I’ve been working so hard on Dune: Awakening and my new Daily Blogroll app (more on that later) that I haven’t been blogging as much.
Part of the problem there is that mostly I am in Dune. With games like that, either I’m writing to an audience who knows way more about the game than I do, or an audience that isn’t interested in the details so much. In that latter case, I’m probably not the best one to talk; I am loving the stories other people tell, and maybe I will share some of those here. On my moribund server, most of the stories told are just about me and my friends.
But tonight (or rather last night), we played Frosthaven, and so in this post, we’re talking about that.
Last time we played, we were helping a gnome crew clear a pass through some deadly mountains. We’d have liked to continue with that, but the crew leader told us we would not be needed for a few weeks. This ties into Frosthaven’s calendar system, where things happen on specific days and dates. For instance, in game, we are coming to the end of summer, and winter is closing in. This affects the sorts of events we’ll have available to us, and the kinds of things that will happen to this remote outpost of Frosthaven once support from the warmer climes shuts off.
To that end, we have raised Frosthaven’s prosperity enough that we could build another section of the wall (and make Gloomhaven pay for it?). This moves Kasul’s necromancer closer to retirement, so it’s good for him and good for the outpost, which will almost certainly be seeing more attacks as winter makes fighting easier for the invading Algox and harder for the defenders.
To that end, we decided to continue with the Algox questline and make our way through the field of ice crystal conduits on the trail of an Algox shaman who tried to kill us a few weeks back. We had to abandon the sled when the conduits crowded too thickly, and had to proceed on foot until we got to a clearing covered with the aftermath of a battle.
Dead Algox were everywhere. We couldn’t tell if our quarry was among the dead or not. But probably not, as dead Algox started coming back to life. Pfft, undead are easy. This is going to be cake.
That’s where the Blade Burrowers burst out of the ground, all around us. These nasty creatures hide their soft fleshy innards inside hard, armored shells – three shields for the elites, two shields for the normals. And the first spawn were all elites.
My Banner Spear is not really set up for these sorts of fights, but I did use a pull ability to drag a burrower through two traps, which killed it. One of my two scenario card choices was “be the first to kill a creature in the scenario.”. I’d discarded that one, but the others agreed to let me reverse that bad decision so that I’d get the checkmark.
There were plenty of traps laid throughout the scenario, for the exact purpose of pushing or pulling burrowers into said traps, but I was the only one with a card that did either of those things, and it was just the one card and so I could do this trick just once per rest. Thankfully, the others had some piercing abilities. We’re going to miss that Blink Blade when he retires.
The last room was full of burrowers and a lone Algox Guard fighting them all by himself. We were told that if the guard died, the scenario would be lost, so we burst in there and spent loss cards like play money to get them dead. I had a “heal all allies” card that helped keep him alive.
And in the end, we were victorious. The guard brought up to a meeting of Algox who were discussing what to do about the other Algox faction that were fighting them and had set up the conduit field. We were given a choice to either try to broker a peace between the factions, or just get straight to the genocide.
We opted for peace, so we’ll see how that works out next time we play.
Kasul had told me that the Blade Burrowers were among the last non-boss creatures I’d have to paint, right before he handed me new, unpainted, minis to prepare for the next scenario. Someday, someday, I’ll be able to play without having to paint first… If only I could be happy with standees and cardboard components. If only…