Mother Goosegog and the Alchemical Monstrosity

As the last echoes of the explosion died away, the old witch pulled herself out of the rubble. While her eyes adjusted to the flame-lit chamber she cursed herself.

“Stupid woman!” she spat. “Too scared to face the big boys so you go hiding in the tunnels… and then this…”

She surveyed the wreckage: what was once clearly an alchemical factory, now torn apart and smouldering.

“Eurgh, my head…”

She span round by instinct, holding her broomstick in a defensive posture, only to lower it as the javelineer she had recently hired clambered out from under a fallen roof beam.

“Missus, what happened?”

“Something went ‘bang’, that’s what,” she snapped, as behind her two other members of her band began to extricate themselves. “Come, we need to find the others and get out of here.”

With their entrance way blocked by fallen masonry, they headed towards a distant speck of light.

“This way I-“

“ROOOOOAAAAARRRR!”

“Ah. I think we may not be alone…”

So it was the weekend, the kids were in bed, my good lady wife was on a late shift and I had a boot full of Frostgrave stuff from the previous day’s gaming. Also I wanted to improve my Witch warband a bit, so… Dark Alchemy anyone?

First up was the Alchemical Monstrosity scenario – pitting a partial warband (my Witch, a thief, javelineer and tracker in my case) against the titular monster on a 2’x2’ board. Oh, and some rats…

…one of which duly appeared when I fluffed the first initiative roll…

Goosegog and her compatriots edged forward, taking whatever cover they could find, or using a Fog spell to hide from the monstrosity. Could they survive the encounter and still escape with some treasure?

The tracker hid behind a crumbling wall as the monstrosity scanned the devastation for it’s prey.

Witch and javelineer similarly hid behind a squat obelisk, alerted to danger by a savage squeaking sound.

Another fudged initiative roll and on came another rat.

The javelineer leaped out to skewer the creature, egged on by his employer. One treasure nabbed.

Thief and tracker also splatted a rat and obtained a treasure.

The monster approached - it had to be faced sometime! As Goosegog made a dash for it, flinging a Bone Dart, the javelineer is pinned by the monstrosity! Okay, let’s roll – red dice for the javelineer, blue for the monster…

What’s this? A 20? Critical hit! (Note: upon re-reading the rules after the game, I discovered that the monstrosity is actually immune to critical hits – oops! I cover up this mistake by stating that it had already been Bone-Darted and was already low-ish on health).

The alchemical monstrosity went down! (*cough*)

Thief and tracker, both now treasure-laden, headed for the nearest door; but would it be the right one?

Yes!

But they weren’t out of the woods yet, as another rat scuttled out of it's hole.

This one fancied witch and chips for tea…

Thankfully Mother Goosegog managed (just about) to kill the rat and everyone made it out of the chamber. All four treasures had been ‘liberated’, but they still had to find their way out…