Frostgrave – Cultists

The Cultists boxed set was released shortly after the regular Soldiers for Frostgrave, and I got mine as part of the Nickstarter Thaw of the Lich King, back in 2015 and I didn't come around to cover it here, but thought for the sake of completeness I catch up on that.

I went for the Level 3 pledge, that included the book as well as the back then new Frostgrave Cultist kit and a few Nickstarter bonus contents, among them a single regular Soldier sprue to mix in.

The regular Cultist boxes cover the bits and pieces to build 20 miniatures for your Frostgrave warband, spread across 4 identical sprues of 5 models each. In addition you get 20x 25mm round bases by Renedra in there.

The sprues are produced by Renedra, as well, and each one includes five bodies, 16 heads, and a lot of weapon choices

• 5 bodies
• 16 heads (14 hooded, 2 zombies and 2 skeletons)
• 1 right arm with spear
• 1 right arm with axe
• 1 arm pair with double handed club
• 2 rights arms with swords/sabres
• 1 arm pair with bow
• 1 arm pair for crossbows
• 4 left off-arms
• 5 left hands with chains, 2 daggers, a shield and empty
• 3 undead arm pairs, one of which with sword and shield
• 7 small pouches, bags and quivers

There are four of these sprues included in the set. Casting is well done, low amount of mould lines and good use of the sprue.

We start out with the five different bodies. All of them are more worn down than the soldiers, the clothes are closer to rags. I did a comparison with different other plastic kits, like Fireforge (historical range) and Gripping Beast in the old review of the soldiers, but I think it is of help here as well.

To mirror the build of the soldiers with these cultist, I added two further bodies from a second sprue and will build different types of henchmen.

From the left to the right, two arms that will have their hands replaced for the thief, a Bowman, a Crossbowman, an Infantryman with a two-handed weapon, a Thug with just a hand weapon, a Men-at-Arms with hand weapon and shield, and a Treasure Hunter with two hand weapons.

With the weaponry in place, there is not much else to do. We add the heads or better said hoods, as I went with the closed hoods as far as possible, to underline the aspect that these are cultists. And for the last step, we add the pouches and quivers for the soldiers to look properly equipped.

The cultists sprue has a few additional bits, that go very properly with the Thaw of the Lich King idea, so you can build with the included bits a few undead encounters, like Zombies or Skeletons. Simply by using the bodies but replacing the arms with the bone or gaunted ones.

The scale of the range is steady, as you can see here in the first picture with the "main" kits of Soldier, Crewman, Cultist and Barbarian from the left to the right. As well as a further comparison with Gripping Beast (middle) and Fireforge (right).

The small retinue of a Necromancer or occult warlock is ready, along with the undead encounters you can build from this kit as well.

Conclusion
The plastic range of Frostgrave is very presentable. As is this kit, at 20 GBP for 20 miniatures, so a quid each, there is not much to worry about, especially with a skirmisher like Frostgrave. The kit mixes well with other frostgrave kit, either if you want to extend the variety with some parts from the soldier sprue or build some brutes by using Barbarian bodies. The bits are quite popular, as I have seen them being used to build fanatics for other game systems, for example to kitbash Cawdor for Necromunda or some evil henchmen in pulp settings (combine them with Bolt Action for your own Konflikt '47 very occult Wolfenstein units or some weird order of the Klan).

If you have some bits at hand to create a command section, you could use these with Kings of War or Oathmark to build some living units for the evil or undead armies. Especially at the price, you get a 4 by 5 rank & file unit for 20 GBP RRP. And as always with Frostgrave, get a box, trade in a sprue or two against one from another kit, like the Gnolls or Barbarians.

As mentioned with the other kits, the 20 soldiers give you enough for two warbands or one with a stable sideboard, just add a wizard/warlock/mage of your choice and you're good to go for Frostgrave.

Frostgrave is a brand of North Star Figures and Osprey Games.