Shadespire, the upcoming board game from Games Workshop is dropping in just two weeks on October 14th. In preparation for the game’s launch, the good folks over at Games Workshop have set up a website just for the game. For those unfamiliar with Warhammer fantasy, Shadespire is a city that has been cursed by Nagash, essentially the Arthas/Sauron/Orcus etc. of Warhammer, twisted beyond the beautiful city it once was in order to punish people for not willingly giving their souls over to, well, Nagash of course.
The Mirrored City of Shadespire is a nightmare plane of illusions and madness, an ever-changing labyrinth of endless stairs, cramped streets and soaring archways. . . Some of those now trapped in Shadespire are noble souls, determined to end the curse and deny their fate. Others are savage brutes, for whom an endless cycle of violence is its own reward.
In Shadespire two to four players take on the role of Khorne Berserkers, literal avatars of Sigmar the god-king, Orcs, or undead servants of Nagash, and bash your heads together repeatedly until only one person is still twitching around on the battle mat.
Each war band comes with detailed minis for you to put together and paint to your heart’s content. The base game comes with the Stormcast and Khorne Berserkers, the rules, cards dice and tokens you need to play. Which means if you were drooling over orcs or undead earlier you’ll have to wait for an expansion. The intent, of course, is to put out numerous expansions with various maps, added factions with bells and whistles. It’s the equivalent of releasing DLC slowly over time.
One interesting aspect is that this game features warbands, which are small groups of characters, as opposed to the huge squads of faceless marines and ratmen. It’s something we’ve seen Warhammer moving towards in both their fantasy setting and 40k. It will be interesting to see how creating smaller warbands of heroes will play out in tournaments and events in the future, and how games like Shadespire will shape the future of the hobby.