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I finally got around to picking up this game, and it looks like a lot of fun. I wonder, though, has there been any talk of non-human or demi-human wizards and warbands? Or are we supposed to use human stats for everyone?

Human stats for everyone. I mentioned having racial adjustments for a warband all being of the same race over on the http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?board=92.0 forum awhile back. Majority of the players on there just prefer to visually represent their favorite race in the warband and not adjust stats based upon race. The writer of Frostgrave also sometimes posts on that forum as well.

The stats are very light anyway.

For non-human races use what fits best. So for elves and dwarves use elite troops only.

Thanks for giving the game a try Joshin. I have found that racial stats tend to do more harm that good in most skirmish games. Especially in a game like Frostgrave, where movement is so important, the elves would be off the table with the treasure before the dwarves figured out what was going on!

Thanks for the insight, guys. I look forward to giving it a try.

The trick is that, conceptually, those aren't "human" stats. Those are "soldier" stats. The idea being that in the context of the rules, the difference between men-at-arms or thugs of different races isn't enough to show up mechanically at this level of detail.

Or something like that.

You will find the stats dont matter too much either.
A point of stat difference in warhammer is quite a bit, but even so Ws4 vs Ws3 doesnt matter too much. In Frosrgrave two soldiers might be 1 or 2pts difference in a stat, yet as it is a d20 system, that doesn't account for too much.
Damage is also on d20 so it all evens up.

If we Mathgrave up the statistics of a fight between a dog and a knight we can see the dog has a very real chance of winning, and that is an extreme lineup.

All in all use missile combat if you don't want to risk your goons, once you get into melee it is a dice of and the one who rolls higher on a d20 beats the other. Roll high enough and you will likely cause serious damage. Roll a 20 and the opponents is instant killed and there is nothing they can do to stop that save rolling a 20 themselves.

Personally I think the range of ability should be just a tad wider. With armour being a point more for chain, will stats being a little more distinctive and soldiers topping out at +5 fight.

The ranger also needs a buff.

Latest book (Into the Breeding Pits) 'gives permission' to use the new Gnoll sculpts and says they have the same stats as the human soldiers in the core book.

 Manchu wrote:
Latest book (Into the Breeding Pits) 'gives permission' to use the new Gnoll sculpts and says they have the same stats as the human soldiers in the core book.

What are you saying here. I cannot understand the need for permission to use official miniatures with their own game, or any other miniatures for that matter.
Please include the context for your comment.

lolwut

Not sure how to make this any more clear ... under the Gnoll entry of the bestiary section in Into The Breeding Pits, the author says players can use Gnolls to represent their soldiers but that they will have the same stats as human soldiers, presumably rather than the stats shown under the Gnoll entry.

 Manchu wrote:
lolwut

Not sure how to make this any more clear ... under the Gnoll entry of the bestiary section in Into The Breeding Pits,

Not got Breeding Pits yet.

 Manchu wrote:

....the author says players can use Gnolls to represent their soldiers but that they will have the same stats as human soldiers, presumably rather than the stats shown under the Gnoll entry.

Sure. But why would you need 'permission' to do that. I make my soldiers from Frostgrave, Fireforge and Gripping Beast plastics, and with Reaper and GW wizards, no permission ought or needed.

Well TBH I think it's only because there is not only a plastic gnoll kit but also metal sculpts of the soldier classes that are gnolls. So it's less a matter of permission to use them than acknowledgment that people will want to and will therefore wonder if there are special rules for the, which there aren't.

As far as fantasy races are concerned, I'd use human stats plus a little imagination. Dwarves are stronger than humans, but they're also slower, so it sort of evens itself out without nitpicking a massive pile of individual stats. It's hard to put into words what I mean, but I hope people get it.

Crazy, I never thought about changing the stats to suit the race of the model I was using.

I use Hobbits/Goblins as Thieves, Orcs or Beastmen as Barbarians, Elves as Rangers and humans or Ungors as thugs.

I have even used a Giant Beetleworm as a Dog...

 Chef_of_Cadia wrote:
As far as fantasy races are concerned, I'd use human stats plus a little imagination. Dwarves are stronger than humans, but they're also slower, so it sort of evens itself out without nitpicking a massive pile of individual stats. It's hard to put into words what I mean, but I hope people get it.

