Frosthaven

Frosthaven – Frozen Crypt (5)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We’re still following the Algox thread of the campaign where we’re mostly being used by one tribe to do its dirty job in killing another. But hey, we’re not picky when it comes to killing.

Characters

  • Boneshaper (David) lvl 2
  • Geminate (Math) lvl 1>>2
  • Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 1>>2

Except that our enemies somewhat object to being killed and even have the audacity of getting us into a trap! The floor opens beneath our feet and we fall into the eponymous Frozen Crypt where we’ll have to fight our would-be victims’ ancestors or something.

I’ve brought Bob the dead lumberjack with me, he’ll be a recurring feature, trust me. Him and Raging Sally. Yes, I’m naming my undead minions. Can’t remember my companions names though ha ha!

We first face off against Icy Wraiths, tricky bastards that do retaliate damage (elite) and range attacks (normal).

And now a classic staple of gloomhaven: the evil altar (utmost left) that we must destroy! ‘Cause if we don’t we’ll soon be swarmed by Frozen Corpses. They’re slow, being all y’know frozen, but they keep coming! But our Drifter does short work of the altar whilst the Geminate distract the undeads. We then turn our attention to our now vulnerable foes and destroy them (Raging Sally doing what she does best).

Closing Comments:

  • Pretty straightforward scenario, 2 rooms, 2 variety of monsters, we’re obviously not yet there on scenario complexity ramping up
  • Frosthaven continue to show us some clever monster tricks, going further on that front than gloomhaven for sure
  • We’re now all level 2, Guillaume was unsure if would go for a range build or not
  • We’ve added a Mining Camp to the village, still a Hunting Lodge to go and we’ll be all set to pumping out ressources (as long as we have the money too)
  • I have to complain, we’re not being paid! What kind of mercenaries are we?! Do-gooders, that’s who you think we are, pwah! Raging Sally, spit on them!

Frosthaven – Heart of Ice (4)

David Skelector Fantasy, Frosthaven

Our third frosthaven scenario (sorry I’m skipping the second one) is inside an algox mountain lair, following our entrance on its backdoor after a steep ascension.

Characters

  • Boneshaper (David) lvl 1>>2
  • Geminate (Math) lvl 1
  • Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 1

There’s a sort of icy tunnel and after we’ve eliminated the defenders we can access a room where two algox leaders (bosses) from rival clans/religions are having a go at each other.

Now, I thought we were gonna fight their minions or that their minions would try to stop us from intervening somehow but no, to win the scenario we specifically had to huh, meddle let’s say, and help one defeat the other.

Aside: party name proposition: Interloping Southerners

So we choose to help Snowdancer defeat Frozen Fist, it made some sense as we’ve fought alongside already on the previous scenario. We kill Frozen Fist (the Drifter does the killing blow) et voilà, we’ve solved the town’s little algox problem. Or have we?

What’s that? Hmm, yes, we’re asked to kill some more to prove our worth to our would-be allies… Yep, of course, always happy to get more skeletons help our friends!

Closing Comments:

  • Guillaume’s Drifter did a lot of damage throughout the scenario but he was a bit too rash and almost got killed
  • My boneshaper is really different from a gloomhaven summoner as most of her summons are expendables, taking a hit or two before dying if need be, in contrast with loss cards summons where you must be very careful to keep them alive. I find it’s a pretty easy character to play as long as I manage my hit points carefully.
  • Math still struggles with his Geminate (he doesn’t do badly mind you) but I’ll let him expand on this himself if he wishes. It IS a 5* complexity character after all.
  • We’ve unlocked a new character, the Snowdancer! That’s pretty cool!
  • I think we would have unlocked a different one have we sided with the other boss?
  • We’ve added a level 2 barrack (from an event) and a logging camp to the town, great!

Frosthaven – Town in Flames (1)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Frosthaven scenario 1, Play reports, Town in Flames

My brother-in-law Math have enlisted us back after a several months’ hiatus following the end of our campaign of Gloomhaven. Its much-hyped successor Frosthaven was awfully late in materialising at his doorstep, not even counting the usual delays (covid, always covid), his kickstarter copy arriving with the very last batch of deliveries or so it seemed. Anyway here we are again, the same three players for at least a year of Frosthaven.

Note: My present cellphone is as cheap as it gets and my pictures are shit awful. I’ll try to have a better camera next time.

Note 2: Hopefully, Math and Guillaume will chime in too on the blog.

Note 3: The box comes with cardboard minis and tiles. Every tiles, decor pieces and minis in the pictures you’ll see are Math’s and not included in what you’d buy.

Characters

  • Boneshaper (David) lvl 1
  • Geminate (Math) lvl 1
  • Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 1

Our characters were randomly picked from the six starting ones. Mine is a necromancer who taps on her own life essence in order to fuel her dark arts and summon undead horrors. That’s cool. Even cooler is Math’s Geminate who switches round to round between « stances » as their two personalities compete to take control over their body (which is a swarm of insect, awesome). Guillaume’s Drifter is less unusual and accordingly, far simpler to play.

Town in Flames

The very first scenario.

The fortune-seekers suffer from a long, exhausting northward march in an inhospitable landscape to reach Québec City Frosthaven only to see it burn. It’s under attack! Yeti-like Algox are swarming the poorly defended town, killing its inhabitants left and right.

After asking ourselves for a minute if we’d just go back the way we came we said **** it and just killed the baddies.

Missing (picture too sucky): my favorite moment, when I ordered my summoned skeleton to pick up loot and he was carrying it like a boss.

We save only one poor guard dude, the others are all dead… Hey, c’mon, we did our best I swear! We’ve just arrived! Our feet are like popsicles and all! Now leave the corpses to me, they’ll be treated with the respect they deserve mwahaha!

Closing comments:

  • The starting characters we got all seem fun to play. I have no idea what the non-starting characters look like, it’ll be great to discover them once they’re unlocked.
  • Math’s 3d printed new tiles are amazing. Each are single unit and magnetic so we can assemble the map very fast.
  • Gloomhaven is an excellent tactical boardgame but its storyline and overall worldbuilding is probably its weakest part IMO. If Frosthaven has a wee bit of improvement on this part it will enhance the gameplay experience a lot for me. We’ll see.
  • Frosthaven has another new thing compared to Gloomhaven, a town-building feature grafted to it. It was decided that it is I that will manage that part of the game so once I have studied it properly I’ll talk about this more probably.
  • The loot system seems a bit weird to me; adventurers collecting wood and metal and whatnot in monsters lair? I understand the intent but there’s a disconnect for sure. A bit too gamey for me, but it’s a minor thing, just a reminder that Frosthaven is a boardgame and not a RPG (even if it has rpg elements in it).