In my opinion this is what you need to do:
Buy enough miniatures to host Frostgrave. Hosting is where you provide all the factions, I host other games including main miniatures games, but with Frostgrave it is easy, and anyone can host.
for this you need enough miniatures to play, and like with most of my hosting I did a lot of research before I bopufght anything. I will get links from my purchase plan for you.
1.
Decide on a basing standard and base everything uniformly. Never underestimate the benefit of basing everything uniformly.
I went with Rendra miniature bases, most of the plastic stuff that comes out of
th Uk and is not Games Workshiop is ERendra, they mostly make stuff for other companies including Gripping Beast and Fireforge, more on that later, they also make the officlal Frostgrave boxsets.
These are new, they werent an option when I bought my bases:
http://www.renedra.co.uk/product.php?product=242
You will need some larger ones for monsters.
http://www.renedra.co.uk/product.php?product=248
You will need about one pack of large bases and I would go for two packs of the smaller ones, so you can make lots of warbands.
i didnt buy these, I bought the clear ones
http://www.renedra.co.uk/product.php?product=134
Again buying two packs and a pack of larger bases.
Clear plastic bases add to the difficulty because you must glue your minis on verty carefully, especailly with regards to metals as super glue stains clear plastic. It you do get any staining 'dye' it with a black inkwash and it becomes an ok shadow effect.
Frankly I think the bother is worth it for the visual effect of the mukltiple warbands.
You could buy just the models as most have integral bases which are fairly similar, and as most of the models are Reenedra one way or another, including the Frostgrave metals and plastics you can do this. It is the easiest option and saves money. Fro those miniature coming with different bases sacrifice a cultist by chopping him off his base and rebase the other miniature for fit. universatility is key here.
2.
Buy a boxset of Frostgrave cultists and a boxset of Frostgrave Soldiers.
Thee are stupid cheap for what they are, to save money and get your collection focused I wouldn't bother with gnolls for now. Later certainly. Forty cultists and soldiers is enough basic troops for up to six warbands, more importantly it provides enough bits for everything else.
3.
While I am reluctant to plug an individual ebay trader this is an exception. This guy is the only guy I have found that sells Renedra bases singly.
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/secondcitygames/
You might find a us trader who does the same. 2nd_city_games sells by the sprue, he might not have what you want, if he doesnt wait a while he will have wehat you need back in stock. if this doesn't appeal just look for the individual boxsets listed, you will have to pay a lot more, but will get hordes of spares and can buy elsewhere and for less per miniature. Even if you do this i would get some of the Fireforge command sprues in section A by the sprue as you will likely need more of them than you can afford through the boxsets.
What I recommend you buy from his is listed below
A
Firforge Games Templar Infantry command sprue
Fireforge Games Teutonic Infantry command sprue
http://www.beastsofwar.com/historical-battles/fireforge-games-arm-templars-onfoot-battle/
I would buy two Teutonic ones and one Templar frankly, though you could get away with one of each.
Why buy them. Three reasons mainly. First you get four knights on each sprue in dynamic poses, they will provide you with a couple of templars and knights each per sprue. Note that armour in Frostgrave tops out at chain, so 10th-12th century pre-plate miniatures are best. besides you cant go wrong making your templars out of Templars.
the other reason is that each sprue has eight cloaks. Trust me on this, if you like to assemble stuff and kitbash as much as most miniatures gamers to buy them is to love them, the cloak especially are kitbash heaven, I wish i had access to those while making my High elf army years ago. Go light on cloaks, you will need some of the plain ones for a specific use below, so save about six, also the knights don't all need them to look awesome. These sets also includes great axes and greatswords, one each per sprue with full chain armoured arms and cast in dynamic poses when assembled. There are also a lot of heads that complement the basic heads you get from the Frostgrave boxsets. especially a number of cool looking Teutonic full helms that were historical and yet made the average chaos warriors headgear seem like he was underdressed.
B.
