Relicblade Kickstarter Review

As I mentioned in my last post, I received my copy of Relicblade about two months ago (I know in the post I said one; since getting back from travelling my sense of time passing has been thrown right off!) and I have been really enjoying it. I actually backed the Kickstarter whilst I was travelling in what was a very frivolous use of my dwindling resources, however I just couldn't resist such a great looking product and after watching some battle reports from my favourite miniatures youtuber Guerilla Miniature Game's Ash, I was hooked.

As you may have guessed, this will not be a wholly unbiased review (I don't believe such a thing exists!) but I will be as objective as possible as although I love the ethos of this game and of its creator Sean Sutter, I do have some criticisms which I want to touch on. As the blog's first review, I want to speak about structure. I have broken my review into four sections which I think are the most appropriate for miniatures games; models, components, gameplay and price. If anyone has any suggestions for a better way to write reviews, let me know. And so without any further ado.

Relicblade is a self-styled adventure battle game designed and created by Sean Sutter and produced by Metal King Studio. Primarily for two players it is a small skirmish game set in a fledgling fantasy world which pits a group of brave heroes against a band of roving pig men in a fight to the death to claim an ancient relic and (if you are playing the pig men) enjoy a light snack of hero brisket. The main focus of the Relicblade Kickstarter was on the two player battle set (which is the level I backed) This set includes twelve models, six path of the Advocate and six pig men (path of the adversary), plus one Kickstarter exclusive model; the Dark Wanderer (who will be soon be available to everyone else as part of the Bone and Darkness expansion). The set also has a full complement of tokens, dice and a white metal sculpted relic icon..

Bear, knight and druid (before she turns into aforementioned bear)

Models

On the whole I am very impressed by the miniatures in the starter set, each one has a lot of detail and character, and being made of white metal means they have a good weight to them on the tabletop (plus they have the added benefit of inducing a wave of nostalgia for the good old days). That being said, there are definitely some clear winners in terms of the sculpts. The path of the advocate on the whole are cooler looking than the Pig Men who are a little goofy (although there is only so serious you can be when fielding a warband of man-pig hybrids, so this isn't necessarily an issue), with the Thief model being the best model in the set (the Dark Wanderer gives it a run for its money, however as it is not part of the two player set available for retail I'm afraid I had to disqualify it from the 
running).

Thief.

Now, that being said, I think it is clear that there is an obvious contrast between Sean's earlier sculpts and the newer ones which only demonstrates his growing skill as a modeller and which I think bodes very well for the upcoming expansion, particularly if you have seen the recently revealed Ranger/Fighter CAD or the concept art for the fish-hat wearing Ogor Gladiator which looks absolutely boss.

Love this guys fish hat!

Also of note with the pig men is that each model can be made in one of two ways for more varied gameplay. This is great for adding depth to the game but it does cause some of the pigs to look a little static. This can be easily negated, however, by kit bashing as most of the piggies' weapon options can be swapped which gives a surprising amount of customisation to the kit. If you are interested in seeing some examples of these alternate builds check back in a few days for my post on them.

Bebop and Rocksteady, ready for action.

Components

By the end of the Kickstarter campaign, Relicblade had reached all of its stretch goals, many of which included focused on making the two player battle set as professional as possible. This included goals like full colour box art rather than blank cardboard box, a punch-board with plenty of counters and good quality character cards. Whilst perhaps not the most exciting of stretch goals, all of this meant that when my copy of Relicblade arrived the first word which came to mind was; Sleek.

The overall professionalism of the product is outstanding throughout and all the components which come with the Two-Player Battle Set are of a universally high standard. The box has a lush gloss finish and the artwork on the front cover is eye catching and full of character in Sean's unique style. The art throughout Relicblade is a dynamic mix of comic book graphics and high fantasy, which manages to look both modern and classic and will appeal to a range of ages. It also has pictures of all the models included in the set on the sides of the box which is a really nice touch.

Sean has used high quality card stock for the rulebook, game cards and counters which feel thick and luxurious, the punch board also includes measuring widgets for both the heroes and pig men which I love.

