Like its predecessors Advanced Spellcraft is beautifully presented with a cover depicting a mage studying a magical tome with a look of surprise or perhaps building terror on her face while unbeknownst to her two whispy Book Wights approach from behind. Inside the text is liberally adorned with great photos by Kevin Dalimore, of miniatures painted by him and Paul Cubbin, and stunning artwork by aRu-Mor. The painting on page 27 is one of my favorites and is wonderfully creepy.
What’s inside?
The book opens with an introduction from Joseph. I always enjoy reading these because I always get the feeling that Joseph is as excited about playing his games as he is writing his books, so you know you are in good hands.
The book is themed around the rediscovered Bibliosepulchre of Felstad. This vast library-crypt was the resting place of ancient librarians who were entombed, each holding tightly to a rare grimoire. Chapter One details a range of eight optional spellcasting rules that you can add to your game. My favourites are the Casting Roll Criticals and Flourishes.
As the name suggests Casting Roll Criticals add an enhancement on a casting roll of twenty, a critical success or a detrimental effect on a roll of one, a critical failure.
The Flourishes are used for when a Wizard finds or purchases a grimoire of a spell that they already know, they can then use it to learn to cast the spell with an optional flourish, to achieve different effects albeit with a harder casting roll. These are a great addition to the game adding further depth and variety to the spells.
Chapter Two is the Codified Spell List. All the spells from the Frostgrave rule book are covered with Critical Success and Critical Failure effects and apart from one spell, two or more flourish effects. Additionally there are notes or FAQs for many of the spells listed.
Next is The Bibliosepulchre Campaign that consists of ten scenarios written for two players and recommended for experienced wizards as they are ‘extremely dangerous and include deadly monsters’, to quote the book, so will be suitably challenging if you have been playing Frostgrave for the last 10 years. The scenarios are playable in order but there is also a table for rolling for them randomly. Each scenario takes place in a section dedicated to one of the schools of magic from the Frostgrave rulebook. A nice touch is that the scenarios can be played with your normal Frostgrave terrain as the Bibliosepulchre reflects the city and also many areas would be collapsed ruins. Ideally though you might want to make some book shelves, lecterns and other accoutrements found in libraries. I will admit to not having read through all the scenarios, mainly because I like to read them in sequence of playing them, if you get what I mean, and I haven’t had the time yet.
Chapter Four details thirty nine new treasure items that can be found in the Bibliosepulchre. After each scenario one treasure token can be exchanged for a roll on the Bibliosepulchre Treasure Table. There is a huge range of magical items detailed here and a note is made that due to their rarity none of them should be available to purchase which will keep them as a great incentive to play the scenarios.
The final chapter details fourteen new creatures that may be encountered within the Advanced Spellcraft scenarios. There is of course a random encounter table and details of new creature traits not found in the main rulebook.
Conclusion
I have to say that Advanced Spellcraft is a really great supplement for Frostgrave and adds so much to the games. I haven’t gone into page by page detail in this review, partly to keep the review to a reasonable length, and partly as doing so would feel a little like giving out spoilers. If you enjoy Frostgrave, go and buy the book or the PDF, I don’t think you will be dissapointed! I’m giving Advanced Spellcraft a d20 in the miniature battles rating scheme.
Durnimlath watched as the unconscious bodies of Seregthaur and Mothorm became surrounded by a hazy light, flickering from blue to purple and back again. The air was filled with a subtle tang of hot metal which she associated with magic being used. Both the elves became indistinct as the light grew stronger. And then, as the light winked out the two forms were replaced by two different elves, Breged and Calaraglar. Both sat up looking confused.
The new Thugs – Breged On the left & Carlaraglar On the right
“Welcome to Felstad” Durnimlath said with an ironic smile. “Tell me. What were you doing before you arrived here?”
“We were patrolling near the Sentry Oak” Breged replied, standing up and brushing dust from the floor from her leather clothing.
“Yes, and then I heard a sound like screaming in the distance that got closer and became louder until I felt like I could not bear it…” Calaraglar said, her voice trailing off into silence.