Fireforge Games Teutonic (or Templar) Infantry sprue
In the Beasts of War article link above you will also see the infantry sprue. Buy one sprue, either Templar or Teutonic infantry, it doesn't really matter which as they are very similar, if not the same. This will give you eight guys with chain mail but cheaper helmets. In Frostgrave chain mail equals elite infantry, and thee guys are all clearly in chain. You need this sprue for your marksmen particularly, but can also make poorer 'knight' miniatures. On this sprue you will have a lot of shields and spears, enough crossbows for a fair few marksmen models and some axes maces and swords to swap for knights. you will have a lot left over, which will be good as you will see later.
C.
Fireforge Games Foot Sergeants
These are your men at arms, and other soldiers. I can say this quite definitively because if you check your Frostgrave rulebook to the page when the table of soldiers are listed, on the facing page are the guys from this sprue, the page opposite has the official miniatures. Fireforge foot sergeants are imaged repeatedly through the entire book as the dovetail seamlessly with the Frostgrave stuff, they are after all all made in the same factory in England at Renedra.
Now onto the goodies. Each sprue offers you eight gambeson covered bodies, excellent for leather armour type soldiers. You get several arm poses per weapon for a lot of variety, best for making alternate crossbowmen and for men at arms.
D.
Gripping Beast Arab Infantry
http://www.sagatapestry.com/2014/04/gripping-beast-plastic-arab-spearmen.html
i bought two sprues and it was barely enough, you could buy three or spash out and get a whole box (eight sprues). You will get a lot of truban heads for starters, turbans look great as alternate heads for many of your troopers and can give your warbands an exotic feel. you also get Javelineers from this kit, no armour and spears. Some of the spears are posed for throwing, those which are not should be cut down to javelin size and fitted to the off hand or threaded through quivers to rest on the models back. I pair off spears before glueing them to both ends of a cut down quiver, this looks effective and will allow you to get some of the 25gold basic missile infantry that the current Frostgrave kits don't provide.
The robes also have other uses, thieves for one, as in Ali Baba and the forty..... But mostly apprentices. getting decent wizard miniatures is a pain, they all look too awesome. There are exceptions and I will link later to two sites selling low level wizard miniatures to use as Frostgrave apprentices. However individual metal or resin character models can be expensive and your Gripping Beast Arabs make excellent apprentices.
the trick is to take a robed arab body, they all have the same dagger so shave that off most of the miniatures to prevent them from being samey. Repose a spear arm so that it looks like a staff arm, and add a suitable topper to your apprentices staff. before selecting an appropriate head you need to add something that will make your robes guy more magical. remember those cloaks I asked you to set aside, the plain ones on the command sprues. This is where they come in. They fit like they were made fro the model, honestly they fit very well for each pose of arab there is a flow of cloak that is just right, swap them about to get the perfect look. I would make about five or six apprentices paint some up for your warbands and keep some aside.
E.
Find a source for these:
Gripping Beast Viking Hirdmen command sprue
Gripping Beast Saxon Thegn Command Spruie
While collecting these plastics you could get some variants the above command sprues are worth having. they are dirt cheap, normally about £1.50 - £2 for two command guys. I only bnought the saxon sprue, and wish I could get more. You may want some of them because they have chain armour without tabards, all the other chain armoured soldiers have tabards so this makes a difference in your formations. They are also the only other foot sprues with some cloaks, most of all the Saxon sprue has a left handed sword arm. This will allow you to build some left handed knights, or dual-wield captains.
4.
If you buy the above you have apprentices covered, and every soldier option except the bard, barbarian and the dog.
Barbarians are easy, just get a sprue of
GW chaos Marauders, they are over muscled and out of scale, but that is how fantasy barbarians should be - right? Frostgrave barbarians are all armed with great weapons so take the flails, remove the heads of the flails and add axe and mace heads from the hand weapons. That is all there is to it. Give the odd one or two a cloak. The large Teutonic cloaks are best as they are half animal pelts. A full helm might not go amiss. I gave one a spare flagellant head for a specially deranged look.
For bards find some resin musical instruments, you could use horns from various other sprues, but I wouldn't.
Reaper has you covered.
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/instruments/a-z/03032
For wardogs I recommend one of two choices.
warlord games has the best mutts, they are also the cheapest.
http://store.warlordgames.com/products/ancient-britons-mastiffs-pack
The only reason I wont automatically recommend them is because they are metal, and if you dec ide to use clealr plastic bases you will have to base them very carefully.
