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Frostgrave or Necromunda?

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20 May 2018 21:21 #273751 by blatz
I own Necromunda Underhive but have been eying Frostgrave more and more lately. Anybody who’s played them both have a preference? Are they even similar? Gaslands is a huge hit with my group and I love these bring your own miniatures types of games but adding another “lifestyle” game seems a bit much at this point with Bloodbowl, Shadespire and Batman Miniatures Game already on my shelf as well.

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20 May 2018 22:09 #273754 by hotseatgames
I haven't played the new Necromunda but did play Shadow war. I can tell you that I have never had as much fun with a miniatures game as I have had with Frostgrave. The campaign system is really cool, and the insane randomness of the D20 makes it not feel so serious, and you can have a lot of crazy things happen during games. The book can be had pretty inexpensively, so it's a low cost of entry, too. You will want a lot of terrain though, so if you already have that, you are good.
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20 May 2018 22:48 #273755 by Michael Barnes
Have, play, and love both.

Frostgrave is the best non-GW skirmish game I’ve ever played, and I actually prefer it to the Age of Sigmar skirmish rules. It is actually pretty casual- like Mark said, the D20 keeps it capricious and light. There is a lovey old fashioned quality about the game- classic wizardly kinds of stuff, and it does feel almost like a miniatures version of Wiz War.

But it has a few drawbacks.

One is that the fun, old school setting can feel quite generic. It’s a little bland on paper. If you build up a campaign story around your warband, give them names and all that it helps. But I don’t think there is a particularly strong setting here, even with all of the expansion books that expand on the Undead, Gnolls, and Barbarians in particular.

Another is that you might be lulled into thinking Frostgrave is cheap. It is not. It’s true you can use “any willing mini”, and the official Frostgrave sets are cheap...but if you don’t have a good 3x3 table’s worth of DENSE terrain...open your wallet. You can cheap out on printed papercraft building or whatever, but you really want to have a lot of stuff on the table- much more so than AOS skirmish, for example.

If you have a lot of terrain, you have that covered. But then there are the random monsters. I’m of the opinion that you should use the random monster list as a shopping guide. Yes, that means you really want them all because the random monsters are one of the best things about the game. It costs a little to get everything in D&D or Pathfinder minis, whatever, but I think it’s worth it.

Necromunda is actually much cheaper, I think. If you play the Zone Mortalis style on the game board tiles. I prefer this over the fully 3D game. It’s more detailed than Frostgrave and of course the setting is MUCH stronger. The models are spectacular, and the box comes with everything you need to start playing- as long as you just want Goliath and Escher gangs. Everything else, you need the Gang War books.

Necromunda has a lot more flavor and it’s also a much more sophisticated system. It’s also specific SF and not generic fantasy..
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21 May 2018 00:11 #273760 by Colorcrayons
I can't comment on comparing Frostgrave to new necromunda, but I have played old Munda a ton.

I believe Frostgrave's greatest asset to be how it allows a lot of creativity to flow.

All those monster npcs? Use whatever model you please. Just be consistent.

You can do this with any game, of course. But the generic quality of the background allows you to rush in and fill these gaps.

The GW background fluff is nice and all, but frostgrave is the opposite of Munda. The models needed for Munda are all set in stone, and the background is the just as immutable.

So other than a low model count skirmish game, there aren't many other similarities between them.

I gotta admit that it's nice at my age to buy a product like Munda and not worry about tweaking it to suit my tastes, hunting down models I prefer, etc.

But for Frostgrave, the extra effort is worth it.

Plus, if some of that effort is expended towards a thrift expenditure, then it can be a lot cheaper than many minis games. Fantasy terrain is a lot easier and cheaper to come by for convincing suspension of disbelief than for sci for as well.
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21 May 2018 04:36 #273765 by Matt Thrower
FWIW I did a little guide on budget scenery for Frostgrave. It doesn't have to be as expensive as you think.

www.wargamer.com/articles/frostgrave-tab...ry-guide-miniatures/

I've never played Necromunda, so I can't comment on the actual thread topic. But I like Frostgrave: it's very quick and pleasingly ludicrous.
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21 May 2018 08:41 #273776 by the_jake_1973
There is so much inexpensive cardstock scenery out there, that a table full of terrain can easily be had.

