My Valentine Wargame: Frostgrave Continues!


I will admit I am not the largest of fans of Valentine’s day. Going the extra mile to show our loved ones we care I have always considered to be something that we do 365 days of the year rather than 1. With that being said I got a fantastic surprise last week when I received a text message stating….

“PST, wanna play some wargames for Valentine’s day?”

The Handsome Husband
Frostgrave Board Front View

This was an open statement to play and/or learn any wargame in my desired list of games I want to try. I considered several games but do not have any of the other games prepped and my perfectionist ways along with not owning some of the rules books yet prevented me from paying them. I prefer to build, paint, or plan for a game before playing or making an emotional investment first rather than just collecting books this means i’m more likely to play said game as opposed to having rule books sit on my shelves.

In the end we decided to pick up our past warbands that we started last September and continue on in our adventures of the Frozen City, Frostgrave. It has been hard for me to play Frostgrave ever since my warband fell to pieces on the floor (The Shattering Reality of My Miniature Collection). As I still have not had time to rebuild a new one I soldiered on and used the miniatures of what is left of them and a few I glued together.

Overall the Necromancer warband went pretty unscathed with the largest casualty of a zombie thief which was utterly destroyed, so I found a replacement that I already printed glued her on a base and kept moving. My dwarves however are in so many pieces. My wizard doesn’t have a spellbook, and the apprentice is missing a large chunk of his cape , wizard staff, and quite a few fingers. My crossbowmen didn’t have strings for their crossbows. Many were missing arms. It was quite pitiful. But you know what? That didn’t matter, we had an absolute blast and I hardly noticed while actively playing the game.

Some of the broken models of my Sigilist warband

The Setup

This has become one of my favorite times of playing the game as my husband and eldest son spend a considerable amount of time putting together the board. I love to see the configurations they choose and encouraging my 2 year olds imagination to go crazy is such a beautiful thing to watch. I’m going to make a gamer out of him yet! It might help that he is currently absolutely obsessed with dice and saying “Di” is one of his earliest words. He loves to place scatter terrain on things, in things, and sometimes depending on the mood smash things (we are working on that). My FDM printed terrain is so durable and cost effective I’m not worried about most of it breaking as it is an acceptable loss for the sake of including him and fostering a love of games and birth of imagination. I also never fully imagined how fulfilling it would be to see him play with things I made before he was born. 


The Game

The intent of the board was to start the mini campaign, The Hunt for the Golem, from the Frostgrave Folio expansion and play the first scenario while simultaneously utilizing for the first time Ulterior Motives. Ulterior motives is a Frostgrave expansion which can provide a wizard an extra objective. In some cases this can be completely different than just capturing treasure and lead to magic items or experience as a reward. 

Frostgrave Expansions

The game as a whole was an absolute blast and something that I needed. I did feel somewhat rushed due to the time of day and trying to get everything together that was scattered everywhere from traveling and of course the various project states. Overall it was a warm up back into our long casual campaign setting. 

In the end we had an even split of treasure 3 to 3 and the Necromancers inched out a magic ring from the ulterior motive card capturing notes carried by a zombie they had to kill. Ironically in the excitement of playing again we completely forgot to do anything relating to the golem hunt campaign. I guess we are saving it for next time.

Game MVP was by far the zombie, Haggatha the necromancer summoned at the beginning of the game. Being not afraid to die again he bravely tanked a wraith and killed a bear and two wolves all on his own all while taking zero damage. I can’t believe those monsters rolled so low. Realizing the poor planning of our ways and being not prepared when stepping into the Frozen City. Between both warbands the Sigilist and Necromancer only had one ability which could apply magic damage to kill Wraiths that have been summoned, Explosive Rune. Having a zombie bravely avoid all attacks by the wraiths was an incredible feat that no one could have anticipated. 