“I heard it also, yet I thought it more like the cry of marsh geese, and then we were…here.” Breged continued looking at the nodding Calaraglar.
“I am sorry my friends but it seems that someone or something is using strong magic to play games with us. We were likewise patrolling the boundaries of the forest and then we found ourselves on the edge of this ruined city. It is Felstad and we are at the doorway to an abandoned weapon shop. We here have already fought with strange smoke like serpents to get this far. It is my hope that inside we will find items to aid us in returning to Farran. Until then I fear we may have many adversaries to overcome.”
The Setup
This, the second solo scenario from the Frostgrave “Perilous Dark” supplement, takes the war band to the weapon workshop of Isher, in search of magical items. It begins with the war band having come through the doorway of the ruined weapon shop.
I made a change to my war band after the previous scenario and made Brikolad a captain using the rules from “The Frostgrave Folio“. This lets you have a war band member who can gain experience, in return for a small fee. The initial cost is 100GC and as I’d already spent 75 on Brikolad I just paid an additional 25.
I used some home made, slightly wonky, slightly scruffy, dungeon tiles and various piles of rubble and walls also made from XPS foam plus weapon racks and shelves made from coffee stirrers.
The object is to get from the door to the opposite side of the board where there is a magical cabinet with a switch on either side. When both switches are pulled the cabinet will open, depositing two loot tokens. Then the war must get back to the door and exit the workshop, ending the scenario. At each corner of the board is a numbered spawn point. At the beginning of the game there are two gnoll thugs at each of the spawn points and two gnoll knights standing in front of the magical cabinet.
Diagram of the board layout
Switches on walls made with XPS foam and bamboo sticks with green stuff.
The magic cabinet made with thick card and XPS foam
Out of game spells
Durnimlath and Mirhen both cast Out of game spells Familiar, Brew Potion and Animal Companion (more on that at the end). Only the Animal Companions were successful so they each start the game with a Snow Leopard companion.
The following are the highlights (and low lights) of the skirmish.
Turn 1
My plan was to move the thieves and snow leopards up the board as fast as possible to throw the switches and open the cabinet, while the Wizard, Apprentice, Captain and knight move up the board ready to grab the loot. The rest of the war band was to stay fairly close to the door to keep it clear for when the others come back with the loot.
Durnimlath successfully casts enchant weapon on Daetir‘s dagger – this is useful as it negates the -1 damage penalty that daggers have.
In the creature phase II the gnolls begin moving towards the centre of the board. I decided that the two gnoll knights would however, stay guarding the cabinet.
Turn 2
Brikolad gets first blood taking a gnoll down with his bow and Durnimlath casts another Enchant Weapon, this time on Kirgwaith’s dagger.
Mirhen does a great job casting an Elemental Bolt successfully despite an effective -4 penalty and does enough damage to also kill a gnoll. That laser burned up my whole special effects budget!
Back near the entrance Calaraglar and Galenglim are attacked by gnolls. Calaraglar takes damage but Galenglim wins the combat and damages the gnoll.
In the soldier phase Calaraglar attacks the gnoll and removes it from the game.
At the end of the turn a gnoll knight spawns at 2.
Turn 3
Apart from maneuvering and some failed casting rolls nothing much happens until the soldier phase when Gurthbor, Galenglim and a snow leopard all attack and kill gnolls.
At the end of the turn two gnoll thugs spawn.
Turn 4
Durnimlath begins the turn by casting elemental bolt at a gnoll. She needs to empower it (taking damage) but it hits and kills a gnoll.
In the soldier phase the first war band casualty occurs when a snow leopard attacks a gnoll, loses the combat and is killed.
At the end of the turn two more gnoll thugs spawn.
Turn 5
At the beginning of the turn Durnimlath casts another empowered elemental bolt and kills a gnoll.
Later in the turn Mirhen successfully casts bone dart killing a gnoll.
In the creature phase 2 a gnoll attacks Calaraglar and removes her from the board.
