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I like that they haven't made the Stormcast guys specific to the Hammers of Sigmar stormhost .

They aren't locked to a specific host like Neeve Blacktalon? Cool.

Painting gold is boring. I much prefer the cool tones of my Celestial Vindicators!

So Obryn Grandhammer deal 3 damage but Blooded Saek Axe deal only 1. Because reason.

Chopstick wrote:
So Obryn Grandhammer deal 3 damage but Blooded Saek Axe deal only 1. Because reason.

Khorne is weak!

Seems like Obryn killing Saek is playing into the Bloodbounds hands though. From what I've seen they get as much or more glory from charging and dying as killing the enemy.

On the topic of converted warbands, Did the visuals really play that much of a roll? You cant just swap out the three stormcast for something else?

If the visuals aren't that big of a deal, then heck, I've got painted minis for both warbands ready to go as soon as I open the box.

Might not be a bad idea to do this until I get the push fit figures painted...

I don't think visuals are gonna be that important, but I suppose a minimun relation is gonna be neded.

For example, changing the Liberator with a Hammer for a Palladin with an axe or a Double-glaive, the Female-Stormcast for other stormcast with one-hand weapon+Shield and the Boss with the two hand sword for other kind of... stormcast hero, should be easy to remember and to not confuse people.


Or just converthing the models with different bases, heads, more decorations to their armours, weapons (Like Duncan did in the Warcom article)

As long as it is very clear and immediately recognizable it shouldn't be a problem. IMO a good way of checking would be if someone can look at your warband and tell who is who without you saying anything.

Love the heroic unit warscrolls, very cool and well done.

IIRC the models being easily recognisable as the character they represent is meant to be important. There was the usual talk of silhouettes.

As the game is intended to be competitive from the ground up we may see rules on conversions for *tournament* play.

I would not be surprised if, for example, most of a model has to come from the original model it is intended to represent.

I like the fact that they have finished some conversion ready

I'm really glad they took the heroic unit approach to make them distinct. I had hoped they would do that exact thing for the Death Guard Plague Brethren

It's definitely easier and better than trying to work the models into an existing unit. Waiting to see the skeletons now.

O have my copy now.

Reading through the rules I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the core game comes with spare cards that can be used to customise the two pre-built decks that come with the game.

Those "unique-but-not-hero" warscrolls are fine, IMO.

And yet, making the Sepulchral Warden a Hero would have been a good idea - fighting as a Wight king lieutenant.

(We'll see, but I don't think he'll be different than what we got today in terms of Unique unit warscrolls...)

 HorticulusDK wrote:
Those "unique-but-not-hero" warscrolls are fine, IMO.

And yet, making the Sepulchral Warden a Hero would have been a good idea - fighting as a Wight king lieutenant.

(We'll see, but I don't think he'll be different than what we got today in terms of Unique unit warscrolls...)

Agreed the warbands so far work well - but the Sephulchral Warden does seem to be a character Wight King which would be ancie addiiton to the Bonerattle armies?

Going through the cards and what have been shown in unboxing videos, the types/quantity of cards for the entire Shadespire set appears to be:

232 Warband Specific Cards (#001 to #232) - 29 cards for each Warband. There should be 8 Warbands in Shadespire. Each Warband has 9 Specific Objective Cards, 10 Specific Ploy Cards, and 10 Specific Upgrade Cards.

75 Universal Objective Cards (#233 to #307) - Core Set comes with 2 copies of 9 Universal Objective Cards. Each Shadespire expansion has 11 additional Universal Objective Cards.

65 Universal Ploy Cards (#308 to #372) - Core Set comes with 2 copies of 5 Universal Ploy Cards. Each Shadespire expansion has 10 additional Universal Ploy Cards.

65 Universal Upgrade Cards (#373 to #437) - Core Set comes with 2 copies of 5 Universal Upgrade Cards. Each Shadespire expansion has 10 additional Universal Upgrade Cards.

Lots of card options to make the same warband play differently.

If GW ever do remake Mordheim, I would like I've to see it set in Shadespire (with a load of scenery options) - the lure for the place is great, and a potential warp stone substitute is already well established.