One single zombie fights off a Bear, Wolf, Two Rats and a Wraith

Feeling Inspired

After playing this game of Frostgrave I am so excited to create more minis and am really desiring to make my own spell, monster, and item cards for the table to attempt to eliminate excess papers on the table and need to flip through books. One of my goals this year is to paint a complete bestiary for the game and I think its about time to start!

I am also hoping to learn how to better write battle reports and showcase all the great games to read back. 


An unexpected fan of miniature war gaming

I have also noticed a significant trend when playing wargames. My cat Turtle always wants to play. Who knew there would be such a large wandering monster. Its a pity he isn’t the most gentle when it comes to my models. As you can see however we tried to deter him off the battle field but the draw of fun was too strong.

Stay Tuned

This is not the last of our adventures into the Frozen City. I am super excited for some of the new things I’ve been working on and FINALLY our frozen battle mat is coming in the mail!

Please share with me your battle reports! I would love to see how others play their games of Frostgrave and document it.

Until next time. Happy Hobby as always.

Crazmadsci the crazy mad scientist



I will admit I am not the largest of fans of Valentine’s day. Going the extra mile to show our loved ones we care I have always considered to be something that we do 365 days of the year rather than 1. With that being said I got a fantastic surprise last week when I received a text message stating….

“PST, wanna play some wargames for Valentine’s day?”

The Handsome Husband
Frostgrave Board Front View

This was an open statement to play and/or learn any wargame in my desired list of games I want to try. I considered several games but do not have any of the other games prepped and my perfectionist ways along with not owning some of the rules books yet prevented me from paying them. I prefer to build, paint, or plan for a game before playing or making an emotional investment first rather than just collecting books this means i’m more likely to play said game as opposed to having rule books sit on my shelves.

In the end we decided to pick up our past warbands that we started last September and continue on in our adventures of the Frozen City, Frostgrave. It has been hard for me to play Frostgrave ever since my warband fell to pieces on the floor (The Shattering Reality of My Miniature Collection). As I still have not had time to rebuild a new one I soldiered on and used the miniatures of what is left of them and a few I glued together.

Overall the Necromancer warband went pretty unscathed with the largest casualty of a zombie thief which was utterly destroyed, so I found a replacement that I already printed glued her on a base and kept moving. My dwarves however are in so many pieces. My wizard doesn’t have a spellbook, and the apprentice is missing a large chunk of his cape , wizard staff, and quite a few fingers. My crossbowmen didn’t have strings for their crossbows. Many were missing arms. It was quite pitiful. But you know what? That didn’t matter, we had an absolute blast and I hardly noticed while actively playing the game.

Some of the broken models of my Sigilist warband

The Setup

This has become one of my favorite times of playing the game as my husband and eldest son spend a considerable amount of time putting together the board. I love to see the configurations they choose and encouraging my 2 year olds imagination to go crazy is such a beautiful thing to watch. I’m going to make a gamer out of him yet! It might help that he is currently absolutely obsessed with dice and saying “Di” is one of his earliest words. He loves to place scatter terrain on things, in things, and sometimes depending on the mood smash things (we are working on that). My FDM printed terrain is so durable and cost effective I’m not worried about most of it breaking as it is an acceptable loss for the sake of including him and fostering a love of games and birth of imagination. I also never fully imagined how fulfilling it would be to see him play with things I made before he was born. 


The Game

The intent of the board was to start the mini campaign, The Hunt for the Golem, from the Frostgrave Folio expansion and play the first scenario while simultaneously utilizing for the first time Ulterior Motives. Ulterior motives is a Frostgrave expansion which can provide a wizard an extra objective. In some cases this can be completely different than just capturing treasure and lead to magic items or experience as a reward. 

Frostgrave Expansions

The game as a whole was an absolute blast and something that I needed. I did feel somewhat rushed due to the time of day and trying to get everything together that was scattered everywhere from traveling and of course the various project states. Overall it was a warm up back into our long casual campaign setting. 

