With 22 days left until Gen Con, I figured I’d get a jump on an event I’m participating in and one that sounds quite fun. “Frostgrave: Bleak Sunrise with Creator” is a sold out introductory event into the world and rules of Osprey’s popular Frostgrave miniature skirmish game.
I’ve danced around playing this game for some time now. Some friends of mine said they really liked it but it was a bit too random. Others just barely dipped their toe in and want to explore the game in more detail. With this intro game at Gen Con, I’ll be able to get a firsthand view of the game with none other than the designer, Joseph A. McCullough.
Even though the event is an introductory game and they will provide the materials, I suspect that the heart of the game for me will be the creation of my own personal warband. With that in mind, I borrowed my friend’s rulebook and set out to make my own band for the event.
Along with the rulebook, I found a nice warband generator at Table-Top Space and created my little band of Frozen City adventurers. From the beginning, I could see where the appeal is in this game. Creating your wizard is very D&D-like (albeit much more simplified) and you can get a feel of how and what you are creating during the process. Being a minis game, I knew I’d need some and I have a couple of options in the fantasy 28mm realm at my disposal.
The game with most choice is Fantasy Flight’s Descent dungeon crawl so I went through my heroes and centered on one of the heroes from the Bonds of the Wilds set. I’ve always loved the dynamic Falconer sculpt so I chose him to be my wizard, a Witch named Thurgen. Frostgrave is pretty open on the interpretation of what a “wizard” looks like and since I want to go with a nature/wild theme, he stuck out as the perfect choice.
Next I needed an Apprentice. I settled quickly on the name “Tog” as a kind of half-witted apprentice that Thurgen took on more out of pity than hope. I also knew I wanted a lot of Warhounds in the band as cheap fodder and thematic appeal. Warlord Games had the perfect set with their Ancient Celts: Warhound Packmaster set, getting me three warhounds and Tog. Maybe Tog is more stablemaster to Thurgen’s warhounds but has some knack for spellcraft as well.
To round out my main trio, I dipped into another rulebook, Frostgrave: Sellswords to work up a Captain. This is another Descent mini from the Bonds of the Wilds set. Gilbarad will be my main attacking figure and will be focused on getting into the thick of things, maybe with my hounds to help them be better.
The rest of the warband is made up of several hired hands like these too (again from Descent). Here we have Osbert, the crossbowen, and his brother, Osbert who served in the infantry before coming into the mercenary life. These brothers Osbert (the random name generator came up with the same name twice and I thought it was funny so I kept it) will be my general use soldiers maybe hunting down treasure and goodies while dishing out some pain as required.
Rounding out my cast is my Thief, Etheldreda. Another Descent mini picked up for scavenging the field and getting back treasure for the ‘band.
Lastly, I have this fun figure from Reaper minis. This bear is “Mutt” and is Thurgen’s animal companion. He’s a bit of a risk since I have to cast the spell before the game to see if he even joins the field or if he decides to ignore his master’s call and go munch on some helpless forest creature. One thing that will be interesting is I primed this model in my normal grey automotive primer. Later on, I read the back of the Reaper package saying specifically that priming is not recommended. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out.
So there we have it. My ‘wild’ Warband is together and try to do a quick paint up of all of them in time for the event later in August.
In other news, I’m wrapping up the paint job of my D&D character, Barric Brighthoof for the ongoing D&D campaign I’m in. He’s a halfling goatrider from the Westfalia miniatures line.
I still have some work to do on this guy but he’s coming along just fine.