5 – The Breeding Pit

After gathering long lost treasure from the Complex Temple, the next expedition in our Frostgrave campaign was venturing underground to the Breeding Pit. In this scenario, a new random monster would appear each turn. In addition, treasure tokens could be exchanged for a Book of the Beastcrafter or a roll on the Into the Breeding Pits treasure table rather than the standard treasure table. Becoming a Beastcrafter seems like a fitting choice for my druid, so I was looking forward to claiming a book and unlocking that option.

Before the game, I made a Bottle of Burrowing that I figured might come in handy on the densely-packed battlefield. My other Brew Potion roll failed, and both of my wife’s Awareness casting rolls failed.

My battle plan was to split my warband into four groups. The druid, bear, barbarian, and demon hunter would advance towards the central treasure from my left and try to claim one other treasure on the way. On the other side of the battle field, my apprentice, two people-at-arms, and archer would approach the center from the other direction. Then my snow leopard and tracker would move on the outer edges of the battlefield to flank. My wife on the other hand kept most of her warband in one cluster that would advance towards the central treasure on the same side as my apprentice’s group. Only her knight and one ranger were positioned to move up the other side of the board.

Early in the battle, my wizard used Fog to block line of sight for her ranger and knight and my woman-at-arms used a potion of teleportation to put herself in one of the doorways to the central treasure’s room. That plan worked well and slowed down my wife’s attempts to claim treasure. Unfortunately, she won the early monster placement rolls which meant I soon had a ghoul and a minor demon threatening my warband’s rear.

I was forced to more quickly to stay out of sight of wandering monsters, but luck ended up being on my side. My wife struggled with poor rolls while I got lucky with a couple of critical hits by my archer and my woman-at-arms surviving with 1 health point to protect the central treasure from my wife’s warband. My wife’s ranger Emilia was invisible and a thorn in my side for most of the game though since Invisibility in second edition doesn’t seem to end when making ranged attacks¹.

As the battle raged, my wife’s thug escaped with one treasure while my barbarian and tracker each made it off the board with one. My demon hunter Red was carrying the central treasure, but got taken out by my Emilia the invisible ranger. My snow leopard took down my wife’s thief trying to claim the other treasure and then there was a drawn out struggle as we each tried to claim that treasure. My archer finally managed to claim it after fighting off my wife’s apprentice.

In the end, my bear Jarl took down Emilia after she became visible by picking up the treasure Red dropped. That removed my wife’s last figure on the board to end the game. I rolled for the treasure she dropped and ended up being able to claim it. That gave me four treasures to my wife’s one for our most lopsided score yet.

The abundance of monsters really changed how we had to play. During the battle, quite a group of monsters showed up to cause trouble for us. We had three constructs of various sizes, two ghouls, a skeleton, a boar, and ice toad, a minor demon, and an imp. That forced us to constantly be watching line of sight to try not to have monsters coming after us.

I used one of my treasures to gain a Book of the Beastcrafter. For my others, I rolled on the Into the Breeding Pits table and ended up recovering three Spectral Blades. I kept one of them and sold the other two to purchase Gloves of Casting on the black market. My wife’s single treasure was a Staff of Defense that she sold to hire a man-at-arms. We both will have a specialist sitting out for our next game with my demon hunter Red and her ranger Emilia being badly wounded.

The Druid’s Warband

• Audric Silverbeard the Druid (+2 levels: +1 Health, improved Brew Potion)
• Roslin the Apprentice
• Jormund the Barbarian
• Nils the Tracker
• Dimitri the Archer
• Red the Demon Hunter (badly wounded)
• Sansa the Woman-at-Arms
• Magnus the Man-at-Arms
• Jarl the Bear
• Jaeger the Snow Leopard
• Rhane the Thief (re-hired to fill Red’s place while she recovers in the inn)

The Trickster’s Warband

• Freya the Trickster (+2 levels: +1 Health, improved Strength)
• Ophelia the Apprentice
• Kate the Knight
• Archibald the Ranger
• Emilia the Ranger (badly wounded)
• Jamie the Archer
• Robb the Thug (badly wounded and dismissed)
• Scarlet the Thug
• Moira the Thief
• Annabelle the Thief
• Draco the Man-at-Arms (new hire)

1: With the rules as written in 2nd edition, the invisibility spell doesn’t end due to the invisible figure making a ranged attack. We played that was when it came up in game 4 and this game, but afterwards decided to have shooting attacks dismiss the invisibility spell from now on. Since then, the game’s author Joseph McCollough has confirmed in the Frostgrave facebook group that making a shooting attack should cancel invisibility.