The Coming of Borock
Borock is a huge gnoll mutated by magic to be a Minotaur/gnoll hybrid. Big bad and able to send other gnolls into a killing frenzy, he will be a big problem for the war band. There is a chance that he might spawn earlier but if he hasn’t, he spawns at the end of turn 5.
Breged rolls lucky attacking and killing a gnoll..
A Gnoll attacks the remaining Snow Leopard killing it while another gnoll loses its combat with Naru Magol and is killed.
At the end of the turn a gnoll archer spawns.
Turn 7
The thieves continue moving towards the switches while Naru Magol attacks and kills a Gnoll. Gurthbor and Galenglim both attack gnolls and kill them.
At the end of the turn both a gnoll thug and a gnoll archer spawn at spawn point 2.
Turn 8
Daetir reaches the left-hand switch and Kirgwaith is nearly at the right-hand switch but, has a gnoll thug and a gnoll archer (who has already done 8 damage) very near-by.
Galenglim and Gurthbor attack Borock, hopefully keeping tied up and not able to inspire other gnolls to frenzy.
At the end of the turn a gnoll knight spawns, at 3 right near the left-hand switch!
Turn 9 – Turn 12
This where it all started to unravel. Galenglim and Gurthbor kept Borock busy but Galenglim was brought down before Gurthbor finished him off. The rest of the the war band were slowly whittled away including Mirhen the apprentice. Durnimlath was left all alone and made a break, heading back to the door to leave but was brought down by gnoll archer, inches away from reaching it.
Post Game
Luckily both Durnimlath. Mirhen and Brikolad had good rolls on the Death and Injury table, making full recoveries.
The soldiers rolls were as follows:
Naru Magol – Full Recovery
Gurthbor – Dead
Galen Glim – Full Recovery
Daetir – Badly wounded
Kirgwaith – Badly wounded
Calaraglar – Badly wounded
Breged – Dead
Badly Wounded means the soldier will not be available for the next scenario. I’m going to replace the two thugs with animal companions and the two thieves with new ones as they are free to recruit. They will look somewhat identical to the ones that the replace. Odd that! Gurthbor is replaced by a new soldier a Man At Arms.
I also realised I had miss-read the rules regarding the Animal Companion spell and that they should have taken up a soldier slot. I also forgot that both the magic users had heal spells – doh!
There was some XP and Durnimlath goes up a level and raises her shoot stat, which will help with Bone Dart and Elemental Bolt. This also means that Mirhen’s shoot stat also raises.
The war band have moved into the Treasury to use as their base and found some Gold Crowns so that was some good news.
I’m undecided whether to run through the scenario again or just go on to the next. I think I will run it again but with a changed gnoll spawning table.
I was surprised at how tough the scenario felt. There is a lot talk on the internet about the previous scenario being overpowered, and Joseph has said as much himself, but I thought this one was as tough, if not more so. What, I think makes it difficult is the spawning of extra gnolls at the end of every turn.
As I think it is said in Perilous Dark, balancing solo scenarios is not easy. Of course, if I had had a lot of better dice rolls, my perception might have been different, and you do have a reasonable chance of any downed soldiers surviving which is a plus. I also possibly didn’t have enough scenery as it is suggested that you have a bit more than for competitive games.
I think I will re jig the gnoll spawns to have less knights and only spawns on every other turn. After all Borock is out of the picture so maybe the gnolls are leaving that area now their leader is gone.
Overall i really enjoyed the game and am looking forwards to playing again.
And a group of “Heroscape: Gnoll Fighters” which I can’t find any details on plus some basic gnolls from an old D&D game.
Let me know in the comments if you have played this scenario and how you found it? Also how do you find campaign play in skirmish wargames? Are there any that get it spot on?
In which the witch Durnimlath Gul leads her merry band of elves in to the depths of the frozen city and wishes she hadn’t…
Finally, I found some time to play some Frostgrave. The scenario is the first of the solo and cooperative scenarios presented in the ‘Perilous Dark‘ supplement. Perilous Dark is a great supplement for Fostgrave that presents rules for playing Frostgrave solo and cooperatively, as well as lots of tips and ideas for creating your own solo or co-op scenarios. My notes definitely got confused at times so there are some inconsistencies in the following report so please excuse them.
