Minis roundup #2: Dreamblade

I got into Dreamblade almost a year ago, but I don't think I've ever written about it. Which is a shame, because it's flat out amazing.

Dreamblade is a really really good game. It's a mix of Ameritrash and Euro-style elements... and it works. There's combat with a ton of dice rolls, like a minis game, or Descent. The movement is strategic, somewhat like a light abstract (like checkers or chess). The victory point scoring is straight out of a Eurogame. What's impressive is that it all hangs together -- forming a coherent, fun game with the best of everything. The variety of figures is pretty impressive, even with just the base set, and the four factions differentiate themselves well.

Unfortunately for Dreamblade, it was packaged as a collectible game with a horrible theme (nightmare monsters, wtf). They're well designed, well sculpted, and well painted, but at the end of the day who's going to make an effort to collect an army of two-headed gorillas? It would really have helped if it were packaged as a boardgame with all the bits in one box. Yes, I know I say that about everything but in this case it's exceptionally true. Unappealing figures and a high barrier to entry killed this game.
So how do you get into a dead collectible game? In this case, I got a few starters when they were on sale, shopped for some singles on local forums. Last month I finally finished my goal of getting two of each common and one of each uncommon in the base set. Fortunately, the way the numbers work out it's easy to put together straight up preconstructed faction armies (ie. One of each blue and red common VS two of each green common). Treating it as an out-of-print boardgame instead of a dead CMG makes it much more appealing to play.

Overall, I really like it. I should bring it out whenever there's an opportunity for a two player game.