The Next Evolution of Our Club

Stormskull Dave has Stormskull things
to say to your Stormskull tookis.

Greetings, folks!

You might have been wondering (or not) where we've been these past weeks.  Like always, we've been hard at work putting things together for you - this time with more of an eye on the future.  Well, the battles grind on...but we're taking a moment to assess ourselves and make improvements.

All games clubs evolve.  Over time, you can find yourself doing things you never thought of just because that's the way things are going.  We've been comfortable with the format of things for a while, as a club.  Yet, the shifts have been both sudden and subtle over the last few years.  Now that the dynamics of and around our tables have changed.

We have more folks on Game Day than any of the game stores around us seem to have at any one time, and are far more involved in the gaming as an entity.  We're a private club - we don't have a storefront (but we do have an eBay) and space is limited - but everyone invited is made to feel like family.  The finance plan of the club has also changed, and the Project Assessment Committee is helping us move forward in a great many ways.  So many, in fact - we've been preparing for weeks on the back-end without many articles.  This is a cardinal sin on our part.





We'll be changing venues as planned in a few weeks, and several changes will occur.  More on these later.  Suffice it to say that for the last three or four years we've been experimenting with a few different options for going forward, and we'll be rolling out more news on this in July and August.  During that time, you may notice strange things happening with the site.  Don't be alarmed, this is just us fiddling with the web.  Things will be back to normal soon - in fact, better than normal.

More importantly, I have another announcement.

Our good buddy and coordinator Skim has stepped up to help out with content and is now co-author on this blog and moderator across the Wargate's social media.   In addition, check out his new blog, where he'll be talking about the meta of gaming.  I look forward to seeing his thoughts on the state of our hobby, industry and other facets of gamer life.

Skim is most certainly a welcome addition to the web-team, he and I have been friends for longer than I can really remember.  It's been at least twenty, and one of the first solid players back in the dimly remembered days of high school.  He's been a frequent co-conspirator over the years and is a big fan of miniature wargames.  We're sure to see a lot of cool stuff from this new level of collaboration, and I for one am very excited.

A new and improved network map will be available this week.  Original images by our art team will replace many on the site as well, so look for a total restructure of this blog and it's nature.  Thanks to everyone on the PAC, and to Skim for helping make it happen.

Now, back to work on the next phase of interdimensional war...

Hoard of the Dragon Queen (Sessions 4, 5 & 6)

These sessions were originally recorded 05/29, 06/05, and 06/12/2016.

You're Too Fat to Wrestle Me
As told by Hogan Savage, Professional Wrestler

After the whole ordeal in the woods, we went back to the town (I don't remember what it was called) and rested a few days.  I felt much better after a crowd gathered and heard the word of Kord.  I felt the power of Kord-a-mania!

We went back out into the woods (I'm not sure why) but found some more cultists.  They weren't good at playing fair, so we tied the survivor to a tree and left him there.  I tell you what, brother...Kord was with us that night, because a scalawag of a hill giant crept up on us as we slept.  Good thing the watch saw him, and I wrestled a hill giant.  Word.

I'm not really sure what happened, but another night we were attacked by cultists.  We made them regret their decision and interrogated the survivor, but he was mad.  I don't remember what happened to him.

At some point we were told to retrieve some dragon eggs from back at the cultist camp.  So we went back, and Miss Teagan had her dragon scout the encampment.  Not really sure what happened, but got a chance to wrestle some of the guards!  It was all good though - good chaps, really.  They were kinda fat, and I gave them some calisthenics protips.  Then they told me where the army went and where the dragon eggs were.  I let them keep the gold I won from them, just to brighten their day.

Teagan had her little dragon look inside the cave, but everyone was mad at me for some reason.  She said there was a dragon lady and some other guys inside, but not that many.  I'm not sure what the problem was, but they told me it was a bad idea to go talk to her.  I waited a bit, doing jumping jacks in the camp...then they told me they were going to turn me invisible and I had to go get the dragon eggs.  I'm not sure who suggested that - it might have been me.  Well?!  I'm the guy for that kinda job!

I went inside and grabbed the eggs.  No one saw me, but I heard something move once.  Then I left with the eggs.  The others were waiting outside the cave, so I surprised one of the guys with an invisible hug!  He was surprised, but I wasn't invisible anymore.  Then, we said bye to the guards and left.

Frostgrave Campaign Rules Update

Greetings, folks!

Since our campaign began for Thaw of the Lich Lord, we've found that Frostgrave is a very tight ruleset.  Indeed, each rules question we ran across has been answered in the Errata & FAQ from Osprey Wargames.  We've been playing the game according to the rules as written in the main Rulebook, and there hasn't really been an issue we've seen to cause a problem save one.  Namely, permanent wizard death.

It wouldn't be an issue in an open or long-term campaign, but we've traditionally ran timed campaigns and tracked individual player win / loss records.  It causes an issue when your wizard dies if we're keeping track of certain information (like experience points).  If you're reset to 0 in certain respects, how can you manage to make it up before the end of the campaign?

We decided not to subject anyone else to a 0-sum after I suffered as the club guinea pig for having their wizard killed (R.I.P. Arzoz Maurz, Most Annoying Illusionist).  After casting around on the internet looking to see if anyone else had come to this conclusion, we quickly found that we were not alone.  After examining a few of the rulesets, we've decided to integrate the popular JustPlay Frostgrave Rules Changes wholesale, both Recommended and Optional.  This cleans up all the questions we had very nicely, including giving us a nice structure for the Out-of-Game turns as well.

In addition to these changes, we're adding several official Frostgrave expansions to the ol' chopping block this season:  Sellsword, Dark Alchemy and Hunt for the Golem.  Consider these expansions to be legal in any Wargate campaign where one of the scenarios is listed.  For our current game, these are all legal as of now - including the ability to include Captains in your lists.  Now you can finally make use of that section of the wizard sheet!

As for the smaller campaigns, Dark Alchemy and Hunt for the Golem, the scenarios take their place in the current order as shown on the Frostgrave campaign page.  In addition, Dark Alchemy replaces the potion rules immediately.  The campaigns can generally be undertaken by players as they wish, any limits will be denoted in the season's own campaign rules.

Lots of folks are frothing at the mouth for Frostgrave around these parts!  We'll see a large campaign update this weekend as new combatants enter the fray.  I wonder what level we'll end the season around?  Get your wizard leveled now, and we'll see you on Game Day!