One pack may well be enough, dogs are popular in beginning warbands but eventually most players will take just one, with the 25o gold kennel they buy, because why not.
the alternate is to find someone who collects Mantic dwarves or a bits seller for same, and get some of their plastic bulldogs. For your necromancers who arent the most animal friendly types there ias an undead dog on the Mantic skelweton warrior sprue for you to use as a faithful mutt. You could use a
GW Dire Wolf but it is fething huge.
5.
In Frostgrave girls can die too.
http://www.statuesqueminiatures.co.uk/
Statuesque miniatures is the best for quality and compatibility. Dont worry that your soldiers have male sculpts, add a female head and people will automatically think the miniature looks feminine, this works automatically for the friostgrave miniatures as they are heavily dressed. As your chaim mail miniatures have tabards though, and your arabs have robes you can easily green stuff up a chest for them. Make modest changes dont stack the girls out, unless you are a very good sculptor, anyone casn generally pad out the chest area with green stuff, the tabard/robe will require no detail and for constrained clothing, especially chainmail then most you get is a general padding out at the front.
6.
Wizards. You can source them. You could use the official Frostgrave ones, and whole they are nice sculpts they dont really stand out. Frostgrasve really kicks into gear when the main dude looks like he is the to blast some rivals and loot the treasure. Frostgrave is making more. the real reason I am baised against therm though its because they are metal. Metal heads are one thing, full metal mianiatures are hared to work with, just about everythign listed so far os multipopose plastic or goes with multipose plastic.
Wizards. Wizards everywhere.
Frankly I would look no further than the Empire Wizard boxset from
GW.
One box is enough as you only get two usable models, though I am trying to make up a bits and greenstuff body to fit the other two cloak sides. But the staff toppers and things they have in their hands will do two more easily.
Reaper Bones has some good options, but beware, their scale is random. I think someone in Reaper rolls a
d6 whenever he calbrates the machine to make the masters. I bought some nice looking wizards that I eventually used as statues.
Then I found this site by these little known guys:
http://fenryll.com/
Fenryll est magnifique. Their sculptors vary in quality, some of the earlier work looks crap frankly, but the newer stuff is very nice indeed. It is also resin so you can rebase easily. They have also resurrected the concept of three stage models that D&D miniatures used to do. So a player has a miniature that shows level progression.
when it comes to a wizard though this means a wizard and a mini-me apprentice.
What is best about these guys is that Fenryll hasnt got the memo yet, and I am not complaining. Despite moving from crap to awesome miniatures are still selling them at very cheap prices rather than £12 per single resin character figure you get three for £8.
7.
Ok. If things go to plan you will have your hordes of adventurers what next Orlanth.
You assimilate.
Now we at last return to topic. Build about four awesome warbands with a universal basing system. and invite players to have a go. when they show an interest offer to help them build their own warband. Now if you cost out everythign you buy as you buy it, deduct the cost of everything you use you will have a total debt incrued from the other miniatures. It wont come to too much if you purchase smart. I bought enough of everything for seven warbands and some monsters in under £100. Ask people to contribute to offset a portion of those losses if they want a warband. I would also insist that those who want their own warbands from your stock have to take a selection of stuff, so nobody gets to nab all the spare cloaks. It would make sense if you premake some apprentices so there are enough to go around, and it is best if everyone sources their own wizard, but borrows a spare one of yours in the meantime.
I am convinced that when you get a small club of interested people together and dump the remaining half of your sprues on the table, with armoured knight bodies, gambeson bodies, robed bodies and padded bodies, all the head option from full helms to turbans to female heads every weapon combo under the sun minus the bak'leth (and a friend then promptly scratch built one just to outdo me, and added it to a spare saurus model he had). Everyone gets the option of using your basing system if they want to. Its a fun session on its own, because kitbash sessions always are, and people are building to keep for themselves and if you have other stuff in your bits box to add can build their latest D&D character mini on the side while they are at it. Before you know it half your mates will have their own warbands. Just as planned.