Dwarves = knights, templars and marksmen. Temporarily use some manling hirelings until you can afford enough dwarves. I would start the game with two dwarves as well as your dwarvish wizard and apprentice, and hire five manling thugs and thieves. This gets you a total of nine miniatures to start play, and you can add more dwarves as you can afford them. Besides knights and marksmen are very effective force backbone once you can afford them.

As long as you're playing with people who aren't obsessive min-maxers I'm always in favor of trying out different rule tweaks.

It's true there are minimal stats but powerful races can always just be more expensive to hire in the same way the current soldiers are balanced.

For example I think it would be interesting to try out dwarves as having +2 armor and a move of 4 regardless of class but make them ignore encumbrance. Elves could be +1 move +1 shoot but can't take classes with mail armor. Make them expensive or give them a wandering rule where they roll to leave the warband after each mission.

Trouble with that is that movment is critical. Joe turned up and explained himself just why he has avoided adding dwarves and elves and giving them different movement stats:

joe5mc wrote:
Thanks for giving the game a try Joshin. I have found that racial stats tend to do more harm that good in most skirmish games. Especially in a game like Frostgrave, where movement is so important, the elves would be off the table with the treasure before the dwarves figured out what was going on!

Combat is important but a lot of what it means to be a Frostgrave soldier is to run towards a treasure token, pick it up and stagger back towards your deployment edge.
Movement 4 is a big problem there. It is ok to claim your own treasure tokens, but any central objective will be reached before you. 5-7 is a good range for movement


On this note I wish Joe would move to the metric system. The game doesn't use the d6 inches anywhere, which is the usual advantage for Imperial measure in gaming, and metric movement distances can be made even so that once you have movement it comes to a whole centimeter.

 Orlanth wrote:
Combat is important but a lot of what it means to be a Frostgrave soldier is to run towards a treasure token, pick it up and stagger back towards your deployment edge.
Movement 4 is a big problem there. It is ok to claim your own treasure tokens, but any central objective will be reached before you. 5-7 is a good range for movement

But movement is normally halved after you pick up a treasure, if the dwarf ignores that I think it helps bring back the balance, but maybe they'd need 4.5 or even 5 inch movement. If your expensive elf is only used for grabbing a treasure token a thug could be carrying that doesn't seem very efficient. I'm not sure those numbers would work, I only spent a few minutes thinking about it, but I don't see any reason not to play around with the rules if you want some more fluffy fantasy races.

Agreed that metric measurements would make more sense, if you allow free measurement even the dubious argument of people having better estimates goes away.

I'd favor no racial rules, often people pick factions and models for two reasons, aesthetics and fun (which can mean powerful, or just interesting). And when there's conflict people will pick the faction that's fun to play over the one they like the look or or the story for.

But if aesthetics are irrelevant (a guy with a sword is a guy with a sword whether he's an elf an orc, a dwarf or a tengu) then people will grativate towards the best looking most interesting models rather feel they have to pick one faction or another.

I like the idea a lot.

I have to agree with the idea that racial difference are just not worth while in Frostgrave.

On average an Elf Thug will likely be just as effective as a Human thug.
A Dwarf Thug would likely be tougher, but more than 5% tougher? I am not sure about that.

I plan on using non-human D&D figures (goblins as thieves, bugbears as thugs, elves as archers, etc) Whe my groups starts this ( We have the book, and plenty of terrain from our WHFB days) As long as the minis are visually distinct, don't confuse your opponents and are painted I don't see any problems with using non humans. They don't need unique stat lines either. A thug is a thug, etc. The game is about the wizards, or so I thought.

On this note I wish Joe would move to the metric system. The game doesn't use the d6 inches anywhere, which is the usual advantage for Imperial measure in gaming, and metric movement distances can be made even so that once you have movement it comes to a whole centimeter.

I fear this is just a matter of upbringing. I've used Imperial all my life and to switch would be to invite confusion while writing the game.

Give it a try in a playtest, things will go so much easier for everyone.

Also d20 synergises well with centimetres for very random range events.

I just got my book in the mail yesterday. I'm super psyched to paint up all these reaper and oop models I couldn't sell and try different warband configurations... And build a crapload of terrain. I think the lack of racials is one of the most appealing aspects of the game. Most games with distinct racial factions usually don't permit multiracial warbands in the rules.