Mission 1: The Missing

It has been less than a week since the destruction of Lorenthia and the appearance of the Shadow Deep but, in that time, the world has seemingly gone mad. Reports of strange creatures, and evil, robed menare flooding in from all along the new border. Even with every soldier, ranger, and volunteer mobilized, the kingdom is stretched thin. Three days ago, a veteran ranger by the name of Aventine went out to investigate reports of an attack on a nearby village. He has not returned. Determined to find themissing ranger, you have gathered what companions you can and set off for the village. It’s an eight-hour hike over difficult terrain.

That's the beginning of the first mission in Rangers of the Shadow Deep - and after building and painting my warband, I ordered myself some small houses, painted them up and plunged into the adventure.

Ranger Alessio da Landara and his companions

The first scenario takes place in an unnamed village, that's been raided by some unknown horror. Corpses lying everywhere, some of them are not so dead as they should be.

Setup

Searching for clues, Alessio and his companions soon had to fight zombies and giant rats.  While the undead fell under the mighty blows of Alessios two-handed sword, Roderick the Conjuror burnt one with a bolt of fire, Goren peppered them with arrows and Sir Horatio carved a path through them. Leif, the swordsman from the icy north, felled rats and zombies alike, but was overwhelmed in the end.

Roderick finally found the body of the dead ranger and recovered his magical sword. Some horrible spiders seemed to have killed him and all the villagers, spiders with a venom that could raise the dead.
One final wave of undead rose from the village, only to be put to final rest by the ranger and his companions.

The tracks lead deeper into the woods and after patching up Leif, the companions set out to follow the mysterious arachnids to their lair.

The spider's wood

Reaching a dark part of the forest, Alessio and his friends saw some giant conifers looming before them, clad in webs of some kind. Cautiously, they moved forward and where promptly greeted by giant spiders, crawling from their nests.

Rangar is caught in a web

They found some cocoons, and searching them, they found a lone survivor and some poor souls that had already passed into the Afterlife.
Rangar, the bloodhound, got caught in a web that suddenly fell down from the trees. Like a fly, the brave dog had to watch a spider scuttling to devour him - but a bolt of fire from Roderick killed the hideous creature before it could bite the dog.

Still caught in the web, another spider fell under Alessio's mighty sword before it could get to Rangar.

At last, they came to the nesting trees and set fire to them, to burn out the crawling terror. Fighting off the last of the spiders, they made their way back to the base.

Setting fire to the nesting trees

This concludes the first mission, and the first experience in real solo-wargaming. While the Forstgrave solo-scenario was quite fun to play, Rangers of the Shadow Deep goes a step further. It is designed to be played that way, or as co-op.
It's more like playing those old Lone Wolf books, but with a lot more freedom. I'm really happy to have built all those terrain for StarWars: Legion, for I can use it with RoSD. But it will get winter over time.

Those first two scenarios may be a bit on the easy side, when it comes to opposition. But I think, this is good as there's a learning curve. Playing FG definitely helps a lot, as most rules come naturally.
And while I was not so happy about the Event Cards when reading through the rules, I really like the mechanic in play.

Ranger ready for deployment

While our four player group has started out in the Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign and En'Ki Nar'Duk is facing the Forgotten Pacts, Rangers of the Shadow Deep came out. The author of Frostgrave has created another fantasy skirmish game - aimed at solo and co-op play.

So, after reading through the rules, I decided to build a ranger and his companions - literally.

The Blades of Justice

I started with kit-bashing the Frostgrave soldier and barbarians box, adding Perry Mercenaries and Knights parts.
My ranger is named Alessio da Landara, maybe not the classical "ranger", wielding a two-handed sword and some throwing knifes.

Alessio da Landara

He's actually made from a FG barbarian body, Perry knights head and arms and a FG soldiers rope and pouch.

Next is the Conjuror, Roderick. He's a model from Reaper, the only one in the warband that was not built from scratch.

Roderick

Adding tanking power is Horatio, Knight of the Eagle. He's made up from a Perry knights body and a FG soldiers head and shield.

Horatio

And to deal some damage, there's the swordsman, Leif. He's made up from a Perry mercenary body and swordarm and a FG soldiers head and dagger-arm.

Leif

Finally, to rain death on the monsters, there's our archer, Gorsen. He's built from a Perry mercenary body and sword, and a FG soldiers head and arms.

Gorsen

I'm waiting for some houses to arrive, than I'm ready give the first mission a try. RoSD looks more like an RPG that's played with miniatures than a skirmish-wargame. It reminds me of the times I was getting started with RPGs, playing solo just to get a hang of the rules, pushing miniatures around in fights.

I've enjoyed playing through the Dark Alchemy solo-campaign for FG with my Distortionist, so I'm looking forward to getting my ranger into action.