeletal Knights marched towards us from all sides...and then a horrific howl echoed through the ruins of the convent.. (this was the first of the two Shadow Deep Event cards for this scenario) - all our heroes had to make a Will roll or be so frightened that they could only do one action next round... Geoffrey, Fern, Hattie and Arthur all failed their rolls...

Lots of failed Will rolls means only one action for some of us as the Armoured Skeletons attack!

The Skeletal Knights attacked! - They only have one Health point, but they have 13 Armour points, and we really struggled to get any damage done to them... half our team were incapacitated by fear... Hattie was reduced to one Health point, Malvolio didn't even have time to get off one of his Magic Bolts before he was knocked out!! And Geoffrey made a valiant attempt at fighting one of the knights, but despite being backed up by Seb, luck was against him and he was flattened by his boney foe! Despite being injured, Hattie got to the fountain and investigated our first point of interest. She only just made her perception roll - which meant we got to read a clue from the back of the book... if she had succeeded her roll by more points we would have got to read a different clue, which I guess would have given us better information...
So we were two team members down, and one severely injured and we were only at the end of the third round!... That was when three more skeletons appeared from behind us...

Malvolio and Geoffrey are knocked out as even more skeletons turn up!!

We had better luck in round four - Seb and Fern managed between them to smash the Skeletal Knights to dust! Jennifer my Ranger was near enough to Hattie to cast a Healing spell on her - bringing her back up to 6 Health points... Hattie decided to try and keep out of the fighting for now and started moving off towards the writing on the far wall... Jennifer and Fern moved towards the locked doors on either side of the table... and the three skeletons moved jerkily towards Seb who was now all by himself after finishing off the last Skeletal Knight... This was when two slimey zombies decided to emerge from the fountain!

 A Successful strength roll and Jennifer the Ranger forces open the door to a shack - finding a chained up hound inside...

Jennifer managed to force open the door to her shack, and inside was a chained up hound...she released it from it's shackles and it was so relieved it decided it would join us in fighting off the undead! It ran out and joined Seb to take on the three looming skeletons.. Seb was slightly injured during the fight - but the enraged hound managed to finish off all three as they attacked!! Meanwhile as Fern struggled with her door, the two zombies were creeping up behind her... luckily Arthur and Archibald were in positions where they could take them out before they got to her with some fancy shooting! Fern opened the door - an item was inside that may be helpful in the future... unfortunately this was when the second Shadow Deep Event card was drawn... and a large vulture appeared out of the shadows at the back of Fern's shack!

The hound is rescued and runs to help as the skeletons approach...

Two zombies burst out of the fountain and make a beeline for Fern as she struggles to open the door to the other shack...

All the skeletons are dead - mostly killed by our new canine friend! Archibald searches a broken cart and finds a healing potion..

Fern finally forces open the shack door - to find a clue... and unfortunately an evil Vulture too!

Arthur moved into position and shot the vulture in the face before it could do any damage... Archibald ran over and searched the broken cart, finding another useful item... and Hattie made it to the wall with the Runes and investigated that...revealing another clue that will hopefully help us in our search for the Decanter of St.Emilia... This was the end of the sixth round...and that was when a Tortured Soul rose up from out of the broken cart... Tortured souls are essentially ghosts.. they cannot be killed, but they can be given peace if a successful Will or Leadership roll of 20 is made whilst in contact with it. This is worth a good amount of XP. Whilst a Tortured Soul is on the board everyone is at -2 Will.

Hattie makes it to the final clue - and deciphers some runes on the wall...

The Vulture has been killed, all the points of interest have been searched... time to leave!

We decided that as we had investigated all the points of interest in the courtyard, we would leave the tortured soul to haunt the broken cart and leave the table before anything else nasty arrived...
 
There are special rules for recovery between scenarios in this campaign. We rolled for our knocked out companions... they were both ok, but only recovered half their starting points. some special survival rolls were made, and Hattie was given a Healing potion that one member of the team had - so she was back to full points... but Geoffrey, Malvolio, Arthur and Seb are all going into the next scenario slightly battered... at least we have a new doggy addition to our team in the form of Brutus the rescued hound! And we have two vague clues...not sure what they might mean yet, but that is the courtyard explored - from here we can search the Gatehouse, Ruined Chapel, Library, Herb Store or Hospital Ward... Alfie thinks we should go to the Hospital Ward next... maybe we can find some Healing supplies...and perhaps some more clues??...

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I created all the floorplans for this campaign using the fantastic free resources available from

  2 minute tabletop.