Welcome to Frostheim

Greetings to Frostheim,

As soon as I saw the previews for the upcoming Frostgrave, a joint project between Osprey and North Star Miniatures, I was intrigued. I also immediately thought of a crossover with Mordheim!

The Frostgrave concept sounded cool, and there were some nice previews of the metal wizards. But it was when I saw the upcoming plastic henchmen box set that I got really excited - these looked to be a natural progression of the original classic Mordheim mercenaries box set. This set was seminal, allowing a lot of customisation, particularly with the inclusion of the 'hairy head' and 'accessory' sprues.

Later Warhammer plastic kits seem to have gone the other way, with one piece bodies, and a push to make the units 'rank up' - understandable, but it does make the models look a bit samey when used in skirmish games.

The Frostgrave Nickstarter is currently underway, and is clearly going strongly, smashing through all the spend goals so far. Much of this post is based on limited information at this time - hopefully things become clearer closer to the release.

My main problem is that I'm not necessarily prepared to commit to another fantasy setting. No doubt the background will be excellent, and the support of a day-one short storey compilation will help bring it to life. But I am still very fond of the Warhammer setting, and in particular Mordheim. Even though GW seem to be keen to trash most of their fluff, Mordheim is set before all of this end of days business.

Which brings me to the point of this blog: create a entirely unofficial, fan made expansion for Frostgrave, which will port the setting over to Mordheim. Why you may ask? Well many gamers have fond memories of Mordheim, but the system has aged, and more modern games with alternate activation may be more appealing to new and old players alike.

So to start with, what do we have in Frostgrave that supports this conversion?
1. Warrior bands searching for treasure in a ruined city, in a fantasy setting

2. Campaign allowing progression of main characters (more on this later)

3. Hopefully more modern rules when compared to Mordheim

So what is missing to port the rules over to the Mordheim and Warhammer world?

1. Classic fantasy races - Elves, Orcs, Dwarves and Beastmen, etc. Undead and necromancers, as well as demons, appear to already be part of the setting. This may be the largest hurdle to overcome, requiring all new profiles.

2. No Blackpowder Weapons - so no pistols, handguns or Hochland long rifles. This I believe shouldn't be too hard to remedy, and will just require some additional weapons profiles, prices and rules for reloading. Balance wise, it seems the Mordheim way will be best - Blackpowder weapons will hit harder, but will cost more points. There appear to be rules for bows and crossbows so this is already covered.

3. A reliance on Magic - The game resolves around a Wizard, Apprentice, and the rest of the non-magical followers. So there is a heavy reliance on magic. I suspect this reliance on magic is also what will make the game fun and varied, with apparently over 80 spells. So there are a couple of ways to approach this - firstly, switch wizards out for non-magic leaders (perhaps not a fair trade given their power - so the leader would need to have a good allowance for extra gear, and a better fighting profile). Secondly, leave the wizards in - all Warhammer races have some form of wizard (except dwarves), so having a wizard leader or apprentice could actually work really well. Thematically, this could represent an escalation of the fighting in Mordheim; once the importance of warpstone is realised, each race amps up their funding and campaigning in the city, attracting more powerful warbands and wizards. The Winds of Magic could be aligned with the schools of magic from Frostgrave.

4. Set 'Archetypes' - as far as I can tell from reading the writer's blog, warbands are composed of archetypes with set equipment. So a ranger will have a bow, a knight Armour and shield etc. This is a bit of a departure from the full customisability of the Mordheim lists, so may need some work to port over -  there is unlikely to be a full 'equipment' list to arm your men with. However equally to begin with you could pick the closest fit and 'counts-as'.

Not much more can be done until the book ships (I'm in at a level 3 wizard), but this blog will hopefully host some WIP warbands in the mean time. I am also hoping to play some 'vanilla' Frostgrave, and with many medieval plastic kits to choose from, I really don't see this being an issue. Don't take this as an insult to the game - I am super excited about it, but also have dreams of once more playing in the City of the Damned!

A WIP for my first new warband, an Estalian archer

FURTHER READING
Frostgrave Nickstarter:
http://nstarmagazine.com/FROSTGRAVE.htm

Frostgrave Review:
http://thegaragegamers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/frostgrave-fantasy-wargames-in-frozen_25.html?m=1

Frostgrave Preview from the Author's own blog, plus some other cool information on the game too.
http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/look-what-i-have-got.html?m=1

Until next time,

The Baron