Underwater Adventuring Rules

Thanks to strange and powerful magics, your crew can now breath, move, and even fight underwater. You still aren’t as capable as those that are native to the depths, but with great risk comes great reward!

            The following rules are for players who would like to take their games of Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago underwater – both for the purposes of creating new terrain and fighting new monsters as well as the chance to change the feel of their game by adventuring in this strange new environment. These rules don’t include any specific justification for why you can operate underwater, nor do they attempt to be a realistic depiction of moving and fighting in the depths. They exist simply to have fun while creating an impression of being underneath the waves.

            As always, players should take what they like from these rules, discard what they don’t like, and add in anything they believe would make their games more fun. Really, these are just my ‘house rules’ for underwater games!

(If you have any thoughts, suggestions, ideas for these rules, please include them in the comments below).

           

Activation

Players may only use group activation if every figure involved in the group activation is either aquatic or amphibious. Otherwise, activation works as normal, and spellcasters, Heritors, and wardens, may still activate up to 3 figures during their phases.

Movement

Unless a figure is aquatic or amphibious, it may take a maximum of one move action per activation. Aquatic or amphibious figures follow the normal rules. Being underwater does not affect movement by spells. Otherwise, all figures move at their normal rates.

Obstructions

Figures may climb at their normal movement rate. It is not halved.

Rough Ground

To be considered rough ground, the terrain must extend vertically at least 2”. Otherwise figures may swim over it.

Jumping

All jumping distances are doubled. So a figure that moves 6” in a straight line may then jump 12” horizontally. Also, for every inch jumped horizontally, a figure may freely move up or down 1” as well. Such jumps could very easily consist of more movement than a figure has available in one activation. In such a case, place the figure on the table but mark their ‘height’ above the ground using a die or some other token. Once a figure has started such a jump, they must continue it from activation to activation until they touch down again.

Falling

Falling works as normal except no damage is ever suffered from falling.  

Swimming

Swimming Rolls are not required for normal movement. They may still sometimes be called upon in situations where there are strong currents, areas of suction, etc. In these instances, a figure that fails loses their activation, but suffers no damage.

Flying

Amphibious and aquatic creatures count as having Flying for the purpose of these rules, whereas figure that actually have Flying cannot use this ability while underwater.

Combat

Combat works as normal with the following modification. Unless a figure is aquatic or amphibious, it only grants a +1 bonus for being a supporting figure in a combat. Aquatic and amphibious figures grant the normal +2 bonus.

Shooting

Shooting follows the normal rules with the following modification. If a figure is the target of a bow, crossbow, javelin, or throwing knife shooting attack, it receives an additional +2 to its Fight Roll as it is easier to see these attacks coming and dodge out of the way.

Collecting Treasure

It is slightly easier to move heavy treasure under water. A figure carrying a treasure token suffers -2 Move instead of the normal half movement rate. It still suffers a -1 Fight as normal.

Casting Spells and Activating Heritor Abilities

There are no changes to the rules for casting spells or utilizing Heritor Abilities; however, some of the rules above may change the use or effectiveness of such powers.

***

Some players might wonder why I haven't made these rules fully 3-D. While moving in three dimensions is more realistic for an underwater environment, I have always found that attempting to keep track of a figure's height above the ground,greatly slows a game down, while adding nothing to the fun. 

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

Slowly, I have been trying to catch up on the best ‘Lovecraftian’ fiction published in the last ten years or so. It began when I read Lovecraft Country, and continued recently with The Ballad of Black Tom.

The Ballad of Black Tom is a retelling of the H. P. Lovecraft story The Horror at Red Hook. Now, I admit, I don’t think I’ve ever read The Horror at Red Hook. This might be because it isn’t part of Lovecraft’s famed ‘Cthulhu Mythos’, or maybe because it is generally considered a bad story, or maybe because it is apparently one of his most overtly racist pieces of writing. I don’t know.

Regardless, I’m glad that Victor LaValle read it, because he took the story, turned it around, and formed it into a really good weird-horror tale. LaValle basically tells the story from the point of view of a young black man who gets caught up in the weird machinations of people dabbling in dangerous magic. Like Lovecraft Country, it is a story that layers the horrors of racism on top of more traditional fiction/horror tropes. Although The Ballad of Black Tom was published four years ago, it feels very relevant for today.

