Frostgrave at Hotlead 2017

What a fantastic time I had running two demo games of Frostgrave at Hotlead 2017. This post is a retrospective on those games and a thank you to my sponsors. To start, I would like to show off five pictures sent in to me by a friend and reader, Randall Carder. Thank you for sending these pictures. Check out the engagement at the table in the first image!

A Picture of myself (the guy with a shaved head, red name tag and glasses) and three Frostgrave players at Hotlead 2017. This picture was taken by Randall Carder and posted with his permission.

The table itself looked absolutely fantastic!

Photo taken by Randall Carder and posted with his permission.

Photo taken by Randall Carder and posted with his permission.

A picture of an exploded house with an intact one in the distance. For those wondering, all four terrain pieces showcased here (Ruined House, Bridge, White and Brown House, and Ruins in-between) are all made by XOLK. Photo taken by Randall Carder and posted with his permission.

Photo taken by Randall Carder and posted with his permission.

Running a game at a Convention is nothing new to me. My games at Hotlead are the third and fourth games that I have run at conventions. The first game I ever ran at a Convention was Mansions of Madness. The second was A Fistful of Kung Fu. The people at my Fistful of Kung Fu table enjoyed themselves, but I wanted to show the difference in table quality between that game and what I ran at Hotlead 2017. Check out these pictures.

The Fistful of Kung Fu table is functional, but certainly not as pretty as the Frostgrave table above.

My terrain included birdhouses that I cut open and modified into houses for miniature combat.

The Fistful of Kung Fu table certainly was functional, but has nowhere near the same appeal as the Frostgrave table that I just ran. Check out the table below. It is absolutely gorgeous and a large part of that is due to corporate sponsorship and some help from some friends.

Check out how great this table looks!!! Simply stunning!!!

Specific to this event, my sponsors were Osprey Games, XOLK and North Star Military Figures. Osprey Publishing provided prize support, XOLK provided MDF Terrain and North Star sent me Chilopendra miniatures and a special miniature to represent Tiszirain (a Demon Lord).

On top of those companies, Jeremy Cada of Forbes Hobbies in Cambridge (Ontario, Canada) helped Must Contain Minis by painting up the Chilopendra and Tiszirain Demons for the table. My friends Dave and Randall also provided some terrain to help fill the table. With this help, I had a stellar looking table.

As a thank you to all of the companies that have helped Must Contain Minis along the way, I made an effort to include each of them somehow at the demo table. The only company that I could not work into the event was Hyacinth Games (the makers of Wreckage).

From Asmodee, I used miniatures from the Conan Board Game as a Warband and used Conan himself as one of the Barbarians. The gaming Mat came from Cigar Box Battle and I used the scenery from RAINN Studios‘ Battle Pack as spell effects and as a back up plan for ruins in case Dave and Randall could not make it to the convention with their terrain.

I also included several products from companies that have not sponsored Must Contain Minis. That includes multiple scenery elements from Six Squared Studios (craters, barrels and a Huge Keg) and Warbands with Miniatures by Reaper Miniatures and RAFM Miniatures.

Another look at the table. On each side, one Warband would deploy in the middle while the other four Warbands would deploy in the corners.

To determine the winners, I developed my own modified scoring system. In this system, points were given for normal conditions that would give Wizards Experience in the scenario. On top of the rewards available to all players, each Warband had their own hidden objective worth points if completed. The scenarios played included Mortal Shells in the Afternoon and Rescue the Prince in the Evening.

For the Afternoon game, some of those hidden Objectives included controlling a specific opponent’s warband members through the use of a Control Construct or Control Animal Spell, Walking Demons off the board through the use of the Bind Demon spell, or killing creatures (or warband members) on the board with specific spells. The Evening’s game also had specific hidden Objectives, but I will not disclose them at this point as I plan to re-run that scenario at Broadsword 3.

Check out the Terrain!!! The house and boards are by XOLK while the craters are made by Six Squared Studios.

A look at the Centre most objective from Mortal Shells.

Another picture of scenery.



In Mortal Shells, the Players must read the ruins written on the walls in the middle of the table to gain the most amount of points. The game was set to run until we either ran out of time, or two of the six warbands left the board (either by elimination or by walking off). Aside from two wizards who got extra points for killing creatures (and warband opponents) with specific spells, all point incentives to kill Wizards and Apprentices were removed from the first game. I didn’t want players going for player elimination right away.

All of the players cautiously move towards the centre.

The shooty dwarf faction squares off against the other dwarf faction that focuses on constructs – killing one of them.

Multiple Wizards converge to the centre.

The shooty faction is finding themselves in a bit of trouble with a construct and assassin.

With a couple of exceptions, most of the combat was between warband members rather than Wizards. The Wizards were too busy trying to gain new knowledge from the ruins.

In the end, it was the Necromancer Player that won this scenario by points. In the evening’s scenario, things were different. In the evening games, the gloves were off. Wizards would now gain points for killing enemy Wizards, Apprentices and Warband members. In their secret objectives, I purposely set specific Warbands against each other – but to my surprise players found other reasons to attack each other.

The scenario this time was Save the Prince (also from Forgotten Pacts). In the middle of the table was an evil wizard preparing a sacrifice to raise an evil demon. This game timed out, so I will be sure to play this one on a smaller surface at my next convention. Regardless, my players had fun. It was the Enchanter’s Warband that won this scenario.

Here the Necromancer is trying to get to the middle of the table while the Enchanter has his warband engage the Necromancer in a pincer movement with attackers rushing in from the front and rear.

A better look at the objective the warbands are trying to get to.

On the other side of the table, the Summoner is making good use of the Fog Spell to save himself from the shooty Dwarfs camping right beside him.

These are some of the ranged attackers giving the Summoner a hard time. The Dwarf in the back with a Flame Thrower is an Elementalist and almost came in first. The Enchanter squeaked out a win in the last turn.

Here we had two warbands making their way across the bridge to stop the Wizard from summoning Tiszirain

Unfortunately, this is about where we ran out of time. Tiszirain was not summoned, but the prince was never rescued either so no one got points for preventing the Demon from being summoned. The enchanter completed one of his two hidden objectives and won on points based on that.

I hope that everyone enjoyed reading this article about the Frostgrave games at Hotlead 2017. For those that want more background information on this game, below is a list of related articles.

For those interested in more, I ran the last scenario at Broadsword 3 with a different result. Tiszirain was actually summoned!!! Check out the Battle Report!

Until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!

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