Band of Blades vs Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Compare Band of Blades and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Band of Blades | Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Fiction-First, Playbook-Driven, Grimdark, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Deadly, Survival | Career-Based, Grimdark, Gritty, Deadly, Investigation, Corruption, Licensed Setting |
| Core Mechanic | Forged in the Dark: roll a d6 dice pool equal to your action rating and read the highest die: 6 is a full success, 4–5 is a partial success with consequences, 1–3 is a bad outcome. Position (controlled, risky, desperate) sets the stakes, and players spend stress to resist consequences. Play alternates between a mission phase (specialists and rank-and-file Legionnaires execute one primary and one secondary mission) and a campaign phase, where each player runs a permanent Legion Role (Commander, Marshal, Quartermaster, Spymaster, or Lorekeeper) making strategic decisions about routes, supply, intel, and personnel as the army retreats toward Skydagger Keep. | Roll d100 under skill or characteristic. Success Levels measure degree of success by comparing the tens digits of the target and the roll. Advantage accumulates during combat, adding +10 per point to attack tests. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d100 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Low |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | Forged in the Dark | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Evil Hat Productions / Off Guard Games | Cubicle 7 |
| Year | 2019 | 2018 |
| Best For | Groups who want a campaign-length military fantasy where the Legion as a whole is the protagonist: character death is expected, players cycle through different soldiers each mission, and strategic decisions about routes, supply, and intel are split across the table rather than held by the GM. | Groups who want dark, gritty fantasy where ordinary people face extraordinary dangers in a richly detailed setting. The career system creates unique character arcs from rat catcher to witch hunter. |
| Highlights | Players rotate through Specialist, Soldier, and Rookie playbooks across missions rather than playing fixed characters, so attrition lands without ending personal arcs: the Legion endures even when individual soldiers fall. Each player also holds a permanent Legion Role that drives the campaign phase, splitting army-management decisions across the table instead of leaving them with the GM. Time and Pressure clocks turn the campaign into a race against the Cinder King: advancing toward Skydagger Keep burns time, but lingering builds undead pressure that escalates the difficulty and lethality of future missions. | Detailed grimdark setting, career system creates varied character arcs, combat carries real consequences |
| Considerations | The campaign phase (mission generation, spy deployments, supply, advance roll, Lorekeeper annals) takes substantial time between missions and only works if every player engages with their Role. Building a deep personal arc for a single Legionnaire is structurally difficult because characters rotate between missions: emotional investment lives with the Legion rather than any one soldier. The campaign is built around a single fixed arc ending at Skydagger Keep, with a defined map, locations, and Chosen/Broken roster. There is no open-ended sandbox mode, and a full campaign runs 12–20 sessions. | Tightly bound to the Old World setting, Success Level math can slow play, expensive supplement line |