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 Ian Sturrock wrote:
Frostgrave Day was a lot of fun. Could have done with an official rules pack (preferably in advance), but it was friendly and good-natured, which meant most people didn't mind too much if they were occasionally playing by different rules.

Telekinesis seemed to be the spell of choice across many tables... I did very well with my tried-and-tested Elementalist combo (Elemental Hammer/Elemental Bolt/Wall/Telekinesis/Fleet Feet/Leap/Heal/Absorb Knowledge). The idea is that Ele Hammer is put on your crossbowmen if you don't have anything else to do (+7 damage makes for lots of one-shot kills), but generally you just Telekinese a couple of central treasures towards you, and run up to grab the now 4 available treasures with 7" move people. Next use Leap to get away and/or Wall to obstruct pursuit. Hard to beat... perhaps to the point of imbalance? Dunno.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Do you need to know Raise Zombie already to use a Book of Bones to make skeletons?

Yes.

The idea is that Ele Hammer is put on your crossbowmen if you don't have anything else to do (+7 damage makes for lots of one-shot kills),

ELEMENTAL HAMMER
Elementalist / 10 / Line of Sight
This spell is cast upon a weapon. The next time this weapon
causes at least 1 point of damage, it inflicts an additional 5
points of damage.

overtyrant wrote:
I'm sure it was FAQ'd that Elemental Hammer only works on Mele attacks.

Just checked, the FAQ has an entry for Elemental Hammer, and it does not mention it being limited to melee weapons.

It's not a tactic I have encountered yet. Could be a reason to finally buy a Grimoire for my Wzard

I'm running
Elementalist (Elemental Shield/Elemental Bolt/Wall/Telekinesis/Crumble/Leap/Heal/Absorb Knowledge)

It seems like Elementalist is the one build that really sucks some of the fun from the game. I personally think the attack spells should have less of a focus. Elemental Bolt is brutal and it synergizes too much with how Wizards obtain experience points. Killing stuff to gain EXP makes Elemental Bolt a no-brainer, unfortunately.

Maybe i'm just bitter cause i'm running a Soothsayer...

I disagree on all points, except that you may be bitter

Running an incredibly successful Elementalist, at the moment, I can tell you that the vast majority of my XP is from aquiring treasure, scenario objectives, and casting Leap.

Does everyone who can run Telekinesis and Leap do so? I'm definitely guilty of doing so and between them and Bone Dart I hardly every cast any other spells

I'm a HUGE proponent of the leap spell in Frostgrave, but most of my fellow gamers grabbed Imp or Summon Demon from Conjuring instead of leap. I probably cast Leap at least 3 to 1 verses any other spell. Leap to get to the treasure. Leap after they picked up the treasure. Maybe another leap to get them off the board. Also get tons of use out of it vaulting my Large Construct around.

Telekenisis is often the spell that would have been super useful to use if you had remembered to cast it, but you didn't remember to.

Leap is my number one cast spell by far.
Telekenisis about once a game.
Wall I find useful at least once a game.
Elemental Bolt is a spell I hardly use, unless there are wandering monsters on the board.

My gaming group has a player that runs a Druid(Witch) that casts Fog EVERY turn. It's actually pretty funny to see the board covered in fog markers, when he's done.

Thing is, a Thief or Treasure Hunter can move 10.5" per turn without a spell (at least till they pick up a treasure). So for the first turn, at least, I'd rather be moving them and Telekinesing the treasures closer to them. I tend to find that in a 2-player game, there will be 2 treasures near-ish to each player, and 2 more or less in the middle. If I can get the middle two Telekinesed in turn 1 (one by wizard, one by apprentice) I have a pretty good chance to get 4 off the table.

That I can get Elemental Bolt in the same build is just a bonus!

Don't get me wrong, TK is a great spell. We just usually play with enough terrain that I would never be able to TK those treasures that are farther away , without a few rounds of moving closer.

I'm usually running my soldiers onto treasures and then flinging them back toward the table edge with leap. Once they are safely on thier way back, I advance deeper to claim other treasures.

