Hi folks, I want to make a pitch for rebooting Dreamblade as a LCG. For those who didn't play, DB was a collectible minis game released by WOTC a few years back. It could be viewed as a combination of magic and chess--you built 16 piece armies playing on a 5x5 board, with the goal being to hold the center cells (or destroy your opponents pieces). It was fun, deep, thought-provoking, and took just the right time to play, a bit under an hour, to make it a good tournament game. And it died in a year. Why? Cost. It was incredibly expensive, maybe $45 to play sealed, due to the cost of the miniatures. WOTC tried to somewhat offset this by funding big-money tournaments, but they were all won by the same people, leaving everyone else with a very expensive game.

The LCG format could fix this-skip the minis, play with cards, similar to the new Mage Wars. Save a great system, FFG!

Hm. The description reminds me of Navia Dratp, which was a similar idea except with Shogi instead of Chess, and it was also rather fun. And also died an unfortunate death due to mini cost. But it would have been fine as a game of cards as well---maybe a bit smaller or else the board would be rather big.

This idea came up on BoardGameGeek, where it was explored more thoroughly. I've only just started playing Dreamblade, and can attest that it is very fun and addictive. However, I can't imagine playing it with cards.

For one thing, there are often several pieces in one square during gameplay. This would be irritating using cards, unless you had HUGE squares, which would make a HUGE board…or maybe if you had teeny-tiny cards, in which case the text on them would have to be very small, too, etc. This part is a logistical problem. It just doesn't seem to work very well. The second thing, though, is aesthetics. The minis for Dreamblade are COOL. They look great on the board. Little cards or chits can't do that, and would be annoying to push around. (Or at least seem like they would.) It could be done, I'm just doubtful how many people would want to play like that.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Dreamblade come back. But the question is: How?

Maybe very small minis, with a separate card giving the stats and abilities for each creature? Wouldn't that be cheaper?

Thanks for your response. One person on the bgg thread recommended cardboard chits, with the picture on one side and stats on the other--similar to the Cthulhu monster chits (I have to admit that is one of the few LCGs I haven't played). That could work. Or plastic tiles with the picture one one side and stats on the other. Those would at least solve the map size/ ease of movement issues. I agree that the minis were great, and any version without them wouldn't be as nice, but to me, at least, 80% of Dreamblade would be better than any other game around. If cardboard chits is what it took to get it back in print, so be it.

Dreamblade sounds awesome. And the cardboard chits in Arkham Horror are really nice, thick, and of appropriate handling size; I can definitely see it working.

jhsjhs said:

The chits are from Arkham Horror, not the LCG…and yes, they are fantastic. Pushing chits around like that might get annoying, but I'd give it a shot.

What I was thinking of were small minis, such as the ones used in Chaos in the Old World, but even that might be too expensive.