The scenario involves the warband pitting themselves against wispy but deadly Vapour Snakes and crossbow weilding constructs as they move towards a door to a wizards workshop in the city of Felstad.
The Party’s Background
Durnimlath Gul, together with her trusty apprentice Mirhen and a group of loyal soldiers, has inadvertently stepped through a portal near their forest home, Farran Wood and found themselves transported to another world. The portal has delivered them to the outskirts of a strange frozen city.
With the portal only working one way Durnimlath now needs to search for another portal or means to return home.
The spirits of the group are at first low but are soon raised a little as they find a nearby inn selling a wine, that is not as good as the fine elven wine of their homeland, is nonetheless passable.
The inn keeper seems not at all suspicious of the strange coins that Durnimlath hands over, excepting gold as gold with a smile. The inn is like many in there own world and they soon learn that the strange city is named Felstad and they also hear tell of an old wizards workshop that might contain items of magical power.
Hoping that a portal or means to create one will be found among the frigid buildings, Durnimlath leads her party into the streets of Felstad.
Setting up the table
The party start in one corner of the table, which is a bit comfy but will sort out as soon as they start to move.
The Warband in the starting position at the bottom right corner of the table.
A door on the opposite corner to where the party start is guarded by two crossbow wielding constructs. Exiting through the door is the goal of the scenario.
Five spawn points are placed on the table, one near each corner and one in the centre. Additionally, two treasure tokens are placed near the two corners that are not the party start point or the exit. A Large Vapour Snake is placed at each spawn point.
Each turn of the solo game is split into four phases, the Wizard phase, Creature phase 1, for creatures above a certain health level, the Apprentice phase, Creature phase 2 for all other creatures and the Soldier phase for any soldiers not activated in either the Wizard or Apprentice phase where up to three figures can be activated if they are within range.
I won’t list the phases in this report and just summarise each turn. I’ll also for each first appearance of a figure link to the relevant section in my previous post about the warband.
Some spells are cast out of game so both the wizard and apprentice try and cast a few. Both successfully cast ‘Familiar’, and the wizard casts ‘Summon Animal’ for a wolf to join the party for the game, and the apprentice casts ‘brew potion’ for a healing potion. I decided to use the optional critical hits rule that automatically wins a combat on a natural 20 .
Turn 1
Naru Magol, Gurth Bor and Galenglim moving towards a Vapour Snake
Durnimlath Gul, Naru Magol the Knight and the two infantrymen Gurth Bor and Galenglim all move towards the Vapour Snake that is directly in front of them. None of them have enough movement to engage.
Durnimlath Gul casts Enchant weapon on Naru Magol’s sword but fails. In Frostgrave failing a spell causes damage to the caster, the greater the failure the greater the damage. Durnimlath is reaonably lucky and only loses one point of health here.
Mirhen casts Bone dart at the Vapour Snake but fails and takes a point of damage. Kirgwaith and Daetir. The thieves spot a suitable wall that offers higher ground to spy out the terrain and move towards it. Daetir has enough movement to climb the wall.
The Warband ready to take on the Vapour Snakes
Most of the monsters on the table have no line of sight to the warband so make random moves, but three of the Vapour Snakes do see the warband and move towards them. The closest Vapour snake moves to attack Naru Magol. In Frostgrave both figures roll when combat is initiated with the winner having the chance to inflict damage. The Vapour Snake wins the combat but luckily the Knight’s armour blocks all the damage.
Turn 2
Gurth Bor and Galenglim move to support Naru Magol and Galenglim attacks the Vapour Snake, but it wins the combat and two points of damage get past the infantryman’s armour.
Durnimlath Gul casts Bone Dart at the Vapour Snake but it fails and she takes one point of damage.
