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.

All the Warhammer-community is watching the new tabletop game from Games Workshop – Shadespire. We are not an exclusion and we’ve played couple rounds. So, let’s share the impressions!

GW solved their financial issues about big Warhammer and now they pay attention to skirmish. Shadow war: Armageddon, and Age of Sigmar – skirmish are quite interesting projects, nonetheless not super-popular. Now it’s time to try something even smaller.

Shadespire brings us quick turn-based game with activations on the fixed battlefield. The rules are very simple, and unfortunately, not original. They remind several wargames at once. Each turn players alternately activate their figures 4 times. They can move, attack, or charge. The number and type of dice required for a successful attack are stated on the character cards. The same with defense. Players also have different actions and upgrade cards in hands, which brings a nice random element to the game.

The aim is to get Glory points. They are earned by killing enemy models or completing the objectives you also have in hands. There are particular objectives taking, killing a particular number of models and so on. The interesting thing is that the game is not finished if you’ve lost all the models – a lot of objectives can be completed even after it. It’s a great point since this way the game is not reduced to just killing and requires some tactical thinking.

In general, the rules are this easy. You can confidently use all the rules by the middle of the first game. So, it’s a nice way to introduce Warhammer universe to your friends. They might like to try the full-scale game after they’ve played Shadespire. There are also multi-player mods and «capture the flag». We might also expect some new ones – more battlefields, cards, and abilities will definitely improve the game.

It’s nicely played. Mainly because of the fact that all information is on the cards in front of you. You don’t have to keep multiple stats and combinations in mind. Shadespire is a great thing for a couple of relaxed evenings with friends. However, there can be problems with replayability.

There are really few miniatures in the army. For example, Stormcasts player has only 3. The highest number of the shown armies is 7 – for skeletons. The rules for each are simple and mostly standardized. It’s enough for the tabletop game. But here GW tries to compete with such giants like Malifaux and Infinity. And Shadespire greatly lacks depth for it. There are not so many combinations and gameplay elements. There are no markers, terrain and you are limited in the ways to fight. Even the movement of your soldiers is limited by hexes.

However, considering all this, we can’t say that Shadespire is a bad game. Just don’t expect such complex hobby like other skirmish wargames. And, sure, like full-scale Warhammer. It’s a nice tabletop game, which will help you and your friends to spend some evenings with a cup of tea (yes, tea). Let’s hope that releases of new miniatures and play modes will keep Shadespire interesting. This game really deserves better.

Find more in our blog: https://warzone40k.com/warhammer-shadespire-review

Should I visit Teena's site again or debate away happily here.....

Lost me at giants like Malifaux and Infinity and the obvious misunderstanding of what this game appears to actually be about (which is not skirmish games).

This review is a poor one for a couple of reasons;
First off, you seem to be misunderstanding the product. I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that this is in any way comparable to malifaux or infinity - it seems the review has been written by someone who believes Shadespire is supposed to be a wargame rather than a board game, and has drawn erroneous conclusions thusly.
Your comparison is no further wrong than comparing Infinity to X-wing because they both use minis, or Malifaux to magic because they both use cards. It's a very bad comparison because the games being compared have so little in common (as far as design, product, target audience, etc).
That's the first point I want to address. The second is a glaring ommission of a major feature of this game; Deck Building.
Each player brings a deck of cards to every game of shadespire, comprised of objectives, upgrades and 'event' cards. Going with the FFG approach, each expansion adds new cards to the pool that a player can use to build his deck. This adds a huge amount of replayability, as with different designed decks armies will play much differently.
Third point to address is the ommission of expansions. While briefly mentioned out if context above, one of the major aspects of Shadespire will be the various teams players can play; with all the expansions believed to be released before christmas, you are looking at a combined total of 6 new teams, on top of the 2 starter set teams. This will be the main method of keeping the game fresh (ala X-wing). The pricing is good/fair as well, so picking them up monthly will be easy for most of us.
That was my third point, but I have more.
You mention Malfiaux and Infinity as "giants" when they are hardly such. This is misleading at best, and shows bias at worst. 'Established' would be a better word choice.
You mention there are no markers or terrain. This is blatantly false. All one had to do is look at the picture you posted, or watch/read an actual review to learn that there are markers and they are important to use. That ommission seems the most telling that your review was composed by someone who read the rules, rather than playing the game.
You made no mention of the objective markers, or how the board can be set up.
You made no mention of the Inspired mechanic, how combat works or even how cards are played.

The bottom line here is that this review is a poorly constructed one, that relies on cursory knowledge to make experienced statements that don't hold up to even the briefest examination. That isn't to say that it's wrong to not like the game; I am fully aware that shadespire has a few less than loved aspects. But disliking apples because they aren't oranges is foolish, and that seems to be the nature of this review, and frankly "This game really deserves better."

Yeah boss, this isn't a skirmish game, it's a competitive deck-building game that happens to use miniatures for context. It's got more in common with X-Wing than Malifaux or Infinity (neither of which are giants).

