Feeling Frosty

I suppose none of you lot has missed this new game called Frostgrave? Well, if you have it came out about a half a year ago from Northstar Military Figures in collaboration with Osprey.

The cover of the rulebook, (c) Osprey Games 2015

Frostgrave is set in an ancient city which was buried in a magical blizzard hundreds of years ago. The city has begun to thaw and you play a Wizard venturing inside the city in search of magical secrets and treasures. You compose a band of followers to accompany you and your apprentice into the city, where you clash with other wizards and the magical inhabitants and monsters already present in the city.


I wasn't that intrigued by Frostgrave when it came out, sure it looked nice and the plastic soldier boxed set looked good. Both the game and the figures reminded me of the old Games Workshop game of Mordheim. Well, there are differences, but the overall scope of the game -- skirmishing bands in a ruined city looking for treasure -- is the same. Ruleswise only the Wizard and his Apprentice gains experience and get better stats, the rest of the warband is just cannon fodder. Therefore the rules are quite simple, but 10 schools of wizardry with eight spells per school and some varied scenarios keep the interest up. The big appeal of the game is that you could basically use whatever fantasy figures you already have with only a minimal monetary investment.

Cover for the first expansion, (c) Osprey Games 2015

Still I was only mildly interested. But when the first expansion was announced recently along with a plastic boxed set of cultists my resistance started to crumble. I don't know if the cultists are opponents of the wizard warbands or if you can play an evil wizard with cultists followers, but I knew I had to get some. The fastest way of getting the cultists was to pre-order the expansion and I would get some freebies as well. So I did just that from the lovely Dice Bag Lady along with some other bits for some other projects. Then I bought the basic rulebook, since if I'm getting the expansion it would make sense to own the rulebook as well.

Lovely cultists.  (c) North Star Military Figures and Osprey Games 2015

The Cultists are now available to buy directly from Northstar and soon from other resellers too. I'm primarily intending to use these as Chaos cultists and/or slaves for Kings of War, but there is nothing wrong with dual purpose miniatures. However, as the Frostgrave rules are quite simple I'm thinking of perhaps trying it out with my kids. With that in mind I rummaged through my bits box and old models stash to see if I could find any of my old Mordheim figures. Which I did.

The Mordheim equipment sprue, including a treasure chest! Goodie!

First of all I need some treasure markers, and I'm counting on getting at least three or four out of out of the equipment sprue I found. Then, in Frostgrave, your soldiers are simply classified by the equipment they wear, so I sorted the figures into groups.

Thugs have a simple hand weapon and not much armour.

Archers, obviously. Note the Chaos thug archer from the Battlemasters boardgame.

And crossbowmen. Will have to find a head for the right chap though.

 A couple of Infantrymen, identifiable by their light armour and big honking swords.

This guy was meant to be a duellist in Mordheim, but in Frostgrave he fits the Treasure Hunter template instead.

More crossbowmen in the form of these Marksmen of Miragliano. With their heavier armour they become Marksmen, Duh! On the right an old Fantasy Roleplay trapper contemplating the scale creep. 

It seems that I'm quite set warband-wise. I only lack wizards and basic men at arms. But I found some other interesting stuff as well.

The three on the left are old Talisman figures, while the falconer on the right is a 3rd edition model.

One of the Wizard types in Frostgrave is the witch, which according to the description seldom is an old haggard lady. But guess what, my Talisman Witch will serve nicely as a Witch, and the flower seller (I forget what she is really) makes a nice apprentice. The druid will serve as an apothecary. Sure, they are a bit lightly clad for adventuring in the snow covered city, just let's assume it is thawing very very rapidly.

Stop! Thief! Another Talisman model.

I also found a Talisman thief which will be a thief. I guess old habits die hard.

And last, some odd figures I made just playing around with the bits.

So, now I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of the cultists and the expansion. I still have all the Mordheim cardboard buildings somewhere so it shouldn't be that hard to put together a suitable gaming table. I foresee lots of fun adventures during the Christmas holiday with the kids. Better give them boring presents like socks so they want to play with my stuff instead.

Happy Gaming!