Galenglim and Naru move into combat with a Vapour Snake
Naru Magol now attacks and wins the combat rolling a natural 20 and kills the snake. First blood (or first some sort of smokey stuff) to the warband!
A Vapour Snake moves to attack Gurth Bor wins the combat and does 6 damage.
Serethgaur the thug, attacks the Vapour Snake and wins but no damage gets through the armour
Turn 3
Draug the Wolf comes of worse in combat
The wolf attacks the Vapour Snake but the snake wins and does a significant amount of damage killing the poor pooch.
Durnimlath casts bone dart but fails the casting roll but not by enough to take damage. Mirhen is more successful casting heal on Gurth Bor.
Meanwhile, Naru Magol attacks rolling a critical hit and killing a Vapour Snake.
At this point I see that I have blundered with Durnimlath being a little isolated. A Vapour Snake moves in and attacks but is the one who takes the damage.
Durnimlath trying to fend off two Vapour Snakes
Another two Vapour Snakes are however both successful and reduce the wizard to 0 health.
Turn 4
Mirhen attempts to cast an elemental bolt but fails and takes damage. Seregthaur attacks a Vapour Snake and does a small amount of damage. Galenglim then finishes off a Vapour Snake. Snake attacks Sereg and kills him. Snake attacks Galenglim but dies in the process.
Now one of the Ballista II constructs has moved into line of sight uses its heavy crossbow, targeting Naru but misses.
Brikolad the archer targets a smoke snake and finds out that arrows do very little damage to them.
Gurth Bor attacks a smoke snake and her sword destroys it.
Turn 5
Mirhen successfully casts Plague of Insects,
Mirhen casts plague of insects on the Ballista II which will lessen its effectiveness for and fighting shooting, she needs to empower the spell for it to succeed so takes damage. The spell is helpful for Brik as he is the target for its next attack which misses.
Unfortunately the Ballista II then makes a willpower test and the plague of insects is no longer effective.
Brik shoots his bow at the Ballista II and hits, but its armour stops the damage.
Daetir sees some treasure and moves to secure it. Picking up the treasure spawns another Vapour Snake, though only a small one.
Turn 6
Mirhen casts heal but fails and takes damage. The Ballista II shoots its crossbow at Naru Magol whose armour protects her from damage.
The remaining members of the warband continue moving towards the door using any cover they can find.
Turn 7
Combat with a Ballista II
Both the infantrymen and the Naru Magol attack the Ballista II. The Infantrymen don’t fair well both failing to win the combat, Galenglim being reduced to 0 health. Naru Magol is more successful and wins the combat with a critical hit and doing damage.
Mirhen casts heal and empowers the spell to make it successful so takes some damage.
The Ballista II retaliates and attacks Naru but loses the combat and is destroyed.
Brikolad who has a small smoke snake moving towards him moves up some stairs and shoots at the small vapour snake but misses.
Turn 8
Mirhen casts heal again but fails and takes damage. The small vapour snake attacks Mothorm wins the combat and does damage. Mothorm retaliates and wins the combat doing a small amount of damage.
Brikolad takes advantage of the small vapour snake’s distraction and moves to pickup some loot. This also spawns a small vapour snake.
Turn 9
Not wanting to risk another failed spell as her health is low, Mirhen drinks her health potion.
Another large snake now has line of sight on the warband and moves towards them.
Brikolad shoots at the nearest small vapour snake reducing its health by 1.
Turn 10
Mirhen casts bone dart at the small smoke snake and the 1 point of health is enough to reduce it to 0 health.
Turn 11
No combat takes place this turn as all the warband move to find cover and continue their progress towards the exit door.
Turn 12
Warband using the ruins to their advantage
Brik moves into position to shoot at the second Ballista II but misses.
Turn 13
Brikolad is now in line of site of both the Ballista II and a small smoke snake both of which move towards the warband. The Ballista II shoots at Brikolad but misses. The archer retaliates and does some damage, then moves back into cover.
Kirgwaith moves to attack the small vapour snake and and reduces its health.