In the end we had an even split of treasure 3 to 3 and the Necromancers inched out a magic ring from the ulterior motive card capturing notes carried by a zombie they had to kill. Ironically in the excitement of playing again we completely forgot to do anything relating to the golem hunt campaign. I guess we are saving it for next time.

Game MVP was by far the zombie, Haggatha the necromancer summoned at the beginning of the game. Being not afraid to die again he bravely tanked a wraith and killed a bear and two wolves all on his own all while taking zero damage. I can’t believe those monsters rolled so low. Realizing the poor planning of our ways and being not prepared when stepping into the Frozen City. Between both warbands the Sigilist and Necromancer only had one ability which could apply magic damage to kill Wraiths that have been summoned, Explosive Rune. Having a zombie bravely avoid all attacks by the wraiths was an incredible feat that no one could have anticipated. 

One single zombie fights off a Bear, Wolf, Two Rats and a Wraith

Feeling Inspired

After playing this game of Frostgrave I am so excited to create more minis and am really desiring to make my own spell, monster, and item cards for the table to attempt to eliminate excess papers on the table and need to flip through books. One of my goals this year is to paint a complete bestiary for the game and I think its about time to start!

I am also hoping to learn how to better write battle reports and showcase all the great games to read back. 


An unexpected fan of miniature war gaming

I have also noticed a significant trend when playing wargames. My cat Turtle always wants to play. Who knew there would be such a large wandering monster. Its a pity he isn’t the most gentle when it comes to my models. As you can see however we tried to deter him off the battle field but the draw of fun was too strong.

Stay Tuned

This is not the last of our adventures into the Frozen City. I am super excited for some of the new things I’ve been working on and FINALLY our frozen battle mat is coming in the mail!

Please share with me your battle reports! I would love to see how others play their games of Frostgrave and document it.

Until next time. Happy Hobby as always.

Crazmadsci the crazy mad scientist


Frostgrave Part 2: Map Design

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43 Days Til Frostgrave!

Tick, Tock. The clock is moving ever closer to my epic gameday with handsome husband over the icy cold city of Felstad. Herein lies the second installment (Part 1: Frostgrave Beginnings) of my quest to create the most involved, detailed, and “completed” battle mat I’ve ever accomplished in my tabletop hobby career. This has recently become a “challenge” for myself and my husband as I have been 3D printing and painting for the predominate portion of the year but have played very little of any tabletop game.

Feeling the drive to play a game again I have decided to draw a line in the figurative sand, call it good enough and just play. However I have a small problem, I’m a perfectionist that wants everything to be painted and completed. So this series will document my journey and you can follow along and hold me accountable to finish this project.

I have decided to make my Frostgrave board epic, bigger (3 ft x 3 ft) with more wiggle room, more terrain of not just buildings but also scatter, rubble, ruins, and objects to break line of sight. But most importantly I want to take the lessons learned from February’s games to make it a more enjoyable experience.

Lets see my process in designing and picking out key elements I want to put on my battle map!


Learning From Past Mistakes

When I played my first few games of Frostgrave with my husband back in February I realized that my terrain was significantly lacking. As someone with game design experience it became quickly evident that game balance was DRASTICALLY impacted by game layout.

When setting up our 2 foot by 2 foot board I missed a very very key piece of advice from the core rule book.

Setting up the Table


“The ruins of Frostgrave are a dense labyrinth of broken buildings, collapsed walls, shattered statues, and patches of ice and snow. In truth the exact nature of the terrain isn’t overly important. What is important is that there is a lot of it! The table should be crowded with terrain, leaving only a few areas or avenues of open ground, and giving figures plenty of places to hide and take cover. It really shouldn’t be possible for a figure on the group to draw line of sight to any point more than a foot or so away.”

FrostGrave 2nd Edition, Joseph A McCullough
Frostgrave Board February 2021

Ouch, looking at the Frostgrave board above you can definitely see line of sight avenues going every which way across not just one foot but all the way across the map (2 feet). Why is this a problem? Well i’m glad you asked. “All shooting attacks have a maximum range of 24 inches.”

