Reply To: Frostgrave – Newbie help

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

All of the expansions work with second edition with a few minor tweaks (the tweaks are in the 2nd Edition Rule book). The ONLY expansion/accessory that doesn’t work with 2nd Edition is the “Grimoire” (pre printed spell cards), but the new ones are available for download at the Osprey website.

https://ospreypublishing.com/gaming-resources-frostgrave

Of the expansions Thaw of the Lich King (Undead Foe), Forgotten Pacts (Barbarian Foe),  and Breeding Pits (Gnoll Foe) are probably the best of the bunch (as they are themed against a common foe in each book, so you don’t need as many monsters and you can buy them inexpensively as the official plastics if you don’t have suitable models or a proxy available).

2nd Edition does slightly more than just being a “clean up”. The new rules on warband creation stops the gimmick “all archer” warbands (instead you can only have a maximum of 4 specialists that include things like archers or treasure hunters). Now Thugs and Thieves are free (common cannon fodder), so that you’ll never be stuck being unable to field a full strength Warband should you get wiped out in previous games. Spells have had a rework, so that some are no longer auto pick, and spells not commonly used before might now have better utility.

Finally the experience system has been reworked to favour you Warband doing other things than just killing each other (some of these rules were taken from later expansions.

The Northstar plastics are great fun for kitbashing (if you’re into the hobby side of things), and they do a VERY nice range of metals for the specialists in each Warband (Cultists, Gnolls, Barbarians etc). The hardest thing is building up a menagerie of models for the wandering monsters (from Frost Giants and Snow Apes).

Hope this little helps, it’s a dangerous path to go down, as you’ll soon be buying lots of Minis for the game (the Northstar metals are both “retro” in theme and this takes you back to your younger days. But the plastics are a fine start point and the new plastic Wizard boxes allow you to build a Wizard from any of the schools (plus apprentices). So a Wizard Box and a Soldiers box will get you started, and then plastics for Undead, Gnolls, Cultists and Barbarians have you covered for each of the scenario books (so perhaps one person in your group could buy the expansion and the plastics for that expansion?)

Not quite sure which expansion features all the Cultists (I think it’s Lich Lord)

Hope this little helps