Joseph A. McCollough's Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen CitySecond Edition
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Introduction
Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City's second edition is published by Osprey Games and written by Joseph A. McCollough. It is a skirmish wargame for 2+ players set in the frozen city of Felstad. On some internet forums Frostgrave is sometimes referred to as "Coldhiem" for its passing resemblance to the classic Games Workshop (GW) game Mordhiem. Regardless, Frostgrave has been wildly successful in its own right, spawning four derivative games each with multiple expansions, also by McCollough and published by Osprey Games: Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago (no longer in print), Stargrave, The Silver Bayonet, and most recently Heroes of Athena. All of which will get reviews here... eventually.
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| McCollough is a prolific writer; this is not even close to his full corpus of work. |
In Frostgrave, each player builds a warband composed of a wizard, an apprentice, and up to eight hired mercenaries. The core objective of the game is to collect treasure found scattered through the ruins of Felstad and improve your warband across the course of multiple games. Every game of Frostgrave will, without fail, have at least five or more treasures scattered about the board.
The rules are simple and straightforward with almost everything, other than movement, relying on a simple D20 roll to resolve actions. Additionally, model activation uses an alternating activation scheme centered around groups in close proximity to the wizard or the apprentice. This translates into fast paced action were neither player has to wait very long to take an action.
The art is fantastic and plentiful. The tone is one of a gritty, violent, frozen world; however world building in the core book is mostly absent and that seems to be by design. This is somewhat compensated for by the proliferation of expansions containing what is likely over a hundred different additional scenarios, each adding a little bit more implied, or as is the case with The Red King and the Thaw of the Lich Lord, overt world building. Also noticeably absent is an index, though this is remedied a little by the addition of a well put together rules summary at the back of the book.
Warbands
Each player in the game assembles a warband composed of a wizard, an apprentice (these cost 100 of your starting 400 gold crowns), up to four specialist soldiers (such as archers, knights, treasure hunters and so on) may also be recruited at various costs. Interestingly, the apprentices stats are derivative of the wizard's so as the wizard improves so too does their apprentice. The player may also recruit as many thief and thug soldiers as they want, for free, so long as the warband size does not exceed ten models or eight soldiers. It should be noted that thugs and thieves are free because they are generally speaking: terrible. But being able to recruit them for free means a player should never have less then nine models even if those models are just the wizard and the eight drunk thugs they found at a local tavern. Some spells and base upgrades, like raise zombie or warhound kennels allow a wizard to violate this warband size limit, but they are infrequent.
Core Mechanics
The rules for Frostgrave are based around a simple conflict resolution system of rolling a D20 and adding or subtracting situational modifiers and stats in an attempt to meet or beat a target number, called simply a 'TN' in Frostgrave. It is fundamentally the same mechanic that was introduced for difficulty checks (DC) in Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) and is common in DnD descendants even today.
Each character has six stats: Move, Fight, Shoot, Armor, Will, and Health. Move represents a models speed in inches, fight is the stat for dodging and melee, shoot the skill for shooting another model with a ranged weapon or spell, armor is essentially damage reduction, will represents a model's ability to resist spells, and health is simply a model's maximum health.
Combat is slightly more complex then simply rolling against a TN, with each combatant rolling one D20 and adding the relevant stat / modifier, most often just "Fight", to the roll with whoever rolls the highest dealing damage to their opponent. Damage is also simple to calculate: a model that wins combat simply subtracts its target's armor from the total value rolled and the reminder, if positive, is subtracted from the target's health pool. This, in practice, proved surprisingly deadly with attacks in melee routinely dealing substantial amounts of damage to models, and frequently killing thugs and thieves in a single hit. This has the effect of making melee combats short and deadly, if a little swingy at times.
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| Lots of... mediocre thugs and thieves died under that bridge. |
Spell casting is interesting in that it is a straight D20 roll versus your spell casting target number which varies for each spell. The target number for spells in your wizard's chosen school are the base value listed in the spell description, while spells from aligned and neutral schools must be cast with +2 and +4 modifiers to the spell's TN, respectively. Based on a reading of the core book little else seems to modify the TN for spellcasting rolls in the casters favor without a cost of some sort. The notable exceptions being the ability of casters to sacrifice their health 1-to-1 to improve the result of an already rolled spellcasting roll to a maximum of +3. There are also a handful of powerful, yet limited, items that can improve casting rolls, such as the one use per game Gloves of Casting.
