The Lamassu Tower.. and Frostgrave!

Hello everyone!

I am very pleased to announce the official first launching of a project I have been working on for some time: My Desert Empires Guard Tower Version 1!

You can check out the eBay link for it here below
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/142823142055

I have been working with a Resin Decor supplier for quite sometime on this custom item and we finally came up with a nice model and piece to release on the market.  I am in what I like to call the Market Testing phase where I try to prod around with prices and see what people are after.

I will admit that I decided on this piece because I saw a lack of Middle Eastern Terrain out there that I personally liked. I wanted to combine elements of Assyrian and Persian ancient culture with Fantasy, and the result was this prepainted polyresin tower.

It is 18 CM tall, weighs a bit over half a Kilogram (hollowed outside) and is just a basic, standing resin piece. No doors or anything opens up, and it is meant to just be a nice accessory to middle eastern or desert-style gaming boards.

This piece was rather large and in the process of making it I was able to have small quantities produced for my market testing. However, the company up and changed their policy and now I have a larger minimum order quantity when it comes to producing these types of pieces.  As a result, this rather large starting piece needs to sell well, and I believe people will like it.  For my next work, however, it will be considerably smaller, and I may do a little more research into what people actually want for the games over moreso my own personal interests!  I still desire to build a range surrounding this "Desert Empires" piece.

Anyways, we played Frostgrave again last week. Here's our pics from the games:

Ominous shadow about to engulf the board...  ?

Our first game was the "Well of Experience" or whatever the scenario is. We didn't have a well, so we made it "The Tree of Life".   Tim's wizard was able to touch it, as was mine.  But this battle was quite bloody. 

I had to use my Horn of Destruction I got in a previous game to break a hole through this castle wall we decided to place across the board... worked out fine! 

There was also a random Bank. No withdrawls or deposits were made

This time I outfitted my soldiers with potions and magical items.. I gave a newly hired thief Boots of Speed which proved useful for getting at least one treasure token.

In the end, most of our Soldiers were taken out or left the board - but I got the worst of it. I think I lost every single member of my warband.  The Dog and I think another fellow died, and the Knight, Infantryman and Crossbowmen were knocked out of action for a game.  Tim's Wizards and warband got most of the treasure and he was speeding along in progress.

The game started to drag out towards the end and there was a lot of shooting back and forth.. - I had a wizard and a very fast moving Templar (he drank an Elixir of speed, or I cast fleet feet, I do not recall) and Tim only had a Crossbowman left.. we rushed him and tried to get into hand to hand combat, but somehow the Crossbowman was able to take out both the Templar and my Wizard, resulting in a big experience and treasure loss for me. It looked Grim, as I had done poorly in these last two games!

Next game... we just did a random scenario without monster spawns to save time. The end of the last game dragged on for so many turns without a clear winner, so we wanted to speed it up a tad.

The tall tower on the right was a good hiding spot for my melee to take cover from all of Tim's Crossbowmen and archers.. he has (had?) two enchanted Crossbows! 

The pictures are pretty generic, and I feel you cannot get a real sense of what's going on - but this battle was a game changer.  Both sides ended up doing a lot of fighting and a lot of people ended up getting taken out, but the biggest upset was when Tim's Necromancer charged my Man-at-arms who had earlier been bon darted and brought down to 6 HP... somehow my Man-at-arms ended up killing his Wizard despite the huge stat and HP difference.  Tim's right side of the board melted away, but at least his apprentice was able to escape.

As a result of  this last fight, Tim's Wizard died at level 16 and I ended off with most of the loot - which means his apprentice is now level 6, giving me the higher experience point advantage in statistics, but still does not mean Tim has completely lost.  He has painted up a new Necromancer apprentice and the old apprentice with the smashed up leg is no the Master. I ended up with a bunch more spells that I wont learn for awhile, and through all these fights I was able to get Mind Control to the lowest casting level available!  Mind control and Bone Dart are arch enemies in our games.

Tomorrow we play one more time before Tim is gone for a month or so for work purposes.  So I will be doing more painting instead.  I just finished up my Victrix Republican Roman shields and they look, I think, amazing.  Much better than before.  I will share them here on this blog when I get the chance.

Until next time, Adios!