RNR - Shadespire

At the beginning of October, the 6th Annual Japan Open hit the streets of Fukuyama, and everyone had a great time!  But even though it was amazing, it is kind of nice to have the pressure off!  I have to admit, having to focus on tournament training for the past six months to the exclusion of side games and goofing off, I was going a little stir crazy!  Now that it's December, it's time for having some fun and not worrying about lists, painting, and tactics.  Phew!  In fact, there's a little something that I've been hoping to get going in the Fukuyama Gaming Club, and hopefully we'll get a chance to do it (and I'll let you in on the secret then!) in the next two months!

A surprise visit from a good friend!

Now, I'm a commissar who enjoys a surprise now and then.  And the last meeting of the FGC before the tournament had a little gem... As we were setting up, DTB told us that after our first game we were going to have to walk down to the train station to meet a new player who wanted to see if they wanted to join the group.  So down we went, and who through the crowds should appear, not a new player as we had thought, but our old friend Javi!  OHMYGOSH!!!  Javi is a former member of the FGC, way way back when we actually used to play on the floor of my apartment!  Oof, I can't even describe the backaches!  *shudder*  While he played a great game with his Retribution army, he was even better known for being one of the best Warhammer 40K players that I have ever known.  Like, in my whole life.  Several mentions in White Dwarf Magazine, and a powerhouse in tournaments all over Japan and Europe, and through it all, he is one of the best sports that I have ever had the honor to play against.  In fact, this is going to bring us to another installment of....

Don't Be A Jerk
Yes, with Javi's triumphant return to Fukuyama, I was reminded of one of my favorite stories of playing against a jerk.  Let me take you back, long long ago, to a Warhammer 40K tournament here in Japan at a local civic center.  DTB and Javi were both there, fighting it out for the Emperor, but DTB's final opponent was a little... off.  Lots of complaints, grumbling, things like that.  In true DTB fashion, he made several amazing deviation rolls in a row, and then suddenly, his die vanished.  Poof.  Just like that.  After the game was over, he found it tucked INSIDE a piece of terrain.  Ugh.  A little suspicious, but hey, no one thought too much about it.  Well, the tournament went on, and that guy and Javi made it to the finals.

There was only one problem... Javi had to catch a train in a few hours, and as anyone who has played 40K knows, games can take much, MUCH longer than that!  So, it was agreed that their game would finish at a certain time.  After only two rounds, it was already clear that Javi was going to prevail.  He offered to leave the game as it was, claiming the victory... but this guy... THIS GUY... refused, insisting that everything was about to turn into his favor, and becoming increasingly aggressive towards Javi.  Four rounds in, Javi finished wiping the board clean.  Ah, if only this guy had agreed to finish the game early... his loss would have been somewhat less complete...Anyway, angry about his defeat, he proceeded to put his fist through the wall!  He put a hole in a wall in a public building because he lost a game!  So now all anyone can remember of him was his multitude of hissyfits, that he hid someone's dice because they were "lucky"(allegedly), and that he was a bad sport.  Long story short, don't be a jerk.

Anyway, Javi wanted to bring his Warmachine force on his trip, but it was a little to much to try to bring his Retribution army with him from Spain and still convince his company that he was coming for work.  Luckily, there's a whole bunch of games that are easy to play as a pick-up, and so I got my first ever game of Shadespire in with Javi while DTB and Leland got some tournament practice in, and I have to say, for being out of Games Workshop for a few years, it was pretty fun!  Let's take a look!

Shadespire:

The basics

This was actually a pretty easy game to just run through.  Each player has only a couple of models, depending on the faction they use, each with some special abilities.  You also have a deck of cards that control things from what your goals are to upgrades for your models.  The trick to becoming a great Shadespire player is to make a killer deck.  Of course, I borrowed a pre-made deck from DTB along with his Steelheart's Champions while Javi used his Garrek's Reavers.

Steelheart's Champions, ready to kill some Khornate scum!

Warbands:

There are 12 different "Warbands" in the Shadespire game, each with different abilities, faction specific goal cards, upgrades, and benefits... let's take a quick look at the different bands you can use as you battle your way to the top!

     Garrek's Reavers: 5 models.  Human worshipers of Khorne, the Blood God.  They are crazed berzerkers, so they don't use that much armor, prefering instead to bathe in the blood of their defeated enemies.  Of course.

     Steelheart's Champions: 3 models.  Once long dead heroes from across the realms, Sigmar has collected their essence and re-animated them as immortal fighting machines, the embodiment of all that is heroic and good.

     Sepulchral Guard: 7 models.  Skeletal undead that retain their memories of their former existance, they have devoted themselves to the service of the God of Death in hopes that at some point he will see fit to free them from their horrible existance.

     Ironskull's Boyz: 4 models.  An Orruk warband, they like fighting and fighting.... and some more fighting.  Really, that's it.  Oh, make sure that you put at least a little red on them as you paint them up... never forget, the red ones go fastah!

     The Chosen Axes: 4 models.  Originally the defenders of Shadespire, these Dwarven mercenaries feel shamed that Shadespire has been cursed, and are determined to destroy the curse, free Shadespire, and redeem their honor.

     Spiteclaw's Swarm: 5 models.  Like all Skaven, Spiteclaw leads his clan in deviousness and looting, hiding in the shadows until he can swarm over unsuspecting victims, either to steal all they have or enslave them into service.

     The Farstriders:  3 models.  Another group of Stormclad Eternals like Steelheart's Champions, the Farstriders are in Shadespire searching for a cure to their ailment of slowly losing their humanity the longer they fight as Eternals.

