Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Jury is out for me.

Nothing against the game, and haven't played it.

But, not a fan of the card issue. I'm waiting to see if it's as bad as X-Wing in that regard. If the cards in other warbands are merely 'useful', not so bad. I could be persuaded. But, if the cards in other warbands are 'near compulsory', I'll leave it well alone. Not a fan of 'victory to he with the deepest pockets'.

As for the Tournament side? Seems to be off to a good start, certainly haven't noticed much grumbling about it (if indeed any). But, early doors. Time yet for GW to get bored and wander off....

More or less how I feel, although a decent Elf gang and a stand alone 'all the cards' bundle might convince me otherwise

From what others have said, it's not quite as bad as X-Wing - at least for the moment.

Seems the difference is that in X-Wing, you need to buy Ship B to make Ship A any cop. In Shadespire, having the other packs just opens up additional strategies to you - but you can work just as well with the main game and those in your warband box.

Downside? Reasonable X-Wing players won't mind if you don't have an actual copy of the card. In Shadespire, because you play from a deck, you will need the actual copy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
From what others have said, it's not quite as bad as X-Wing - at least for the moment.

Seems the difference is that in X-Wing, you need to buy Ship B to make Ship A any cop. In Shadespire, having the other packs just opens up additional strategies to you - but you can work just as well with the main game and those in your warband box.

Downside? Reasonable X-Wing players won't mind if you don't have an actual copy of the card. In Shadespire, because you play from a deck, you will need the actual copy.

This is very easily solved with either printing out all your cards so they look the same or using sleeves with a opaque colour so you can't tell if it's a GW printed or a copyshop printed card.

With 2 decks and 12/20 cards being the minimum deck size, this is very reasonable.

As for me, I have played the game a few times now, and I quite like it. The faction specific cards really gives a different feel for each warband.
For the pricepoint, I think it's a very good and quick game with nice miniatures.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
From what others have said, it's not quite as bad as X-Wing - at least for the moment.

Seems the difference is that in X-Wing, you need to buy Ship B to make Ship A any cop. In Shadespire, having the other packs just opens up additional strategies to you - but you can work just as well with the main game and those in your warband box.

Downside? Reasonable X-Wing players won't mind if you don't have an actual copy of the card. In Shadespire, because you play from a deck, you will need the actual copy.

Sleave the cards, print the card you need and paste on a spare card?

That's like.....effort.

Not something I'm especially noted for, but a reasonable work around for those who can be bothered! (amount of faff would see me simply buy the warbands).

You know, I think I'm gonna give it to the release of the Stunty and Skaven sets. If they contain truly meta changing cards, I'll not bother.

How do I define truly meta changing? As in 'every Shadespire player has bought that set specifically for that card, because it does the job of these three others which are also popular'. Likely an exaggeration on my behalf there, but only for clarity!

if there was a PP style PDF card database I'd be all over this game, as having played GB and WMH a little scissor and prittstik is par for the course, and gives the squillons of worthless CCG cards I own something to do, but I fully get why GW wont (although the recent thing was darn close)

I am definitely going to get Ironskulls Boyz, but mostly for the great-looking Ironskull to be the boss for my orc skirmish force in games of One Page Fantasy, and the rest to be generic Black Orcs, to the extent that I'm going to take one of the maces from the dual mace guy, and swap it with the axe with the other dual wielder, so I'll have two Boyz with choppa/mace.

I’m loving shadespire so far, the games are quick and whilst the models need a bit of cleaning love and filler here and there they look lovely painted up and on the table.

Looking forward to the stunties and rats.

I have found i like the models much much more than the game itself.

It's all I've been playing for the last while and some of the other friends have been attracted to it more and more.

1. Doesn't need a massive table space or any terrain collection while still being balanced for both sides
2. Doesn't have excessive +/- modifiers and tracking and no shenanigans for % cover, LoS, vertical movement, ammo etc.
3. Doesn't need to waste time with measuring distances which I feel is a huge one compared to all other TT games (also no cheesing extra inches for moving/shooting for whose in range). Cut, clear, fast and fair
4. Each expansion adds a good chunk to the game while still easy to understand as the game grows
5. Dont need a massive investment or other people to have a full force to play. Have had non TT game friends play and like it
6. Low dead time, such as the large game you go I go phases with drawn out 10 min movement for huge armies while the other guy just sits and does nothing
7. No pay to win super heavy expensive unit spam. Even if you dont have all the cards you can still make winning decks

Dorfs and rats coming on the 17th of Feb. I guess I can finally start playing.

As a hardcore warmachine player, I was on the fence between putting time into playing Company of Iron or jumping into this. This thread had convinced me to jump into Shadespire.