Turn 14
Mirhen casts bone dart at the Ballista II but fails and takes damage. The Ballista II takes aim at Mirhen skewering her and leaving her with 0 health.
The small vapour snake attacks Kirgwaith and and reduces the thief to 0 health.
The last large smoke snake attacks Daetir but loses the combat and takes damage from the thief.
Brikolad moves and shoots at the Ballista II but missies. Naru Magol attacks the large vapour snake, wins the combat and does damage. Gurth Bor follows this up with an attack on the large smoke snake finishing it off.
Turn 15
Ballista II moves to attack Mothorm, loses the combat and takes damage from the thug.
Naru Magol attacks the construct but loses the combat and takes damage.
Turn 16
The remaining members of the warband make it to the door
Balista II attacks Naru Magol but loses, takes damage and is destroyed.
The warband now move towards the door and make the roll to open it and leave the table.
Post Game
In campaign play figures reduced to 0 health are not necessarily dead (maybe they are mostly dead? Cue Miracle Max quote!). You get to roll on either a table for the Soldiers and/or a table for the Wizard and Apprentice.
Durnimlath Gul and Mirhen, Galenglim and Gurth Bor all made a full recovery! Seregthaur unfortunately succumbed to his wounds but Mothorm was only badly wounded so will be able to join the warband again after recovering for one scenario.
Experience wise Durnimlath Gul gains 2 levels with some xp left over in the bank.
I then rolled on the loot table for the two loot tokens recovered and the warband is now 40 gold crowns richer, has a curse scroll and a pair of gloves of strength.
So all in all not a bad outcome.
Wait I hear you say (or maybe it is my conscience) didn’t you forget some stuff? I realised that I missed out a few things. Firstly, Vapour Snakes should have spawned at the end of each turn after the third. Ah well, I’m not too worried about missing that as Joseph McCullough has stated that he made the scenario a little more difficult than intended. So I sort of balanced it a bit without realising.
Also I missed out some situational modifiers for combat, particularly for when there are more than one figure attacking another, which I need to re-read and shooting modifiers for cover and the like, which I completely forgot, but as they were not used for the monsters or the warband that is a balance of sorts.
I plan before playing the next scenario is add names to the bases of the minis, so I don’t confuse the two infantrymen, two thugs and the two thieves. I think I may also try using a voice recorder app for the notes. Juggling, rule books, camera, minis, dice, pencil and notebook got a bit chaotic at times so anything that helps will be welcome.
What do I think of Frostgrave now I’ve played my first solo scenario? I love it! It played a little slowly but that was my bad decision of writing my first ever battle report on my first time playing the game. So there was lots of note taking (much more than I really needed) and checking the rule book. Next I need to paint up some minis for the next scenario and decide on which advances Durnimlath is going to take.
It is one of the things that I like about Frostgrave is that it is miniature agnostic and you can use whatever minis you want. I’ve even seen people playing with Lego minifigs, for example.
There aren’t any elves in Frostgrave but that doesn’t stop me from using elf miniatures. The “Official” miniatures for the game by North Star Military figures are great value as, for example in the Wizards II box, you get eight bodies and a whole range of heads, arms and extras to customise your minis. North Star is a great site and they make and or stock a great range of games and miniatures.
The Warband
As I’ve already mentioned you can use any miniatures for your warband. I started off with using minis I’d printed from Artisans guild – Sylvan Knights collection. They are gorgeous sculpts but I had some problems. I think they are designed to be printed at 32mm scale which meant they would tower over any 28mm minis I used. I did end up resizing a couple of them and adding them to my warband but another problem I have with 3d printed miniatures is that the often lack the detail of white metal, resin or plastic minis, at least with my printer, and this was exacerbated by rescaling. Don’t get me wrong this is not a problem with the sculpts, they are awesome.
I originally bought the collection to pad out my old Warhammer Wood Elf army and they are perfect for that. Some of them just didn’t “fit” for my warband.
The wizard as you can see is levitating surrounded by spell energy and the archer’s base just seemed a bit out of place for the Frostgrave setting. So, I looked around for some other minis.