Since our map was 2×2 feet, that was the entire length in all directions of our battle mat for a small standard game. Due to this emphasis and success of your warband was significantly skewed to hiring more ranged attackers such as archers and crossbowmen. The aim of the game would be to climb into a fortified area, shoot through the windows or protected area, and pick the other time off slowly and then claim the treasure. This did not feel fun for both people involved, the game felt broken. So this time around I’m planning my game board ahead of time to attempt to balance everything out.


Key to Map Design: Educate Yourself

OK rulebook, fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice… well we wont get to that.

This time around I refuse be the victim of my lack of knowledge about the game. To fully plan my map I want to take into account all the types of movement and shooting defense modifiers in the game. This would make the world feel more dynamic instead of two dimensional while also tackling my previously experienced ranged shooting imbalance.

First things first.

Shooting Defense Modifiers

Much like other games like Dungeons and Dragons, my most familiar tabletop game. Taking cover is a large part of the game in combat. Hiding behind obstacles such as walls, trees, or even other creatures can make you less of a target and become more difficult to hit. The difficulty of hitting your shot in Frostgrave is similar to dungeons and dragons as there are three types of cover. Instead of half, three quarters, and total cover the game uses somewhat different jargon.

Intervening Terrain (+1 to hit): “Every piece of intervening terrain between the shooter and the target gives a +1 (cumulatively).”

Light Cover (+2 to hit): If an obstacle obscures up to half of its body for hard objects (i.e rocks, walls) or almost the entirety of the body (bushes)

Heavy Cover (+4 to hit): “target is in contact with solid cover that almost completely obscures its body”

This is telling me that I don’t just need ruins for my game but also a variety of terrain and objects of which to hide behind the more the better. Although I cannot cite it at this exact moment I believe I have read somewhere that ideally there should be no more than 6-9 inches of line to sight in any given direction for best experience.

Movement

In the game of Frostgrave verticality and variable terrain are such a big part of its gameplay. To play in this there are several types of movement.

Rough Terrain: Any kind of terrain that is difficult to move over or through (1/2 movement speed).

Climbing: Players can climb over obstructions at 1/2 movement speed (1 inch climb per 2 inch movement).

Jumping: “A figure may jump any distance provided it moves an equal distance in a straight line before making the jump”.

Swimming: water comes in two varieties shallow and deep water. Shallow water is considered a rough terrain but deep water does have a swimming modifiers table. Essentially if you are wearing heavier armor, carrying objects or treasure, swimming across deep water is more difficult.

Falling: Fall damage is possible and a key part of gameplay. If a figure falls more than 3 inches, they suffer damage equal to the number of inches they fell multiplied by 1.5.

These movement aspects tell me that I should ideally have multiple stories in builds, a lot of ways to climb and get around. Perhaps a few sections where you can jump from building to building? How about even some water running through the city.


My Inspiration

Now that I have a better understanding of things to look out for and considerations to make while making my map I need inspiration as to how it will be laid out and perhaps even look like.

I have had the perfect inspiration for this map stuck in my head for a long time utilizing The Elder Scrolls Franchise. You see the Elder Scrolls Online MMO RPG was the game that changed my life, helped me to step out as a proud gamer girl, and even where I started my career in game development as a combat designer.

Memorial District, Imperial City Elder Scrolls Online

The inspiration i’m drawing for this map will be loosely based off of the Imperial City. The Imperial City is the capital city of the entire continent of Tamriel which holds the infamous White Gold Tower and the Ruby Throne of which the empire sits. This city is broken into 6 sections or districts of which you can play and explore. Utilizing the time period around the Elder Scrolls Online, the city has been invaded and now in ruin, where the throne is empty, and armies (or players) fight for the right to be emperor.

When I imagine the empire of Felstad for Frostgrave my imagination makes me believe that each battle map is only a snapshot image of a fraction of the city of which my wizard and warband are exploring. Why not only try to recreate a snapshot of one of the districts of the Imperial City? The Imperial City is also a player vs player zone so map design already considers some of my line of site concerns in the world building itself making it a perfect spring board for my plan.