As for replayability, that's going to come more when more factions come out (2 in standard box, 2 expansions already announced, and 2 more promised before the end of the year). With 6 factions and all of the generic cards that can be swapped around to change your deck, as well as the different ways to deploy and arrange the boards, people will be making different strategies to try to create the most powerful combination. If it's balanced, then there will be several different kinds.

drbored wrote:
Yeah boss, this isn't a skirmish game, it's a competitive deck-building game that happens to use miniatures for context. It's got more in common with X-Wing than Malifaux or Infinity (neither of which are giants).

A couple of quick questions...

1. So which skirmish games are the 'giants' of the industry. And by skirmish, I mean where you have miniatures all acting solo, not groups/squads.

2. Do I get enough of a selection of cards in the base set to 'deck build' with, or do I have to buy a set of forthcoming figures I have no desire for, to get more cards?

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

drbored wrote:
Yeah boss, this isn't a skirmish game, it's a competitive deck-building game that happens to use miniatures for context. It's got more in common with X-Wing than Malifaux or Infinity (neither of which are giants).

A couple of quick questions...

1. So which skirmish games are the 'giants' of the industry. And by skirmish, I mean where you have miniatures all acting solo, not groups/squads.

2. Do I get enough of a selection of cards in the base set to 'deck build' with, or do I have to buy a set of forthcoming figures I have no desire for, to get more cards?

1. Age of Sigmar has it's own Skirmish rules. I'd say that's the closest to a 'giant' that I can think of. From what I've seen, and this is anecdotal, there are many more Age of Sigmar players than there are Infinity and Malifaux players combined. There's also X-Wing and Armada, which are the true giants when it comes to skirmish tabletop games.

2. In the starter set you get pre-built decks for both the Stormcast Eternals and the Khorne Reivers. Taking those two decks, you will have some faction-specific cards and some generic cards. Use the generic cards to build your deck as you see fit.

In each expansion (Skeletons and Orruks, etc), there will be additional generic cards. If you want to use those cards, you'll need to get those expansions. In that way, it's just like X-wing. It's up to you if you want to buy those expansions, and like some X-Wing players, there will be those that will find ways to scan/print the cards to save money. *shrug*

drbored wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

drbored wrote:
Yeah boss, this isn't a skirmish game, it's a competitive deck-building game that happens to use miniatures for context. It's got more in common with X-Wing than Malifaux or Infinity (neither of which are giants).

A couple of quick questions...

1. So which skirmish games are the 'giants' of the industry. And by skirmish, I mean where you have miniatures all acting solo, not groups/squads.

2. Do I get enough of a selection of cards in the base set to 'deck build' with, or do I have to buy a set of forthcoming figures I have no desire for, to get more cards?

1. Age of Sigmar has it's own Skirmish rules. I'd say that's the closest to a 'giant' that I can think of. From what I've seen, and this is anecdotal, there are many more Age of Sigmar players than there are Infinity and Malifaux players combined. There's also X-Wing and Armada, which are the true giants when it comes to skirmish tabletop games.

2. In the starter set you get pre-built decks for both the Stormcast Eternals and the Khorne Reivers. Taking those two decks, you will have some faction-specific cards and some generic cards. Use the generic cards to build your deck as you see fit.

In each expansion (Skeletons and Orruks, etc), there will be additional generic cards. If you want to use those cards, you'll need to get those expansions. In that way, it's just like X-wing. It's up to you if you want to buy those expansions, and like some X-Wing players, there will be those that will find ways to scan/print the cards to save money. *shrug*

I've not seen the rules for Shadespire. Are decks the same size? I see GW have been apparently tight and put 35 and 37 card sleeves exactly in the relevant sets. Does that mean those decks are limited to bizarre sizes? From your description of deck building (without releasing boosters of cards) I kinda thought you'd get more cards in a base set than needed and got to select a fixed amount from them. In a base set (or booster) for X-wing you get multiple ship cards and choices in what to use. Is this Shadespire starter set totally fixed in what to use?

As for your answer to point 1. AoS skirmish as the 'giant'? Really?
I've have seen 'normal' AoS played, as well as X-wing, Malifaux, Infinity, Deadzone, Dead Man's Hand, Rogue Stars, Song of Blades and Heroes (and other variants eg MDRG), Scrappers, Dracula's America and many more within the last year or so. But never AoS skirmish. It may be the top played Skirmish game where you are, but I'm sure that's only anecdotal.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

drbored wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

drbored wrote:
Yeah boss, this isn't a skirmish game, it's a competitive deck-building game that happens to use miniatures for context. It's got more in common with X-Wing than Malifaux or Infinity (neither of which are giants).

A couple of quick questions...

1. So which skirmish games are the 'giants' of the industry. And by skirmish, I mean where you have miniatures all acting solo, not groups/squads.

2. Do I get enough of a selection of cards in the base set to 'deck build' with, or do I have to buy a set of forthcoming figures I have no desire for, to get more cards?

1. Age of Sigmar has it's own Skirmish rules. I'd say that's the closest to a 'giant' that I can think of. From what I've seen, and this is anecdotal, there are many more Age of Sigmar players than there are Infinity and Malifaux players combined. There's also X-Wing and Armada, which are the true giants when it comes to skirmish tabletop games.

