Frostgrave Game 2

This week, after several players pulled out, Nick and I played Frostgrave. We hadn't read the rules in ages and I'd lost my warband - so I made it up from memory in 10 mins. I got a bit wrong and for the second time forgot items. 

We played the first scenario and this called for a magic fountain. My Splinted Fang witch cult faced off again Nick's Dwarf sigilists. I won initiative and bolted forward flinging my men forward with the leap spell. 

I soon threw a wall of fog in front of Nick's dwarf archer who had made some wicked shots. 

I tried to use my power of nature to block off avenues of movement to the treasures. I had a focus on three which I soon grabbed and began to drag away. 

I had won several of the first initiatives leading me to grab good positions. Nick was more circumspect and moved up in groups. Soon dice would swing in his direction and many good rolls sealed the game. 

My witch and apprentice also cast the mud spell on both sides of two treasure tokens. Things looked good but - tellingly - Nick's archer had badly wounded (8 and 10 health) my best fighters - a crusader and man-at-arms. He had climbed a wall section to continue his shooting. 

One snake cult thief climbed the tower to secure a treasure token I placed. It seemed thematic at the beginning of the game but I think it just used more movement. 

Then all turned against me. Nick won combat after combat and not by a couple but almost each occasion 6-8 or more damage points smashed down on my cultists. Two of my figures were unharmed at the end of the game. He also made successful use of the Fool's Gold spell yanking the treasure from my grasp on no less than three occasions. 

Even when an armoured skeleton and ferocious snow ape arrived and attacked his men ... he took no damage and smashed them too! See the mid-left of the above image (I'd used a Reaper ogre to substitute for a Snow Ape.)

After securing, the treasures I used a fighting withdrawal to slow the Dwarfs while allowing me to get the treasures from the table. I decided not to drink from the fountain/well to reduce my risk and used mud, fog and leap to help. However, the early shots robbed me of the combat strength I needed to hold up his soldiers. Very high dice smashed me in initiative, shooting and combat. My spells failed while his Fool's Gold worked again and again. Frustrated, I just tried to run off the table but could have used more fog spells to block line of sight to protect me from spells. I guess I was just tired too and wanted the game to end. 

There it was a great start and a near certain victory led to defeat. To rub salt into the wound, I gained bugger all gold and truly useless spells while Nick gain a bucket load - enough to hire a barbarian giving him an additional specialist. I do like the game - we did quite a lot wrong making shooting and Fool's Gold FAR more effective that it should have been - but overall I left being quite frustrated by the game and couldn't escape thinking the huge variability of the opposed D20 system had just bent me over despite some good play.