Potentially for the last time this year, I was able to take Tim for another spin in the frozen city to finish off the Hunt for the Golem mini campaign. Having studied the rampaging Golem, Tim has decided it’s time to steal it - and if he can’t (which is entirely possible, as it has now been responsible for many deaths), he could probably try to reverse engineer it from it’s smouldering corpse…
I set up the board as best I could to look like a ruined factory, with multiple rooms that have been smashed through. I rolled for random monsters, adding one result to each table edge and treasure token, coming up with a boar, Small Construct, Minor Demon and 5 zombies on the board:
The Golem, as per the scenario, was placed 10” from the centre in a random direction, ending up behind a wall on the left hand side.
Team Speedy (also known as ‘Team Have Bows’) set up first on the right hand side of their table edge, planning to hopefully pick off the relatively weak zombies on that side before swooping in to clear out the treasure.
Tim sets up on the far left with the Knight, Barbarian and Apothecary - with a Boar, Minor Demon and the Golem clustered just ahead of them, it was likely that this corner of the board was going to feature the bloodiest fighting! Because of this, Team Apprentice sets up just to their right, and consists of the Apprentice, Thug, Man at Arms and Warhound, hoping to be close enough to cast spells on the Golem, as it’s likely that taking control of it could be key to success!
Tim and the Apprentice cast their pre-game spells, and Tim excitingly gets a critical success raising a zombie, which means that the gang gets to add a Ghoul instead (better, faster, stronger). He then follows this up by failing to cast Brew Potion, but the Apprentice succeeds in making a Healing Potion, which he gives to Tim to replace the one he used last game.
To kick things off, Tim starts strong by successfully casting Control Construct on the Golem, bumping the total to 18 using his Staff and Ring of Power, but despite this the Golem succeeds in resisting his control. At this point, I stop and ponder - if I had been successful, I could have just run it straight off the table next turn to immediately ‘win’, and I decided that would be no fun so no doing that for at least a couple of turns.
The raised zombie/ghoul, Knight and Barbarian cautiously advance, positioning themselves just outside of the charge range of the boar’s fearsome tusks, and also hiding just behind the ghoul to avoid someone that isn’t instantly replaceable getting blatted by a thrown rock from the Golem!
As expected, the Golem hoys a rock, but due to poor rolls the raised ghoul ‘lives’ on to fight another day. That other day may come sooner than expected though, as the Golem then stomps over to loom over it…
In the Apprentice Phase, the Apprentice considers also trying to cast Control Construct, but settles for casting Strength on the Knight instead. The Warhound charges in to engage the Golem, and everyone else piles in to hide behind a low wall from the Minor Demon behind the Golem, ready to pounce on the Golem next turn.
Looks like most of this game is going to take place in about one square foot of the board…
The monsters all start making their way towards the gang, and I realise that I’ve messed up, and left the Warhound within charge range of the boar, and so it does! Luckily for the Warhound, it rolls very badly and the Warhound bites it down to 1 Health.
I’ve on the right, the Captain zips off an arrow at an approaching zombie, dropping it to 1 Health - I’ve had this (almost but not quite taking monsters out) happen quite a few times in the last few games. Maybe I need to track down some items that buff everyone up to do at least one more point of damage! The Tracker tries to finish it off with an arrow of his own, but missed, so Team Speedy huddle by a low wall of their own hoping that the zombies won’t notice them and will wander off. Tactics!
Unfortunately for them, a Giant Rat appears just behind them at the end of the turn:
As the new turn begins, Tim attempts to cast Control Construct again, but fails so badly that exerting to make it a success would cost him more than half of his Health. He briefly considers it (that’s what Healing Potions are for after all) but decides that it’s just too risky with when there is also a Boar and Minor Demon rushing at him (and anyway, he rolled a 2, so maybe worth it next time with a less terrible roll). Then, it’s a case of trying to work out who to activate, and in what order - the Warhound activates first and finishes off the Boar, leaving him unopposed to support the Knight who runs in to chop at the Golem with his magic sword and Strength spell enhanced muscles (although he does move around the Warhound to attack, in order to leave a gap for the Barbarian to have a go at the Golem if all that isn’t enough). The combination of an above average roll and the aforementioned magic sword and magic muscles (and a bevy of supporting companions) result in him dealing it an impressive 11 points of damage, dropping it to only 5 Health. The Barbarian then dashes into the gap left by the Knight to finish it off, and also manages to deal 11 points of damage, chopping it down and claiming the Script of the Golem for Tim! I guess Tim gave up on trying to capture it, and figured it was safer to study it while it wasn’t actively attempting to murder him and his employees…
There’s still treasure to gather though, so the Apprentice sends the Ghoul/zombie forward to fight the Minor Demon, figuring that it’s better to try to pin it in place so that everyone else can bundle it later, rather than letting it assassinate whichever lone character it can get its hands (tendrils?) on. The zombie gets smashed for 4 damage, but survives to fight on. The Apprentice then tries to cast Control Undead on a wild zombie loitering behind the Minor Demon, in the hopes of setting up a flanking situation, but suffers a critical fail on the casting roll, meaning he can’t try to cast that spell on this particular zombie for the rest of the game.
