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"The Vast Darkness" - Blackstone Fortress

As vast and dark as a sunless void, 
the Blackstone Fortress is a creation far beyond 
the ken of any race in the galaxy. 
In this age of darkness, 
in a galaxy riven with strife and horror, 
the desperate and intrepid alike 
search this Fortress for long-lost technologies 
that may be used to turn the tide of war.



Welcome everyone to The Art of Caesura!

After spending the first part of the year covering Reichbusters: Projekt Vril, the past few weeks have been a bit of a palate-cleanser regarding a topic that I've wanted to write about for a while: reading. 

Today we're forging ahead with the next big miniatures game that I've actually had ticking away in the background for about two years now: Blackstone Fortress.

A quick disclaimer before we begin: none of this fantastically atmospheric artwork is mine, it all belongs to Games Workshop


Rather than pretend to review a game that has already been out for about two years, I am going to use this post to set the scene for the next bunch of posts which will go into detail on painting the miniatures. 


Blackstone Fortress is a fantastic setting. A mysterious, cyclopean space station of unknown origins that has appeared in a remote part of space. It has "consumed" many old ships and now explorers, mercenaries, rogues and the like explore its hazardous interior for the treasures of old archeotech from the crippled ships and previous expeditions that have been scattered throughout the fortress. There are "Space Western" vibes, slathered with tones of omniscient cosmic horror. 


All this is gleaned from one of the books that comes with the game, conveniently labelled "background". I am also two thirds of the way through Darius Hinks' tie-in novel of the same name, which I must say really is excellent. Much much better than the recent Cursed City novel. 


The characters available to you are a Mötley Crüe - or rather - a motley crew of aliens, robots and disparate humans and the game engine running the adventure that you lead them through is a souped up version of that found in Silver Tower - further iterated upon for the recent Cursed City - the latest in the Warhammer Quest lineage. The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played a modern version of Warhammer Quest. The standout mechanic being that you roll several dice at the beginning of your turn, the results of which are kept and determine which abilities you will be able to carry out during your turn. 


As with most Games Workshop products, the miniatures are stunning as is the overall presentation. Although, dashboards would be nice.


This game lurked in my closet for almost a year while my wife and I hacked and slashed our way through the campaign of Zombicide: Green Horde. We played through half of the Blackstone Fortress campaign (beating two of the four Strongholds) for my birthday week last year but then it was killing me not to play with fully painted models (as we had eventually done with Silver Tower) so we slipped our heroes into their stasis chambers and paused the game until I could get everything painted up...That day is approaching. 


Tune in next week for our first look of hobbying around Blackstone Fortress, right here on The Art of Caesura.


Reading: Blackstone Fortress - Darius Hinks
Watching: Big Little Lies - Season 1


Next Week:

Basing the Blackstone...

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