Frostgrave Fireheart and Blood Legacy Preview – New Rules For The Frozen North
One of my favorite wargaming surprises in recent memory has been getting into Frostgrave. The miniature skirmish wargame by Osprey Games and North Star Military Figures, now on its second edition, is easy to get into and a blast to play. And one of the aspects of the game that I find so enticing is the constant flow of supplements, additional scenarios, campaigns, and more. Osprey Games sent us two of their most recent supplements to check out – Fireheart and Blood Legacy – read on for our preview of both!
Frostgrave Blood Legacy Preview
When Joseph A. McCullough — the creator of Frostgrave and author of both of the supplements we’re covering today — set out to write this latest supplement for the game, he challenged himself to write an entire work centered around the title: Blood Legacy. But what does a blood legacy mean, and how is it implemented into Frostgrave?
In the world of Frostgrave, where the frozen, magic-ruined north is full of strange creatures and invaluable treasure, there exists powerful creatures that claim dominance over the land. Namely: vampires and giants. With new rules for these foes, and treasure and campaigns centered around them, the blood legacy of vampires and giants is the center of the action here.
There are new rules for creating a Vampire Wizard as the leader of your warband, and vampire wizards have their own unique school of magic (and still have relationships to the other schools of magic featured in Frostgrave). They also level up a bit slower, take damage from sunlight, seldom take on an apprentice, and don’t benefit from healing potions or curing magic. But these deficits are counter-balanced by their impressive spell list, which lets them turn into mist, use their hypnotic gaze, drain life from their enemies, call forth blood-sucking bats and ghouls, and more. All in all, creating a vampire wizard will make for a unique, thematic experience for players looking to shake up their game.
When it comes to giants, the rules are much better suited to creating strong adversaries vs. creating a wizard to play as in the game. There are two types of giants: Frost Giants and Fire Giants. Frost Giants are brutish and monstrous, fearing magic and wielding little more than a big stick. Fire Giants have more intricate societies, know their own magic, and are armed with weapons and armor just like humans. There are rules for creating a Fire Giant wizard, but really in my reading of the book, unless everyone decides to make a Fire Giant wizard it wouldn’t be balanced or fair at all for one player to run one. Their spells include things like Comet, which deals huge damage in an area of effect, Magnify, which changes the size of magical weapons, Mist Shroud, which makes them harder to hit (and balances out their large size) and more.
This book also comes with a few new soldier options for the game to pad out your warband. Included are Blood Merchants who harvest blood for their vampire wizards (they’re kind of like a blood-ified apothecary from the core rules), Sword Masters who are experts with the blade, Vampire Hunters who can stand toe to toe with even the nastiest Nosferatu, and rules for declaring that an ordinary soldier you recruit is actually Giant-blooded, making them bigger and tougher.
The two campaigns in this book, the Eventide Manor Campaign and The Caves Of Fin Dalka Campaign, offer brand new, unique takes on campaigning. In Eventide Manor, players don’t actually square off against each other until the final third scenario. Until then, a player attempts to survive an approach in a vampire-infested manor while the other player controls all the villains, and then play is switched until the final clash. In The Caves of Fin Dalka, the battle against Fire Giants means this is strictly for high-level wizards.
Blood Legacy also includes a new table of treasures for players to find while adventuring, and a whole new bestiary of monsters to threaten both sides of the table. Some treasure highlights include the Ring Sabre, a +1 magic sword with an additional slot for a magic ring, the fire faerie which destroys an enemy magic scroll, and the demonic vessel which can trap and destroy demons. New monsters and enemies include Blood-drinker bats, burning skeletons, and the villainous Kalshek, vampire spellcaster, a powerful NPC that can truly threaten the players.
Blood Legacy offers some truly unique new ways to play Frostgrave, and we’re thrilled to start introducing elements of the supplement into our Frostgrave campaigns. Now let’s take a brief look at Fireheart, another newer release for Frostgrave.
Frostgrave Fireheart Preview
With Fireheart, Frostgrave creator Joseph A. McCullough turns his attention to constructs. With advanced rules for casting the spell Animate Construct, those wizards who prefer to tinker with their tools and raise up allies from inanimate objects will find a lot to love here. There’s a new table to modify your existing constructs, giving them an augmented eye socket, climbing claws, and even the ability to repair themselves.
Also included in Fireheart are rules for new soldiers, including the Scrounger who can find more parts for your construct and the tinkerer, who can help their wizard repair, build, and augment their constructs. Combine these additions with new rules for interactive terrain, a series of scenarios centered on constructs called ‘The Construct Palace,’ new treasures, and a bestiary full of construct monsters like the dreaded “Blade Dog,” and this new supplement – though specific with its focus on constructs – will add a healthy suite of new options to any Frostgrave campaign.
We’ll be following up this coverage of these two new supplements with an overview of Frostgrave as a whole (as well as a look at unique Frostgrave miniatures) shortly, but if you’re already playing the game, I can’t recommend highly enough picking up Blood Legacy as an overall incredible supplement, and Fireheart if you’re looking to add some mechanical mayhem to your Frostgrave campaigns. For more information about Frostgrave and these supplements, check out Osprey Games and North Star Military Figures.
The copies of Frostgrave Fireheart and Blood Legacy used in the creation of this preview were provided by Osprey Games and North Star Military Figures.
Source: MakeUseOf