"Bear Yourselves Valiantly" and "Frostgrave" Gaming Weekend

   My gaming room saw a lot of activity this weekend, as I hosted both a game of "Bear Yourselves Valiantly" (fantasy mass combat) on Friday night, and a game of Frostgrave (fantasy skirmish) on Saturday afternoon.   Because we were expecting a light turnout for our usual alternate-Friday club meeting, I offered to host the game at my place (especially since an advance scout had reported that the hall where we usually meet had hardly been dug out from the blizzard.)  I had been scheduled to run a playtest of my BYV game for Cold Wars anyway, so having the game at my house made my set up all the more easier.

An overview of the table.  The Elven column enters from the road at the bottom of the photo, and must exit at the end of the table where the road exits at the upper left. Meanwhile, the Lizardmen and Goblins are entering along the long edge on the right.

 We ended up with four players for the game, which featured a Elven rearguard trying to keep marauding Lizardmen and their Goblin allies away from a retreating column of refugees and treasure fleeing the nearby Elven capital, which was under attack by the Lizardmen.

The treasure wagons and refugees enter, along with two groups of reinforcements.

      The game went down to the wire, with the column of refugees approaching the exit area just as a warband of Wargs cut the road.  We had to end due to the lateness of the hour, but it would have been a close and exciting contest to see how it would have ended.

Meanwhile, the small Elven force that starts the game on the table, tries to hold back the tide of swarming enemies.

     The next day, Saturday, I was scheduled to help Don Hogge  with a demo of Frostgrave at a local game store.  Then, just as I was getting ready to leave, Don texted me from the store to let me know that due to the blizzard, the store's tournament schedule had been pushed back; and the table we would have used for the demo, was being commandeered for other purposes.   So I suggested that Don, and another friend who was coming to the demo, Jim, just come over to my place for a quick pick-up game of Frostgrave anyway since the store was only about 10 minutes from my house.   It would be a great opportunity to put my new waterfront terrain into action, as well as some of my new Dwarven Forge City Builder terrain.

An overview of the table.

      The highlights for me were my Illusionist wizard and apprentice casting the Glow spell on about 5 enemy figures, allowing my pair of archers to have great success in drilling several of them with arrows. This is a tactic I will have to remember in the future.  I also managed to cast a Mind Control spell on Don's medium construct, and used it to bash on his wizard.

My wizard and a small group of his soldiers enter by the statue of the ice queen! :)

     In the end, when the dust (or would that be snow?) settled, Don won with 4 treasures, I got 3, and Jim got 2.  I'm really looking forward to starting the campaign later this month.

While nearby, the rest of my warband enters under the leadership of the apprentice.