Frostgrave: Writhing Fumes

Welcome back to the icy ruins of Felstad my fellow Adventurers!  Frostgrave has taken a back seat to other gaming in 2019 (primarily 40K, I've played an awful lot of 40K this year), and that's a shame as I really enjoy searching for treasure on the Frozen City.

Cornelius; one of the handful of fantasy models I've painted this year

The Christmas holiday has given me the opportunity to play some games (including Lords of Waterdeep and Takenoko with the family; both fantastic board games), and I took the opportunity to try the first scenario in the Perilous Dark Frostgrave supplement.

The scenario is called Writhing Fumes; and the Warband must cross a 2.5' by 2.5' board and leave via a locked doorway in the opposite corner.  Of course this is complicated by 2 ballista wielding constructs and a number of magical serpents called Vapour Snakes.

I don't have any suitable serpent models so use my trusty Giant Rats!  There is a large serpent by each of the 5 spawn points (the large metal tokens on the board), and additional Vapour Snakes will spawn each turn according to a roll on a table.

The first turn starts well as the Warband cut down the nearest large serpent/rat and block line of sight to a couple more with a Fog Spell (the white marker).  Lady luck is fickle however, and 2 further serpents spawn directly in the midst of the treasure seekers, and one takes down an Infantry Man!

The Monster activation order and rules have been modified from the Frostgrave core rules to make them a touch more intelligent and threatening.  Additionally in this scenario from the 3rd turn onward the snakes move towards the exit rather than random moving if there are no Warband members visible.  This provided a limited reprieve and allowed my forces to move across the board under the cover of multiple Fog spells, dealing with Vapour Rats piece meal and collecting treasure via Telekinesis and Leap Spells.

 

However, my advance was too slow, and as number of foes began to congregate at the exit, my forces continued to be depleted.  I lost two more soldiers to combat with the Serpents, and both spell casters were reduced to low health through poor spell casting results.

Lady Luck gave one final twist of the knife and 2 further serpents spawned on *my* side of the Fog spell and at that point I called it.  Writhing Fumes is an incredibly tough scenario; the Large Vapour Serpents are very dangerous (Fight +3, 12 Armour, 12 Health) and are immune to a lot of common attacks and spells.

I refuse to be defeated. I'll be back with a new Warband set up (and associated models) and new tactics to defeat this fiendish scenario.  Watch this space!