Overview

Frostgrave is a miniature wargame released by Osprey Publishing that hit stores in July 2015. It allows players to create a warband of up to ten models that will act as a motley crew exploring the ruins of the city of Felstad, known colloquially as Frostgrave. Immediately it creates an atmosphere suspiciously similar to that of Mordheim and it’s hard to not see that as an inspiration. The city was frozen in magical ice following some great magical disaster, but now it’s thawing out. Each player controls a wizard which he creates and outfits with spells. The wizard can (and usually does) take an apprentice and both of them, unlike the other minions in the warband, can gain experience from casting spells, recovering treasure and killing enemies. The game is by Joseph A. McCullough, a
proved gentleman who has written games before, as well as other reading material such as the wonderful Dragonslayers book also published by Osprey that I picked up a month or so ago.

Mechanics

The game uses d20s and they are used for everything from casting spells to fighting in hand to hand. Frostgrave is very much a campaign game that is intended to be played over several sessions with no definitive end. This allows for rules that include the recovery of wounded party members, permanent injuries and the expansion of a home base. The spells included in the rulebook are diverse enough that it’s unlikely any one wizard will be too alike another; in fact there are ten schools of magic, encompassing everything from Chronomancer, to Necromancer to Witch. Each school has eight spells, making for eighty in total. That’s a lot of choice.

Frostgrave’s reliance on Line of Sight means that the more you can get a table packed with scenery, the better. The rulebook suggests that you should not be able to draw LOS greater than a foot or two and this really is absolutely necessary, otherwise a ranged-heavy

warband will be at a significant advantage.  There are however, some interesting scenarios that inevitably result in a shootout. For example ‘The Silent Tower’ pits players against each other in a bid to reach the top of a magically null tower. I found I could place crossbowmen in ruins about the tower and pick off anyone who was making a dash to the top. It also encouraged those within the tower to take advantage of some of the more granular rules Frostgrave has to offer, like pushing, shoving and jumping. Seeing a knight shield-bash petty thugs out of his way, sending them tumbling to their deaths really evokes a sense of grand adventure and action-movie dramatics, all to the game’s credit. I found as well, that you can be extremely creative with spells, making it hard for even a good player to predict what the enemy is likely to do. For example, in one game we played, we were exploring a mad wizard’s library. After a bit of deliberation we decided to play it using Wizards of the Coast’s dungeon tiles rather than the usual wargame scenery to better get a sense of the cramped, underground tunnels of the scenario. There were three of us playing and I was trying to do my best to stop a large advancing swarm of enemies reaching my portion of the dungeon. So I cast ‘Wizard Eye’ on a wall within a room that the enemy soldiers were passing through. ‘Wizard Eye’ is a spell that allows a wizard to draw LOS from that location rather than himself if he wishes, allowing me to shoot magical darts from them. That was good. But there were too many, I only get one spell cast per turn and so a single ‘bone dart’ each round would not be enough to stop the advancing warband. So I repeated the process with my apprentice (aptly named Daphne the Daring) giving me two shots into the room per turn. However then it occurred to me that I could kill all of them, with no chance of escape, and at no risk to myself. I had a spell called ‘Wall’ which literally does what it sounds. I used my wizard to cast it at the doorway to this room closest to myself. Realising what I intended to do, my opponent, and old friend, attempted to flee his characters back across the chamber, but it was too late. I sealed the other exit with another ‘Wall’. Trapped and without chance of escape, I Red Wedding-ed his remaining soldiers. That is the kind of emergent story that Frostgrave is so well at evoking.

It’s not without its flaws though and this one is relatively significant. The experience point rewards granted to wizards is disproportionately unfair to those who choose schools of magic that do not have spells that can kill, instead acting as buffers and healers like the Thaumaturgy school. We found that those who chose to specialize in offensive schools such as Necromancy and Elementalist often ended up with vastly more experience than those of defensive schools.  However, it’s not hard to rectify this with some homebrew rules or, in my experience, leave it as it is. Though I’d only leave it if you often play multiplayer games with 3+ people, because then buffers can get more experience for casting spells from the back and, with a bit of luck and skill, never be in a position where he has to defend himself directly.

The Other Stuff

The malleability of the rules is one of the things that goes in Frostgrave’s favour. McCullough is fairly open about encouraging players to change the game to suit their needs. New scenarios are always fun to design for this game. As well as new AI controlled boss monsters that have their own special attacks and rules. The game has already seen its first campaign published; Thaw of the Lich Lord which boasts plenty of new scenarios and grants the ability for wizards to transform themselves into liches though I’ll refrain from commenting on it because I haven’t played it yet. In addition to this it has seen a mini-expasion called Sellsword and, in McCullough’s own words ‘unlike Lich Lord, Sellsword presents a more fundamental change to the game’. Sellsword introduces captains to the game, which behave like lesser, martial-orientated heroes to the wizards. They can gain experience and learn ‘tricks of the trade’ to help them in combat. I like Sellsword and can see it becoming a standard part of the rulebook should Frostgrave ever get a second edition. Sellsword also includes several new scenarios, one of which includes a new creature called the ‘nullman’ a shadow like monster that is totally immune to magic. I like the idea of the nullmen and the brief history they are given because they’re one of the things that will hopefully help McCullough define Frostgrave’s own backstory and history. Coming this year is a new expansion called Into the Breeding Pits which promises to introduce more comprehensive monster and trap rules and it’s something that is one my day-1 buy list.

I think it’s worth just touching on the presentation of the rulebook and the game in general. It is neatly laid out and McCullough does a good job of explaining the rules concisely and clearly. The book itself is hard back and the artwork (as usual by Osprey) is beautiful.  It really conjures a sense of adventure and exploration. And it’s reasonably priced too, which is always a plus. It costs £12.99 on the Osprey store and weighs in at 136 pages.

The miniatures for the game are produced by North Star Military Figures and they are gorgeous. To play you would need a wizard (and nearly always an apprentice) which cost £6 for both and the generic ‘Frostgrave Soldiers’ kit which retails at £20. That’s £26 for a totally usable force. It’s good. The box contains enough to make twenty soldiers, which is twice the number you will ever need and the sprues contain enough customization to make each model totally unique and interesting. If you’ve ever wanted to get your friends or children in miniature wargaming but can’t justify the cost to them (or yourself), then this is the game to get them hooked on. It’s cheap, fast to play and easy to understand. I sincerely hope Osprey continue to publish material for this as it is superb.

Based on the following criteria; rules, presentation, ease of play, cost, and support I would give Frostgrave a:

4 out of 5

Solid, good adventuring, wonderful support and ease of play with some fixable balance issues.

Game on friends.

A link to Joseph A. McCullough’s blog: http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.co.uk/