Of the little terrain I already own and have painted one of the primary focal pieces is the Mausoleum. Since the mausoleum has its own scenario I have decided to start my campaign into Felstad there. Which leads me to the Memorial District. The Market District of the Imperial City districts was converted into the Memorial District and turned into a mass graveyard for its dead, after a mass rebellion (not important).

The Memorial District consists of four corners of tall Market city buildings and roads leading to its center which holds a massive graveyard in its center ring. There is also a river/ sewer that runs around the city. This variety of large ruins, center graveyard, and terrain including water is perfect to utilize our Mausoleum and capture the various movement types the game can provide.

Map Layout of the Memorial District Imperial City

This is the perfect inspiration with its arches and high crosswalks, courtyards, statues, fences and so much more.


Goals

The overall goal of this board is of course to be cool and wow people, most namely my husband. This game mat should give me a feeling of accomplishment because so far this year I’ve worked on many things but haven’t quite felt “finished” in anything. Hopefully this board will also be so fun it would motivate more gameplay in my house. Perhaps even entice some players in my area to want to join via hubs bragging about it at work.

Also most importantly in the spirit of what I want to do here at crazmadsci.com my goal is showcase and feature a large variety of talent, stores, and models that you can bring to your 3D printed tabletop. I will of course be keeping track of all my data for helping you print your future battle board or even understand the cost and time commitment on bringing your dreams a reality. The the moment I have an estimated 5 terrain companies & 3 miniature companies featured in my current battleplan.


Trying to Make the Plan

No that I have a rough idea as to what I want my layout to be, what type of terrain and aesthetic I desire its time to attempt to plan my layout.

Using the above inspiration I went to draw my 3×3 board to scale on paper. I broke the map into 9 sections and proceeded to draw a central square to mark the mausoleum location and space it will occupy. Then attempt to cut construction paper to scale of the various objects I wish to have in the space and eye ball how much of what I’d need where.

Beginnings of my city layout. Blue (river), Black (roads), Purple (buildings), Orange (featured Building)

Over the course of this week I realized I have encountered two primary design blocks

  1. City Layout is largely dependent on Graveyard surface area

In attempting to block out my city to scale I have a major design flaw. I cannot conceptualize how large the graveyard itself should be with tombstones, crypts, trees etc. How big should it be to ensure a fun area for skirmishes. Until this section of the board is roughly laid out it is immensely hard to plan the surrounding area. Therefore It appears I am going to have to plan this out block by block with a more “living build”.

2. What walls should I make my graveyard with?

Since the center of the board will be its focal piece the method of which you get to its center is also important. What is the best way to funnel players? Should the fence be intervening terrain or provide partial/ complete cover? I have several different graveyard walls and fences to choose from. Some ruined in design and others structurally sound. Should I curve my walls? Or keep it straight. I have so many options to choose from and much of the choice depends on block #1. Filtering the ways you can get into the graveyard sounds like a fantastic idea to funnel soldiers or utilize climbing.

Here are my current options, nominate your favorite in the comments.

Of the list I think my personal favorites would be the Frost Kickstarter walls since they are curved and have a good amount of versatility and am capable of using them in other builds in the future. I also really like the printable scenery walls as they are extremely thematic and are not straight linear fences. However the ones from CastnPlay and Broken Anvil are also more true to what I imagine a graveyard fence to be.


Notable Featured Pieces in this Map

Since I cant completely plan out where everything will go, I am including some of my ideas and concepts that I am currently planning to bring to the table as a little tease. All have their own strengths and I am definitely going to showcase and discuss the various companies and prints in more detail as we lead up to gameday. If you see something that catches your eye or have something to add do not hesitate.