Makes sense. Yeah, I've had a few boards where the terrain was dense enough that I might be unable to see one of the central treasures, but not usually both (especially given that I will usually have placed one of them). I usually aim for Infinity levels of terrain, but unless a treasure-placer deliberately puts one inside a building / behind a wall, I can usually get LOS to central treasures by careful wizard / apprentice deployment and their 6" moves. This was even easier on Frostgrave Day with its 2'x2' and 2'x3' tables, even though they, too, were fairly terrain-dense.

I did play the Great Library scenario with my son, at home, where Telekinesis was definitely less useful. I think that having some indoor / underground locations / terrain in each board setup would be worth considering, at least.

I definitely prefer my soothsayer to elementalist. Mind control is the bomb it completely derails my opponents and if I happen to roll 18+ I'll usually enhance it to DC 22 to make it irresistible and permanent on most soldiers. I'm a big fan of leap as well but after I saw what could be done with Mind control it became my go to. Until people start showing up with spell eater or dispel it can't be countered and lets be honest most people are not gonna usually take those.

My spells of choice with my Soothsayer are Mind control, Reveal secret, Combat Awareness, Glow, Heal, Crumble, Leap, Raise Zombie

Thanks for the information regarding the effectiveness of both Telekinesis and Leap. I did quite a bit of Googling on Frostgrave Strategy/Tactics and this is the only really useful posting that came up.

I will play my first game of Frostgrave tomorrow, so at the moment all of my thoughts are totally theoretical.

Treasure Hunters seem to be the best soldiers in the game. That extra inch of movement combined with +4 Fight and 12 health seems as if they would be the best combination even at 100gc - to have them for only 80gc makes them even better. Someone much more clever than me did some complicated maths which proves that they are underpriced.

Once money becomes no object (which I hope will be a fair distance away - we're going to be using the Bad Karma rules so that it takes longer to max out all of the warbands), the aim would be to bring along seven of them.

On top of this would be a couple of Rangers (taking the Inn as a base to increase the maximum size of the warband, plus a War Hound (through buying the kennel upgrade).

These would be split into the following groups:

Two of the Treasure Hunters would deploy individually in front of the closest two treasures and their only jobs would be to get the treasures off the table as quickly as possible. This job is currently assigned to a couple of Thieves and I am guessing that they will probably be OK for this simple task without needing to be upgraded to Treasure Hunters any time soon.

Two squads of two Treasure Hunters would be the 'snatch squads' - each deployed as close as possible to the two treasures in the centre of the board. Each squad will be supported by a magic user plus a Ranger. The Rangers act as long range missile support and bodyguards for the magic users. The magic users will focus on Telekenesis, Leaps and Transposes to grab the treasures as quickly as possible.

This would leave one more Treasure Hunter and the War Hound who would advance between the two 'snatch squads' and join in with whichever of the two snatches is starting to go most wrong. Or, if everything is going incredibly well, then to try and rush for a fifth treasure if my opponent doesn't get them off the table rapidly.

Thoughts? Improvements?

It'd work I think.

I agree about Treasure Hunters being somewhat overpowered/underpriced. I don't think there's much in it. My suggested fix is that the +1 Fight for 2-weapon fighting only applies in melee, not as a defence against Shooting. I think that would sort it out as well as fitting with my vague preference for verisimilitude in gaming worlds.

The Ranger is also really nice. On balance though I prefer crossbows over bows, partly because they are more likely to do one-shot kills, partly because enemies fear them more for that reason. Bear in mind that you start out the game with a loaded crossbow, and that you can use your compulsory move action to do a reload instead of moving, and I think that for most purposes I use them for (primarily deterrence, both against spellcasters showing their faces outside of cover, and against melee soldiers getting too close to my thieves / treasure hunters) they are superior. So, personally I probably would not bring more than 1 Ranger, and I'd use him like a Treasure Hunter but one who could also shoot.

Treasure hunters have the best fight, but are more lightly armored than the other dedicated melee types. That being said, they are also a deidcated melee type. They have no access to range weapons in a game with Crossbows, bows, and Line of Sight Spells.

Bows and Crossbows never get the oppertunity to stack the outnumbering bonus, which is huge, but have greater oppertunities to strike more often, and from relative safety.