Frosthaven – Scenario #15 Ancient Spire

Recently, we had many interesting developments in our Frosthaven adventure. First of all, the Algox sub-campaign was concluded (#55 Change of Heart). Then, two out of three characters in our group retired (#42 Sunless Trench). This time we shall experience another retirement so we will have three completely new characters in our team. On top of this, the plan was to start vigorously exploring the neglected Unfettered (Machines) campaign path.

Our Frosthaven Campaign in scenario order:

Some interesting materials about Frosthaven World:
Frosthaven – first look – starting characters (1/2)
Frosthaven – first look – starting characters (2/2)
Frosthaven – monsters' analysis & strategies – Lurkers
Frosthaven – monsters' analysis & strategies – Unfettered

Let us have a look at our merry company composition. As hinted above, it changed enormously, as both Deathwalker as well as Coral went for a well-deserved retirement. Trapper will be next, after this battle.

Frozen Fist – level 2 (me) – tank-like damage dealer. Strange mechanics to recover cards. Very mobile.
Trapper – level 8 (Kuba J) – our most experienced character, who can build deadly traps. Last scenario for him before well-deserved retirement.
Snowdancer – level 2 (Kuba G) – first and foremost support, but thanks to pulls and traps from Trapper, can also do decent secondary damage.

Let us see how the scenario went!

Scenario Specifics

Time to analyze scenario, its set-up, win conditions and complexity levels:

It was longtime ago when we last time played with Unfettered – I believe it was #8 Crystal Trench already a year ago! In the meantime, a lot of side quests as well as Algox and Lurker scenarios were completed. But now we shall make up for this!

The Ancient Spire scenario is not a standard one – as visible above, it has pretty broad Special Rules section. The goal is though very clear – kill Chaos Lieutenant. We just need to make sure it will not fix itself with the use of Ruined Machines. Let us start!

PS. As always, feel free to click on below images for full details.

Session Report

**Scenario #15 set-up** – all rooms are visible from the onset; on the left is a one-use elevator – only one character can jump on it to get to Lieutenant, who is on higher platform. In the main room we have Boltshoters but also there is a place where Ruined Machines will be spawning every second Round.

**Close up on our company (looks formidable) and closest enemies!**

We actually face only three types of enemies, but we shall add Challenge to the gameplay (it gives some interesting perks to Outpost later on if fulfilled). **Lieutenant** has some special abilities which allow him to heal himself and be resistant to negative conditions so the wisest way to deal with it would be in one, single, powerful shot.

The fun starts! We are still learning our new characters – both Kuba G (Snowflake) and me (Fist). Surprisingly, in that scenario both of them complemented each other nicely and enemies started to fall like flies. Trapper quietly approached elevator…

…only to jump to it and reach higher platform. Now it was matter of time before 1) Kuba J builds a “super-trap” 2) **Lieutenant** will approach him so it will be possible to throw a trap and kill the monster 3) we will keep monsters busy on a lower platform but also survive. All worked perfectly and we were done after like 6 rounds!

**Hurray, we opened two new branches in Unfettered path – we will enter that Spire, the question is whether Upper or Bottom part.**

As a part of a very long Outpost Phase (we had many events during the Passage of Time section) we also unlocked next adventure in Lurker campaign. Pinter Droman was proposing us usage of some psionic bomb (Scenario 50), but we decided that we will try to lift the corruption which hit Lurkers in more peaceful way (Scenario 49). But that is for another time…

Summary

That was surprisingly quick and short scenario. I have a feeling that we progressed in other sub-campaign paths so much that we forgot there could be easier scenarios in Frosthaven too! We will make it up and Unfettered will definitely be our focus now.

Also, the composition of the team changed – Trapper went for retirement so from next week we shall have three completely new, different characters playing in our company. We hope for many more exciting sessions and challenges with them!

One thought on “Frosthaven – Scenario #15 Ancient Spire”

Anonymous says:

March 12, 2024 at 17:15

For quite some time it didn’t feel like it was such an easy scenario, so we’ve left it behind. Then, with my trapper at low level , i was very affraid of ranged enemies against which i had no defenses, also mechanics of the boss(which i expected to be much stronger) to heal itself seemed overpowered. Since i’ve grown to lvl 8 and scenario level dropped significantly due to 2 recent retirements we’ve approached it much differently than we probably would before. Starting enemies at low level posed very little threat, low damage output and little HP, easy to kill. My initial turn resulted in 2 extra traps that could be used by my fellow Snowflake, so in the 2nd round i was free to move upstairs. I needed 4 more turns(including full rest) to build a 16 power trap and have the demon (with ca 14-16HP life) in my range, then i drew the critical hit and overkill was significant. My friends at the bottom didn’t let any robot to live for more than 2 turns, we’ve ended up wiping everything out. Very quick game, when everything goes as planned. The maintanace before and after scenario took us maybe 2 hours, while scenario itself maybe 30 minutes. I wasn’t sure if i’ve reached reiterement(difficult goal, which required tons of crafting), but before our next meeting i was ready to retire my trapper.

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