Frostgrave 2020

[Aaron W]

It looks like the new edition of Frostgrave is due in July, assuming we aren't all dead by then. Anyone looking to start in on it with the new edition, perhaps even a campaign starting up?

[Ish]

I’d be interested; Frostgrave is one of my favorite games of all time, if the new edition fixes the few bugs it has, then Frostgrave II: Post Corona Boogaloo should be outstanding.

[Koyote]

I love Frostgrave. In most regards, it's rules are far superior to Mordheim, but it doesn't hold a candle to Mordheim's nostalgia and fluff. 

One of the biggest complaints I heard was that players didn't like that the only characters capable of gaining experience and advances are the wizard and apprentice.  This got a bit better by adding a fighty-character to the game,  the Captain.

I have to admit all having all of your Mordheim characters and (most) henchmen gain advances is a fun aspect of Mordheim, but I also have to admit that after a while the injuries and advances wreak havoc with the game balance.  In this respect, Frostgrave's static stats for Soldiers (which can be tweaked by equipping them with magic items) does a better job of balancing the game, especially mid and late campaign.

I've read that some of the changes in Frostgrave 2.0 involve Soldiers.  In Frostgrave 1.0  you can spam the best Soldier types and have an entire warband of Treasure Hunters or Marksmen.  To fix this, they tweaked some of the Soldiers' stats (e.g. some missile armed Soldiers are now even weaker in melee).  Also, the best Soldier types will be classified as specialists, and warbands will be limited to a maximum of 4 specialists.

Another change is to make thugs and thieves free.  This way, if a warband Is broke and gets devastated, it can quickly add bodies to its ranks so it isn't so grossly outnumbered in future games.

Another advantage Frostrgrave has over Mordheim is that your warband can be assembled from minis from just about any line of fantasy minis.  Also, despite the game's name and background, your games don't have to be set in a subarctic setting.  I've seen players who play the game in a desert setting.  Back when I played Frostgrave, I played it in a Mordhiem setting so I could have the best of both worlds: Frosgrave's rules an Mordhem's fluff ("Frostheim").  Below are pics of some of my favorite minis from my days playing Frostheim.

Witch & Apprentice

Dwarf Sigilist & Apprentice

Captain

 

 

Gnoblar Trapper (counts-as Trap Expert)

Squire (counts-as Treasure Hunter) and Knight

Dwarf Raven Master (counts-as Crow Master)

Yorick the War-Monkey (counts-as Warhound)

Exiled Sylvanian Noble (counts-as Templar)

Thief

Kislev Ranger (counts-as Ranger)

Halfling Ratcatcher (counts-as Tracker)

 

Group shot of Summoner warband.

 

[Ish]

Frostgrave also has various types of soldiers that are, basically, upgraded versions of others. Which means you totally can “advance” the mooks in your warband. Thieves are basically “low level” Treasure Hunters; a Crossbowman is a “low level” Marksman; a Thug becomes a Man-at-Arms who becomes a Knight... 

But rather than spend time and mental energy having to do bookkeeping for them all, you just save up your gold, and when you’re able to do so you fire a Crossbowman and hire a Marksman. Name them both “Roderick” on your roster and continue to use the same miniature.

[Koyote]

On 6/30/2020 at 2:46 PM, Ish said:

Frostgrave also has various types of soldiers that are, basically, upgraded versions of others. Which means you totally can “advance” the mooks in your warband. Thieves are basically “low level” Treasure Hunters; a Crossbowman is a “low level” Marksman; a Thug becomes a Man-at-Arms who becomes a Knight... 

But rather than spend time and mental energy having to do bookkeeping for them all, you just save up your gold, and when you’re able to do so you fire a Crossbowman and hire a Marksman. Name them both “Roderick” on your roster and continue to use the same miniature.

I’ve used that explanation as well. One of your basic Soldier types does something remarkable in a game, so in the next game you upgrade him to a better Soldier type in the same general category.

As I mentioned above, if you want to customize the stat line of a favorite Soldier you can equip it with a magic item (there are well over a hundred to chose from).

Also, if you prefer to play with painted minis, static stats and equipment means that you don’t have to paint a new version of the a fighter each time you upgrade it.

