Grabzatz Bestest Goblin Warband

[Tom]

Starting line up:

Grabzat the Wizard, Witch (Poison Dart, Fog, Animal Companion, Telekinesis, Raise Zombie, Leap, Fool's Gold, Absorb Knowledge)
Oozit the Apprentice
4 x Archer
Thief
Treasure Hunter

First fight was against a Soothsayer and his band. Simple treasure hunt, no special rules. Before battle both spellcasters failed to summon up any animal companions (they must have known I had no painted minis ready) but they did both manage to produce some fool's gold. Between them they managed to summon one zombie.

The opening dice roll was where I learned you can get into bow range in one turn so you should take a bit more care about your initial deployment. One shot, Oozit out of the game!

Despite this shocking opener, both players managed to secure three treasures without major incident leaving the match decider to a massive scrum over the tiebreaker (the Soothsayer had cast Reveal Secret before the match to put an extra treasure token out). One of his soldiers reached it first but a Poison Dart slowed him to a crawl and he was mobbed by archers, a newly summoned zombie and eventually Grabnatz himself. The enemy wizard kept the soldier alive for a while longer with healing magic, but that let her get drawn into the fray which ended with a lot of bodies, a goblin leap spelling off with the loot and Grabzat foregoing magic to club the enemy wizard to the floor with his staff.

The game ended 4-3 to the goblins and much fun was had.

The Soothsayer mind control spell was a bit of a beast and I was lucky that he consistently failed to cast it on my soldiers who were just about to run off the board with loot. Still lost a soldier and a zombie for a good portion of the game.

And the Fool's Gold spell was good fun. The enemy fell for both decoys which certainly provided me with much amusement!

After the fight Grabzatz gained 4 levels and found a grimoire of Imp which he learned. He invested levels in some more health and improved casting for Poison Dart and Leap as they both proved very useful in the game. Other loot was a scroll of Imp and a scroll of Invisibility, a fairly useless grimoire of Combat Awareness (opposed school so v difficult to cast, but you can't sell grimoires for spells you don't already know) and a banner of courage which will help with the old mind control if it comes up again.

Invested money in a couple of knights and a thief, moved to an Inn, fired the archer who was my only long term injury sufferer (harsh employment law in Frostgrave but I can't have him taking up a roster slot for a game while he recovers) and finally Oozit put Grabzat to shame and summoned up an animal companion. Bear!

Bring on the next game.

[Tom]

'Bears' arrived. And put my vast modelling expertise and supplies to making the 'Banner of Courage' I found. I think I'll call it the 'Staff of the Radiant Sun.'

[Tom]

Oozit the apprentice is painted.

[Tom]

Grabzat the Wizard painted! The warband is 100% ready for its first game!

A pity then that since their first game was a while ago I've purchased two more knights. Back to the painting table...

In related news, tonight I learned the limit of my patience with respect to complexity of models for painting. It's just less than that wizard model.