Frostgrave The Red King & How Expansions Work With 2nd Edition #FrostgraveWeekOTT
December 26, 2020 by avernos
We talk with Frostgrave creator Joseph A. McCullough about the new The Red King expansion and how all of the 1st Edition Expansions still work with the 2nd Edition of the game.
Frostgrave Books - Frostgrave Miniatures - Frostgrave Terrain
This means as well as all of the new content that you've got to enjoy coming out in the near future you can dive back into a HUGE treasure trove of expansions to play when getting stuck into Frostgrave 2nd Edition.
You can checkout Joseph's blog The Renaissance Troll here.
Comment To Win A Frostgrave Bundle
We will be picking winners from three of our communities: YouTube, OnTableTop & from our Cult Of Games Members.
- Frostgrave 2nd Edition Rulebook + The Red King Expansion + Cultist Plastic Box (Cult Of Games)
- Frostgrave 2nd Edition Rulebook + The Red King Expansion + Barbarian Plastic Box (YouTube)
- Frostgrave 2nd Edition Rulebook + The Red King Expansion + Soldiers I Plastic Box (OnTableTop)
Are you tempted by the cool semi-cooperative nature of The Red King expansion?

































Did the Red King have a Red Wedding?
they had the reception in a white house in red square
His bride was Beatrix Kiddo
Where the walls are as wide as lovers eyes?
Excellent.
Great interview and some fab artwork on show. Just picked up the steampunk soldier hardbacks by Joseph and Philip Smith as a gift to myself before Xmas really enjoying them. I really like the sound of fighting underground in the Breeding Pits as I’ve always wanted to visit that mines of Moria vibe since young so will have to check this out. I agree with Ben that the toolbox element of the game allows for flexibility to mix and match to suit a group of friends or your own twisted sense imagination like me.
Love the Ragged Warbands part
Yup, we were discussing actually putting these rules into the “standard” (non Red King) campaigns. You build your warband as normal (as your expedition sets out from outside of Felstad in more “civilized” locations), but as you incur losses to your Warband the replacements are who (and what) you find wandering around the ruined city. Just seems to fit in with the background fluff a little better (and helps stop the horrid “min-maxers” you always seem to find in your Wargaming group 😀 )
Randomness in this sort of game is always fun; when my local club plays Mordheim we regularly use the Random Happenings table to spice up our games and this sounds very much in that vein. Who doesn’t love rains of fish in their war and skirmishes? ?
Its useful that while the red king is new you can go back to the old books
I definitely have to get this book!
Joe is, as always, amazing.
Are the solo elements a similar mechanic to Rangers of Shadow Deep but with a different flair? Or is a complete departure?
similar, but then the solo system came first in frostgrave and was adapted later for Rangers.
Cool
Red Ring of death? Oh, that’s something different..
Exzellent interview
Good to know you only mainly need the the main book. so you don’t need book b to use book d
yeah the only departure from that would be the solo rules that are in Perilous Dark, which means if you want to solo play you do need it, otherwise you can pick and choose what you want.
Yes, I’ll be picking up the red king – it looks good.
I like that this sort of confirms that alternate realities/dimensions can merge with the world of Frostgrave.
Although it does beg the question if there is an official timeline/result for this campaign that will be used in new books (do we assume the Red King will be defeated ?)
What is the complete list of books that work for 2nd edition ?
I’ve seen ‘perilous dark’ and ‘red king’ as specific for 2nd.
Do any of the 1st edition ones still work or do they contradict/duplicate the core 2nd edition rules ?
Is ‘Forgotten pacts’ a pre-cursor to ‘Red King’ ?
I know I technically only need the core book (and perilous dark for the full solo rules/scenarios), but the completionist in me wants to know the most cheapest and most cost effective way of getting the latest versions of all the (published) rules/expansions for this game.
as said in the interview all the books work perilous dark was one of the first written for 1st edition. Red King is the first written after 2nd ed. It makes no difference
Ok. I will first start with the main book.
