Designer Martin Wallace has a a lot of highly regarded games under his belt. If you quizzed him over which was his favourite I'm sure it would be a bit like pressing him to make a Sophie's Choice. And yet... And yet there is something about Bloodstones that leaves you with the conviction that this must be the game he loves the most.
We first saw an early prototype of the game five years ago. The then working title was Runestones but even tho' it was only a prototype produced to pitch the design to publishers, the quality of production was stunning. You can see from this 360 of Martin Wallace playing the game with David Turczi and Board's Eye View Editor Selwyn Ward that even this prototype had chunky printed plastic blocks and an attractive cloth map.
There must've been a lot of pressure from publishers to economise on the production. All those chunky blocks are very nice but can't we produce something cheaper? It's part of our evidence of Martin's particular love for this game that he's resisted any compromises and published Bloodstones himself under the new Wallace Designs imprint.
Bloodstones is a fantasy war game for 2-6 players (actually 1-6 because the game includes a solo multi-game campaign designed by Stephen Hurn). Each faction is asymmetric with their own unique abilities and their own specific set of tiles. That means that tho' everyone has a bag with 36 domino-shaped tiles in it, the mix of tiles and even their various strengths and characteristics are all different.
You draw tiles from your bag so that you always end your turn with six tiles (seven of you are playing as the Horse Lords). The tiles each represent specific military units and they also show that unit's build cost and pips representing its action points. Other than at set up, deploying a unit with a build cost of 1 requires you to discard a tile; if the build cost is 2, you'll need to discard two of your tiles. To move units already on the board, you need to discard one or more tiles with the appropriate number of pips. So, for example, to move two units two spaces that have no other terrain restrictions, you'd have to discard a tile with at least four pips on it. Similarly, you need to pay in pips for every village you place out, and it's by placing out villages that you expand your empire and it's how you'll score most of your points: when your draw bag is empty, you refresh it by refilling it with all those discarded titles and you score a point for every village that you've placed out on the map. Unless you're playing as the Chaos Horde, you'll have 20 village tiles available for placing out - so each of the two bag refreshes (three in a two-player game) could potentially earn you 20 points.
Because it's a war game you'll of course also earn victory points for winning battles. You'll trigger a battle by moving units into a territory occupied by an opponent's units. Specific units may or may not contribute a point or more to the combat (for example, the Corsair's axemen add a modifier of 1 point) but victory is mainly determined by the battle tiles each player draws from a bag (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5). You ordinarily draw three battle tiles apiece but if you've more units engaged than the other player then you draw four and choose which three to use. Additionally, and usually before the results are revealed, you have the option of substituting a unit from your hand for one of the battle tiles you drew: so, for example, a player with a ship unit in their hand with 4 pips on it might choose to substitute that for a 2-pip battle tile they've drawn from the bag. Of course, because you draw your hand at the end of your turn, if as a defender you substitute a tile then it means you'll have one less tile to play with on your next turn...
The winner of the battle gains victory points and the loser forfeits a unit and if they had more than one there they have to retreat them. You can also avoid battle by retreating before any battle tiles are drawn. If at the start of your turn, you have a unit in a territory in which an opponent has a village, you can expend pips (ie: sacrifice one or more of your tiles) to remove the village from the board. That reduces an opponent's refresh score and it will be worth a point to you at the end of the game.
There's a rules wrinkle that gives a big potential last player advantage. The game immediately ends on the turn of the last player to go through a second tile refresh (third in a two-player game). Most factions only score for capturing enemy villages if they occupy the territory at the start of their next turn and if they pay the cost in pips but a special rule lets you capture without payment any village in a territory you occupy at the end of the game. This means the player who takes the last turn can score by capturing villages by expending all their tile pips on movement to occupy territories with an opponent's village. Some players complain this 'breaks' the game. We disagree; it's just an extra factor to bear in mind as you approach the end-game. The number of tiles in players' bags is open information; players should know that they are on their final or penultimate turn, so it behooves them all to use their last turn in a similar way to move to occupy opponents' villages. Of course a player who goes after you might respond by moving units in to initiate battle but that means they will have fewer movement points to spend on uncontested occupation...
Bloodstones then is a tactical game of territorial expansion, manoeuvring and combat, but it combines eurogame resource management mechanics with more conventional wargame rules. Your tiles are simultaneously your combat units and your currency, so you've got a constant balancing act over whether to use a tile as a unit or as currency. Various terrains on the board limit movement, moreso for some factions than others, so there are tactical considerations too over how and where you choose to expand, especially if you can create pinchpoints that make it difficult for an opponent to expand into.
The map is important and one of the beauties of this game is that it comes with a selection of different maps, all of which play differently, just as all the factions play and interact differently. The various maps are also optimised for different player counts. Wallace Designs have retained cloth maps as seen in the old Runestones prototype, and the art and clear graphics from Atticus McNaughton and Leith Walton mean you can play this game without having to scramble through the rulebook to decode iconography. The tiles are beautifully produced, and each set comes in its own embroidered velvet bag. The tiles all have a satisfying heft, tho' chunky as they are they aren't quite deep enough to stand on edge without risk of falling over. Wallace Designs have addressed that as part of the Dwarves & Djinn expansion that just successfully completed its run on Gamefound. In addition to brand new factions, more cloth maps and a new solo mode from David Turczi, this expansion provides helpful Scrabble-style tile racks. We'll endeavour to show off the Dwarves & Djinn expansion on Board's Eye View as soon as we can get hold of a copy.
Despite the asymmetry, players coming new to Bloodstones aren't faced with barrage of rules to assimilate before playing: it's not difficult to teach or learn. Just be warned, all those tiles make it a physically heavy game. It's undeniably expensive but you only have to open up the box to see that no corners have been cut in this lavishly produced game. And with so many different combinations of factions and maps, Bloodstones is a game with almost endless replayability.