Scotland.



 

 

 

We just got back from a holiday in Scotland. We stayed near Stirling. These are photos from various places we visited whilst we were there.

 

Loch Lomand,

Loch Lomand,

Glasgow,

The Wallace monument park,

view of Stirling and the River Firth,

Scotland,

The Falkirk Wheel,

The Kelpies,

view of Edinburgh from the beach at Aberdour,

Rough Castle Roman Fort,

Rough Castle Roman Fort,

Rough Castle Roman Fort,

Hadrian's Wall,

Housesteads Roman Fort,

Housesteads Roman Fort,

Housesteads Roman Fort.

(The Other) Partizan 2019

 

Today was the first proper day of my summer holidays! - We went to the PARTIZAN wargames show at Newark showground today...  It was Alfie's first Wargames show.. I wasn't sure what he would make of it.. but he said he had a good time! This is the second Partizan show of the year - and as it is in the middle of the school holidays it was a bit quiet. Next year they are going to move it to October apparently.

This Partizan show was half demonstration games and half participation games... and there were plenty of stalls too selling wargames supplies... I picked up some paints, a couple of mdf scenery bits and a couple of miniatures for Rangers of Shadow Deep. Alfie picked up a book from the historical Usbourne book stall, plus a few interesting dice he liked the look of.

 

We had a go at two games in the participation area... firstly we had an excellent game of British vs Romans using SHARP PRACTICE rules converted to use with ancient armies. This was organised by The Harrogate Wargames Club. We have only just seen the new Horrible Histories Rotten Romans film, so we decided we would be Boudicca and the Ancient Brits... we played against two nice guys who were the Romans, and experienced Sharp Practice players. Our objectives were to sacrifice some Roman soldiers, set fire to their watch tower, invade their fort - or just beat them into submission. We had no idea how the rules worked, but the chap who was running the game talked us through as we went along. Alfie did a lot of the dice rolling... and somehow we managed to win!! - It was a really good game, the scenery and painted miniatures were absolutely fantastic. I liked the card driven rules system, and it definitely got me interested into looking more into the Sharp Practice system.

 

 

 

After this epic game of defeating the Romans, we moved onto something completely different... I'm not sure what the game was called, but it involved teams of finger puppet animals moving around a board trying to tickle each other! This was organised by a chap from the RAF Cranwell Wargames Club. It was quite a short game... but good fun, and involved eating chocolate!

 

Here are a few pics from the demo area:

Frostgrave - Total Eclipse

FROSTGRAVE - THAW OF THE LICH LORD... scenario 1 - "Total Eclipse"

   We made a start on a new campaign with a whole new pair of level 0 warbands newly arrived in the frozen city. We are going to run through the 10 part "Thaw of the Lich Lord" book, which was the first expansion book published for FROSTGRAVE.
  
   Lizzy's new wizard is a Necromancer. Mine is a Summoner. Our wizard schools are aligned, so we have to take at least one spell from each others spell lists. To make things interesting we made a decision that neither of us would take the LEAP, TELEKINESIS or ELEMENTAL BOLT spells that we used so much in our last campaign...

   This first scenario is pretty straight forward; an Eclipse is happening, so the line of sight is gradually reducing as the game plays out.. we decided to use Ulterior Motive cards to add some extra flavour. I had "Draw the Line" which meant that I had to try and get two of my warband members in opposite corners of the table, and one of my spellcasters at a point between them, this would complete a mysterious ritual and an extra treasure would appear. I misread this...more on that later! Lizzy had "Payback" which meant she had a grudge against a specific member of my warband who had been bad-mouthing her Necromancer down the tavern... she chose one of my thieves, and if she knocked him out before the end of the game she would get a ton of XP...but if I managed to keep him alive I would get some XP instead...

The board set up and ready to go...

   As the game started to play out we soon realised that our level 0 warbands felt quite fragile compared to the level 30 ones we were playing with last time!! We both started to spread out across the board trying to secure the treasures... Lizzy's Necromancer summoned a zombie...and both of my Summoners managed to summon demons...unfortunately they were both the weakest sort of demon - Imps!
   Lizzy easily managed to secure two of the treasures, and I managed to get one... my thief who Lizzy had a grudge against, picked up another treasure token, but Lizzy cast a spell on him "Bones of the earth" which meant he was stuck struggling with a skeletal hand grasping his ankle! Meanwhile a couple of Ghouls had turned up on the board edge just behind him.... My wizard and an Imp went to help... one of the Ghouls and the Imp were killed, and then my Wizard managed to cast "Control Undead" and took control of the remaining Ghoul..

   Whilst this was going on, a big brawl developed in the centre of the board as everyone else was fighting over the last treasure token... Lizzy's necromancer produced a Demon in a bottle - so a Minor Demon appeared and joined in the fight...It was a bit of a blood bath - 4 of Lizzy's warband were knocked out, but her apprentice managed to snatch up the treasure token and limp off with it..

   Meanwhile...I had managed to line up two of my warband in opposite corners, and my Wizard got into position to complete his ritual... but unfortunately the two warband members were an Imp and a Ghoul.. and re-reading the Ulterior Motive card I realised that for the ritual to work they should be human members of my team who had brought special crystals with them onto the board at the beginning of the game! Doh!!

   My unfortunate thief was still hampered by the bony hand, so Lizzy's Necromancer ran over to try and take him out. This didn't go well for Lizzy, and my thief rolling highly walloped the necromancer out of the game. Splat. That was the end of the game as Lizzy didn't have anyone else on the board at that point.