  1. A River

I really desire to bring a river to this map. Mostly to provide a larger diversity in the terrain that I see online when I see other Frostgrave boards but also make rivers which I am going to need to have for some Rangers of Shadowdeep Scenarios which I hope to do in the future. Plus even the Felstad has a river called the “Might Mergile River”. I have settled and owned the Infinite Dimension Games modular river set for sometime as i’ve always enjoyed their product and got these files for a steal of a deal when they originally released.

2. A bridge

Makers Anvil Bridge

Makers Anvil is a new company to the community that I have been keeping my eye out on for quite some time. I finally decided that this is the perfect opportunity to use their Bridge design and even incorporate their ruined section since I need some way to cross the river.

3. Ulvheim ruins

The Ulvheim ruins and buildings are probably some of the most famous and commonly spotted ruins on any 3D printers table. These are made by Terrain4Print and have been free on Thingiverse for over 3 and a half years. It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t showcase more of what was freely available to print for your Frostgrave board as well. I also want to bring these ruins to life more and plan to incorporate ruined beams and Trusses made by ecaroth as I cannot stand a table of just stone buildings.

4. Hagglethorn Hollow Ancient Ruins

To be fair until yesterday I was not planning at this exact moment to play Frostgrave with any Hagglethorn Hollow pieces. I am however planning a major write up series around the Hagglethorn Hollow kickstarter later this year. This kickstarter has been one of my most anticipated kickstarters of all time. Hagglethorn Hollow first teased its designs in 2018 on Adam Savage’s TESTED youtube and ever since i’ve been impatiently waiting to add it to my table. I plan to have at least one ruin section of the Ancient Ruins in time for gameday.

5. Shadowfey: Burgomaster’s Office

The Burgomasters Office from Printable Scenery’s kickstarter late last year Shadowfey features some of the best collection of ruined buildings and terrain for Frostgrave. In my ambition to increase my verticality of gameplay while also making it appealing to the eye. As a result one of my center piece builds will be this Buromasters office. Featuring complete modularity this is a perfect piece to showcase what Shadowfey has to offer.

This is only a sampling of what I hope to be able to create. Make sure to follow me on my journey, cheer me on, or give me pointers! Comment down below what you are looking forward to the most.


Whats Next?

Well for now I am attempting to print some of the largest pieces that I know I want on my table such as the Burgomaster’s Office. I have also been selecting my warband and 3D printing both mine and my husbands for game day. Next week I plan to discuss how to build your warband and the models we have selected for those.

While this is a journey largely based upon my preparation for my own game; I hope to incorporate knowledge so you can learn more and potentially play for yourself. If you have any questions on how to play Frostgrave or want to know more about it do not hesitate to ask below.

As always Happy Crafting,

Carrie aka Crazmadsci the Crazy Mad Scientist.

Frostgrave Series


Past Hobby Blog Posts

Frostgrave: Beginnings

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So the inevitable happened…. I got challenged by my husband. He has stated that it is LONG overdue to actually play a game instead of just making more things. You see, my handsome husband does not necessarily craft with me but he does game with me. Due to the pandemic and people moving due to jobs, our gaming groups have fallen apart and we have been in search of new things to play and people.

Last summer we even created a death match homebrew game and recruited miniatures and built maps to battle each other. I even wrote about it as one of my very first blog writeups: “Are you Ready to Battle! The silly tale of needing a DnD group”. It only scratched the itch to game slightly.

Picture of D&D Battle Game from July 2020

Then in February the desire to play something again came to learn a new game, Frostgrave. I was long overdue to play as I’ve been carrying around a printed PDF binder of the 1st edition rules since April 2020. It was amazing that Osprey Publishing company actually gave out the core rules for free as a way to help people during the early days of the pandemic. In truth it was a fantastic strategic ploy to sell their 2nd edition rules which released later last year. It was time and I decided to dive in and ordered a hardcover copy of Frostgrave 2nd edition. I absolutely love having a hardcover copy! The colors & illustration are fantastic to say the least.

