Review: Spellcaster: The Frostgrave Magazine #1

I am a big fan of Frostgrave, and as soon as I saw that Joseph McCullough published a new online magazine for the game, I had to buy it.

My painted Apprentice from Frostgrave. While he is not necessarily pertinent to the review, he is here to denote that the article is related to Frostgrave.  🙂

So what is in this magazine?

• New rules to add firearms to both the original Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago (3 Pages).
• A solo adventure to run with your captain, alone (4 Pages).
• Rules for adding mounts to Frostgrave (3 Pages).
• A section about making your Knights from specific Knightly Orders (2 Pages).
• A new Mini-Campaign called Catacombs of the Everbright (3 Pages).

When I saw the contents list, I was extremely excited. The rules for mounts and firearms is specifically what encouraged me to buy this product and these rules did not let me down.

The rules for firearms are very welcome. While firearms are not officially in the Frostgrave world, these rules allow me to use pretty much any fantasy models I want to run the game.

Before this release, I ran my gunners on the table as proxy Crossbowmen. This set of rules is nice because it adds differentiators between the two technologies. Compared to crossbows, black powder weapons are less accurate, pierce armour better, can attract random encounter creatures (because they are loud), and have a chance to misfire (perhaps even damaging their user). The rules present three variants of firearms: the pistol, the musket, and the blunderbuss.

Personally, I would have made guns a little more powerful, but the fact that they are not means that they don’t unbalance the game. As an interesting note, it costs more to buy a musket for your Captain or Wizard than it does to hire a Musketeer.

Likewise, the rules for mounts are also extremely welcome. When someone is riding a mount, it provides that model with bonuses and the two models count as one profile. If the rider gets off the mount for some reason or the mount switches sides (due to a Control Animal or Mind Control spell), then there are separate statistics for the mount and rider. These are rules that I wanted to see in Forgotten Pacts, so I am glad that they are in this publication.

The Knightly Orders rules are neat and will add flavour to your warband should you choose to use them. Basically, they make your Knights weaker in one area but give them a bonus in another.

Alone in the Crypt, the solo-mission in this book, is quite neat and would be an enjoyable way to try and advance the Captain up a level. It is a mission where the Captain is your only model from your warband on the table. It is a solo mission for your solo Captain. 🙂

Finally, this magazine also comes with a Mini-Campaign called the Catacombs of Everbright. This is the same adventure that Osprey Games ran with the help of Death Ray Designs, UrbanMatz and Ash Barker from Guerrilla Miniature Games at Adepticon 2017. The missions are neat and give some new adventures to partake in should one be interested.

I bought this product through DriveThruRPG.com and I am very happy with my purchase.

The magazine itself has a lovely cover, but the artwork does not continue into the magazine. I would imagine that is simply because Osprey Publishing is not involved in this title so it did not receive the same treatment for art. That said, there is some great content in this magazine and I can’t wait to use Black Powder Weapons in both Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago!

To be honest, these magazine should help extend what I can use as forces in Ghost Archipelago as rules for black powder will allow me to use my miniatures from Blood & Plunder in both games.

If you are interested in checking out the Spellcaster Magazine for yourself, head on over to DriveThruRPG and buy yourself a copy. I am glad that I did.

Until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!

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