The final game of my Frostgrave campaign

The Hall of Whispering Statues

For the past year the Unseen University has been sending out teams from various departments, from both the left and right wings of the College building, to investigate the ruins of the great city known as "Frostgrave."  Due to global warming, caused by the Unseen University's research in many peoples' opinion, the lost city has been slowly emerging from its thousand year icy tomb, and more importantly has begun to give up its secrets and its treasure.  

The exploring groups from the University are each lead by a Wizard with an apprentice and up to a dozen so so soldiers and hired thugs in support.  It is a game of looting and treasure hunting, but Frostgrave has not proved an easy or safe place to loot.

There have been some casualties.  The wizard Salmon and his apprentice the witch Sturgeon, two feisty and fishy characters, were killed early on in the Hall of Whispering Statues.*  Boris the Buffoon and his apprentice Backstabber Govius were done to death by a swarm of rats at the end of one particularly difficult scenario.  The Brown Wizard and his apprentice "Darling," did not survive an onslaught by the Lich of the Great Pitt, an ancient and un-dying Wizard. Finally Lord Blair retired from the game, having discovered a "Tablet of all Knowledge," and its demonic voice the Imp "Sirry."  He has returned to the University and become  Lord Chancellor.

* Legend has it that the statues whisper an endless round of chuckling "To me..." "To you..."  "To me..."

The remaining teams from the Unseen University are:

Cameronus and his apprentice Osbournius 
Cruella the witch, her apprentice Hammondius and her minions
Corbinus and his apprentice The MacDonell (the former apprentice Watsinius having been pushed over a cliff by the current apprentice)
Farrond and his apprentice Poor Cleggy!

Each of these four have won several magical artifacts and a great deal of gold (except for Farrond and Poor Cleggy who never seem to win anything but somehow seem to manage to cling on in there.)

The final scenario of my Frostgrave games was to be the Hall of Whispering Statues (revisited) and all four teams were in competition for the prize, the Great spellbook of Winstonius Churcillius, a wizard of legend.

I use 15mm figures for Frostgrave.  I`m rather pleased with them.  A fraction of the price of the 28mm "authorised" figures they store more easily and require less tabletop area.

The game began with the four teams approaching the Hall of Whispering Statues from the four corners of the tabletop.  First into action were Farrond and Poor Cleggy.  The way-point they passed generated an ambush by a huge troll.  

With quite a small team, mainly due to their lack of funds because of a poor showing in the campaign to date, the pair were in trouble. 

Farrond however proved up to the task.  

As his men at arms fought the Troll he cast a fireball, burning it down.  (magic under my amendments has to be real.  The Unseen University works on Science.  A fireball is essentially a hand grenade, but don`t tell the masses that!) So far so good, except that one of his own men was killed in the explosion.  This was a taster of things to come!  Seeing an empty building in front of them Farrond and Poor Cleggy charged inside, finding two treasure tokens and a lot of Skeletal undead. 

Corbinus and his apprentice The MacDonell used their fanatically loyal spearmen as a screen to advance onto the table.  The swarm of rats that rose up from the rocks was soon thumped into submission.  Corbinus once again produced his wand of power  named The Mandate!  (actually a taser) Seizing a Pearl of Wondrous Size as they passed a treasure point Corbinus group and advanced on the Hall of statues.

Cameronus and his apprentice Osbournius advanced on table, killing a single zombie that appeared at the way-point.  Across the table from them Cruella and her minions came on table.  Once part of the same department in the right wing of the Unseen University there was now a terrible hatred and rivalry between these two factions.  Ignoring the Hall of statues these two groups closed to fight.

Cruella cast a huge fireball, exploding it directly behind the front rank of Cameronius supporters. 
  
The apprentice Hammondius actually cast a spell properly (quite astonishing when you consider Cleggy's efforts in this area) and a cloak of darkness descended on Cameronius and his followers.  

A tremendous hand to hand melee began, which the Witch won with convincing ease.   

Cameronius was killed and Osbournius fled the battlefield.

The game returned to Farrond and Cleggy, left with just a few supporters and now battling a building filled with skeletons. Cleggy cast a fireball into the middle of the undead horde, killing most of his own men. Ooops!  

Farrond meanwhile ended up on the sharp end of an undead spear, leaving poor Cleggy as the last survivor.  Digging around he discovered the Great Spellbook, turns out it wasn't near the statues at all!  Having effectively won the game by massacring his own side Cleggy exited the battlefield, and returned to the University, presumably to take up a Professorship in Incompetence Studies.

Corbinus still in the Hall of Whispering Statues, (To me... to you..." flourishing  his wand TheMandate advanced on the statues, prepared to overawe the electorate with the size of his magic wand.

  Now anyone who knows this game is aware that these statues are extremely dangerous things... Just ask Salmon and Sturgeon... Well they were dead but you get what I mean... Not so Corbinus... The statues animated to defend their treasure, and began rampaging among Corbinus supporters. When the wand failed to work (taser against stone?) the Wizard retreated but refused to resign himself to running away.  His Apprentice The McDonnell, who had been relegated to pulling the cart (an excellent use of an apprentice) was one of the few survivors as Corbinus was flattened by a stone sword.  The Party of the left wing (formed in the left wing of the Unseen University Building) was reduced to three members, and fled.

All of this left the Witch Cruella victorious.  She killed off the remaining statues with her stone to mud spells, and her minions packed up the remaining treasure on the tabletop.

Frostgrave is not really a roleplay game, certainly not in the traditional sense.  This was the last of five games I`ve run, and it only emphasises the fact that this is a skirmish wargame, or even boardgame since it has some elements of that too.  It is also really fun, and my use of waypoints has made it a great solo game.  Cruella will be back!