However when playing the game for the first time I realized a serious flaw of my tabletop collection. Up until this point i’ve been purely focused on 3D printing two dimensional Dungeons and Dragons Maps. To be precise I consider myself an expert on 3D printed dungeon tiles. If you are curious or interested to know more about what is out there let me know in the comments.

While I had a few buildings in my collection I did not have nearly enough verticality in my game for tabletop skirmish and wargames. The battles were won by ranged attackers due to their crazy line of sight and movement felt semi flat. Building bridges, climbing and jumping moments really brought the game to life for us.

As a result I started my quest to make more buildings and vertical scatter. However, I’ve also been working on my 2021 goals of “Mega Projects” which has been a major distraction.

Hence the current situation of being teased by my partner in crime as to why I’m only crafting and not playing. So I have set a date, a deadline as you will of September 25th. But before I get ahead of myself let me start at the beginning.


What is Frostgrave?

Frostgrave is a fantasy tabletop skirmish game of which you choose a wizard from one of ten schools of magic, select spells, and hire a warband to overcome wandering monsters and solve scenarios in order to capture treasure.

Number of Players: 2-8 (Considered best with 2 or 4), optional rules available for solo play
Time to Play: 60-120 minutes
Age: 12+
Play Area: 2 ft x 2 ft (short game), 3 ft x 3 ft (standard game), 4 ft x 4 ft (long game typically for multiple players)
Miniatures: Miniature Agnostic (what ever you have laying around).

Designed by: Joseph McCullough
Publisher: Osprey Games

Information by: Board Game Geek

Story Background

Long ago, the great city of Felstad sat at the centre of a magical empire. Its towering spires, labyrinthine catacombs and immense libraries were the wonder of the age, and potions, scrolls and mystical items of all descriptions poured from its workshops. Then, one cataclysmic night, a mistake was made. In some lofty tower or dark chamber, a foolish wizard unleashed a magic too powerful to control. A storm rose up, an epic blizzard that swallowed the city whole, burying it deep and leaving the empire as nothing more than a vast, frozen wasteland. The empire shattered, and the magic of the world faded. As the centuries came and went, Felstad passed from history to legend and on into myth. Only a few wizards, clinging to the last remnants of magical knowledge, still believed that the lost city had ever actually existed. But their faith was rewarded.
After a thousand years, the fell winter has passed. The snows have receded, and Felstad has been uncovered. Its buildings lie in ruins, overrun by undead creatures and magical constructs, the legacy of the empire’s experiments. It is an evil, dangerous place. To the few hardy souls who inhabit the nearby villages, the city has acquired a new name, ‘Frostgrave’, and it is shunned by all right-thinking people. For those who seek power and riches, however, it is an unparalleled opportunity, a deadly maze concealing secrets of knowledge long forgotten…

Tales of the Frozen City, Osprey Publishing

What Do You Need to Play?

In order to play a game of Frostgrave you will need to select miniatures for your warband as you explore the frozen ruins of Felstad. Miniatures used in this game can be from any brand, manufacturer of your choice but recommended that they are all the same scale or size.

Warbands Consist of:

  1. A Wizard (representing a school of magic)
  2. An Apprentice (optional but highly encouraged)
  3. Eight hired soldiers/mercenaries to fight by your side.

You will have a limited budget when starting so selecting a warband is definitely a balance. Stay Tuned for a post which discusses the process of making a warband.

Also in order to explore ruins of a magical empire you need well, ruins. Terrain is the second thing you need. The book suggests enough terrain that a ranged attacker does not have longer than a 12 inch/ 1 foot line of sight. More is better apparently.

You will also need a singular 20 sided dice per player and 6 treasure markers.

Last but not least is that there are multiple scenarios you can play which can require unique terrain, monsters or locations but not needed to play your first game. This is what we did for our first game and just made a standard game without a scenario.


My Challenge

I have officially set a date of September 25th to build my first ever preplanned battle board, choose and paint warbands, paint my treasure markers, and monsters needed for a day of epic playing with the handsome husband.