Yay:

1. Warband pieces are fixed... no dealing with spam or certain high powered pieces making everything else worthless.
2. Very easy to set up and play, generally easy to understand the rules, and the bookkeeping/modifiers are very minimal or there is a counter for everything in the actual game.
3. Ruleset is relatively well written, in many cases the terminology is well defined. You can usually look things up in the back of the rulebook to solve interpretation disputes
4. Beautiful models, nice dynamic poses and cool faction-specific bases included with the model. Not to mention colored plastic that takes the edge off playing the occasional guy that didnt paint anything.
5. Gameplay is usually very dynamic, since there are different objectives always in play you are always having to guess what objectives your enemy is trying to score. Makes the game always interesting and
often has a very close or surprising outcome.
6. Game is very fast paced, no IGOUGO dead time and analysis paralysis. Even a lot of the ploys are reactions that occur at specific events or a obvious in a lot of situations if you want to play them or not.
7. 3-player and 4-player games are actually super fun and not too complicated, and it's a great way to get new players quickly immersed into the game and excited about it.

Nay:

1. It's too early to tell but the game will most likely transition into certain highly powerful card combos dominating competitive play. There are already 'good' and 'bad' cards, and GW does not have a great history with making
solidly balanced and well-playtested games. But so far i would say the game is still viable for competitive play.
2. Lack of terrain might put of people who enjoy using nice terrain as part of a skirmish game.
3. Every expansion is probably going to be a must-buy in terms of staying on the power curve. So plan on getting every expansion that comes out, but the bright side of this is that there is a decent number of cards, and great models and it's only 30 bucks.
And you don't need to factor in terrain costs as part of the overall cost... in comparison to other games it's still really cheap.
4. The fixed warbands and the fact that some powerful combos might emerge the game might start to feel 'samey'... end up playing 3 or four games that end up being the same sort of thing. Hasn't happened to me yet though

 Meade wrote:

3. Every expansion is probably going to be a must-buy in terms of staying on the power curve. So plan on getting every expansion that comes out, but the bright side of this is that there is a decent number of cards, and great models and it's only 30 bucks.
And you don't need to factor in terrain costs as part of the overall cost... in comparison to other games it's still really cheap.

I'm super on the fence on this. It's super true outside of the core set and that made it seem unquestionably true with the first two expansions. Two more expansions and I'm realizing that I'm not really sure what I'd cut from my decks for the new cards. The skeleton deck seems mandatory though.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Meade wrote:

3. Every expansion is probably going to be a must-buy in terms of staying on the power curve. So plan on getting every expansion that comes out, but the bright side of this is that there is a decent number of cards, and great models and it's only 30 bucks.
And you don't need to factor in terrain costs as part of the overall cost... in comparison to other games it's still really cheap.

I'm super on the fence on this. It's super true outside of the core set and that made it seem unquestionably true with the first two expansions. Two more expansions and I'm realizing that I'm not really sure what I'd cut from my decks for the new cards. The skeleton deck seems mandatory though.

Well I've only had about a day to go through the new cards and try them out, and of course it all depends on the decks you're using and what cards are the best for them, but there a few new cards that are 'auto-include' for me at least.

one is 'earthquake' which moves every piece on the board one hex in any direction... great for my deck because i can shift everyone from their objectives in a single stroke and my deck doesn't rely on objective marker-taking.

second one is a 'ready for action' which gives you a free action when you equip someone.

third is another card in the rat expansion that is a ploy, and you play it and equip any item for free without paying the usual glory cost. I'm guessing that card will make the rounds in people's decks.

I also tried the 'kataphron' or whatever upgrade that gets more powerful the more of a set you get, and IMO it's not super powerful. The first piece of armor you equip does nothing, and by the time you get out the fourth (which i have) it is the third round and there things are pretty much getting cleaned up, you might even be out of power cards to draw (unless you are using more than 20 cards, in which case it will be harder to get out more of the set in any case).


the cards will also be for sale separately on ebay most likely after the game gets popular, and in any case it still cheap: compare a shadespire pack to an xwing pack: in xwing you pay 30 bucks, get one chunk of plastic, and about 20 cards. Shadespire you get a whole playable gang, and about 60 cards.

and xwing is still supposedly a 'cheap' game (compared to games like 40k)

It's also very possible that Shadespire will only ever have 8 warbands, and by the time the next two will be released, will be a complete game in itself. If that's indeed the case, that would put a cap on how much you need to spend to have everything.
And the next iteration of Warhammer Underworld would also have a finite number of warbands, always keeping things in check.