Of special interest is the dedication from the author, 'For H.P. Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings'

Anyway, it’s a really good read, and if you are into horror or weird tales, you should give it a try.

Early Wargaming

As far as I know, this is the earliest photographic proof of my interest in toy soldiers and wargaming. I think I’m about 10 years old and setting up a battle on the front steps of our house. The soldiers are plastic 1/72 figures that could be bought as cheap party favours.

The Battles on Weathertop

For the first volume of Blaster, I wrote a couple of Rangers of Shadow Deep scenarios heavily inspired by the two skirmishes that take place on Weathertop in The Lord of the Rings. In order to illustrate the article, I broke out a lot of the figures I have painted over the last year, and did a careful photo shoot.

In the end, not all of the photos got used, and some of them appeared in a modified form (including one modified to be a really cool night scene!). Anyway, I am so happy with how well the photos came out, and with my paint work on the figures, I just wanted to show off my favourite photos in their original form. 

 

Frostgrave 2 – Soldiers!

While the system for creating wizards and apprentices has changed very little between editions, the system for recruiting soldiers is probably the single largest change in Frostgrave: Second Edition. As I have played and watched hundreds of games of Frostgrave over the years, I have noted two problems with soldiers. First, if a player got really badly defeated – gained no treasure, and lost several soldiers – it could often be impossible to dig back out of this hole in a campaign, especially if it happened early in a campaign. The other problem is that I allowed so much freedom when buying soldiers, it allowed players to create warbands that were just no fun to play against – the ‘all archer’ or ‘all treasure hunter’ warbands are the most egregious. Now, in truth, very few people actually played this way, so it was never a huge problem, but it bothered me as a game-designer, a lot.

In order to fix these two issues, I started by dividing soldiers into two categories: standard and specialist, in much the same way I did for Ghost Archipelago. Now, when you are creating a warband, you can have 8 soldiers, with a maximum of 4 specialists. Standard soldiers include thieves, thugs, men-at-arms, infantrymen and a few others. So, they aren’t all bad, but they are mostly limited to just fighters. Additionally, thugs and thieves can now be recruited for free. This means, no matter how badly your warband gets mauled, you will always be able to field a full complement of figures for your next game. This eliminates the biggest potential imbalance in the game.

The specialist soldiers include archers, crossbowmen, and all of the higher-level fighters such as treasure hunters, knights, and barbarians. In the appendix, at the back of the new book, there is a list of all of the soldiers found in supplements, stating whether they are standard or specialist soldiers.

While I was initially worried about these restrictions, I actually believe they make constructing a warband more interesting. Now, you really have to think about how you want to approach the game. If you want lots of archers, it means you aren’t going to be as good in hand-to-hand (especially since archers and crossbowmen are no longer as good in hand-to-hand). Not only does this eliminate the issue of ‘unfun’ warbands, but it has a couple of knock-on effects which I like. First, it helps keeps a campaign balanced, preventing a player who has made a big score treasure-wise from going out and spending it all on the best soldiers. Also, it means the rules work better with how most people actually play the game. Most people like to buy their ten miniatures, paint them up, and continue to use these same miniatures throughout a campaign. Maybe just upgrading a figure or two. These rules work better with that idea, as players will end up keeping more of the soldier they have instead of immediately discarding them for better ones. That said, players still have the freedom to switch out soldiers as often as they want.

Some of the soldiers have had their stats changed, and many of the prices for recruitment have changed, but I’ll leave that for players to discover when they get the book. Okay…Treasure Hunters are now only Fight +3, the rest you’ll have to wait to find out.

I’ve accompanied this blog with another rocking piece of the new artwork by aRu-Mor. This is the ‘knight’. I like this piece because it shows that the soldiers are open to a lot of interpretation, a lot of imaginative wiggle-room. A knight can be a classic knight in shining armour, or it can be an evil looking guy in a grotesque demon mask. The rules don’t care, so go with whatever fits for your warband!

