Frosthaven Unboxing Is Lengthy And Almost Perfect

Frosthaven has just begun rolling out to backers, which means fans who have been eagerly awaiting the release of the sequel to the incredibly popular Gloomhaven are so close to stepping out into the frozen wilds for themselves. Just like Gloomhaven, this box is incredibly heavy, filled with all kinds of tokens and board pieces, and an absolute monster to get into. We're going to take you through just what's inside this massive box in this Frosthaven unboxing, as well as the different storage options that Cephalofair has given you for storing all the contents.

What's in the Frosthaven Box?

Inside this 31.6 lbs/14.3 kg box you'll find the following components:

• A sealed puzzle book
• A 166-page Scenario Book
• A 196-page Section Book
• An 84-page Rulebook
• 5x Sticker Sheets
• A Pad of Campaign Sheets
• A large Map Board of the Frosthaven area
• Two stackable Token Trays with grooves for small and big tokens
• An Alchemy Chart
• 5x Scenario Flowchart Sheets
• 27x Punchboards of creatures, environmental pieces, Map Tiles, and status indicators
• An Element Board
• Miniatures and boxes for character-specific information and tracking
• Cards for everything under the sun
• Ziplock bags
• A set-up guide

As you shimmy off the top of your box there is the set-up guide right on top ready to tell you "Stop right now… read through all of this and only then should you start even considering how to set up this box." The Set-Up guide will run you through every content of the box, what to do with it to get it set up, and where each piece's place is.

As Frosthaven, like Gloomhaven, is a game that doesn't play in a single sitting but is intended to be played out over a series of Scenarios in a Campaign. What makes the set-up here so important is that it isn't just setting up the contents of the game to be ready to play, but you're setting up the world for you and the rest of the players to begin.

What goes into the setup of Frosthaven?

Some of the world setup that you'll be completing is setting what kinds of items might be available to purchase in the shop, what buildings you'll be able to assist in the creation of, and what you can craft at the beginning of the game. There are some moments that tease what's to come, like shuffling the random deck of blueprints or others that remain in mystery, such as the game only letting you know what six out of the Seventeen playable character classes are.

Proper unboxing, the popping out of 27 pages worth of tokens, and setting up each of the decks in the game box will also absolutely take some time. While I'd never set up a similar game like Gloomhaven in the past the full unbox and setup process for Frosthaven took me around 2 hours. A lot of that was the passive token popping though.

Frosthaven is a maxi box with lots of minis

From the miniatures that you can open you'll be able to meet the Banner Spear, Blink Blade, Deathwalker, Drifter, Geminate, and Necromancer. Each of these starting classes has their own unique way to play whether it be setting up boons across the battlefield, or setting yourself up with boons to grow stronger and faster as the battle goes on. While you can see the logos for each of the other classes available later on in the game they won't be available to you for some time so if you want to see them then get playing!

From the minis that we have had a chance to look at one of the most predominant features that show off how incredible these minis look is in the fabric. The two Geminate Minis (Back Right) show a creature whose primary features are shrouded by a loose cloak over their body. While their multiple legs and arms appear from under the folds their true sillouette is obscured. The fabric shows ripples where it has been bunched up and is flowing across appendages. For characters like the Drifter with more rigid armor the details in the horns and the spikes on the club let you know as soon as you spot him that he's a powerful character.

How well does everything store in Frosthaven?

I'm a sucker for a game box where everything has its own neat and tidy place, and for the most part, Frosthaven has that. From the bottom of the box, there are specific places for cards related to buildings, unlocked events, token stands, crafting, and shops. Accompanying it are the beautifully nested damage, status, and terrain token holders. These are easy to pull out and stack nicely for while playing. After that you get the books and then the instructions tell you to just put the tiles and 30+ ziplock monster bags on top of it all.

It's somewhat annoying to go from everything having its place in the case to the chaos that you end up with at the top of the box. Unfortunately, it also means that when you do need to seek out specific tiles or monsters you need to go digging around to find them extending setup time. Storage in the box is definitely better than what you get with a lot of board games, just a bit less satisfying that only 75% of the box's contents have a 'home'.

What's in the (character) box in Frosthaven?

That's right, inside your large box is a variety of smaller boxes. Each character class will have at least two boxes, a smaller one that contains a miniature and a larger one that contains everything that you'll need to play with them.

You'll have to check the rulebook to verify which of the characters you can start looking at though as there are only six available to you to start the game. As your characters retire and you complete certain goals then you'll be able to start over with a new character and get access to their boxes. To keep everything idiotproof each of the characters that you can't access yet have stickers placed over their larger boxes.

As we continue to dig deeper into Frosthaven and the new campaign set in front of us be sure to keep an eye out for a Frosthaven review in the not-too-distant future.

The copy of Frosthaven used in this feature was provided to the reviewer by the publisher