 

[Koyote]

 

 

 

 

 

[Koyote]

From McCullough's blog, Renaissance Troll:

Quote

 

As with the first edition, the second leaps right in with creating a wizard, and, in truth, not a whole lot has changed. The system for creating wizards always seemed to be one of the strongest and most enjoyable parts of the game for a lot of people, so I didn’t want to mess with it much. You still choose from the same ten schools of magic, all of which have the same connections to the other schools. You still select 8 spells, following the same rules as in first edition. Now, some of those spells have changed, but we will get into that later.

 

In fact, the only changes I made to creating wizards are very minor, and all have to do with items. First, wizards no longer pay for their starting items. Charging a wizard 5gc for a sword, when the game is usually dealing with magic items worth hundreds of gold crowns just seemed fiddly, and tended to cause confusion in other parts of the system.

 

A few people might be horrified to learn that I have dropped the +1 Fight for wielding two weapons. The biggest problem with this is that it was just too good. Rules-wise, there was just no good reason not to do it (the hallmark of a bad rule). This in turn led to all these wizards running around like duelists with their swords and daggers, which didn’t feel right. Anyway, the rule is gone. On the other hand, the first dagger carried by a wizard (or apprentice) no longer takes up an item slot, so everyone gets a free back-up knife!

 

Following a similar thought process, two-handed weapons now take up two items slots, and wizards wanting to carry a bow will also have to carry a quiver. These rules are designed to offset the advantages conferred by these weapons, and make it less likely that wizards, especially higher level-ones who tend to have lots of magical gear, will carry them.

 

And that’s it for wizards; they are otherwise the same as in first edition.

 

Apprentices, on-the-other-hand, have gotten slightly better! (Do I hear applause? I did say slightly).  Basically, I made a couple of changes to their Stats. First, their starting Shoot score is now equal to the wizard's (+0). This is actually irrelevant to most people, but it eliminates the awkward -2 Shoot that all apprentices had. Much more importantly, Apprentices starting Health is now only 2 less than the wizard, meaning they start with Health 12 (instead of 10). While this isn’t a huge gain, it means that apprentices can take a little more damage, and, perhaps even more importantly, have a little more Health available to empower spells. As an interesting side-effect of these two changes, starting apprentices are only 6 levels below their wizard, so if your wizard dies, you only lose 6 levels when promoting your apprentice. This will hopefully lessen the psychic blow to players when their wizard dies, and help keep campaigns feeling more balanced.

 

Finally, Apprentices now only cost 100gc. This is part of a general restructuring of money, and has little effect on assembling your warband in the beginning, but does mean that it isn’t quite so costly to replace an apprentice down the line.

 

 

[Koyote]

More news from the author's blog:

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Another bit of news, I know a lot of people have asked about a Nickstarter. Unfortunately, there will not be a Nickstarter this time around. Believe me, North Star would love to do one, but with their reduced staff and the reduced reliability at every step in the supply chain, it just isn’t feasible at the moment. On the other hand, the plan is to have a new plastic box set available at the same time as book – Specialist Soldiers! This will look a bit like the original Soldiers box set, except it features soldiers in heavier armour. I’ve seen the previews, it’s gonna be good!

 

So, back to the book. When I first started work on Frostgrave 2, my plan was to create ten new scenarios to replace the ones in the original. However, as I was working on it, I started to see how good those original scenarios were for introducing the game to new players. Some of them have been played so many times, they have become classics. So instead, I decided I would update them slightly for the new edition, but otherwise leave all ten in there. However, that didn’t feel quite right either, as I didn’t feel like I was providing enough for players who have already supported the game. So, in the end, I wrote ten new scenarios as well.

 

Since those first ten scenarios are mainly there to introduce the game, I felt freer to make the new ten more complex and to really show off some of the weird, wonderful, and wild things you can do with the game. So, now your wizards and their warbands can test their mettle in: The Orb, The Summoning Bell, The Right Hand the Left Hand, The Ice Storm, The Treasure Phantasmal, The Mine Cart, The Lock Box, The Steam Vents, The Swirling Mist, and The Mine Field…

 

Hopefully these will provide hours of gaming fun for new players and veterans alike!

 

 

[Ish]

The Mine Cart

Oh.

Oh, my.

I’ll be in my bunk.

[Koyote]

1 hour ago, Ish said:

 

 

Oh.

Oh, my.

I’ll be in my bunk.

[Ish]

I may have a bit of a thing for minecarts.

[Koyote]

[Ish]

It’s a dwarf thing. 

[Koyote]

27 minutes ago, Ish said:

It’s a dwarf thing. 

