Also, this review will focus on the Base Set. The more recent expansions have added new material that I am not familiar with and which will not be covered here.
OVERVIEW
Dreamblade is played by two players on a simple five-by-five grid of Cells (spaces). Each player controls a Warband of up to sixteen figues. Each figure belongs to one of four "Aspects": Fear, Passion, Madness and Valor. Some figures also belong to a Lineage, the factions within the "Dreamscape" which mix certain Aspects.
A player wins a game of Dreamblade by gaining six Victory Points.
Like most of WotC's non-rpg offerings I've seen, the story in Dreamblade is both unnecessary to enjoy the game and easily ignored: Each player represents a Dream Lord fighting other Dream Lords with strange creatures for some reason. Perhaps later expansions actually flesh out the world; I don't know or particularly care.
Initiative
At the beginning of each turn, each player rolls an single six-sided die (the "Initiative" die) to determine both who goes first in the round and how many spawn points the players have to spend. The player who rolls higher goes first. In case of ties, the player who has won the most rounds goes first; if this doesn't resolve the tie, both players re-roll.
Spawn Phase
The sum of the two initiative die results is the number of spawn points each player can spend to summon creatures except when a player rolls a 1 for their initiative. If either player rolls a 1, the Spawn phase is skipped entirely for both players.
Each figure has a spawn cost which consists of a number and several Aspect symbols. The number is the number of spawn points that unit costs.
Every figure either in play or in your graveyard allows you to ignore one Aspect symbol on each figure sharing that Aspect. If you don't have any figures matching that Aspect, you must pay 1 spawn per symbol.
You may spawn figures either in your Portal (your special "summoning" cell) or in an unoccupied cell in your spawn row, as long as you have a creature in the same column.
For example, I have a Cannibal Pariah on the board and wish to spawn Blood-Ash Archer. Because Cannibal Pariah is a Fear Aspect creature, it allows me to ignore the Fear Aspect symbol in the Archer's spawn cost. This affects ALL figures of the same type; I will be able to ignore that symbol in my spawn costs as long as that Pariah or any other Fear creature is either on the board or in my graveyard.
Player Actions
Each player has two actions during their turn. The two actions a player can take are Shifting and Striking.
Shifting
Shifting is moving; a player taking a Shift action may move every unengaged creature (each creature not in combat) on the board one cell. You may not move diagonally.
Striking and Combat
Striking is the "Attack" action. When you take a Strike action, you may have every engaged creature make one attack, and all attacking creature in a cell attacks together. When attacking, you add up the Power of each creature. This is the number of dice you roll for that attack. Dreamblade uses special dice; each die has on it a 1, 2 and 3, two pips and a Blade. The numbers are the amount of damage you deal; the pips are misses and have no effect; and the Blades are used to activate your figures' special abilities.
Blade Abilities
Many figures have special "Blade" abilities that are activated by assigning Blades to them. There are four types of abilities: single blade (requires one blade), double blade (requires two blades), single multiblade (requires one blade, may be activated multiple times) and double multiblade (requires two blades, may also be activated multiple times).
You also MUST assign all Blades you can; if you have three Blade abilities and roll three blades, you can't decide to not use any of them.
For example, if I'm attacking with Misbegotten mutant and roll two blades, I must assign both of them. This means that I will be forced to activate his Fumble ability, because I can only use his Crit once.
Resolving Combat
After you activate your blade abilities and determine how much damage you deal, you must select who's taking the beating.
Each figures has Defense and Life. Defense is how much damage you must assign to Disrupt the figure; when you disrupt a figure, you may send it to any unoccupied cell on the board. Life is the amount of damage needed to destroy the figure, sending it to your opponents graveyard. You decide which option to perform, if you can do both.
If a figure belonging to the second player is destroyed by the first players attack during his turn, the destroyed creature can make a Deathblow, a special counterattack.
For example, lets say that I'm going first in the turn, and my little band of creatures manages to kill my opponents Noble Dragon. Because I went first and killed him during my turn, he gets to make his six power attack back at my guys!
Conquest Phase
After both players have acted you go to the Conquest phase. This is when you determine the number of Conquest points each player has gained, which determines who wins the round.The center 9 squares have Conquest Point values. The three of the nine closest to you only score for the other person, the center three score for both players, and the farthest three only score for you. You can see a pdf of the mat here.
You also gain a conquest point for each enemy you killed. But the other player also gains two additional spawn points in the next spawn phase for each guy you killed.
After you're done tallying Conquest Points, the player with the most wins the round and gains a Victory point.
Final Thoughts
Despite what my wordy explanation might make it seem, the core game play is pretty simple: Spend points to spawn guys, move and attack to disrupt or kill enemies while claiming scoring cells.
The game is surprisingly deep despise this; there are repercussions for every action, and any given decision will help AND hinder both you and your opponent.
My Take on: Strategy
Take combat; if you deal enough damage to kill an enemy, you always would right? This gives you a conquest point, increasing your chance of winning and permanently eliminates an enemy figure.
BUT if you're winning the round already, and the other player can't prevent it, it's unnecessary; You're giving the other player 2 spawn points next turn he can definitely use, in exchange for a Conquest point you don't need.
However, if it's a powerful figure, permanently eliminating it would be better than keeping it out of the way for one or two turns, but if you're going first his deathblow might take out some of your own guys...
And if you decide to disrupt you have to find the best place to send him; the corner, so he's out of the action for as long as possible? In the player's spawn row so he can't spawn an even bigger baddie in that cell? Somewhere where your other guys can tie him up later?
This weighing of multiple factors occurs in just about every facet of the game: which figures to put into your Warband; whether to Shift then Strike, or Strike then Shift or Shift twice; where to move; who to spawn; WHERE to spawn; which abilities to activate and on and on and on...
A very cool part of the game is that it avoids the "death spiral," (where the more you lose, the more likely you are to lose more) common in many games; rewarding you with spawn points for losing guys means that losing figures gives you the resources you'll need to bounce back from the loss.
My Take on: Aspects
Each Aspect also have a very unique feel to them in play because of their mechanical differences.
Valor moves quickly and is difficult to disrupt or kill, but tends to have low power.
Fear has effects that weaken enemies and fair stats, but often have noticeable drawbacks.
Madness has high power and life, but very low defense, making them difficult to kill but easy to disrupt, along with Regeneration (where a killed figure goes back into your reserve, rather than graveyard when killed) and warpstrike, a blade ability that lets them attack figures in other cells.
Passion is a damage dealing fiend; its figures have ridiculous Power and many bristle with the Crit ability (a blade ability that deals additional damage) but incredibly low defense and life, so they die quite easily.
My Take on: Looks
Aesthetically, the game doesn't have quite so much going for it. Since the game is supposed to take place in a demented, collective dreamworld, many of the figures are strange looking to say the least. The Dream Lords have some pretty funky imaginations.
I personally don't care either way; I don't particularly like the look but don't dislike it. A friend of mine, however, abhors the look of many of the figures, but enjoys the gameplay enough that it isn't a game breaker for him.
One massive-seeming oversight:
while the victory point track is integrated into the paper game mat, the game comes with no victory point markers; I use spare change while my friend uses his unpainted Space Marines.
Summary
If you would be interested in a game that is both easy to grasp and nuanced in play, don't mind the strange aesthetics and have no problem with collectible games, I would most definitely recommend giving Dreamblade a look.
