Dreamblade
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| Dreamblade | |
|---|---|
 The six faces of a Dreamblade Attack Die. |
|
| Players | Two or Four |
| Age range | 13 and up |
| Setup time | < 5 minutes |
| Playing time | < 50 minutes |
| Random chance | Some |
| Skills required | Miniatures Arithmetic |
'Dreamblade', is a collectible miniatures game created by Wizards of the Coast that debuted on August 9, 2006, the day before Gen Con Indy. The game is a strategy contest that includes an element of chance which comes into play through various die rolls.
Similar to Magic: The Gathering each game represents a battle between very powerful individuals, in this case psychics called "Dream Lords." These "Dream Lords" battle one another across the landscape of humanity's shared unconsciousness by spawning dream creatures out of human emotions, in particular Valor, Fear, Madness, and Passion. Although there are many collectible miniatures games available today, Dreamblades's restricted landscape and spawning rules (among other things) result in many aspects which are more similar to a collectible card game than a traditional miniature game.
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[edit] Game play
In a game of Dreamblade, two players engage in a duel. The game is won by the first player to win six turns. Each turn is won by the player with the most "conquest points," earned by controlling territories and destroying your opponent's creatures.
Each player begins with a warband composed of no more than 16 miniatures. In the course of the game these miniatures are put into play where they are used to accumulate conquest points towards winning the turn, and from there the game. There are two types of miniatures, creatures and locations. The miniatures, along with the playing area, and special six-sided attack dice comprise the unique elements of the game.
[edit] Elements
Miniatures: The main element of the game and the only element that is collectible. Each miniature will have a common, uncommon or rare designation. There are two types of miniatures, creatures and locations.
- Creatures: The basic attributes of every creature include its spawn-cost, aspect-cost, power, defense, and life. Additionally each creature belongs to one of the aspects of Valor, Fear, Madness, and Passion and may have a lineage and special abilities.
- Cost: A miniature's cost has two parts—spawn cost and aspect cost.
- Spawn Cost: The minimum amount of spawn points a player has to spend to spawn the miniature.
- Aspect Cost: Each miniature from the same aspect which is in play or in the graveyard counts as one point of the aspect cost, all remaining aspect-cost must be played using spawn points.
- Power: The number of action dice the player rolls for the creature when he attacks.
- Defense: The amount of damage it takes to disrupt a creature.
- Life: The amount of damage it takes to destroy a creature.
- Cost: A miniature's cost has two parts—spawn cost and aspect cost.
- Locations: Locations have a spawn cost and an aspect cost (just like creatures), but no power, defense or life. They cannot move, but offer some special ability to the rest of the warband.
- Aspects: Each miniature belongs to one of the four aspects of Valor, Fear, Madness, and Passion. Each aspect has different qualities which are reflected in the miniatures. For example creatures from the Madness aspect have low defense but high life.
- Lineages: Some miniatures belong to a lineage. Lineages are creatures spawned by a specific dream lord or a group of dream lords. There are six lineages: Bloodcut, Janus, Lost, Hellbred, Hiveling, and Stitched.
- Abilities: The initial Dreamblade rulebook lists approximately 50 different miniature abilities. Blade abilities are the most common of these.
- Blade Abilities: Blade abilities come in four types: blade, double blade, multiblade, and double multiblade, each representing the number of blades which may be spent on the ability, one, two, unlimited, or an unlimited even number respectively. All rolled blades must be spent, which allows for the existence of negative blade abilities.
- Spawn Abilities: Spawn abilities are like blade abilities except that they are activated in the spawn phase by paying spawn points and sometimes may only be activated when in key cells.
- Come into Play Abilities: Come into play or CiP abilities activate whenever the miniature is spawned, usually as an extra cost to playing the piece or as a special ability.
Playing Area: The playing area is a five by five grid. Players start out on opposites corners of the grid (this is known as the players portal). The back row is known as the spawning row, and the center 3x3 grid is known as the key cells.
- Spawning Row: The row closest to a player is his or her Spawning Row; after the first round, a player may spawn creatures in a cell in his or her spawning row that both shares a column with another creature he or she controls and is unoccupied.
- Key Cells: All of the cells within this 3x3 grid are worth conquest points to one or both of the players. The row closest to a player's spawning row is worth five, four or three conquest points to his opponent, starting with the cell corner adjacent to the players portal. The center square of the middle row is worth two points to either player, while the other two cells are worth one point each. If a cell is contested (both players have creatures in the cell) then neither player receives any conquest points.
Attack Dice: Attack dice are six-sided (see the attached picture.) Two of their faces count as misses (diamonds), three of the faces count as damage, with a one point, two point, and three point damage face. The final face is the dreamblade, which is used to power the special abilities of the miniatures in the game.
[edit] Tournament Play
Tournament play is a large part of Dreamblade. Wizards of the Coast holds DCI-sanctioned Dreamblade tournaments all over the world. Dreamblade tournaments consist of many different types:
Dreamblade Edge - These are constructed tournaments where each player must have no more than 16 miniatures in their Warband. Players may not have more than 3 of the same miniature in their warband.
Sealed and Draft - There are sealed and draft tournaments where players make a Warband out of the miniatures they received from a couple booster packs purchased at the event.
1K and 10K These are mixed-format tournaments where the total prize awarded are $1000 to $10,000 in cash. For example, in 1K Dreamblade Tournaments the 1st place winner receives $500, 2nd place receives $300, and 3rd, 4th places receive $100 each.
[edit] Sets
Dreamblade sets are released on a three month schedule[1]:
[edit] Current Sets
- Base Set was released on August 9, 2006 and consists of 96 miniatures: 32 of each rarity, 24 of each Aspect.
- Baxar's War , released on October 27, 2006, is the first expansion for Dreamblade and consists of 60 miniatures: 20 of each rarity, 15 of each Aspect. New abilities introduced by this expansion include Poison and Terrify. A new lineage was also introduced for the Madness and Fear Aspects, called The Stitched.
- Chrysotic Plague, released on January 19, 2007, is the second expansion for Dreamblade and consists of 60 miniatures: 20 of each rarity, 15 of each Aspect. New abilities introduced by this expansion include Deathform and Shapechange. The Fear Aspect lineage Hivelings has also been expanded with this release.
[edit] Future Sets
"Arriving this April, this 60-figure set features exciting, new abilities including: Soul Harrow, Bloodstrike, and Glory!
Combatants will revel in the strength of the all-new, no-aspect Anvilborn creatures. The Anvilborn feature automated movement triggered by gameplay, requiring a new level of strategic planning to control."
- Night Fusion, the fourth Dreamblade expansion will be released on September 7, 2007.
- Serrated Dawn, the fifth Dreamblade expansion will be released on December 7, 2007.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
[edit] Official sites
- WotC Dreamblade The official Wizards of the Coast Dreamblade site
- Dreamblade Rules The rules for playing Dreamblade
- WotC Dreamblade Forums Official Forums for discussion of Dreamblade
- Dreamcatcher The official Dreamblade miniatures database
[edit] Unofficial sites
- Dreamblade.TCGplayer.com Dreamblade community with articles, figure and warband databases as well as a discussion board
- Maxminis.com Unofficial forums for discussing all of WotC's collectible miniatures games
- DreambladeItalia.com The Italian Dreamblade Community: lot of articles and files; on the forum you can post in english too.
- dreamblade.stahlfell.de The German Dreamblade Community, with figure galleries, forum and list of tourneys.
- DreamBladeOz.com The Australian DreamBlade Community, with discussion forum and list of upcoming tournaments & locations.