Unfortunately the Man at Arms (who is a better fighter) is just slightly too far away to be able to fight the Minor Demon this turn, so the Thug who is slightly closer steps up to fight alongside the gang’s ghoul/zombie, but loses the fight and suffers 2 points of damage. The Man at Arms dutifully runs in to join them, hoping that next turn some better fighters will be able to get there to relieve them!
In the Monster Phase, the Minor Demon rips apart the already damaged ghoul/zombie with ease, and all the other monsters on the board menacingly close on the bundle of juicy targets clumped together on the left hand side of the board. Over on the right, two zombies can no longer see Team Speedy - one shuffles off in the wrong direction, but the other continues forward, towards Team Speedy’s hiding place:
The Giant Rat that recently appeared charges in to attack the hiding Tracker, and crits, which is enough to take the Tracker out of action in one bite. Seeing this, the Captain quickly puts an arrow in it, then she and the Thief charge into the zombie that is between them and the nearest Treasure Token, and although the Thief is able to land some pretty solid hits she isn’t able to finish it off, and they remain locked in combat.
To add insult to injury, a randomly determined piece of terrain collapses, so a chunk of ruin behind Tim and the Apprentice crumbles to nothing. On the other hand, no more monsters appear, so maybe my luck is turning…
Tim cuts to successfully cast Control Undead on the zombie behind the Minor Demon, before sending the Barbarian in who manages to strip the Demon of half of it’s Health. He then shuffles forwards a bit, as last turn he lagged too far behind to be able to activate the Knight in the Wizard Phase. Next, he sends the Warhound in to finish off the Minor Demon, but unfortunately the Demon gets a crit and takes the hound out of the game.
After Tim has finished activating his group, the Apprentice cuts to successfully cast Control Undead on a different zombie to the one he crit failed against previously, planning to send it back across to the right hand side of the board to assist Team Speedy. And that’s it, as he has also lagged behind, and doesn’t have anyone near enough to activate in the Apprentice Phase.
In the Monster Phase, both monsters in combat attack, but in a change of fate both lose their fights and are taken out of action by Tim’s gang, the zombie by the Thief and the Minor Demon by the lowly Thug!
Buoyed by this sudden victory, the Captain looses an arrow at the zombie that they had previously wounded and crits it, leaving the right hand side of the board now suddenly clear of enemies, so she and the Thief dash ahead to secure a pair of Treasure Tokens. As the Thief grabs the central Treasure Token, 4 Giant Rats scurry onto the board just ahead of them…
While the Apprentice controlled zombie attacks the last uncontrolled zombie (doing 2 points of damage) Tim’s controlled zombie attacks the Small Construct that has been slowly but surely closing on the gang cutting it down to 5 Health, and it seems like the dice are definitely favouring me this turn.
Writing that down obviously tempted fate a little too hard though, as my next roll is absolutely terrible and the Thug is wounded by the Small Construct when he charges in to fight it. As is the Man at Arms when he also joins the fray. Dammit.
The Knight also stomps over to join in, but it takes both of his actions to actually get into combat so righteous violence will have to wait until next turn.
As the turn ends, a skeleton enters the board on the right hand table edge, next to the group of Giant Rats - which is less than ideal, as all of the fighty types are over on the left, and threats seem to be massing on the right around the Thief and Captain!
On the aforementioned left, the Barbarian bundles in to join the combat and manages to pull down the Small Construct, freeing up the 4 other models that were surrounding it.
Tim then marches up and joins them, casting Leap on the Barbarian and sending her flying off to land at the feet of the Thief. The Apprentice suddenly remembers that he has Gloves of Casting, and so probably could have had a crack at casting Control Construct on the Golem earlier. Probably best not to mention that to Tim, he mutters under his breath as he starts heading off towards the right side of the board too. He pauses briefly to lob a Grenade over the head of the zombie in combat with his controlled zombie - and only goes and kills it, in a wildly out of character move!
Ahead of him, the swarm of rats and skeleton boil across the ruins towards the Captain, surrounding the Treasure Token that she was heading towards:
Using the proper encumbrance rules for the first time, the Thief makes a much slower than usual rush towards the north most table edge with a Treasure Token, hoping that no monsters spawn there and ruin her day.
