Two years ago I sat down to play Lazy Squire Games' prototype of Stormsunder: Heirs of Ruin, the Kickstarter was a resounding success and now production versions of the miniatures are starting to find their way into the world for review as the time for the first wave of the game comes closer to shipping.

Stormsunder: Heirs Of Ruin // Lazy Squire Games

With the late pledge open for people who missed the campaign it's a great time to look over what Stormsunder: Heirs of Ruin is about and we can see exactly the quality of figures that will be available for playing out your campaigns in the City of Tarpitt and beyond.

Gameplay

Stormsunder is a solo/cooperative RPG board game for 1-4 players that takes place in an immersive and interactive world where players decide the flow of the story. It features in-depth character progression and deck building, all wrapped in a fast-paced combat system that remains fresh and interesting fight after fight.

Starting right off the bat the characters that players can use are not your average bunch of dungeon crawling heroes, you have a selection of ousted vampires hungry for revenge, humans desperate to forge their own destiny or attempting to bring light to the forsaken city and even demonic allies. All of these characters are beautifully illustrated and the renders and initial prototypes reflected the care and attention to detail of this disparate group who have been thrown together for good or ill!

Stormsunder: Heirs Of Ruin // Elise

When playing through the game your choices will ultimately shape the story you tell, but more than just your choices on the tabletop even the characters you chose to bring with you may take you in interesting directions. Some dialogues or areas only become available with certain party members in your group. So depending on who you bring with you even if you have played it once before the story you weave will be very different simply by virtue of who is there, and this I think is a fantastic bonus because you don't actively have to try to pick new choices on a playthrough to experience a new storyline it is implicit in the game itself!

Stormsunder: Heirs Of Ruin // Villains

Don't worry about having to replay the same story too soon anyway, the core campaign along with the unlocked stretch goals drops a 300-page campaign book in your lap and will have your "heroes" exploring Tarpitt for weeks to come before you have to concern yourself with ways to replay the game.

Setting & Adversaries

The world of Stormsunder is one in which you have a unique blend of styles from European Gothic horror and Egyptian, to Mesoamerican these styles should not on the face of it work together. But with the rich styles and storytelling in Stormsunder they aid the world-building that Lazy Squire Games have put in. Showing a world that is an ancient lived-in place, with cultures rising and falling and civilisations that should have been buried millennia ago instead cling on by necromantic arts.

Civilians & Villains // Lazy Squire Games

With the expansions taking the party further afield and allowing them to interact with varied villains in new places opens up the world to exploration and prevents the game from falling into a rut of always facing the same creatures in the same tunnels.

Miniatures & Pledges

When I first saw the resin prototypes I was blown away by the detail and sculpting that the figures have and the question was always going to be how would the production models stand up to scrutiny compared to these. Well, I'm happy to say that we are now seeing the production models out in the world and they have managed to hold onto every bit of the detail and work that went into these designs. Next week I'll be unboxing two characters, one hero and one of the named adversaries that the party must face, so look out for that if you want to see a detailed look at them.

I'm not the only person to get their hands on a set of these miniatures, if you're on the fence about the game you should take a look at this unboxing to see just what a remarkable job Lazy Squire Games have done in getting the figures made in outstanding quality.

With the first wave of pledges shipping this year and wave two due in 2022 I think the measured approach they've taken to get the production right has certainly paid dividends and there are a lot of great boxes of miniatures in the pledge manager even if you don't plan on playing Stormsunder itself I can see gamers across the spectrum from roleplayers to massed battle wargamers jumping on these to add some amazing figures to their tabletops.

Will you be exploring the City of Tarpitt?