Starting with the wizard. Keeping with my elven theme I thought the nature based magic, Witch was a great fit. As I was building the mini, one from the Frostgrave Wizards II box from North Star Military Figures, I had a thought, that I had a load of old Warhammer Dryad/branchwraith heads left over in my bits box. So a little dab of polystyrene cement and Durnimlath Gul was born.
For the apprentice I continued with a figure from the Frostgrave Wizards II box with a Warhammer 40,000 Dark Eldar/Drukhari head because I love Drukhari.
For the Archer, Brikolad, I went for a model from Reaper Miniatures and decided to mix things up a bit with the colour scheme and went for a sort of autumnal feel.
Next Naru Magol, Knight. This is one of the Arisan’s guild minis. Too many layers on the face but I’m planning on re-printing the mini and trying to use thinner paint in general.
Daetir Thief and Kirgwaith Thief are both from Reaper where they are called Kalash Dark Elf Assassin and Merryn, Elf Thief. The Daetir mini has been sat in my pile of shame for about 12 years, which is vindication for those of us who find it hard to throw away our old unpainted miniatures. “Its not a pile of shame, its a pile of possibilities!”.
(I probably should have written this before my previous post, but better late than never.)
Frostgrave is a mini agnostic skirmish wargame set in the frozen ruins of the city of Felstad by Joseph A. McCullough. Felstad was once a great city in a magic empire, its inhabitants producing objects of wondrous magic. But, the city was doomed by the actions of a wizard who lost control of some working and a great storm was unleashed shrouding the city in a cataclysmic blizzard that left behind only a frozen wasteland. The empire failed and its magic also.
After many centuries Felstad was almost forgotten but as the magical winter began to abate, those who remembered the tales of the city began to turn their thoughts to the ruins and the treasures that lie there hidden.
What you need to play.
Some miniatures to represent your warband and any of the dwellers of Felstad, some scenery, dice, Wizard sheet and the rule book.
Ideally your miniatures should be chosen to represent your warband, having the same equipment etc, but this isn’t a hard rule. You could play the game with tokens or anything you like, as long as you are having fun no one is going to tell you you are not following the rules.
The dice needed are d20s and the wizard sheet is included to photocopy/ scan in the rulebook, but it can also be downloaded from the Osprey website.
To represent the ruins of Felstad you’ll need some terrain and this can be as simple as some blocks or as elaborate as you want. The important thing is to have a lot of scenery as the game is designed to be played with a fairly crowded table.
The rulebook is nicely presented with some great illustrations and photos that will give you plenty of inspiration for your terrain pieces and your warband. The one thing that is a great incentive to try Frostgrave is that the rule book is relatively cheap round about the £20 to £25 mark at the time of writing for the 2nd edition. A PDF and Epub versions are also available from the Osprey website for £17.50,
The Warband
You create a small warband of up to 10 (although this number can be increased by some spells), the principal member of which is your wizard (or in some cases a witch – see what I did there?). It is the wizard who recruits the warband from their own funds.
Each wizard follows one of the 10 schools of magic available in the rulebook. There is a good range of schools to choose from and your wizard can be any one of the following; Chronomancer, Elementalist, Enchanter, Illusionist, Necromancer, Sigilist, Soothsayer, Summoner, Thaumaturge and Witch. The school determines which spells you can learn. Each school has allies, neutrals and enemies among the other schools and this determines which spells you can use and how difficult they are to cast.
To aid the wizard you can also recruit an apprentice whose stats are generated from the wizards, with a few adjustments. The apprentice is after all not as skilful as their tutor. They also share the same list of spells that their tutor has. It isn’t compulsory to have an apprentice but it is probably a wise move.
As well as the apprentice, the wizard can recruit another eight members for the warband. The wizard has 400 gold crowns with which to hire their followers. There are 9 specialists detailed in the rulebook and a wizard can have up to four of these in a warband. Standard soldiers are less expensive, which there are 6 to choose from including thugs and thieves who will join a warband for no fee. I get the feeling that the thugs and thieves probably all wear red shirts, but maybe I am just an old cynic.