2. In the starter set you get pre-built decks for both the Stormcast Eternals and the Khorne Reivers. Taking those two decks, you will have some faction-specific cards and some generic cards. Use the generic cards to build your deck as you see fit.

In each expansion (Skeletons and Orruks, etc), there will be additional generic cards. If you want to use those cards, you'll need to get those expansions. In that way, it's just like X-wing. It's up to you if you want to buy those expansions, and like some X-Wing players, there will be those that will find ways to scan/print the cards to save money. *shrug*

I've not seen the rules for Shadespire. Are decks the same size? I see GW have been apparently tight and put 35 and 37 card sleeves exactly in the relevant sets. Does that mean those decks are limited to bizarre sizes? From your description of deck building (without releasing boosters of cards) I kinda thought you'd get more cards in a base set than needed and got to select a fixed amount from them. In a base set (or booster) for X-wing you get multiple ship cards and choices in what to use. Is this Shadespire starter set totally fixed in what to use?

As for your answer to point 1. AoS skirmish as the 'giant'? Really?
I've have seen 'normal' AoS played, as well as X-wing, Malifaux, Infinity, Deadzone, Dead Man's Hand, Rogue Stars, Song of Blades and Heroes (and other variants eg MDRG), Scrappers, Dracula's America and many more within the last year or so. But never AoS skirmish. It may be the top played Skirmish game where you are, but I'm sure that's only anecdotal.

So, to address your concern about random deck sizes, they're actually fixed. The reason they have a difference in card sleeves is because of the number of Character cards that you have in each force. The Stormcast Eternals have 3 characters and the Khorne Reivers have 5. So, the decks you have are your 12 Objectives, 20 card deck, and then the number of cards for your characters, making the total 35 for SCE and 37 for Khorne.

The decks are probably going to be tight across the board but if you, alone, are buying the starter set, you'll have two decks worth of objectives and power and ploy cards to use to build one deck for your force. If you are splitting it with a friend, then the options become more limited. If you wish to play friendly games, then this is totally fine, but if you want to get into the competitive aspect of the game, getting different decks and combining the best cards for your strategy is going to be key. For competitive purposes, you'd want to get a starter set all for yourself so you can discover which combos and builds are the best.

-

Your LGS is much more varied than any I've seen. At Malifaux's inception I saw maybe 4 players play it for about a month before they retreated back to other wargames. Warmahordes took off for a while, and it, too, flopped at my local LGS. Everyone kept falling back to Fantasy or 40k. X-Wing has been the only thing that's really stuck around, and then Armada came out and the group got split up between those that prefer big ships and those that prefer little ships.

The rest that you've mentioned I've never seen on a table between a game store in California, one in Florida, and three in Texas. But, again, that's just anecdotal.

Well this is easily the most negative review of Shadespire I have seen so far. The problem is that the reviewer seems to fundamentaly misunderstand what the game is. GW has plenty of games to compete with infinity etc most notably the upcoming Necromunda.
Shadespire is a board game ccg hybrid with miniatures.
It's strengths are ease of set up, small space needed compared to GW's other games, (even space hulk and Silver tower need a lot of space) and quick smooth play with a decent tactical layer provided by the cards.
It is fine if that is not what you are in the market for, but you should review a game for what it is not what it isn't.

Not sure on this review. Played it a couple times and its nothing like malifaux or infinity (both being really big in my area) this is a boardgame, not really a miniatures game. I did find it much better than AoS skirmish (so far, but we still need a lot more factions for this) I think it will be better with more factions but it also really could use some more boards, or it will get really boring really fast.

The game has just released and the options are limited. Even so, theres plenty of game to be found with just the starter box and you CAN configure your decks for different approaches to the game.

That said, the game wont show its true potential until we have a few more warbands and a lot more cards!

And more boardtiles of course, we need more boardtiles! Maybe even of varying size?

I think the point of the review is "this is a board game, not a miniatures game" and to a degree that's fair and true. The disappointing aspect of it is that it spends a lot of time reaching that point and not stating it upfront and reviewing the product in light of that information.

In terms of cards, there's a fair amount of deck building in the core set. For each side you get 18 objective cards to build a deck of 12 and I believe 30 upgrade/ploy cards to build a deck of 20. The expansions are all new cards, which is definitely where the game is getting greedy, but there's an aspect of that "really a board game" design that's important to that issue.

Something not super obvious is that the warbands are apparently set in stone. You're not buying a "faction" here that will continue to expand. The rulebook mentions additional Stormcast models for example, but the impression is that there's no swapping them for existing models; they'll just play as their own faction as different from the current one as the Orks. In some ways, that's kind of freeing in my mind, but at the same time, how problematic it is will come down to how important new cards will be for competitive play.

If you have any gameplay questions, go to BGG. The game's also been reviewed there.

ced1106 wrote:
If you have any gameplay questions, go to BGG. The game's also been reviewed there.

There is also a r/warhammerunderworlds, so plenty of places to discuss the game and post images of your paintjobs.

This is definitely a board game, also in its infancy. Having played around with the starter over the weekend i'm pretty happy with my purchase.