Spellcasting TNs are rarely lower then 10 and frequently push into the upper teens for powerful spells or those spells outside a casters core school. This low statistical chance of casting spells is more than made up for by spells being very powerful in general. Additionally, spellcasting is not without risk and failing to cast a spell has consequences, with failed spell casting rolls frequently dealing damage to the caster. The amount of damage depends on the amount by which the caster failed the roll.
Gameplay
The game plays very well and the simple rules are easy to understand and implement. Two new players can (and did) quickly understand the rules and play a simple pick up game of the "Magic Fountain" scenario in about three hours with a little bit of prep work by one of the players.
Melee combat is short and brutal with many models capable of murdering each other in a single exchange of blows. Two handed weapons even in the hands of a relatively cheap infantry specialist model are brutal. Bows and ranged spells are also nasty, sniping models from the high ground is very much a valid tactic that works spectacularly well.
Noncombat spells add a tremendous amount of tactical options to a warband's repertoire during a game. For example, the spell "Leap" allows any member of a player's warband to move 10 inches in any direction including up to the top of a tower; where they can see the whole board and snipe people for the rest of the game while hiding in cover.
Scenarios
Frostgrave is very clearly intended to be played with complex scenarios using the book's campaign system. Though you can technically play it as simple pick up game using one of the 20 included scenarios, or even as what the book describes as 'standard game' without any special rules, doing so feels... incomplete. As Frostgrave is set in a vast ruined and frozen city it makes sense that each game calls for a dense board filled with either icy ruins or the detritus of a long dead civilization for games implied to be in a building or ruin.
The scenarios in the core book vary in complexity from the very simple and suitable to a group's first learning game, like the "The Magic Fountain" which features no monsters and only a single key element, the eponymous fountain, (other than the requisite treasure tokens) for the warbands to interact with. This is in contrast with the much more complex "Mine Cart" scenario which involves mine carts filled with monsters and treasure rocketing down a set of tracks in the middle of the environment.
Each scenario has a theme of some sort and almost all of them have some sort of hazard / monster on the field to interact with and add an element of chaos to the best laid wizardly plans. A stand out scenario is, "The Swirling Mist", which involves models line of sight reduced to less than a foot and mechanics for wizards to control the mists to thereby confuse enemy models. Oh, it also has snow gorilla ambushes that each player can spring on each other. The potential for fun emergent narratives is very strong with many of these more complex scenarios.
Despite the book stating on page 152 that, "Player's are heartily encouraged to create their own scenarios..." it offers no tools for doing so. Rather it states that, "There are no rules, and few guidelines, for creating scenarios." Regardless of intent, in 2026 with narrative war games like Five Parsecs From Home, and Five Leagues From the Borderlands this feels like a cop out rather than liberating. Moreover, some tools, and more importantly advice, for generating scenarios were actually provided for Frostgrave during its first edition with the co-op/ solo supplement Perilous Dark which includes systems explicitly intended to be slotted into player made custom scenarios and rules for creating dungeon crawls.
Campaign Play
The campaign system provided in the core book is simple, intuitive and is composed of several steps to be followed after every scenario: injury and death, out of game spells, experience and level, counting treasure, and finally spending treasure. Then on to the next scenario!
After the first game with a new wizard they must select a base of operations from a list - each base has some sort of positive effect and can be upgrade with gold recovered from scenarios, during the spending treasure phase.
The injury and death system in Frostgrave is similar to Necromunda's in that any model taken out of action (reduced to zero health) is required to roll on a "Survival" table to find out if they are lucky, maimed, or dead. Soldiers (thugs/ thieves and specialists) are limited to being badly wounded (having to sit out a game), dead, or fine. While wizards and apprentices, while less likely to be straight up dead, do have a 10% chance to get a permanent injury that inhibits their effectiveness in some way, like getting their eye gouged out or their toes cut off.
Out of game spells are something of a misnomer as they do occur in game, just not in the context of a scenario. There are two major spells like this in the core book that bear further discussion: "Transcendence" and "Miraculous Cure" as they have major campaign/narrative implications. "Transcendence" has a TN of 20 and if successfully cast the wizard that casts immediately transcends to another plane and sort of wins the campaign. Though in practice it simply means your wizard has retired themselves via magic and your apprentice is getting promoted! "Miraculous Cure" on the other hand has a couple of effects: remove all permanent injuries from a character, negate the badly wounded condition, or bring the dead back to life. Though this last one requires, essentially, a natural 20 to succeed.