With warbands created you are ready to play one of the 20 scenarios included in the rulebook. You can play these as one offs or as a campaign.
Campaign Play
The campaign rules cover a lot of ground. There are rules for permanent injuries, in campaign play being reduced to 0 health isn’t always the end and there is a chance that your soldiers who are on 0 health might survive, missing the next game if they don’t make a full recovery. For Wizards and apprentices there are a greater range of possible outcomes if they’ve hit 0 health including the possibility of a permanent injury.
Wizards in campaign play gain experience that increases their level and allows choosing, to improve either a stat, a known spell or learn a new spell.
In campaign play treasure is also dealt with differently from just determining the winner as in the one off game. Treasure in campaign play is rolled for on a table with results for gold, potions, magic items, magic weapons and armour, spell scrolls and grimoires. The rules include tables and descriptions for all of the list except gold which is worked out on the initial treasure table.
Campaign play also has the option of buying and selling loot, hiring replacement soldiers (although you are still limited to four specialists and a maximum warband size of 10) and equipping the wizard’s base of operations which is another aspect that gives campaign play some depth.
I can’t help kicking myself for not grabbing a copy of the rules a lot earlier. But there is some consolation that the game is “tried and tested” and has a good number of supplements as well as a dedicated magazine “Spellcaster” that includes loads of content to give your game some extra tweaks. Its available from Osprey, Drive-through rpg/ wargames vault and probably your local gaming shop. The supplements include a lot of extra content to make your games even more fun and helpfully the 2nd Edition also includes an appendix detailing how the changes from 1st Edition affect the supplements that have been released before 2nd Edition.
Miniature Battles Score
I give Frostgrave a solid D20 in my scoring scheme. I think I am going to be getting a lot of mileage out of the Frostgrave game.
You can find out more about Frostgrave and Joseph A. McCullough at his blog The Renaissance Troll
For my first “series” I’m going to be looking at Solo skirmish gaming with Frostgrave.
Roughly, November 2023, I took the plunge and bought a copy of Frostgrave 2nd Edition by Joseph A. McCullough, and was hooked!
Table top scenery/terrain is not something I have really done before, not unless you count the “pill box” I made for Rogue Trader era W40k. Back then I was inspired by an issue of White Dwarf and set about looking around the house for things that looked like they might work as sci-fi buildings and decided that an empty yogurt pot would be great. A coat of primer and a coat of grey paint later I had a pill box/habitation unit. I decided it didn’t look as stone/concrete like as I wanted so I struck on the idea of covering it in something gritty, and not finding anything used some cat litter, fresh, I hasten to add, and another coat of grey paint.
Of course what I ended up with was a thing that looked like a yogurt covered in cat litter as a gaming buddy at the time quite rightly pointed out! So apart from miniature bases I didn’t really bother much more with terrain.
So starting on Felstad project I was determined to at least make something that I would not be totally ashamed of. And this little corner of a ruined building was the result.
It was a test piece built from scraps of XPS foam and odds and ends from my basing box, the first bit of my version of Felstad was born and although it wasn’t amazing I was fairly happy with it. The snow effect was some snow powder/flock I found on ebay.
What followed was a bit of an obsession. I spent a lot of the winter building ruins, experimenting here and there with different products and ideas. Mainly I was was using the XPS foam from an The Army Painter GameMaster Dungeons & Caverns Core Set, which I’d bought and only tried two tiles from.
What I found so inspiring about building for Felstad, was that it was a ruined city covered in snow. Which meant that if a bit of a building went wrong – I could just break it off and it would just add to the ruined look. Also you can cover up a lot of errors with snow effect. It turned out for me that broken things were fun and my sort of shabby wargame chic works ok with the ruined city aesthetic.
What is different now compared with the mid to late eighties of course, is that tutorials are so much easier to find. There are so many inspiring blogs and YouTube channels to help with wargaming projects. Black Magic Crafts and Geek Gaming Scenics are two I watch from time to time.