Shadespire Warbands - Do you like them neat or a mix?

[Gaz Taylor]

This is all an assumption here but I think we may see Warbands that can have a mix of characters in them in a similar way to what we see in Age of Sigmar. So for example, we have a Warband of Stormcast who have some Aelves in them. (I thought about this earlier today as was playing Final Fantasy TCG over lunch and was thinking about deck builds)

Is this something you want to see or is it okay in Age of Sigmar but not in Shadespire? If not, why not?

Personally, I'm happy with a mix as you can easily come up with a story but also this is a competitive game so you should be able to use what tools you like to use!!!  

[Mikester1487]

I'm ok with seeing it but maybe not right on the first release.  This is just my take from observing but there's a lot going on with just the coreset that people will have to pick up on. 

Also theres a mention of bonuses to boards based on your faction, and this talk of decks paired with miniatures has me interested to see what kind of combos can be achieved.  

Personally I'd love to take an ironjawz/fyreslayer warband. It would be hilarious to have a combo where a brute could throw a tiny Orange beast at other heros, but it isn't a squig.

 

[rokapoke]

Full disclosure: I haven't seen much of the information/gameplay for Shadespire. However, I'm going to speculate regardless.

I wonder if the rules would permit a Silver Tower-style warband... just like how the Silver Tower heroes can come from one or more of the Grand Alliances, and take all comers as a "team", perhaps Shadespire will narratively tie in the possibility of unlikely (temporary) allies. I imagine it would be a lot harder to achieve the balance GW is specifically targeting for this game, but it seems like it would be fun. 

[Travis Baumann]

I watched a few of the demo's and from what limited time they had to play, it looks like the war-bands will all be pre-built to ensure balance.  There are no points discussed and all the war-bands have their weapons and strengths per-determined so this is not for customizing and building war-bands.

The card deck is also not a CCG or "build a deck" type thing from what they have shown in the demos.  You each get three objective cards which correspond to an objective marker on the board.  You also get five "ability" cards that are drawn at random.  Each "game" (there are three played in rapid succession) gives each player four alternating actions.  Your actions are move, charge (move and attack),  attack, or draw a new ability card.  Once your action is resolved you may play an ability card, then the opponent can play a card, and that keeps alternating until no more cards can be played ( a number of them require someone to have died or other criteria to be played).  This is not deck building in any way but allows for a lot of random options.

In one of the demo's I saw nothing actually happened, no one died and very little board movement took place.  Each player occupied an objective hex so it was a draw.

This is really not my type of game  it seems.  I would much rather play Skirmish or Path to Glory with the diversity and options available in AoS but that is my preference.  Partially, this comes down to my own perception of lack of freedom to build my own force but also I am not too keen on the 2D quality of the gaming board and the reliance on simple mechanics over in-depth immersion.  That is just my own personal preferences though and I can see this appealing to Magic/Xwing/Boardgame players where they may have been turned off by the depth and size of even the smaller AoS type engagements.  I really like the Skeleton models however and may pick up boxed teams for use in other games.

 

[Aeryenn]

I'd rather they kept it simple and mono. Expansion = fully developed faction pack to work on its own and only this way.  In the far future = new cards/minis for existing factions. 

[Gaz Taylor]

@Travis Baumann do you think that's because the demos were set like that and more to give a high level over view of the game?

[Travis Baumann]

It is possible but I had the distinct feeling that the war-bands are going to be pre-built and not for list building.  Gauging from what was shown of the Skeleton unit, it seems to be 7 skellies which would work against 3 Stormcast and/or 5 Reavers but because each character on the mortal sides are named individuals with a somewhat unique profile card, I would anticipate that it will be tricky to just swap out characters (list build if you will) and still get a predictable power level that would be on par with any other matching.

I could be wrong, and actually would very much like to be, but in all that I have read and viewed so far I have seen no indication that war-bands will be customizable.   Here is a quote from the GW site: "Each of these sets will be composed of a small band of easy-to-assemble, push-fit miniatures in the style of our single-pose heroes to represent a specific band of warriors from that faction".   Emphasis on "specific band of warriors".  I feel that if you could build your own war-band, it would have been a better bet on GW's part to add a few extra characters in the starter set for each side to allow that to be a selling feature and give that impression right from the get-go but with the reveal of both the contents of the starter box and the first expansion faction, it does not lead me to think that.