     Magore's Fiends:  4 models.  Two words... Chaos Marines.  These are worshipers of Khorne, determined to hunt down all the warbands of Stormclad Eternals, drowning the Mirror City in blood until Khorne himself looks down in favor on them.

     Stormsire's Cursebreakers:  3 models.  Yet more Stormclad Eternals, the Cursebreakers are a group of wizards!  That's right, they can all use magic, and not only that, they get stronger when they do!

     Thorns of the Briar Queen:  7 models.  Once a death mage of unimaginable power, the Briar Queen's soul has been trapped beneath Shadespire for centuries, leading her to madness.  Now, the god of death has released her to protect the Mirrored City.

     Eyes of the Nine:  6 models.  Devotees of Tzeentch, the Lord of Change, these demons are searching for relics around Shadespire in order to connect the Mirrored City and the Realms of Chaos, allowing Tzeentch to rule.

     Zarbag's Gitz:  9 models.  Goblins and Squigs, these little Grots are in infestation that can never be truly gotten rid of.  Accidentally falling into the pleasure gardens of the former rulers of the Mirrored City only to find them overrun with fungi and Squigs, Zarbag is determined to bring as many of his kin as he can into the city.

The Story:

All good games have a back story, and Shadespire is no exception.  Long long ago... no, longer than that... nope, keep going.... There you go!  Long long long ago, Shadespire was a wonderful city that made a miraculous  substance called shadeglass, which could trap the essence of people as they died, thus preserving them in the glass and keeping them from descending into the realm of the dead.  As you might imagine, this REALLY pissed off the god of death, who decided that to simply kill everyone would be to easy a punishment, and instead inverted the shadeglass, making the Mirrored City a trap from which none could escape!  Trapped in its own reflection between the light and the dark, the inhabitants cannot leave, which means that they can't get back to the realm of the living, but also can't get out to the land of the dead either.  They're just... stuck there!  Forever!  Some warbands, like the Stormclad Eternals, are searching for a way out.  Others, like Khorne's boys, just want to kill stuff.  And even more just want to snatch what they can, like the Skaven and the Gitz.

Don't mind us, just looking for a way out

The Setup:

The players start by taking turns picking out and laying down a board.  There are a whole bunch of different boards to choose from, and they all have different layouts, thing like traps and obstacles and starting spaces and the like.  The spaces on the board are hexes, and these will count for movement and range for weapons.  You can lay the boards down however you like!  The only restriction in that 4 hexes have to be completed where the boards touch.  Then, objective hexes are randomly arranged around the completed boards.

Off center boards are the best!

Once the boards are set, the players set their two decks of cards:  one deck is for objectives, goals that you will complete in order to get points that lead to your eventual victory, and a second deck is full of upgrades for your models and actions that you can take at the end of a round.  The decks get shuffled, and then each player draws three objectives and 5 upgrades/actions.  Finally, the players take turns placing their models on the boards in designated starting hexes.

Begin!
Game play is fairly straightforward... there are three rounds in the game.  Each player will take 4 actions per round.  There are a lot of actions to choose from, and while Warbands with only three models have an easy time deciding on what to do, those with five, six, or even seven models will have to decide which models to activate each round.  Some of the Warbands have special rules that will let you sneaky move extra models each turn, and that is going to be a really important perk for larger bands.  Some potential activations each turn are:
    - moving, once per model per round (each character has a movement stat that tells you how many
              hexes they can go)
    - attacking (each character has fighting stats, including how many dice you roll and how much
              damage each attack will do)
    - charging (if you charge with a character, you can't make any other attacks with that model)
    - drawing a card (you can choose to discard a card and draw a new one instead of taking an action)

This Khorne berserker can't move again this round.

After one player takes a turn, there is a chance to use any of your card actions.  These cards can give bonuses to your next activating model, deal sudden misery to one of your opponents, cause a cave-in of shade glass, heal your models, or various other effects.  Some cards are general cards, others are Warband specific.  Again, this is where the tricky part of the games comes in... it's so important to build a good deck for your team!

Card decks, character cards, models and turn counters

At the of the round, when all players have taken 4 turns, it's time to see who gets some glory!  Collecting glory points is the goal of the game, and whoever has more at the end of the game wins!  You will get a glory point for each enemy model you destroy, but also at the end of each round players have a chance to get even more.  For each of the three objective cards that you drew at the beginning, you will receive glory points for accomplishing.  Easy objectives, like, "Hold objective marker 3" and the like, will give you only one glory point.  More difficult ones, like, "At the end of the round there are no enemy models in your area" are worth three, and incredibly difficult ones, like, "Murder all other models on the board" are worth 5!

Once each player has gotten their glory points for completed objectives, you can use them like money for any upgrades you've drawn from your upgrade/action deck.  Some of them can be used by any of the models, and some are model specific, but they all are helpful!  You can get new attacks, more wounds, better defense, all kinds of upgrades!  But again, it all goes into the deck you build for your warband, so make sure to put in a lot of thought as you select cards for the decks!

Glory points for me!

Conclusion:
Since it was my first game, and Javier is a great guy, he decided not to completely stomp me into the ground!  We had a great time, and I'm looking forward to getting my own Warband together!  I'm thinking the Thorns of the Briar Queen look like great fun, though it will be interesting to see how effective 7 models are in a four turn round!  Shadespire seems like it's going to be a great little palate cleanser between larger games, or as a nice pick-up while we wait for early morning stragglers!  I've been interested in the Age of Sigmar recently, but I don't have the extra time to devote to a whole new game system, so this is a nice way that I can just dip the proverbial toe into that world!  Cheers!