With the Small Construct destroyed, the Knight starts making his slow way over to the right, where the Captain looks fairly imperilled, while the Thug grabs the nearest Treasure Token. Tim had originally planned to raise a new zombie to do the fetching and carrying, but got the Thug to grab it instead lest he embarrass him by failing to cast the spell. As the Thug hoists the treasure under their arm, another Small Construct wanders onto the board, just behind him, so Tim has his controlled zombie lumber over to screen the Thug from it. Unfortunately, the controlled zombie is immediately cut down by the Small Construct (in hindsight, I shouldn’t have made it fight!) so the Man at Arms redirects, and also loses the fight, getting cut down to 4 Health and becoming Wounded!
The turn ends, and an Ice Spider scuttles in on the right hand board edge, making things look even hairier over there…
Tim and the Apothecary both charge in to rescue the wounded Man at Arms - although he does love magic, Tim is actually pretty hench and smashes the construct to pieces with his staff, allowing the wounded Man at Arms to limp off of the board to safety.
The Apprentice, meanwhile, moves forward to get in Grenade range of the sea of Giant Rats ahead of the Captain, succeeding via a combination of his Gloves of Casting and spending Health, destroying the two closest. The wandering skeleton then moves to attack the Apprentice’s controlled zombie (as it was just closer than the Captain thankfully) and is destroyed. The now reduced swarm of rats manage to make it into contact with the Captain, but exhausted from scrambling through the rubble and ruins aren’t able to attack this turn. Seizing the initiative, the Barbarian charges in and easily cuts one down - the Captain tries to slice the other, but loses the fight (although luckily does not lose any Health). The rest of the gang either head for the Captain if they’re not carrying treasure, or trudge towards the edge of the board if they are.
At the end of the turn, 2 zombies appear and immediately attack Tim and the Apothecary (maybe I should start having things appear at a random point on the board rather than in the centre to avoid this sort of thing happening). Tim tries to brain one of them with his staff, but even with the Apothecary supporting him gets hit for 6 points of damage, leaving him on 10 Health - this is what people mean when they say Frostgrave can be really swingy - so Tim cracks his Healing Potion. The Apothecary then manages to win a fight against the same zombie, but isn’t able to do any damage to it, and with Tim in the other side of it isn’t even able to push it away from him!
Hearing this scuffle the Apprentice swings across to get line of sight on the zombies attacking Tim, shooting the nearest one with a Bone Dart but due to a good roll from the zombie isn’t able to damage it. Frustratingly, both parties rolled 19, and the defender wins draws when it comes to shooting - one point more and the Appentice would have blown it away!
Back on the right, the rat bites the Captain who uses her Dodge skill to reduce the damage to zero, and the Ice Spider manages to get into biting range of the Apprentice’s controlled zombie. On the left, the two zombies attack the Apothecary, who thumps them both with his staff and pushes one back out of the combat.
While this is going on, the Thief finally manages to make it off of the board with her Treasure Token, and the Knight bundles in to attack the rat currently trying to bite the Captain’s face off. Despite rolling a 1, all of his bonuses still added up to enough to beat the rat’s 10, which wouldn’t do anything to most monsters, but is enough to kill the rat!
Behind them, the Barbarian dashes forward to attack the Ice Spider, but gets poisoned. Free of the rat, the Captain grabs the last Treasure Token and as she does so a Ghoul wanders onto the board behind the Apothecary - I guess my luck has dried up over on the left…
At the end of the turn, 2 wild dogs appear on the board, entering on the northern edge. I still haven’t painted any dogs, so they look like weird mushroom creatures today:
Tim, fearing losing a chunk of Health to another bad roll in combat elects to Raise a Zombie instead to bolster his numbers. The Apothecary attempts to take out the zombie between himself and Tim, but loses the fight and 1 Health.
The Apprentice, feeling like the right flank has things under control heads back towards Tim, exerting for 2 to cast Bone Dart again and this time successfully destroys the zombie. 1 down, 1 to go!
The right flank does indeed turn out to be under control, as the Ice Spider attacks the controlled zombie and is cut down, leaving the entire right hand side of the board suddenly clear of threats. For now, tha5nis, as the mushroom men/dogs rush towards the Knight:
Back on the left side, the Ghoul surprisingly loses its fight against the Apothecary, but due to being armed with a staff he isn’t actually able to do any damage to it but does manage to push it back. The zombie then attacks the Apothecary, who again wins narrowly enough that he isn’t able to deal any damage. Maybe I need to find him a magic staff or something that means he causes more damage, based on how often he seems to end up in combat!
