Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago – Crewmen

As for the Frostgrave review series, we're jumping from Felstadt to the Ghost Archipelago for the first time. Let us take a look at the Crewmen, the tropical pendant to the regular Frostgrave Soldiers. Not following a wizard, but a heritor.

The crew men are designed as a bunch of corsairs, wearing wide, pirate style clothes and weaponry you would find among freebooters. A strong contrast to the fur and pelts of "regular" Frostgrave.

This boxed set follows the same setup as the other Frostgrave plastic kits, it provide 20 models in 28mm scale spread across 4 plastic sprues of 5 each. And as the other Frostgrave warbands, two Renedra sprues with 10 round bases of 25mm diameter each.

The sprues are produced by Renedra, as well, and each one includes five bodies, 10 heads, and a lot of weapon choices

• 5 bodies
• 10 heads
• 2 arm pairs with double handed weapons (spear and axe)
• 5 right arms with hand weapons (swords, club and axe)
• 2 arm pairs with bows
• 1 arm pair with cross bow
• 5 left off arms
• 2 left hand with small weapons
• 2 shields
• 3 quivers
• 10 pieces of equipment (bags, rope, daggers and such)
  

A total of four of these sprues is included in the set. Casting ist good, yet the amount of flash / moud lines along the pieces is above average for a Renedra kit. The space of the sprue is put up to good use.

As usual with the frostgrave kits, you receive 5 different bodies. All are in motion, standing wide and leaned on one side. They wear wide clothing and many of them scarf-like belts.

To have a broad variety of load-outs and show most of the options from the kit, we once again build a set of seven different types of henchmen.

From the left to the right, a club for the thief, a bowman, a crossbowman, an infantryman with a two-handed pole-arm, a thug with just a hand weapon, a men-at-arms with hand weapon and shield, and a treasure hunter with two hand weapons (I went for the option of the two throwing axes, looks awesome).

Now for the heads. These have turbans and bandanas in some cases. I think it is important to glue the heads after the weapons, because you can give the model more dynamic, just by having them look in a direction that fits the posture / alignment of the weaponry. I really like the treasure hunter sporting that irokes cut.

And last but not least, the equipment. Of course, the quivers go with the archer and crossbowmen, beyond that, you have a few bags, daggers and pouches to add. A bit more exotic items would have been interesting, but the shell is a nice touch.

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). With the pirate vibe of the crewmen, I had to add a comparison with the Empire Militia, a Black Scorpion Pirate dwarf and a Freebooter miniature.

Here is the small crew of cut throats, buccaneers and freebooters, ready to take on the shores.

Conclusion
The alternative setting in Ghostarchipelago for Frostgrave provides a lot to the game. A great contrast and the crewmen are the logical addition. North Star didn't stop there and supplied further plastic kits for tribals and snake men.

We have the usual 1 GBP per miniature price that we know from Frostgrave, which is absolutely fair and for a skirmisher you can't say anything about that. The casting quality is well done, yet the mould lines were more present compared to the other kits. I have to say, after building the Frostgrave kits, I would really like to see a plastic heritor kit, that could go deeper into the exotic, tropical sea-farer theme this spin off opened up.

Due to its scale, the crewmen box could be used for some caribic swashbucklers, high sea battles or other endeavour in the new world. Only missing some blackpowder pistols or guns, but North Star has got your back, the offer a conversion pack for that purpose. And this kit makes for a great replacement of Empire Militia, if you don't intend to spend insane amount on the original Mordheim kit. Along with some further bits, maybe from the Gripping Beast plastic arabs, these could be interesting mercenaries for larger army projects, like Oathmark or Kings of War.

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