Cool Frostgrave miniatures
Having just painted up the umpety umpth set of minis to be used in Frostgrave I thought I might take a look back at some my favourites that have passed across the painting desk over the last few years, including Terrain bits. As everyone knows one of the great benefits of Frosty is that while there is an excellent range of minis to accompany the rules you can also co-opt other miniatures and I have been sent loads intended for Frosty service which have not been from North Star.
This mob is a good example with a North Star Wooly mammoth and some DnD nolzur guys its a perfect example.
This Atlantis Miniatures centaur is one of my favorites due to the dynamism of the pose but also the clean and anatomically correct sculpt - anatomically correct as a centaur can be. Atlantis resin miniatures all seem well fashioned and cast and there are more on the list. https://www.atlantisminiatures.com/
Darksword will also appear more than once. This shady character is one of their metal minis and again cleanly sculpted and cast. I believe they also have a game of thrones range as well as I have painted quite a number of these dual use minis. https://www.darkswordminiatures.com/
Talking of dual use these are actual Frostgrave barbarians in plastic although the customer did not want them solely for Frostgrave so that is why they are snowless. As with all the plastic frostgrave minis these went together easily and paint up excellently. Clearly they are in a sort of expecting snow soon part of Frostgrave. Or Scotland.
The oldest minis here by many years are these GW zombies. These boys were cutting edge when they came out and all later multipart sprues owe them a debt. Even now used en masse as a Zombie horde they are still effective if a bit cartoony.
Meanwhile on the Ghost Archipelago this Ziterdes shipwreck is a great piece of terrain. It is made of a hard foam which is light but sturdy and well detailed. Here the remnants of its crew are salvaging before the tide comes back in.
Another Ziterdes piece which was originally to be snowed up for Frosty but then changed to be dual use for LOTR was this ruined church. With a bit of snow scatter and less of a green edge this would be perfect for Frosty. https://www.ziterdes.com/ here is a blogpost I did on painting this terrain https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/painting-update-x-thomarillion-terrain
More classic GW. This time skeletons in multipart plastic. Pretty much the same as with the zombies these hold up well en masse and the command group shown here is still really nice to paint. Second hand off ebea would be my choice!
Darksword witches. This particular job had 7 or 8 different witch/wizard type so decided to paint the 4 seasons of witchcraft from the young spring witch to the winter aged witch. Sadly I was not able to do bases to match as they were all frozen city bound.
More terrain here from THminiatures of Canada who do a spectacular array of terrain not just snowy ruins but jungle for the archipelago. If they were more easily available in the UK I am sure they would sell shedloads. https://thminiatures.com/en/24-snow
Back to the Ghost Archipelago with this Ziterdes step pyramid. This is about a foot across and 5 inches high but weighs next to nothing due to the material. I am thinking of getting one for myself to complement my Aztecs!
And if you havent got Aztecs then these Frostgrave Tribals are perfect to run araound on this and the shipwreck of HMS Unlucky seen above. As an aside many people like myself probably still think that Magellan was the first person to circumnavigate the globe despite the blindingly obvious fact he was killed half way. That is like me claiming to haverun a marathon because i have done a half marathon. The first named Europen was the chap who took over the expedition shortly after Magellan's death called Elcano. He seems to have been overlooked by history probably because he was a Basque and also that the primary source writer of the expedition did not like him! https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/pyramid-step-by-step
Medusa or Stethno, or Euryale - one of the best versions I have painted over the years, more likely in the Archipelago than the frozen city but this casting is the best sculpt I have seen. This one is called a Gorgon in the Darksword catalogue which makes her one of three possibles named above. Nobody gets to look close enough to spot the difference...
More excellent frostgrave plastics which I am not sure I did justice to. I didnt want to make them too KKK for obvious reasons but in retrospect the guy with the white hood does look the best. Again these literally fall together with plastic glue.
More Frostgrave, this time the pirates and I cant recommend highly enough. Lots of head choices make for a motley band of Indian Ocean type pirates. As another aside I recently finished listening to The Boundless Sea by David Abulafia which is a history of the worlds oceanic trade and exploration and it is an absolute blockbuster.
Cmon's Game of Thrones Freefolk have a ton of stuff which can drop directly into Frosty. I have just chosen dumb and dumber here as an example but literally everything in the range can be used.
More Atlantis miniatures here with 3 very miffed Minotaurs. These came with the instruction to Frostify so were painted in dull blues and browns but obviously could be in a Beastman army on another day or any DnD game. Same cleanly sculpted and cast minis as the centaur and come with the nice scenic bases. for lots more examples https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/game-of-thrones-2020-review-part-1-the-north-forgets-a-bit-freefolkerama
frostmark gnolls. https://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=195&page=1 Again a great package but I wonder how long manufacturers will continue to invest in such boxes with the increasing use of 3d printers. I am a hopeless technophobe but am able to use the latest 3d printers and software easily enough so if I want gnolls or anything really I just download a file such as https://cdn2.myminifactory.com/assets/object-assets/618a61ea987a2/images/720X720-hhb-indpres-bruteswordrush.jpg
So finally, here we are left howling at the moon over Frostgrave with another Atlantis mini. As I remember this was one of three really dynamic werewolves. As a final aside the word were was the old anglo saxon for an adult human as in weregeld. However the concept of a werewolf dates back long before this and must predate the illustrations on classical Greek pottery. It may go back all the way into prehistory and is interesting that it remains alive as myth alongside vampires. The survival of culture is amazing.
As i said at the start like Werewolves the longevity of Frostgrave has made it an outlier in the world of wargames rules systems which in the historical setting change like the seasons and I am still receiving commissions on a monthly basis. I hope to see some Stargrave jobs coming in soon alongside the qInfinity and 40k as it makes a nice change to paint individuals instead of units.
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