Frozen and Forgotten is the latest two player starter set for Warmachine. Set in the frozen wastes of Immoren, the Dusk Final Hunt face off against the undead Orgoth Graveborn as both Command Cadres use their Warbeasts to try and gain the upper edge.

In this full review we’ll be checking out everything that comes in the box, painting them all up and seeing what they look like in the flesh.

Massive thanks to Steamforged Games for sending us over the new set to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not pick up your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the new Frozen and Forgotten box which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So let’s check out the latest plastic set for Warmachine and see what is inside!

Frozen and Forgotten Review

Can you believe that in the space of just over a year we now have 6 plastic kits for Warmachine? Since Winter Korps VS Storm Legion box in October last year, we are now on the 3rd plastic 2 player starter set and Steamforged show no signs of slowing down. I was lucky enough to check out the Shadows & Skum box back in March, and I was blown away with the quality of the miniatures and just how impressive they looked painted up on the table.

For Frozen and Forgotten, Steamforged Games have another two cadres here both with a very different look to the previous plastic sets. It really feels like we have a growing core of plastic kits in different styles that can be supplemented by resin kits, rather than the initial entry to the game being dealing with cleaning and assembling resin models, which can be a little offputting to people new to the game.

So what do we get in the box?

Well first off we have an absolute stack of plastic sprues! 7 in total with 3 frames building up the Dusk Final Hunt and the other 4 building up the Orgoth Graveborn.

Like with the previous box, the sprues are really well laid out with each model having it’s own letter on the frame – so for example if you wanted to build model A then you would just need to stick the parts A1 to A11 together in order, which makes building and cleaning the parts much easier as you can simply clip out all the numbered parts for each model and go through them in order. There’s no physical manual in the box, which is still a bit of a shame, but the full assembly instructions can be found on the Steamforged Games website – honestly though, these are pretty simple to build without the instructions and there’s only a couple of models here that will have you looking at the instructions to make sure you understand how the pieces go together.

From a rules point of view there’s no stat cards or rulebook here either. Steamforged provide all of this for free through the official app, meaning if you pick up this box (and a couple of dice) then you have everything you need in order to play the game. I’m a sucker for physical props during games, and I’d love to see a return of hard copy cards back into unit boxes – though I understand the shift to digital and from a gameplay point of view this does make sense as it’s much easier to record damaged warjacks and warbeasts through the app than using a card, with the added advantage of being able to check rules on the fly too.

For old school gamers who like to have a hard copy rulebook, Steamforged have just released a physical core book – we’ll be covering that on the site with a full review very soon so keep your eyes peeled for it! A hard copy rulebook was one of my only marks against Warmachine in our previous review of the plastic kits, so it’s great to see they are listening to the community and putting out rules material in this way too.

Since the box arrived I’ve been building and painting up both sides of the box, so let’s take a look at what we get inside!

The first faction in the box we’re having a look at are the Orgoth Graveborn. These are a Cadre of undead horrors that have been buried for centuries alongside the Warlock Anathia. This is a very Warbeast heavy box with 2 included for each side, and the pair included here are probably my favourites in the box.

First up we have the Charnel Hound, who is a two headed undead dog that looks absolutely amazing! Bigger than him though is the Barrow Ghoul – At first I assumed this was a Warjack, but it’s actually a massive undead construct that operates as a Warbeast. by far he is the biggest model in the box and looks suitably impressive. He’s accompanied by Anathia with her bone whip and weird leg like blades rising out of her back, the Revenant Champion who shares a lot of design elements of the Barrow Ghoul and finally a unit of Execrators.

All of these where good fun to paint and have a really cool look to them. I was getting a lot of Hellfire Peninsula from World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade with these guys, with their supernatural fire fueling them and heavy armour and massive weapons. Undead can sometimes be very spindly and weak looking, but these are nice chunky models that have a good heft to them and they have some great presence to them on the battlefield.

The other force in the box are the Dusk Final Hunt. These are last survivors of an Elven race, and have a really nice asthetic to them – lots of leather armour and flowing cloaks combined with armour panels and graceful weapons makes them a very different vibe to the other army in the box. They also have a pair of Warbeasts too in the form of Benkei and Sasha, who are massive lion like creatures that tower over the rest of the Cadre. I really hope this faction gets expanded out further, as these look really cool and offer a very different look to other Warmachine factions.

Both of the forces in the box build a 30 point force, which is a great size to start learning how to play the game.

There’s also some great value here too – both of the seperate warbands are available in February for £62.99 each, but you can get them both together in the Frozen and Forgotten box for £79.99 which is only £17 more than just a single warband in order to get your hands on both of them. Like with the previous boxes this makes a great set to split with a friend if you’re both looking to get into the game. Or if you are an existing player then it’s also a nice way of picking up another couple of new factions.

The plastic kits from Steamforged have been great, and it’s brilliant to see them put out more boxes like this. I do wonder if this is something we’re going to see more of in the future. As nice as the resin Warmachine figures are, I’d go for plastic ones like these over them every day. Could we perhaps see some bigger warjacks with multiple weapon options in plastic? Or more realistically more sets like this with a pair of new warbands? Something I would like to see in future is a more traditional “starter set” that contains dice, a rulebook and some scenarios to play through with your new forces. The new hardback rulebook actually has a play by play tutorial scenario using the kits from the initial plastic box, so maybe there’s hope in the future for something like this.

We’ll be covering more Warmachine very soon with our full review of the new Warmachine core book

Frozen and Forgotten is available to order now for £71.99 from Element Games

Steamforged Games provided Sprues and Brews with a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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