This would be a really good question to pose to the development team and I'm surprised that it has not come up in any Q&A or discussion so far. 

From what I saw and heard it also seems that deck building is not a thing despite this line on the GW site: "Both decks of cards used in the game are fully customisable – meaning you can choose to create all manner of combinations of overlapping abilities to use and objectives to achieve. This can be a really rewarding part of the game – and means that even the same faction can be played in wildly different ways. We’re expecting to see all sorts of combinations tried out at game stores, clubs and in tournaments"..     All the cards for a given faction must come with the faction set.  From what we saw, this deck contains all the cards for your faction and is shuffled and dealt out so you have a random chance to get any card for a given faction however, that goes against this quote on the Gencon wrap up on the GW site: "These decks can be customised – one player, for example, may want to field their Stormcast Eternals as a defensive force designed to hold objectives, while another could focus on annihilating the foe with aggressive objectives and ability cards"  so while you get all the cards and don't have to do the CCG route, you may be able to pick and choose which ones are in your deck for random dealing.  Not sure how that mechanic will work yet or if the random thing was just for the demo's. 

It seems each team for Shadesprire will be a pre-packaged, self contained entity which in some ways makes it easy to collect them all and have constant variety but it depends on how much a single faction set will run us.

They tout that they have been working on this for over a year and I would imagine that is all fine-tuning mechanics and teams so that it runs smoothly and fairly.  To maintain that, you kind of need to cap people's tendency to stack the deck so to speak.

 

Just an extra bit... I am copying this from Reddit so it should be taken with the usual grains but this person says they demo'd it at Gencon and implies that they did ask specifically about the war-band customization:

1) Your squad cannot be customized: You buy a squad box with the minis and comes with all their cards. You cannot add or remove guys to squad. It is set.

2) You have to buy squad boxes to get all the cards: What you can customize is the deck of potential event cards or upgrades to your squad. However, every squad box will contain neutral cards that can be used for other squads. That means if there happens to be a really good card in another box with a squad you don't intend to play...you have to either go without it or buy the squad.

3) Objectives are random: In addition to having a deck of potential upgrades to play from, you also have a deck of objective cards. You draw 4 and refill when you complete them. However, having randomly drawn objectives worked terribly. In my demo, I had 1 round where I scored 6 objective points. My opponent scored zero. End of the game I had 11 points and my opponent had 5. I had a god draw for objective cards that took minimal effort to complete.

Rules wise the game is fairly simple. Each player gets 4 actions a round, you go back and forth with actions. You expend actions to move, charge, or attack. Each model can only have a move action spent on it once per round. If a model charges it cannot have any more actions spent on it. You can spend as many actions as you like for attacks. So that means I charge your trooper...now mine is stuck in the middle of your force and if I didn't kill the soldier I melee'd he can hit me back 4 times.

 

[someone2040]

I'm a little mixed.

Personally what I would like to see is both a 'list building' and 'deck building' aspects to the game.

I really dislike the idea of having the 3 Liberators, and needing to buy a set of 8 Deathrattle to get extra cards for my Liberators. I don't want the Deathrattle, but to get cards X, Y, and Z which I can use for my Liberators, I need to buy them.

I would like to say, take the base set of 3 Liberators. Remove a guy, and put in a Retributor or Vanguard-Hunter or something like that. Change it up, by being able to buy a 'Blister' which comes with a new character and a few cards (say 5). 

Yes, the latter is harder to balance, but from a collectors point of view I think it's more interesting. I would expect a simple points mechanism could be used to make this happen. It's also not too hard to get right IMO. If your Prime is worth 4, and 2 Libs worth 3, you don't have a huge amount of options for replacing models, it's usually like for like (Say you have a Vanguard-Hunter who is also worth 3).

 

As for mixed, I guess this adds another layer of balance that needs to be thought of. It could ultimately lead to warbands being made up of the best 3-4 models of each faction. Cards may balance this out a bit, as the faction specific cards are probably more powerful/interesting than the neutrals, and hence your card deck becomes less reliable if you mix factions.

