Saturday, October 3, 2015

My next project


For little over a month ago I have been looking for another project to tackle. This I have done while being fully aware that I have an Across the Dead Earth game that I have not even tried yet. My adventure in selling my SAGA The Crescent and the Cross stuff will come to a happy ending on Thursday. Here I will drive to the Danish-German border for a direct delivery of all minis, books, terrain and even the board I made.

Some background
Last week news Osprey revealed what they have lined up for 2016 - see here, and one product in particular caught my eye Broken Legions - Fantasy Skirmish Wargame in the Roman Empire. From the brief description of the game and the information that the author provided on the lead-adventure forum I was sold on the setting. Problem is that the game does not release until July 2016 - so what to do in the meantime? Since the news I have been thinking about what ruleset could be adapted for this game where you take control of small group of for instance Germanic barbarians that includes werewolves?





My search took me to the LOTR ruleset and IHMN - but while both seem solid enough it was not what I was looking for. Looking through the normal blogs that I follow and different forums I was constantly told how good a game Frostgrave is. Ever since it was release I have been baffled that this game has become so successful - this seemed so ordinary and the classic fantasy setting is something that has not appealed to me for many years. And the miniatures did not appeal to me either, so I had not had any incentive to seek more information. This time I could however see some similarities between this and Broken Legions where the objective is to find treasure/artifacts. Both are also fantasy and with a limited number of miniatures.



Enter Frostgrave
Reviews and battle reports on YouTube gave me more incentive to seek out the rules. Via my Scribd.com subscription I found that I had access to an online version of the rules - nothing I could print but a version that I can read online. Reading through the rules I was surprised at the simplicity, but it seemed to work. I began thinking about if it was adaptable to my vision of Broken Legions - and I think it can.

My friend Michael's favorite setting is fantasy and if possible he will always play a wizard so I thought he would the perfect guy to try out the Frostgrave rules as written. So we arranged to have a game this evening. I found my only fantasy figures and used an old Malifaux board with some terrain as the Frozen City. Normally I spend months preparing minis, terrain and everything else, so this was something new.

What a pleasant surprise
Frostgrave proved to be such a wonderful experience. Never has a game flowed this easy from the get go. Nothing in the rules is baffling and everything just works! Not when I have playing Malifaux, Empire of the Dead, my 1812 - Retreat from Moscow and SAGA has any of them been this much fun. I am astonished at this - the old minis look crap, the terrain leaves a lot to be desires, but the gameplay is so enjoyable - this I have no doubt will be my new favorite game.

Michael and I played to games and had a blast. The scenarios are a lot of fun and the level of tactics and the campaign system is great. After the game both of us were smiling - what a game!

We talked about my ideas for adapting it for my version of Broken Legions and Michael seems very hooked on that as well. My initial feeling is that I will add a non-spellcaster leader - will normally be a centurion or barbarian chieftain, and add a cost to some beasts so that it becomes possible for Germanic tribes to add werewolves, Dacians to add vampires, Egyptians to add mummies etc. Each warband will be more different than your regular Frostgrave warband. Your choice of warband will give you unique options but also deny you access to other stuff - no legionary with the Dacians for instance.

This is very much just ideas, but I think the Frostgrave rules can be adapted to Broken Legions. I have no doubt that I will continue to play Frostgrave as written - it is just so enjoyable, and I will be looking to see at what level I will back the Nickstarter for The Thaw of the Lich Lord expansion.

Comments are as usual very welcome - I read every one of them.

2 comments:

  1. The game really grabbed you, then! Great news! I shall look forward to seeing where you go with this!

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    Replies
    1. This grabbed me big time. Have some commission painting to do, but then my attention will turn 100% towards this

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