Band of Blades vs Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Compare Band of Blades and Werewolf: The Apocalypse side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Band of Blades | Werewolf: The Apocalypse | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror | Horror, Modern, Fantasy |
| Tags | Fiction-First, Playbook-Driven, Grimdark, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Deadly, Survival | Atmospheric, Base-Building, Character Building, Character-Driven, Corruption, Drama, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy |
| 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. | Build a d10 dice pool, usually from an Attribute plus a Skill. Each 6 or higher is a success, and meeting the Storyteller-set Difficulty wins. Each pair of 10s counts as four successes. Rage dice replace regular dice up to current Rage and can cause Brutal outcomes. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Forged in the Dark | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Evil Hat Productions / Off Guard Games | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2019 | 2023 |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish, Italian | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese |
| 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 long-form modern horror about shapeshifter packs defending communities from ecological and spiritual threats, with violent power constrained by moral and social consequences. |
| 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. | Brutal outcomes can force destructive failures or add four successes to actions the Storyteller judges can benefit from Rage. Choosing a Garou form changes a character's capabilities, creating tactical and narrative options. Caerns give the pack an improvable spiritual home whose traits connect campaign advancement to territory and community. |
| 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. | A Crinos-form Garou who did not kill in the previous turn must spend Willpower at the start of the next turn or enter frenzy, making the war form difficult to sustain outside violent scenes. Harano and Hauglosk can remove a Garou from play when despair or absolutism fills either track, making moral decline a campaign-level consequence. The game centers mature environmental and spiritual horror, including graphic violence and themes of exploitation and extremism that require deliberate table boundaries. |