The Tavern

I had a win with a KeFE and currently think FE is weak. I want to get a IE win so I have a better idea of their relative power levels. What are the good ice spells, and what are good races for them? I will worship Vehumet because that's who I worshiped as a KeFE and I want to keep as many variables the same.

Vampires are a good IE race. I used to play Vampire Wizards, but I've grown to like Vampire IEs more. You have to worship Makhleb, though, to get around Bloodless (lack of) healing. Or just stay saturated and not take advantage of not having a food clock, either way.

Freeze is one of the best starter blasts. It may be point-blank only, but it never misses (unless you miscast) and it doesn't respect AC, making it useful even against early uniques. It's also great against those annoying imps. Throw Frost isn't so hot, but I usually learn it so I can train up Conjurations and Ice Magic for Throw Icicle, which is a great midgame blast. Other starter ice spells - Condensation Shield and Ozocubu's Armour - are more of a case by case thing, depending on the run is going. Shield is nice if you find a great two-handed weapon and/or want to train up Shields skill without taking a spellcasting hit. Armour I don't like as much, but it's useful for training up Charms so that I'll be ready for Repel/Deflect Missiles and Haste. I've never gotten much use out of Summon Ice Beast.

Ozocubu's Refrigeration is also awesome if you can find it - it barely hurts you when you're (Near) Bloodless, but it can wipe out whole screenfuls of enemies. Freezing Cloud should be standard in your arsenal, and it's easier to find. It too doesn't hurt much if you hit yourself while Bloodless...

Ice has some crossover with Necromancy (like Simulacrum), but I don't have much experience with summons, someone else will have to tell you about that. Transmutations, too (Ice Form), but that's useless for Bloodless Vampires. You might do it differently. I DID use it once when I found it early (before I converted to Makhleb) and it was pretty nice.

I've not yet gotten far enough with a VpIE to learn Ice Storm (the first few times I went Tornado instead), but I hear that's really badass, too.

To add to Vampires and Merfolk (which are simply overpowered):
Deep Elves - great apts, also in additional schools like Charms and Translocation
High Elves - wonderful at going for a long blades/Ice Magic hybrid, consider Okawaru as a god
Naga - Poison Spit helps a lot in the early game, very good HP and AC in late, balanced apts for doing basically anything in addition

Also think about trying a ghoul - they have good HP, can fight well unarmed, and don't have as much of a micromanagement-heavy food game as vampires.

I have found ghouls to have even more food-micro due to their rotting.

I've always found just eating everything I see to be a good way to get rid of rotting.

Makhleb helps with that issue to since you won't rot nearly as much. Plus, he's a strong IE god anyway (actually, a great god for nearly anyone).

Could you explain why Merfolk are so good as Ice Elementalist? The only seem to have an average aptitude in Ice Magic and Spellcasting, and a bad aptitude in Conjurations.

Mummies aren't so pitiful with an IE start.

I found Nagas pretty decent in the early game. Their spit covers range while freeze is really nasty at short range until you get your spells built up and the first ice armor gives that extra protection since they can't run.

More specifically, MfIEs get godly AC and EV at the same time (thanks to Ozocubu's Armor) while also having a crazy-good weapon aptitude in Polearms. The result is a battlemage with an unbeatable combination of great melee offense, great melee defense, and great ranged magical attacks of many different flavors. Plus they're good with charms, so grabbing Haste and Deflect Missiles is no problem. The downside is that getting stuff like Freezing Cloud castable takes forever (well, probably not so much if you're worshipping Vehumet) and breaking into high-level spells of schools other than Ice Magic and Charms isn't terribly practical.

If you insist on being blastier than that, High Elves still make decent melee hybrids but are shifted quite a bit more towards magical aptitudes (especially the ones Vehumet likes). There isn't technically anything stopping you from playing a Deep Elf or whatever and just blowing everything up, but I feel that you're wasting a lot of potential that way, especially in the early game when Freeze and Ozocubu's Armor are your go-to spells for most situations.

Demonspawn are also good. If they get the icemail mutation, you won't be wanting to use fire spells anyway, and they can get some wicked mutations.

I normally try to steer people away from mummies, but ice elementalist mummies do have some things going for them. The big one is that they work really well with Ozocubu's Refrigeration. Mummies have innate rC+, which helps deal with the self-damage, and they don't have to worry about shattering potions because they can't drink them. I would suggest sif as the god, simply for the delicious channeling.