Game itself, I cannot wait to play - hopefully tomorrow - but all minis built ready. I substituted Brightsjield (the female stormcast),s default head for the optioned helm for the female leader of Blight Wars - and have to admit, that one looks far more suited to the Shadespire aesthetic IMO.

Clockpunk wrote:
If GW ever do remake Mordheim, I would like I've to see it set in Shadespire (with a load of scenery options) - the lure for the place is great, and a potential warp stone substitute is already well established.

Game itself, I cannot wait to play - hopefully tomorrow - but all minis built ready. I substituted Brightsjield (the female stormcast),s default head for the optioned helm for the female leader of Blight Wars - and have to admit, that one looks far more suited to the Shadespire aesthetic IMO.

Honestly I could see the first AOS video game being shadespire in a few years time.

I could see (and want) that, a game set around Hammerhal could also be a good choice. Lots of lore focus and details while being not too far from when GW started handing out the AoS license.

If GW ever do remake Mordheim, I would like I've to see it set in Shadespire

That's my guess, a big boxset that's AoS skirmish 2.0 as your warband and ShadeSpire heroes all duke it out for valuables while trying not to end up as Nagash's playthings.

Hammerhal could be good, i'd imagine it would look a lot like the existing Hammerhal tiles for WHQ. But I wouldn't mind seeing a booster of two more unique double sided boards for Shadespire. Maybe one with the ground cracking open and bones spilling out, or one with more shadeglass littered everywhere. Just for the sake of more visual variety in games...keeps the setting interesting.

Hell, they could even pull a christmas/holiday themed double sided tile for the game during december if they wanted. They did the same with Blood Bowl. They would have to be more conservative with the snow though.

I finished assembling the models yesterday, pretty happy with everything so far. Just a little bit of gap filling to do on a couple spots.

I know we have the Shattered Dominion bases, as well as the Skulls/Flora base kits, but I’d pay money to have more bases like what the Khorne warband is given. Wouldn’t have to use the cracked earth texture paints or the skulls from the basing kit. Which is probably why we won’t see them!

So I played shadespire today.

Just one game. I knew the rules, my opponent was not that caught on the rules. Both of us enjoy playing warhammer and competetive Magic the Gathering. Seing how shadespire has elements from both I feel competent to give a good opinion on it. Here are my thoughts on it:

Some parts of the game is good, but if it is enjoyable depends wholy on the two decks you bring to the game. Your glory condition, known as your win conditions, and your action and upgrade cards.

The crux of the game is that it only lasts 3 turns. You have 4 actions each turn so you only have 12 moves. That is very small. Your action cards come into play here, as they let you break the 12 actions by taking minor smaller actions.

In our game, I was the Sigmar Incarnate warriors, I sett up quite a long way from the Khorn player. I had glory quests that just meant I could get 2 glory turn 1 with no interaction from my oponent. My oponent need to fight me in some way to get glory.

Turn 1 my oponent moved all his turn. Turn 2 was some action. Turn 3 I had killed 2 of my opponents units (one in turn 2, one in the beginning of turn 3.) Because of several things my opponent could not score glory. I won 5 to 1. Note that I could also sett up the two maps much further away, meaning he would probably need to spend turn 2 walking towards me as well.

In order for this game to be good stalling and delaying should not be a prime tactic. I suppose that depends on what glory quests they print. Also, some of the upgrade cards are really really bad. If you draw to many of them they flood your hand since you need glory to play them. The action cards I do not think you need glory to play (am I reading that wrong?) The action cards are much better since they are free, you can just run them out, and you need ways to break the bad 'only 12 moves a game'. For instance one of the action cards lets you move a model 1 square. That is huge, and very good. Another card that saved my units was a healing potion that gained me 2 life.

If you want to play the game make sure you play only good glory quests. Many of them are horrible. And also put as few upgrade cards as you want in your upgrade/action deck, and put as many actions as you can find.

Any other players experience?

I don't think one should see a full 3-turn-12 moves as a full game but as a round. Best of three, with how fast this games play, should be the normalized format for a full "game".