But if it does become a problem, power creep soon follows as GW understand that for their future blisters to be purchased, they need to be competitive with the top models everyone is using.

 

So yeah, I'd like some customisation, but I've also read it doesn't seem likely to happen (or at least, not in the initial sets). I am personally non-plussed about mixed. I prefer solo factions, but I wouldn't say no to a 'mixed faction' or 'mercenaries' if customisation does land on the board.

[Gaz Taylor]

12 hours ago, Travis Baumann said:

It is possible but I had the distinct feeling that the war-bands are going to be pre-built and not for list building.  Gauging from what was shown of the Skeleton unit, it seems to be 7 skellies which would work against 3 Stormcast and/or 5 Reavers but because each character on the mortal sides are named individuals with a somewhat unique profile card, I would anticipate that it will be tricky to just swap out characters (list build if you will) and still get a predictable power level that would be on par with any other matching.

I could be wrong, and actually would very much like to be, but in all that I have read and viewed so far I have seen no indication that war-bands will be customizable.   Here is a quote from the GW site: "Each of these sets will be composed of a small band of easy-to-assemble, push-fit miniatures in the style of our single-pose heroes to represent a specific band of warriors from that faction".   Emphasis on "specific band of warriors".  I feel that if you could build your own war-band, it would have been a better bet on GW's part to add a few extra characters in the starter set for each side to allow that to be a selling feature and give that impression right from the get-go but with the reveal of both the contents of the starter box and the first expansion faction, it does not lead me to think that.

 

I think you have that wrong personally. I think GW reconise that people enjoy list building, plus you can not label a game as competitive focused and not include any elements of that. Especially as there is no way you can balance both forces whilst keeping them different (no matter how much we all like to think). This means that players who like to be really competitive will just use the one faction, which is not what GW want.  

I can see how you have come to, but I think you are taking some sales talk a bit literally and I think GW write in a similar way to myself, which is assume people know what I'm on about and then look confused when they rip my comments apart!  

12 hours ago, Travis Baumann said:

 

Just an extra bit... I am copying this from Reddit so it should be taken with the usual grains but this person says they demo'd it at Gencon and implies that they did ask specifically about the war-band customization:

1) Your squad cannot be customized: You buy a squad box with the minis and comes with all their cards. You cannot add or remove guys to squad. It is set.

I think I'll take that with a pinch of salt as I would be surprised you can not customise your warband. It may be something like you have to buy units which you can not customise (like in AOS) but your Warband is made of several units. Again, would be surprised if this is not the case as they want to sell you models!

12 hours ago, Travis Baumann said:

 

2) You have to buy squad boxes to get all the cards: What you can customize is the deck of potential event cards or upgrades to your squad. However, every squad box will contain neutral cards that can be used for other squads. That means if there happens to be a really good card in another box with a squad you don't intend to play...you have to either go without it or buy the squad.

 

Too be honest, I'm expecting this. Again they want to sell you models and not just the cards. I'm hoping you can get the cards seperately but if not it just means bits sites or ebay will be popular.

12 hours ago, Travis Baumann said:

 

3) Objectives are random: In addition to having a deck of potential upgrades to play from, you also have a deck of objective cards. You draw 4 and refill when you complete them. However, having randomly drawn objectives worked terribly. In my demo, I had 1 round where I scored 6 objective points. My opponent scored zero. End of the game I had 11 points and my opponent had 5. I had a god draw for objective cards that took minimal effort to complete.

Yeah GW seem to favour this. I wouldn't be surprised though if there is a selection of ways to play or if this was something for the demos. Hard to say at this stage

[ReynakZhen]

I really hope there will be a TON of customization options, I personally think( and I may be alone here) that it would be awesome if we could mix and match different factions so long as they're from the same grand alliance. I really want a fyreslayer berserker fighting alongside my Stormcast! or even an aelf archer providing ranged support.

[Wraith01]

I like the Shadespire Warbands pure, because the game seams so small scale and focused. Combining forces, while cool, doesn't seam appropriate for some reason.