Try a few games. And if people like it, get this one.
Demons would be cool.
Looking forward to this expansion
Having no shortage of stuff on the painting table I’ve not picked up the Red King stuff. Then I had that “I know how I want to paint these” thought about the demons and it’s high on the list now!
Can’t wait to get my hands on the Red King, might be the first book based scenario set I make the whole way through :).
Love the idea of random warbands sounds fun.
Nice interview. Always good to hear a designers view on there game and get a look behind the curtain.
I love the artwork – incredible!!!
I’d love to see an expansion to have warbands without wizards, where every single character can progress instead of just the wizard. Suiciding that poor sod out of the tower just so the treasure could lie at the foot was kind of disturbing in the last video.
He knew the risks
Yup, in the end, 200 gold are forever or until you jump out a window. lol 😀
Some great ideas here. I’ve retooled Lich Lord campaign for use in other TTG, there’s a ton of inspirational stuff in this book that will keep giving for a while to come. The Reality Cracks concept is interesting, having the demon dimension bleeding through affecting and changing the game could be dynamic. I suspect though that this will be used much more often in my solo plays!
For those that havent checked it out yet, Joe’s blog is definitely worth a visit. Aside from Frostgrave there’s an insight into other games he plays and his interests and his journey in game creation. Its definitley his fault that I became interested in Silent Death.
Great video. Looks like a cool expansion. Everyone loves more minis … But would one box of the new plastic Northstar Demons be enough to cover the scenarios or will you need a few more besides?
This was quite interesting. I was wondering if there is any change how the expansions work with the 2nd edition when I bought it. Good to know they are fully compatible.
Red King does really look interesting.
The solo rules maybe enough to draw me into this game…?!
Red King any relation to the King in Yellow? Maybe the Blue King joins for a Primary Conclave.
They’ll meet in Carcosa
I should take a look at this more in depth.
Looks great
The earlier expansions are great and the red king sounds good as well.
Very nice.
I remember Wrath of Kings having motivations but if Frostgrave has something like that I will certainly be buying that as one of my first supplements.
Nice episode. I guess it’s implicit that previous expansions just work with 2nd Ed? Is there an FAQ or similar for where any conflicts or confusion may arise?
I love the idea of randomly generated bands to prevent meta-gamers obsessing.
The FAQ is actually at the back of the 2nd ed rules along with a paragraph about the book in general so new player can actually just read down and go “oh that sounds cool I should grab that”
Good thing I have a bunch of demon figures just looking for a reason to be painted. Of course I’m really going to need some of these plastics because they look so fun to work on.
Thing I like about Red King is that it harkens back to the first few expansions. The last few expansions suffered from too few scenarios, and were awash with “one time use” minis that never saw the light of day outside of the one scenario they feature in (at least Red King re-uses some of these like the Null Men for example).
Hopefully Joe will continue in this vein and reuse minis for the scenarios and keep the number of scenarios high (as this is where the bread and butter of the expansions lie), alas the last couple just featured WAY too many treasure tables (felt more like filler content) and less narrative elements.
But Lich Lord, Breeding Pits, Forgotten Pacts and now The Red King come in as excellent expansions for Frostgrave (as well as Ulterior Motives). But just remember not to get tempted to buy The Grimoire (seen it on sale on quite a few Webstores), as this is the only elements that’s not compatible with the second edition.
I love this game, I will definitely collect all the second edition books
I Love this game
Hmm, never really looked much into this game before, but it sure is tempting me now that I see more of it!
Sounds exciting. When I give this a go I’ll definitely be looking to play through a narrative campaign
I love the idea that Forstgrave is an evolving world and you add and take what you want from it. I love these chats with the writers.
