Backgrounding

G’day all - James here

I’m currently the third musketeer of the four (which means I don’t have to be D'Artanyan…I’ll be Athos). Literary diversions aside, I thought I’d introduce myself and the process behind my band building. This is probably (hopefully) the most boring of my entries

I started off, as many of us did, with a 2^nd edition 40k box set for Christmas when I was 11/12ish. This means I’ve been playing 19/20 years with a small break for university due to space and cash (having neither). My big game, very quickly, became Warhammer Fantasy. I love the aesthetics of the pseudo-medieval period and it generally is the purview of my watching and reading. I do love my sci-fi, don’t get me wrong, but a love of the fantasy genre has probably defined me more. It should be no surprise that I’ve ended up both tabletop roleplaying and LARPing too.

Now we come on to now. Over the past couple of years I’ve broadened my wargaming horizons. I ended up selling a lot of my long term Games Workshop collections and still planning to rid myself of the last bits and pieces of my fantasy armies. This has coincided with the departure of Warhammer Fantasy but it’s not because of it. For me it’s come to the question of scale. The most fun I’ve had with my fantasy has been my 10k games with forces that felt like armies. Much of the 2-3k games of Fantasy I’ve played over the years have been fun but they still feel like a skirmish or a snapshot of a much larger battle. Owning, playing and storing these models is difficult. It should be no great surprise when I say I love Greek/Roman era warfare and so I got interested in 6mm historics as they fulfil the tactical challenge of grand scale wargaming at a fraction of the cost and space.

Where does Frostgrave come into this? Scale. I love skirmish/warband size games. It allows for rule minutia that can be just as fun as large scales warfare. It’s all about available resource. Something about the setting, ironically, set a flame in my frozen heart. I read the author’s blog and saw a guy who (much like me) just wants to game. The setting was good but not prescriptive and that opens up options for models. It caught my imagination for a number of reasons, most of which I can’t really articulate without rambling further.

I started building my band around a theme which, in keeping with the game, was my wizard. As a group we wanted to use a variety of wizards and, after some initial scrambles, I had an idea that could work for a thaumaturge. My brain went from there to the concept of a religious order, searching for lost relics of their past among the ruins of Frostgrave. This means I can justify a small crusade which begins with a priest, his apprentice, a knight and some squires/rabble that have been drawn in along the way. These early elements will give way to the better equipped knights and men-at-arms that will arrive later and, thus, be represented by my more expensive warband at a later date. All this meant I really wanted to get a ‘knight’ into the army and, in the end, settled on a templar. He's a lot of gold early on and means I’ll be finding it difficult. I wanted some range hitting power too and selected crossbows over bows as it felt more knightly (slightly ironic) but it felt more in keeping with the aesthetic. One crossbowman will be the templar’s huntsmaster and be accompanied by two dogs. The other will be one of his men at arms. That’s 2 casters, a templar, 2 crossbowmen and 2 dogs. That’s 7 of my 10 warband filled out and 80 gold left. This pretty much left me with thugs or, as I prefer to think of them, the poor people dragged along to fight for the beliefs of their betters! These guys are the foot troops of the small crusade. They’re mostly hoping to retire with all their limbs and hope that more knights arrive soon.

This gave me a start model wise but I needed more of a theme. What were my holy warriors here for? I decided to combine my love of Norse, Celtic and Greek mythology to create something weird. The order of Jotun, basically, follows the forbearers of some modern deities (similar to the Titan->Olympian relationship). They view the newer gods as usurpers and unwitting agents of the chaos. They aren’t out for a greater good but are looking at ways to avoid another ‘Frostgrave incident’.

Algannon is the high priest and he follows Uror, the Jotun of knowledge, prophecy and fate. He’s also the head of the pantheon. He’s an Odin like figure. Algannon is quite young for a high priest but is ambitious. His rise left him indebted to others with promises of restoring the order to former glories and, as such, he’s been forced to take on the dangers of Frostgrave. His apprentice is Brigitte, a priestess of Fulla. She is a triple goddess who has a great loathing for the undead. Her maiden aspect identifies with warriors, her mother aspect with magic and healing whilst her crone aspect deals with death. They are both accompanied by Ser Thrandar of Jorn and his men….but that’s enough from me for now. I’ll introduce more of Algannon at a later date. That's it for my background geeking, hopefully it'll help me make some decisions later down the line and I can point to this nonsense when I make really strange choices.

I'm hoping to get some practice games in soon, probably not using my final band but the various fantasy miniatures I have around.

What do you think of the background so far? Too out of keeping with the feel of Frostgrave? Will Ser Thrandar be worth the money? What should I name my dogs (I’ve discarded the idea Thought and Memory before anyone suggests it)? 

Cheers

James