Like dwarves do you? You’ll like my next project. It’s a Norse Dwarf Warband for use in both Mordheim (counts-as Dwarf Rangers) and Frostgrave.  I am using Spellcrow Miniatures’ Northern Dwarves and other Dwarf miniatures converted to mimic brows and features of Spellcrow’s Northern Dwarfs. 

[Ish]

I’ve got a tray full of GW’s LotR Dwarves sitting next to my painting table, waiting the release of Frostgrave 2.0 so I can get the proper coin costs to know how I’m going to assemble them into a warband.

[Koyote]

17 hours ago, Ish said:

I’ve got a tray full of GW’s LotR Dwarves sitting next to my painting table, waiting the release of Frostgrave 2.0 so I can get the proper coin costs to know how I’m going to assemble them into a warband.

I hope you share pics once you have them ready for the table.

Will your Dwarf "wizard" be an enchanter or are you going for something less traditional?

[Ish]

I’m very strongly considering painting them in the colors of Disney’s seven dwarves. Other than dark british racing green and the occasional purple, I don’t think I ever really use jewel tones when painting... So that would be fun.

On the other hand, I might just say to hell with the fancy and just go with basic grey, brown, black, and sepia wash everything. Because that’s easy and quick.

I’m leaning towards Chronomancer or Summoner for my wizard’s school of choice, actually. Although that plan is subject to change once the updated rulebook is in hand.

[Koyote]

If your warband is Dwarf themed and your "wizard" is a summoner, what models will you use for summoned demons?

 

In my Frostgrave Summoner warband, I used the Mordheim Warlock model as my wizard.  The model has a frog on its shoulder so I thought it'd be fun to use giant demon toads as summoned demons.  For my Imps I used the Heresy Miniatures' Demonic Toad Familiar.  For my Minor and Major demons,  I used Toad King Castings' Giant Toad miniatures.  The latter comes in two sizes.  I used the small of the two sizes as my Minor Demons (pictured below).  I never got around to painting a Major toad demon, but I still have the models floating around in my bits boxes.

 

 

...KILL!  KILL! KILL!

[Ish]

5 minutes ago, Koyote said:

If your warband is Dwarf themed and your "wizard" is a summoner, what models will you use for summoned demons?

I found a great set of Earth Elemental-type critters for 3D printing. They’re actually designed as a complete set that could be used as a full wargaming army – wizards, soldiers, cavalry (riding large dirt turtles or “dirtles”), big golem things, and even a giant walking siege tower!

So far, I’ve only done a handful of the smaller critters. But I think they’d work well as various summoned “demons” for a dwarf wizard.

[Koyote]

The summoned earth/stone elementals is a brilliant idea!

 

If you're serious about a Snow White themed warband, Tales of War Miniatures sold a cool Snow White with Guardian mini. The company closed shop years ago, but you might be able to find one on eBay.

 

 

 

[Ish]

Hmm... I’d been wondering what to do for an Apprentice. 

[Koyote]

White Knight Miniatures doesn't have a webstore, but they do sell mins...

Below are the White Knight's Weisz Sisters. The first is clearly inspired by the Disney Snow White. The second is a much tougher incarnation of the Brothers Grimm princess.

http://whiteknightminiatureimperium.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-weisz-sisters-greens.html

 

[Koyote]

On 6/30/2020 at 3:25 PM, Koyote said:

I’ve used that explanation as well. One of your basic Soldier types does something remarkable in a game, so in the next game you upgrade him to a better Soldier type in the same general category.

As I mentioned above, if you want to customize the stat line of a favorite Soldier you can equip it with a magic item (there are well over a hundred to chose from).

Also, if you prefer to play with painted minis, static stats and equipment means that you don’t have to paint a new version of the a fighter each time you upgrade it.

 

Clearly, we are in the minority on this issue. 🙂

 

In other news...

http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com/2020/07/frostgrave-second-edition-appendix.html

 

[Ish]

12 minutes ago, Koyote said:

Clearly, we are in the minority on this issue.

It’s difficult being men of superior breeding, higher intellect, and with a more refined sense of art and aesthetic... But, it is a burden with both bear with silent, noble stoicism.

One day, perhaps, the rest of these poor benighted fools will realize the error of their ways... 

 

[Koyote]

15 minutes ago, Ish said:

It’s difficult being men of superior breeding, higher intellect, and with a more refined sense of art and aesthetic... But, it is a burden with both bear with silent, noble stoicism.

One day, perhaps, the rest of these poor benighted fools will realize the error of their ways... 

 

...Yes indeed.