It’s good that all the expansions still work with the new versions of the rules, so often a rulebook “adjustment” is used to force you to buy it and all the expansions again (and again)
that sounds amazing.
nice interview to help pass the time just off to paint a wizard or two
I have all the 1st edition expansions, so glad we can still use them.
such a wealth of expansions and the sandbox element makes customisation so easy and fun to do.
Good game. Nice table and terrain
Love Gerry’s idea for putting little hints in earlier scenarios for Red King campaign.
I have always loved the idea of each expansion being self contained, since it made it a lot easier to complete a campaign without going off the rails.
Not to mention the boss scenarios are usually the highlights.
Good to know, that all the older campaign books work with this edition.
Will look forward to explore this one once I win it!
does anyone know how many red demon figures you will need when I buy the book the red king.
do I only need the plastic box?
or do you still need metal figures and which ones.
thanks ?.
I love the idea of the string separating parts of the table and different game effects taking place on either side of it. That’ll be really interesting to explore. 😀 😀 😀
Great to see engagement from a game creator.
Great game and the minis are excellent with plenty of options, leaving loads of bits for your kit bashing.
Sounds A good game with plenty of variety & personalisation to have a group to game the way you want.
Demons Rulle OK!!
Looks like the first edition will work well with the second edition stuff. Okay to mix?
Didn’t realise that there were so many settlements for frostgrave
Interesting interview, thanks!
Interesting how these things come about and the thought process behind these expansions. Good to know especially how the expansions work with 2nd ed.
Well it certainly looks like an interesting expansion.
I really like that it doesn’t invalidate older expansions, that’s an issue with most games.
Thanks for the info on expansions.
I have a couple of the first edition expansions, so it’s good to see that they are mostly still usable
Nice to see expansions change the way you play a bit
It’s nice that a new edition did not invalidate a library’s worth of expansion books.
I like that storytelling is heavily emphasized in the scenarios.
I like the underground idea also like Moria!
Despite owning the rules, I’ve yet to get this On (the) Table Top. Perhaps over the New Years weekend.
The Red King sounds like a fun adventure to play through.
Great interview, thanks!
I love that Joe makes rules for models he finds cool and wants to play with, indicates he’s super invested in his game which is ace
I would like to point out the illustrations by Ru-mor. She is also sculpting miniatures 😮 https://www.facebook.com/a.RU.MOR
I have to echo so many prior sentiments in that it is commendable that they are going out of their way to make sure everything old is compatible instead of just saying “Sorry about your luck, buy the new stuff”.
Best thing is, the guy looks normal, I mean, he cares about the stuff, wants to make it great, I can imagine him playing rpgs and that’s quite nice actually.
Nice campaign. I like the Hrut models.
Please enter me in the Frostgrave Bundle Draw!
I’m glad there’s some follow-on from the first ed books. I haven’t had a chance with 2nd ed yet but I’ve enjoyed playing first ed solo.
Red King Expansion looks very cool.
Seriously tempted to get into this having resisted for a long time. The solo variant that Joe mentions sounds like a really good approach to gradually bringing the full rules into use for a solo player. I’ll be adding Perilous Dark to the must play in 2021 list.
Some of the Red Kings minion models look cool and the story of the scenarios sounds very interesting!
Working on Frostgrave minis at the moment, great for the creativity.
Enjoyed FG1 – the second edition looks excellent but is it worth paying for a whole new version?
Given the continuation of the EVENT, is there any way of playing this remotely? Yes minis etc are better, there is no argument, but playing the game is even better!,
I love that there are very few rules in the game. It allows me to tinker with rules and add things easily without complicating it all too much. I prefer co-op games as I find that as I tend to play against the same person, the battles seem to go the same way but then again, the ulterior motives cards do switch things up.
I was so happy when i learned all previous expansions were still very much viable.
As always far to many good games to tempt the wallet!! Another excellent vide and a company that I really like…. Not sure why I subscribe to this site its the most sure fire way to ensure my bank balance is always zero!
Looks like a good time to get into Frostgrave.
Always nice to listen to Joe.
I really like the modular approach, quite DnD style