WorldWorks games has some great stuff across all genres. I don't think they are making new kits, but the existing catalog is 25% off forever. It's worth looking at.
Check them here.

I also appreciate the flexibility in type of miniatures needed. As for random monsters, I have found plenty of standees for free or for a small fee at RPGVault.

It would be very hard for me to invest in a GW game now unless I was going to use my existing Eldar and Harlequins for something.

If they ever made Man O' War again, my willpower would crumble.
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21 May 2018 09:06 #273778 by drewcula
Replied by drewcula on topic Frostgrave or Necromunda?
I've never played Frostgrave.
And until this morning, I had zero interest.
Then I read MB's Frostgrave's comparison to Wiz-War.

NOW I'm interested.

Can Frostgrave be played on Heroscape terrain?

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21 May 2018 09:30 #273784 by hotseatgames

drewcula wrote: Can Frostgrave be played on Heroscape terrain?


I don't use the hexes, but Heroscape terrain has literally been involved in every Frostgrave battle I have had.
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21 May 2018 09:50 - 21 May 2018 09:57 #273788 by GorillaGrody
I like both games, but have serious problems with both.

I mean, I'm always going to love picking out my little 28mm guys, naming them, running them through their paces, seeing their stories unfold, and watching them die. I just wish there was a small-team skirmish game out there where my choices mattered. I say this with a hint of self-servitude, as I'm working on a game right now with a friend in which we're trying to get all the small-team skirmish rules we like into one place and slough off the rest.

As Michael said, the d20 resolution in Frostgrave is really capricious, and the setting strikes a weird balance between "generic fantasy" and "I really don't have a miniature to represent this."

Necromunda suffers from a legacy problem. GW games have this way of flattening probabilities in dice rolls by running them through a multi-step renderizer: throw 20 dice in at this end, run it through hits, wounds, saves, etc, and 3 register as hits on the other end, applied to a 10-unit squad. For some reason, Necromunda has you running single dice through this renderizer, which feels like busywork over the course of the whole game, and which is no less capricious than Frostgrave.

Some of the statlines for Necromunda are almost meaningless. For some reason you need to distinguish Cool (which you need badly) from Intelligence (which you'll never need) from Willpower (no idea) from Leadership (helpful). That's just to figure out your figure's mental states!

Frostgrave's rules are written with mostly crystal clarity. Necromunda's rules are not. Both have really cool activation rules, which skirt the line between UGOIGO and "threaded" activation, and which reward staying in some sort of logical formation.

For about 8 bucks, you could go find a PDF of A Song of Blades and Heroes (or Mutants and Death Ray Guns for the post-apocalyptic SF version). I think it's the best skirmish game I've played. Its dice resolution is as simple as Frostgrave's, but the curve is flattened by its use of the d6. The stat lines for characters are two numbers long--Quality and Combat Value-- but both numbers are totally meaningful and easy to discern at a glance. You can play with the archetypes they give you, or break into the character creation system (which is robust but complex) to make your own. It has a GREAT press-your-luck activation system. It is melee-focused (slightly moreso than Frostgrave), which is a drawback if you like sniping people. But, since it requires less blocking terrain, that melee focus can be a boon to your wallet.
Last edit: 21 May 2018 09:57 by GorillaGrody.
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21 May 2018 17:27 #273843 by Colorcrayons

drewcula wrote: I've never played Frostgrave.
And until this morning, I had zero interest.
Then I read MB's Frostgrave's comparison to Wiz-War.

NOW I'm interested.

Can Frostgrave be played on Heroscape terrain?


Yeah, but there is some conversion work that needs to be done first. Mostly it's intuitive, but a few instances are a little frisky on the off the cuff judgement calls.

I went though the effort of the conversion of the rules and such a few months ago.
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