Frostgrave Part 3: Printing the Warbands

Quicklinks: Chosing a Wizard, Hiring a Warband, Team Necromancer, Team Sigilist, Terrain Status Update

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36 Days Til Frostgrave!

Another week has past and I’m well on my way to getting closer and closer to Frostgrave game day. Last week we discussed the planning stages and ideas associated with the epic Frostgrave gameboard I have planned for an upcoming battle of wills with my other half. If you want to hear more about my Elder Scrolls inspired battle board check out the (Map Design) post from last week.

Have no idea what so ever as to what Frostgrave is? Well start at the beginning of my epic adventure to my most ambitious tabletop project of all time, and on a deadline (Frostgrave: Beginnings). We aren’t quite a month out but I’m already starting to feel the pressure.

This week I worked with Graham to select the models we wanted for our warbands and I 3D printed the teams if the models were still in digital form. Check out our rosters! I will break into the individual models, their source and our thoughts in choosing our schools of magic and models.

Also stay tuned at the end for an update of my printing progress of my board and if I’m currently moving on schedule.

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Choosing your Wizard

The most important figure in the entire game of Frostgrave is your Wizard. The wizard is the main figure head of your warband and sets the cadence and theme of gameplay for your party. Before you can start playing Frostgrave you must 1) name your wizard and 2) select the school of magic that best represents you. It is key to select something that fits your gameplay style and what you consider to be fun.

The 10 Schools of Magic

There are 10 schools of magic of which you can choose from that will open up a realm of possibility for you arsenal of spells to use in combat. While you can learn spells from other schools of magic it is more difficult to cast those not from the school of which you choose for yourself. Just to get an idea lets give a quick summary of your available choices.

Chronomancer: Users of magic to manipulate time itself.

Elementalist: Magic focused on controlling the four elements. These are your typical fireball casters

Enchanter: Wizards who apply magic to objects or people. These would be crafters who are capable of creating magic weapons.

Illusionist: Use magic to “fool the senses, case confusion and fear, and convince people of things that aren’t true.”

Necromancer: Study the magic associated to death and the creation/control of undead creatures.

Sigilist: Magic through reading and writing. These can see the mystical patterns in writings of all types.

Soothsayer: Allows the wizard to extend their senses beyond their body.

Summoner: Work magic by opening doorways to different planes of existence.

Thaumaturge: Draw magic from positive energy.

Witch: Draw on the powers of nature for their magic, they brew potions, cast curses and seek the aid of plants and animals.

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Hiring a Warband

To go along with your wizard every player is given 400 gold crowns to hire and assemble a crew to adventures into the Frozen City. You then of course spend 100 gold crowns of that to spend on a wizard’s apprentice making two spell casters on your team. The rest of the money is at the players disposal to hire the various soldiers available to you.

To hire a warband there are two main types of soldiers: Standard and Specialist. A maximum of 4 specialists may be hired as they are more advanced soldiers. Each soldier comes with various stats, weapons and cost. You are allowed only a maximum of 8 soldiers making it a total party size of 10. You can of course modify that number slightly to be higher in specific scenarios.

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Now that we have a basic overview of what makes up a warband lets introduce the teams! All models shown are 3D printed with a combination of filament and resin models.

Warband #1 Team Necromancer

So I’m not saying that my husband is predictable but well my husband is predictable. I do not know what about a necromancer makes him so happy but any opportunity to raise undead and attempt to create the largest army possible…. well that is what he will choose. As one of the most well known magical types Necromancers can create and control undead creatures.

Since he is already so biased towards Necromancers he has decided to use some models he is already partial too such as one of his dungeons and dragons player character models hekumi?????

The models selected for his team consist of four different sculpting companies and all are attempting to convey the theme around a risen undead warband.

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Warband #2 Sigilist

You might be thinking to yourself, “What in the world is a sigilist?” Well a sigilist is a wizard of knowledge through the writing word and languages. They utilize special abilities to do a ton of fun utility actions. They can transform a piece of parchment into a bridge or ramp. They can also even summon a quill to furiously distract their enemy. I decided to choose a wizard slightly different as they do not have any obviously offensive spells right out of the gate but do have the capabilities to level quickly through absorbing knowledge or write scrolls to sell later. Since we are playing a campaign with these warbands I decided to build for a different approach and develop for a long game. We will see how that turns out!

As for the models in my warband, I decided to use some of my favorite dwarf models and one of the “Mega Projects” i’ve chosen for my 2021 Hobby Goals and have yet to really dive into, Hold my Dwarf. This kickstarter by Miniatures of Madness is a collection of dwarfs of all kinds of fun character and storytelling. So every model in my warband minus my wardog will be from this collection.

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On to Paint!

Now that I have showcased all the models that have been printed for game day I now have to get them ready for the game table. So far I count 15 models to paint. I’m such a slow painter here is hoping I paint them in time and all the terrain. I am just going to need to paint bravely!

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Terrain Status Update

I’ve been printing miniatures for my warbands on my resin printer, previously filament models were done last year so the filament printer has been printing non stop.

So far I have finished printing the Burgomaster’s Office from Printable Scenery’s Shadowfey Kickstarter. This building comes in a modular three levels and three different pieces. I’ll be sure to share more 360 degree photos later.

I have also chosen the Printable Scenery Graveyard Walls after comments on last week and oh boy do I love them more than I thought I would. They have great height to them, a graveyard tombstones on one side of the walls and is super dynamic. I don’t have a complete set yet but quite a few check it out.

I even started to scheme the layout and spacing for the graveyard. I naturally gravitated to a 6 inch graveyard playable space on each side of the mausoleum however Graham pointed out that I still had way too much open line of sight so I think I’m going to bring it in for a more congested playing feel. You can definitely see that I still have a good bit to print to completely flush out the space but I’m getting excited about the prospects.

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Whats Next?

My printer is currently focused on finishing the graveyard walls, small pieces like tombstones and scatter inside the graveyard. I also am working on printing the river and bridge sections. Hopefully these areas of the tabletop will be printed within the next week but I am going to take a break briefly and help a call to action in printing pieces for face masks. I have a friend who needs some for a school and I offered my services. It will feel good to contribute what I can to help fight off Covid-19.

After I finish printing those I plan to start printing a few Hagglethorn Hollow models for the battle map! So excited as they finally released some ruined buildings like the cottage.

Do you have a favorite model? Is there something you are looking forward to the most in seeing? Feel free to comment down below.

As always Happy Crafting,

Carrie aka Crazmadsci the Crazy Mad Scientist.

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Frostgrave Series

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Past Hobby Blog Posts