   In the end I managed to get enough XP to go up to level 2, and I secured two treasures...getting some potions and a grimoir...one of my Thugs died. Neither of us completed our Ulterior motives.  Lizzy secured three treasure tokens - but then.... unfortunately rolled a 1 for her injured wizard, meaning he was totally dead!! Argh! - After all that? - how disappointing!  - So she is going to start again with a whole new (similar looking?!) level 0 Necromancer for the second part of the campaign.

Rangers of Shadow Deep - The Last Stand

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Mission 3... Part 3 - "The Last Stand"

   After the slog through the bog of the last game, our Rangers and remaining companions find a ruined farmhouse.. inside are some survivors of Lorenthia hiding from the creatures of the Shadow Deep.. A horn sounds in the distance and evil beings start to approach the house from all sides... Time to join forces with the survivors and try to hold back the onslaught!

The start of the first turn...
 Four Gnolls, a Troll, and a Giant Spider already on the board!

    This game was played over 12 turns, the idea is to try and keep as many people alive as possible by the end of the 12th turn. Event cards are drawn every turn, and three are drawn at the start of the game to see what creatures are already on the board... We had a Giant spider creeping up inside the Farmhouse...four Gnolls approaching from one side, and a Troll blundering in from another...!!

   The game was relentless - new creatures appearing nearly every turn... we lost three of the Lorenthian survivors and three of our companions were knocked out... but between us we managed to take out two Trolls, some giant flies, two giant spiders and a ton of Gnolls! We were lucky that the giant worm smashed up through the farmhouse floor at the end of turn 11 and no-one was in the house at the time! Things could have been a lot worse!!

"I can't get a clear shot.."
"Never mind that! - come over here and help!!"

"Not another Troll!!... Malvolio what are you doing?... you can't take him on alone!!"

The Giant worm smashing up into the farmhouse..

    I knew this game would take about twice as long as any of the previous ROSD games we had played, and I was a bit worried that Alfie might loose interest. But he was really into working out strategies of how best to work together to fight off the monsters. His companions managed to pick up both treasure tokens from the board and he ended up with an enchanted morning star that does extra damage (from the new weapon hoard in the GHOST STONE expansion that just came out) and a magic potion... so he was really happy with those, and after the game he was talking about what might have happened to our survivors immediately after the battle.

The final turn... Finishing off the second troll...

   I made the map and building on photoshop from the free resources at 2minutetabletop.com , and printed them out on paper / thin card. I love the artwork that Ross McConnell does on there, and it's fantastic what he shares on his site. His style is fun, and cartoony, and it lightens the mood a bit for these games I'm playing with my son - I'm not sure he would be into it so much if everything was grim and "realistic".

Packing away the building after the game...



...folds flat for storage!

This was the last part of the first three missions from the main rulebook. Also at the back of the Rulebook there is a mini-campaign called "Burning Light"... but before we start on that, our next mission will be the first expansion..."Blood Moon"....

Rangers of ShadowDeep - Swampland

Rangers of Shadow Deep

Mission 3 - Scenario 2 - "Swampland"

......and so to part two of the Descent Into Darkness mission for Rangers of Shadow Deep...after climbing down the broken stairs, our Rangers and trusty crew find themselves at the edge of a sinister swamp, and it looks like the water nearest the stairs is pretty deep. The Rangers are going to have to swim for it!!

 

   This scenario is played on a smaller 2" x"2 table, the first 1/3 of which is considered to be deep water and can only be moved across by swimming. The rest of the board is considered rough ground, so the team can only move at half their normal rate...

 

At the bottom of the broken stairs...the darker area is deep water...

   Swimming is hard. A lot of failed swimming rolls were made, and the Rangers struggled to get across the water. Meanwhile, the three swamp zombies that were on the table at the start of the game, attracted by the thrashing, flailing and semi-drowning Rangers, moved in to attack! Alfie's conjuror Malvolio succeeded in blasting one of the zombies with a Magic Bolt... another zombie made a bee-line for Archibald (the archer) who was doing the best job at swimming so far, but hadn't quite made it out of the water yet...if this wasn't bad enough, at the end of the turn another swamp zombie appeared from under the water and attacked him as well! Roderick the Man-at-arms swam to help Archibald, and between them they managed to kill both the zombies, freeing Archibald from their clutches and letting him get out of the deep water.

 

Attack of the swamp zombies!!

  As Roderick had already moved before he attacked, he was still in the deep water at the end of his turn. This was when the second underwater swamp zombie attacked. As the rest of the Rangers struggled across the table, Roderick tried to fight off the zombie... rolling a 2... he was dragged under the surface of the water never to be seen again. Members of our teams have been knocked out in previous scenarios, but this was the first actual death. A dark day indeed. In this mission the rangers can heal between scenarios, but they can't recruit... so we will be one team member down for the final game.

A dramatic re-construction of the death of Roderick....

    The remainder of the Rangers finally made it out of the water. They avenged Roderick by filling the swamp zombie full of arrows. Then finally after picking up some interesting objects (which they later failed rolls to identify the significance of!) were chased off the far edge of the table by a couple of giant flies.

 

This scenario really felt like a struggle, and we had some dramatic moments in the game. Our games so far have been a lot of fun, working as a team and taking on the baddies.. but the combination of the terrain and the monsters in this one really made us feel under threat, and then with the shocking death of one of our team - I think this has definitely been the most enjoyable game so far!... Ha - although I've had a read through of the final scenario, and if any of us come out alive it will be a miracle! - I'm really looking forward to that one!!