Agreed. Larger tournaments should even consider a best of five situation for the top cut of swiss. I think a 5 power 2 objective sideboard might be appropriate as well, once the card pool expands.

There are certain cards now, especially upgrades, that will be mostly dead in certain matchups. Sigmar cards that grant Cleave against the Khorne, for example.

@Niiai, keep in my your power deck has to be made up of at least half upgrade cards. You can't run a deck full of ploys.

@Wuwu and right you are. I like this game even less now.

It is very draw dependent and lucky. My opponent had no chance when I deployed defensivly. If I wanted to be even more defensive I would have put of the board on the long side and just camped for the first 2 rounds gaining glory. 1 round left. Fun, fun fun.

He'd probably lost because he let Blooded Saek and/or karsus the Chained died earlier. Blooded Saek once inspire cleave through stormcast like butter. and Karsus the chained can stay at 2 hex and taking cheap shot at SC if you camp objective. Khorne are the fastest team in the game, so he'd probably didn't think before he join his side of the board.

Do not let Blooded Saek and karsus the chained got killed, Garrek Gorebeard can be the fat meat and died earlier if require.

 Niiai wrote:
@Wuwu and right you are. I like this game even less now.

It is very draw dependent and lucky. My opponent had no chance when I deployed defensivly. If I wanted to be even more defensive I would have put of the board on the long side and just camped for the first 2 rounds gaining glory. 1 round left. Fun, fun fun.

Even with the base game there are lots of things you can do to mitigate this problem. You can redraw your entire hand at the beginning of the game if you get poorly suited cards. You can use an activation to draw extra power cards or exchange one objective card. The objectives are secret so as the Stormcast player you never know if your opponent has objectives that benefit them or not. This is a deck building game so as the Khorne player against a defensively orientated Stormcast player your can build a hand to counter that.
If I was playing you I would move two of my Khorne guys towards two mid table objectives and look very happy about it in order to draw you forwards.
I could definitely a bit of bluffing entering competitive play.

 Niiai wrote:


It is very draw dependent and lucky.

You can see half of your action and objective decks before the first action takes place. That's not what I would call draw dependant.

So a quick strategy guide for stormwarden defensivly. Just theoretical of course:

1. Hold objective 1. Hold objective 1: Gain one glory.
2. Hold objective 2. Hold objective 2: Gain one glory.
3. Hold objective 3. Hold objective 3: Gain one glory.
4. Hold objective 4. Hold objective 4: Gain one glory.
5. Hold objective 5. Hold objective 5: Gain one glory.
6. Sigmar's Bulwark. Score if none of your Stomrcast lost a wound. 1 Glory.
7. Lightning strikes. Score if you charge and slay someone. 1 Glory.
8. Consecrated area. Have no enemies next to you. 1 Glory.
9. Immovable Object. If a friendly fighter has held 2 objectives for 2 action phases. 1 Glory.
10. Eternals. Have all 3 fighters alive at the end of the game. 3 Glory.
11. Unknown.
12. Unknown.

This is my suggestion for an optimal defensive startegy. If you get to place 3 objectives put them all as far back as possible. If only get to place 2 objectives, but you can place the 2. board, just put the board on the long way and put your objectives as far back as possible.

Counter objectives would include:
Conquest: All surviing models are in your opponents deployment sone. 2 Glory.
Denial: Score in 3. endphase if there are no fighters in your teritory. 3 glory.
Supermancy: Score this if you hold 3 objectives.

If the optimal strategy is to not attack the opponent I think the game has a huge problem. In particular if the khorne player has to use 4 (long side boards) or 8 (short side boards) activations just to get within mellee range to me. Also keep in mind the stormcast has a better chance of killing one of the many chaos models for 1 more glory.

Got to play a few games and have not tried customizing decks yet. From a casual play, the two warbands do feel different and thus has been enjoyable.

I have not even considered this for tournament-league play yet, since the core set alone does not give ample options and variety for tournament play, imo. I will wait to see how the next two expansion expand on the options available. The 62 new optional cards should hopefully allow the same warbands to be played very differently.