The Captain looses an arrow off at the approaching mushroom men/dogs before heading towards the edge of the board with her Treasure Token, as the Knight charges in to see if he will have more luck in taking it out. He doesn’t, and a crit from the mushroom drops him straight to zero Health in one fell swoop… seeing this, the poisoned Barbarian uses her single action to put herself between the mushrooms and the treasure carrying Captain, as does the Apprentice’s controlled zombie. Luckily, when the end of the turn rolls around no more monsters enter the fray.
Feeling like things are entering the endgame, Tim orders his newly raised zombie to attack the wild zombie next to him, but despite outnumbering it 3 to 1 his zombie is immediately destroyed. I realise at this point that Tim shouldn’t actually have been able to cast that spell last turn due to being in combat, but it achieving literally nothing makes me feel less bad about that. Biting the bullet, Tim swings with his staff again but due to the staff’s inherent damage reduction rule is only able to drop the zombie to 1 Health. The Apothecary tries to finish it off, but unfortunately can’t seem to get a decent blow in, as often seems to be the case. The Apprentice casts Bone Dart on the Ghoul near the Apothecary, but isn’t able to stop it from attacking the Apothecary. Both roll terribly though, leaving the zombie to attack the Apothecary instead - he manages to crit and take it out, leaving Tim now unengaged. Over on the right the wild mushroom/dogs attack the Apprentice’s controlled zombie, chipping away at its Health, but at the end of the phase it is still standing.
At the end of the turn, the Captain escapes with the last Treasure Token, and the Barbarian joins the controlled zombie in fighting the mushroom/dogs, giving it enough of an advantage to be able to pull one down.
Having failed to take the Ghoul out by combat or shooting, Tim then fails to remove it as a threat by casting Control Undead. The Apprentice steps up and is more successful, and that’s it for the game bar the Barbarian making a fighting retreat while the Apprentice’s controlled zombie is left fighting the lone remaining mushroom/dog…
Post-game:
The Warhound and the Knight survive with no negative effects, but unfortunately the Tracker is Badly Wounded and has to miss the next game.
The Captain gains 30XP, not enough to gain a level again. She does loads in every game, but doesn’t actually seem to be getting many kills, which is where the bulk of her XP would come from…
Tim would have gained 421XP, which caps at 300, enough for him to gain 3 levels. He learns a Flourish to the spell Bone Dart that makes it more effective against Constructs and the Undead, gains a point of Will, and makes Grenade easier to cast, as it’s the spell that probably gets cast the most by the gang (as they always seem to be getting mobbed by groups of enemies).
For treasure, as well as the Script of the Golem gained for destroying the Golem all 3 tokens get rolled on the scenario specific table (as there’s no other time we’ll get to see most of these items) and Tim ends up walking away with a barrel of Construct Oil (which Tim already had), a Book of the Golem and a Mind Wrench, which Tim equips to make future attempts at stealing a golems easier. The Treasury generates 7GC, reduced to 6 after the Captain takes her cut. Not the most profitable result the gang has ever had, but this scenario was more about Tim wanting to learn about making his own mechanised weapons of destruction rather than mere profit.
What’s next? I think I’m going to take a pause in the adventures of Tim to focus on other projects in the New Year, but that’s not the end of him - he might nip back to the library to see if he can find a book about how to animate rather than just steal constructs (or venture into the Necromancy section, to see about learning the flourish that lets him summon a controlled skull using Animate Skull). Or carry on with the solo campaign in Perilous Dark. Plus, his Mortal Enemy might have something to say about his plans - and at this point, I realise that I forgot to roll for his Mortal Enemy at the start of this scenario! I roll now and she wouldn’t have turned up anyway, so we’ll retcon and pretend that I remembered…
One addendum that I forgot to include in my last post - the Tally took a little hit:
I ordered a bunch of bases, and couldn’t resist a lovely Westfalia Amazon on Clearance (as previously mentioned, a mini for a pound is almost irresistible to me) for my Warriors of Athena project. I had some issues with the website I was ordering from, which meant I had to re-place the order a couple, of weeks after my first attempt, and in the interim discovered that the do their own line of bits, so I ordered a few things - a banner pole (because all else failing, I’m sure I’ve always got a need for a rod), a couple of round shields (to see if they would be the right size to replace the now unavailable Hasslefree Hoplite shields that I have used on my House Stark conversions), and some knight helmets with Bishop hats (because the second I saw them I was struck by inspiration, and am tempted to make a unit of battlin’ bishops for Barons War).
Only one actual mini in there though, so the Tally now looks like:
38 vs 255 = -217
What’s next? It’s Christmas, so my painting time is limited in favour of wrapping presents and making space in the fridge for a turkey. I’m not going to get the Tally back in the black (do I ever?), but I could probably finish off 14 minis in the next 9 days to get the annual average up to one a week, right?