An Ode to Obscure Games: Bladestorm UPDATED!

 Hi!

Today sees the first day of my holiday and I'd had high hopes of getting on with my Leviathan project but I'm knackered from work so here's another ode to an obscure game: Bladestorm! (UPDATE: It appears that the Bladestorm is still available from Mirliton in Italy so the link has been added!)

I'm not sure where I originally heard of Bladestorm. Possibly it was in an old wargame magazine but I have a sneaking suspicion I stumbled upon it via The Miniatures Page's arcane list of wargame rules. It was a dark fantasy skirmish game that was published back in 1990 by Iron Crown Enterprises, a company better known for its RPG games.

Set in a far off series of islands known as the Bladelands (the reason for its name will become apparent!) the game never really took of as far as I've been able to find but has more recently been rereleased in a 2nd, updated edition.

The rules are probably somewhat further to the complex end of the scale than some of the other games I've got but ICE did a good job of breaking them down and clearly showing how they work. There is a basic, intermediate and advanced level to the game and it very much feels like a hybrid of a wargame and an rpg.

Setting wise, the islands are constantly at war and many shipwreck survivors are washed ashore adding to the mix. An unknown magical form of weather effects the land in that when battle does break out, strange elemental tornadoes can appear full of swirling blades which unsurprisingly is pretty deadly to all concerned. This leads to conflict being kept to small skirmishes between the assorted kingdoms and powers rather than massive battles.

The original boxed game had a rulebook and separate sourcebook which concentrated on breathing life into the setting and is something I'd like to see more of in skirmish wargames as its nice to have a rulebook that keeps the actual rules of play condensed into a separate book than the background gubbins which makes it easier to find the rules you are looking for.

There are multiple fantasy races, forces and places featured in the sourcebook and its actually a pretty good reference piece for anyone wanting to introduce a new location or organisation to their fantasy games. Some are a bit out there such as flying turtles with hollowed out shells for riders to hide in but they did try, and for the most part succeed in making very different feeling forces than the more typical Tolkeinesque stuff that was around at the time.

There was also a map (pictured!) and a small and rather basic guide to painting miniatures. There is a small range of figures produced by Grenadier back in the day and they're now available from MIRLITON in Italy.

The game itself is aimed at small skirmishes but can be scaled up to larger conflicts but as each character has multiple wounds and abilities, this slows things down considerably and its better at playing probably 4-5 models a side. I've actually played a few games of this back in the day and its rather a neat little system that revolves around your action points and gives a nice level of crunch and detail without being too heavy and is great for showcasing small bands of adventurers duking it out with ravening gangs of baddies.

As with many games that came out in the late 80's and early 90's the artwork varies considerably from the lovely Angus MacBride cover to the line art of the setting guide, right down to the frankly pretty awful, and for some reason massive footed interior:

I have no idea what is going on!

Saying that, if you can get past the dodgy art, the game is actually pretty good and does a good job of building the complexity level to where you are comfortable with and making for a really good narrative based game and its well worth a peek if you can find a copy. The original rules and whatnot is still available for 20 Dollars on Wargame Vault so can be downloaded and it does show up from time to time on Ebay.

Bladestorm is one of those interesting early fantasy wargames, much like D&D's Battlesystem that were an attempt at making a wargame but coming from a RPG perspective and works better as a hybrid of the two rather than one or the other.

I've got a couple more obscure games to cover but now my hols are here, I'm hoping to get some sculpting done so I'll be ending this series in the next couple of days but if you'd like to see more largely forgotten games, do feel free to give me a shout and I'll post more and if theres enough interest, I may even break some of them out to play!

In the meantime, All the best!

Richard