The set also comes with six chunky D6 dice and a handy quick play sheet so everything you need to get playing straight out of the box is there. All in all I am very pleased with the quality of the components in the battle set, my one and only gripe, and it is a pretty minor one, is that the rulebook and cards are not full colour, which I think is a bit of a shame.

Gameplay

Relicblade gameplay is initially very simple, each player takes turns activating a model. Each model gets a number of action dice, usually four for heroes and three for pig men. These dice are then used to perform actions in the game, those actions range from moving to fighting and spell casting. Each model has different actions which they can perform and these are found on the character's card and upgrades, making Relicblade very easy to teach. This is something Sean had in mind during the writing of Relicblade as he hoped to create a game which could be played in an easygoing setting over the course of a couple of beers with people who might not have played miniatures games before and I think in this he has been very successful.  The rules are very tight, and after playing a load of games I still haven't come across a situation which I can't find an explanation for in the rulebook, (although that doesn't mean there aren't any, I just haven't found any).

As the classic saying goes, however,  Relicblade is much harder to master than it is to learn, each character comes with numerous upgrades which can be purchased for them before the game starts and which can dramatically alter that model's battlefield role and play style. This gives Relicblade a lot of replayability and helps keep the game interesting.

Now to my gripe. Currently there is only one mission which comes with the Relicblade starter set, this is a deathmatch scenario with a random obtainable relic in the centre and I think this is probably my biggest criticism of Relicblade in its current form. There is a second scenario which can be downloaded for free from the Metal King Studio website, however it doesn't do much to offset the fact that there isn't a whole lot of meat to the game yet.

And that 'yet' is the key part of that sentence because in terms of scope Relicblade is almost limitless, but it is still young. It feels very much like a sandbox game, there are suggestions in the rules for interactive objects, traps, multiple play and campaigns but these are primarily left up to the players imagination. You could create a dungeon crawler where your heroes find better equipment as they battle groups of pig men, or a moonlit raid against the advocates camp where the bleary eyed hero's can be carried off by their bovine assailants and the survivors must mount a poorly planned rescue (hey, that's actually a pretty cool idea, I might have to write that!). What I'm saying is that Relicblade currently has a lot of potential and I don't think it will be long before we start seeing that potential actualised. Ideally I would hope to see extra scenarios included either alongside the new Kickstarter or even as stretch goals for it and hopefully we'll start getting some more information about what we can expect from the campaign over the next few weeks.

Price

Ah. Possibly the most important factor when it comes to deciding whether to buy into a new game. Sure the models can be cool and the box art pretty but if you want to attract gamers it's also gotta be good value for money! Relicblade's two player battle set will set you back $99 from the Metal King Studio website, if you live overseas you will have to factor in shipping costs and customs charges as well, but I guess we can hardly blame Sean for living on the wrong continent.

Whilst it isn't the cheapest product on the market, it is pretty much in line with similar starter sets from other companies and that in itself is a massive achievement considering production, packaging and distribution is all being orchestrated by one man rather than a team or even company and I think that alone will persuade most people that Relicblade is worth investing in.

Rating

I am giving Relicblade a 4/5. The two player battle set is a stylish, high quality kit which comes with everything you need to get playing. Gameplay is fast, engaging and easy enough to learn that I've started teaching it to my nine year old foster brother, albeit without any of the relics, potions, skills or scenarios that give the game depth for experienced gamers. Which direction Relicblade will take now and whether it will enjoy significant popularity, I don't know, but I hope so. I said in the introduction that I love the ethos of this game, I love that it is a work of passion by a very talented artist and I think the strength of the miniatures certainly makes it stand out from a lot of similarly crowd funded indie games and even on a par with bigger companies as well. Although it is not without criticism I believe that as we see more expansions in the form of extra characters, scenarios and playstyles added many, if not all, of these issues will be exorcised.

For more information about Relicblade  check out http://relicblade.com/  or if you want to know more about creating your own miniatures from scratch have a look at Sean's incredible Thief  series on Youtube where you follow the progression of a model from concept art to production; I promise you will not be disappointed.

Have you played Relicblade yet, or are you interested to learn more about it? Let me know in the comments!