So what does that really mean?

I have a long to do list:

  • I need to design, print, and paint 9 square feet ( 3×3 ft) of tabletop terrain,
  • At least 2 warbands need to be printed and painted (wizard, apprentice, and 8 soldiers): 20 total models
  • Need to gather and paint an unknown amount of wandering monsters & summons
  • Paint 6 treasure tokens

This is anything but easy for me and to be honest i’m super intimidated. I absolutely hate playing games that aren’t painted and really like Frostgrave the game. My goal is that if the game is epic enough we will play with significantly higher frequency. Of course we don’t need everything to be perfect but I’m a perfectionist.


The Project

This is probably the largest project i’ve ever attempted to undertake and the number of miniatures alone I am aiming to complete will smash through my entire 2021 painting hobby goal for the year in less than 2 months. Overall, I’m absolutely intimidated by the prospect and really want to create some incredibly fun terrain pieces to go with. Better graveyards, rivers?, should I finish my castle project?, what about bridges?

All of the planning, discussion, and mentality of my battle map will be featured next Friday. My starting point is actually based off of the Memorial District in the Elder Scrolls Franchise of the Imperial City if you are looking for a tease. I will be posting every Friday until game day revolving this project.

Future posts will include how to play the game, building and designing your warband, and so much more.


Questions?

Have a question about the game? Anything you are curious yourself? Do you play? Don’t hesitate to comment down below and follow along in my journey.

As always Happy Crafting,

Carrie aka Crazmadsci the Crazy Mad Scientist.

Frostgrave Series


Other Blog Posts

Are you Ready to Battle! The silly tale of needing a DnD group.

You know that we really need a Dungeons and Dragons group running when out of the blue my husband (bolded) goes…

Lets D&D Battle!”

“Whats a D&D Battle?”

“We pick a team of monsters and fight off to the death”

Ok, ok. That really isn’t how it happened nor do I remember exactly how the event started but yet it did. My husband and I drafted each a team of monsters, built a battle map, and fought 3 times.

I got to pull out the dungeon tiles I worked on! Mental note was that I realized that I really need more dungeon floors printed, ahh another project put on the list. My collection of dungeon tiles are predominately city scapes (tavern and sewer) because last campaign I was building for the published Wizards of the Coast campaign “Waterdeep Dragonheist.” Alias I digress…

The rules were simple:


1. Our team of monsters had to have a combined Challenge Rating (CR) of equal to 5 or smaller.

2. We could at a maximum have 6 monsters on our team.

3. Stat blocks used have to be from published 5e Wizards of the Coast Materials.

We picked our teams…

For my team (left image): I picked a Bronze Dragon, Thug, Kenku, Gazer, Orc, and Apprentice Wizard

For husband’s team (right image): He picked 2 short sword Skeletons (using spears on minis), Two Skeleton Archers, a Priest, and a Gargoyle

I even worked on some Stat block cut outs to make it easier to play with so many monsters simultaneously. There goes another project. The papers worked great but i’m going to add them to notecards to be more durable and sortable in the future.

Here are some pictures of the event!

Overall we had a lot of fun. I got my butt kicked with only 1 win out of 3. Moral of the story my group really needed to stick together as they work more cohesively as a group. My husband is even more motivated to cheer me on to make more dungeon tiles so we can have more exciting battles in the future. Putting the tiles away has been a pain in the butt, but im working on a better organizational system! I also feel the need to learn Frostgrave or something to scratch the itch more for a dungeon group since it looks like i’m not going to have one anytime soon. At least it is more time to craft!


Things i’ve learned:

  • Gargoyles have a lot of health
  • I hate spiritual weapon
  • Gazers although cool don’t do a lot of damage
  • I really like thugs as enemies, especially with allies

Let me know what you guys think. I am happy to label or shout of the sources of any of the tiles or monsters. Have any ideas on things we can play as two people? Help me grow my game knowledge.