The experience and level up phase is pretty self explanatory. Only wizards may actually accrue experience (exp) and every 100 exp earned equates to a level up. Each level up allows the wizard to improve a stat, learn a new spell, or improve a spell by reducing its TN by one. There is a cap on exp gained per scenario which helps reduce the impact of runaway snowballing.
Counting and spending treasure is pretty straightforward as well. You simply roll on a D20 table one time for each treasure your wizard and their mooks were able to recover. Depending on the result you may have to roll on an additional table to generate random potions or magic items. Scenario specific rules might also produce additional treasure. Treasure can be spent to buy anything in the core book at its purchase price, hire a apprentice, recruit more mooks, or pay for upgrades to the wizards base.
Overall the system, while not as robust or detailed as a game like GW's Necromunda, is excellent and appears well balanced. The system as provided in the core book, however, lacks a narrative through line on which to hang the core of a campaign. This is easily fixed by picking up any number of supplements which frequently do have narratives linking their scenarios.
| An example of one of the major expansion campaigns. |
Art and Tone
The art of Frostgrave is universally excellent throughout, and most often in form of full page pieces by an illustrator credited as RU-MOR. The style of these beautiful pieces is best described as "fantasy realism." They are comparable to the illustrations in Osprey Publishing's Men-at-Arms historical series. The figures, especially those meant to clearly be the wizards, in each of the pieces is visually striking and they are frequently dynamic in their movements. The vibrant clothing and eye popping colors in conjunction with the spell effects for each wizard do an excellent job of communicating visually the intended magical school of each wizards. The art of the wizards frequently depicts them in action poses showcasing their determination and grit. However, very little else is communicated about the world itself, in either the art or the text, other than the fact that wizards are also frequently fashion disasters.
The miniature photography is all quite good, though not up to the level of the highly produced pieces found in GW books these days. The miniatures themselves featured in the photographs are well painted, albeit in a style bearing more similarity to traditional fantasy miniature painting then the modern GW studio style.
All of the world building, other than a single page of flavor text at the very beginning of the core book, is often implied and can even feel fully omitted at other times, with only some gaps filled in by the many supplemental books. In the core book much of the implied world building is communicated through a combination of art, scenario design, and little in universe blurbs called out in icy blue tone boxes. These tone boxes are excellent and quickly communicate a tiny silver of the world: for example, "Perhaps it is the greatest library in the city, but every spell is written on a ten-foot slab of rock, and they scream whenever they're moved..." These tidbits while interesting, leave far too much unsaid.
The resulting tone and world communicated by the sum of the text, art, and photography is, sadly, lacking in definition. To be sure, the tone communicated is of a frozen, gritty, and violent world. The art is vibrant and communicates the cold frozen nature of the world well through liberal use of cool colors and snow. But it is a world that is generic and without detail.
It is clear that this relatively blank slate of a world was intentional and the intent was for the players to build their own world in which the frozen city resides or transport it to an already existing world of their choice. Or McCullough simply wanted to leave a wide open world to freely add expansions too. This would be less of an issue if the core book came with rules or systems for fleshing out the world more in a manner along the lines of the Five Parsecs from Home or McCollough's own Rangers of Shadowdeep.
Expansions and Support
In short, Frostgrave is well supported by its publisher and has been since its first edition launched in July of 2015. There have been over 10 main line expansions published since Frostgrave's first edition was released in 2015 as well as several novels. Thankfully, the core game changed relatively little between editions and all of the expansions released in the first edition are compatible with the second edition.
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| Just some of the many expansions for Frostgrave. |
Many of the expansions, like Thaw of the Lich Lord or The Red King, add large multi-scenario campaign story arcs to the game, while also introducing new enemies, treasure, and spells. Other expansions focus in on a theme rather than a campaign. Fireheart is an excellent example of this. It's theme is constructs and it adds a whole system for building constructs, as well as construct focused mechanics and elements for almost every aspect of the game. It even includes a mini five part campaign about the wizards infiltrating a palace of constructs.
It is clear from examining the supplements that any given player's Frostgrave experience is going to be heavily dependent on what expansions their group decides to introduce into their ecosystem.
Conclusion and Recommendation
In summation the core Frostgrave book is an excellent product, albeit one lacking in flavor, with a simple yet tactically deep game system and the basis for a good campaign experience. I would recommend it if you are looking for an excellent fantasy skirmish game. However, if you are looking for a fully developed world right out the core book to play in or a system for creating scenarios, you may wish to look elsewhere, or pick up some of the expansions to tailor your experience.
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