Inquisitorial Valkyrie!

It’s been a hard few months, and finding a way to relax and enjoy my hobby has been more important than ever. So, I was looking for a big project that took me far away from my work. I wanted something that was going to take a good bit of work, but didn’t require too much thought. So, I decided it was finally time to paint up that dropship I’ve always wanted! I took a good look around to see what was available, and decided that nothing appealed to me more than the Imperial Guard Valkyrie from Games Workshop.

I also thought this would be a good chance to support some business that has likely suffered during the pandemic. I checked all of my usual ordering places, but everyone was sold out. Then, just when I was about to give up, Games Workshop announced the reopening of their online store. I had hoped to support them and a retailer at the same time, but such was not to be the case. Anyway, I don't mind supporting GW. 

My original plan had been to paint it green in kind of a neutral ‘military’ look, but once I got it out of the box, I felt the strong desire to paint it up for my Demon Hunters army, the only 40K army I’ve ever completed. I haven’t actually added a new unit to this army in over a decade, and elements of it last appeared on the blog quite a while ago (Fighting against the Daleks here, here, and here). This actually forced me to order some paint as the red I used for the entire army isn’t a part of regular rotation these days, but I’ll probably work it back in now.

Assembling the vehicle proved pretty easy - although messy, so many plastic shavings in my office! That is, until, I got to the cockpit canopy. I just couldn’t get that to fit right no matter what I did. In the end, I just used a bunch of glue and pushed real hard. The upper canopy is a bit wonky, but it’s not too noticeable. Also, I think I put the wing landing gear on the wrong wings. It’s minor, but means it wobbles for a second when I put it down.

Actually, before I assembled the canopy, I painted the flight crew. I’m not sure it was worth it, but it is kind of fun to look through the glue-fogged windows and see them in there! I decided not to install the door gunners, as I figured I often wouldn’t want them there. Also, I got tired of the side doors and back ramp flopping open so I glued all but one side door shut. It’s not like I wanted to paint the inside anyway.

I also found some old brass-etched Inquisitorial symbols from back when I painted the rest of the army, so I glued them on as well.

Then I got down to painting. I don’t paint many vehicles or big things, and have never really been interested in getting an airbrush, so it was all buy hand, mostly using a size 1 brush. I slowly worked my way over from one wing to the other. It took four coats of thinned red to get the colour finish I wanted.  Amazingly, I only used four different colour paints on the whole thing: red, black, gold, and white. That’s it. Shows how much you can do with a very limited pallet. I used a bit of black smudging in places as my one nod towards weathering, but figure the Inquisition keeps their vehicles well painted.

In all, it took about two weeks to paint it and I’m very pleased with the outcome. At some point soon I’ll have to break all of the Demon Hunters out for a new ‘Army Shot’!

Introducing – Blaster!

So this is a little project I’ve been keeping under my hat...introducing Blaster!

Basically, I got together with four other wargame designers – Ash Barker (Last Days & Guerrilla Miniature Games), Mike Hutchinson (Gaslands), Joey McGuire (This is Not a Test & Reality’s Edge) and Sean Sutter (Relicblade) to create our own wargames anthology, and Volume I is now available in either PDF or Print-on-Demand from DriveThruRPG!

The plan is for this to be an ongoing series, with new volumes coming out on a semi-regular basis. In every issue, all five of us will be providing new content for one or more of our games, so if you are fan of our work, these books are probably going to be of interest!

It’s an anthology by a bunch of independent game designers produced for those who like independently-created wargames!

For Volume I, I have gone back to one of my biggest influences, The Lord of the Rings, and created a pair of linked scenarios that can be played using the Rangers of Shadow Deep rules. In the first scenario, you play a wizard, searching for his friends in the ruins of an ancient watchtower, when he’s attacked by a group of wraiths. In the second, a ranger and four halflings are searching the same ruined tower for signs of the wizard, when they too are attacked by the wraiths!

Of course, for these scenarios, I’ve had to provide Rangers stats for the wizard, ranger, and halflings…

They are difficult scenarios to win. Think you are up toit?