[Tabletop] Stormsunder vs. Tanares for RPG 5E | Part I – Value Comparison

Today, I am going to start comparing two of the adventure board games that are top on my current list, Stormsunder and Tanares RPG for 5E.

Those of you who have not watched my previous videos, you wonder why I am comparing Tanares RPG 5E, a Tabletop RPG against an adventure board game. With solo playable mode, Tanares RPG 5E can easily be viewed as an adventure board game.

In fact, rather than just assuming it works,I have actually started to play D&D 5E pre-made campaign using Tanares RPG characters to essentially test how well 5E works as a solo adventure board game. I can say it works as well as I have expected so long there are proper solo supporting components.

From the Stormsunder side, the game’s design shows heavy influence from D&D game system indirectly. Robert from Lazy Squire Games says Stormsunder has a strong influence from Star Wars Knights of Old Republic game, which is derived from the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

Therefore, I think two games are perfect for comparison.

Let’s get started.

Introduction

Stormsunder

Stormsunder is a solo/cooperative RPG board game for 1-4 players. The game features a skirmish-based combat with a deck building twist.

The game has successfully completed its kickstarter campaign in March 2020 raising over US$800,000 and more than 4,000 backers.

The game is developed by Lazy Squire Games. Stormsunder is the developer’s second campaign with the first one being Wild Assent.

As with all the other games, after the delay in Wave-1 shipping, the latest estimate of the wave 1 delivery is in October 2022; therefore, the game is5 still available for late pledge.

Tanares RPG – 5e

Tanares RPG for 5e is officially a Tabletop RPG game that uses Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition (5E) rule.

However, what’s relatively unique to this game from the other 5E games is that the developer officially supports its pre-maid adventure campaign to be solo or coop playable at its entirety.

When 5E game is played in a solo or cooperative mode without a Dungeon Master, it is nothing but a form of adventure board game.

This is the third kickstarter campaign game from the developer, Dragori Games. The first two were miniature based adventure board games with the second project being the massive campaign mode expansion for their original game. All three games takes in the same world setting, Tanares.

During the second kickstarter campaign, they have successfully raised almost a US$1.7M with over 7,800 backers.

The recently completed Tanares RPG for 5E kickstarter campaign raised over US$2.1M and more than 9,000 backers. Reportedly, the second 5E kickstarter campaign raised over $2M though technically the campaign had previous board game components and certainly there were new backers who missed previous board game campaigns so probably not a straight comparison.

The game has not yet opened its pledge manager or late pledge, but expect to have some information about them by the end of this month. The project is estimated to be delivered April, 2022.

Play time comparison

Let’s start the comparison from the value perspective. The board game’s value is hard to assess as it can be subjective.

I hope most would agree one of the main appeal to the adventure board game is actually “playing the game.” So one way to look the game’s value is to see how many hours of game play the game provides relative to its price.

Stormsunder

Stormsunder is a trilogy. So for the complete experience, you need all three ACTs but each ACT has its own endings.

So the minimum price to get you experience the world of Stormsunder is $149 by purchasing the first ACT in the series. This is a massive content by its own. The complete playtime for this first ACT alone is estimated to be 100 hours.

If you want to experience the whole story, the trilogy will cost $449.

However, this is not the end of all Stormsunder products. There are several add-ons with some containing playable contents. So for full game play, you are looking at Nyere pledge, which costs $623. This pledge should contain all playable add-ons but lacking couple cosmetic miniatures, which were free perks given to original kickstarters. For all minis in Stormsunder, you are looking $653.

Lazy Squire Games also offer Sundrop type pre-painting, called “stormbrush” for all of their minis as well as game card sleeves and lore/art book as separate add-ons.

If you add all these pieces to make ultimate complete pack, you are looking at US$1128 plus a shipping cost.

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When all three ACTs are explored fully, we are looking at unbelievable 300 hours of playtime.

If you could really spend all this time on the game, we are looking for under US$4/hour of playtime for ultimate complete set or about US$1.50/hour for first ACT without any add-on.

Tanares RPG

The minimum starting price of Tanares RPG for adventure board gamer is $259, which comes with Game-Master less add-on, Dice set, Pre-printed Map add-ons, and Power cards, which are technically optional for RPG gamers but I believe they are essential for adventure board gamers. This pledge will allow players to experience entire Tanares RPG pre-made campaign.

What this pledge lacks is though that it only comes with only 8 minis. So you will need to use other game’s minis or self created tokens to proxy pretty much every entity in the game.

If you are looking for decent number of miniatures representing major entities in the game to improve board game immersion, you are looking at $338 All-In for returning backers pledge.

Even though it says returning backers, this pledge still can be purchased as a new backer and the set will come with over 80 miniatures.

Couple things to note here. One is that Dragori Games confirmed not every entity in the game will have corresponding miniatures. So no matter how many minis you buy from Dragori, you will still end up needing to proxy some entities.

The opposite has also been confirmed by Dragori Games. All minis from previous campaign board game will have corresponding stat blocks in Tanares RPG. This does not necessary mean all those miniatures will be used in the pre-made campaign.

This is because the tabletop RPG genre is different from a board game. Many of game lores, monsters and world location hooks are provided in RPG source books so dungeon masters can create their own adventure. Pre-made campaign is in just one example of such creation; therefore, it won’t be using every single pieces described in the source books.

Although it is of uncertain exactly which miniatures will be used in the pre-made adventure, the Dragori’s previous board games have many standard monsters like Orcs, Skeletons, Vampires so I am relatively certain we will see some use of these board game miniatures in Tanares RPG pre-maid campaign.

So if you want as many minis as possible that are made by Dragori Games, you are now talking about All-In: RPG + All Minis pledge at its base, which is $599.

Just like Stormsunder, this package is still in complete for those looking for everything for the game. If you want all Minis made by Dragori, you need to add Legendary Box, Medusa and Gold Dragon. This will end up costing $782.

If you are the ultimate completionist with pre-painting whenever possible, you are looking at $1,022 plus shipping.

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So what is the play time on this?

I tried to ask developer couple times how many hours of gameplay one would expect from Tanares RPG. The closest response I read is “dozens of sessions”.

It is still unclear how long does each session lasts, and if dozens of sessions refers to a single play through of the campaign or referring to the complete exploration of the game after multiple runs.

So taking a wild, hopefully some educated guess here. Given google says D&D session can lasts between 3 hours to entire day, I took conservative assumption with each session being 3-4 hours. For “dozens” part, I assumed minimum 24 sessions, which is indeed the number of grid maps provided for the entire campaign.

Together we are looking at 72 to 96 hours of playtime.

Given the game comes with what’s look like re-playable mini game like NPC vs. NPC Arena combat and 5E’s relatively steep learning curve for new players, I thought it is reasonable to assume at the least the game provides 100 hours of complete gameplay time.

With this assumption, we are looking at anywhere from about $2.60/hr for essentially no minis option to all way up to over $10/hr for ultimate all-in.

Judgment

With $4/hour vs. $10/hour for ultimate all-in comparison, Stormsunder appears to be a clear winner here from $/hour playtime value; however, there are enough unknowns that this comparison is clear as a mud.

First, both games are unclear for a single campaign run time. I personally believe this number may even be more important than total playtime after everything about the game is explored. This is because most player probably won’t be playing the game over and over reaching to the number of hours developers are claiming.

Usually, I’d expect most players complete one or two full campaign.

Second, Tanares RPG has no official playtime confirmation. My estimate of 100 hours for complete gameplay could well be significantly underestimating its potential.

In fact, what’s unique to Tabletop RPG game genre like Tanares RPG is that the materials provided are there to aid Dungeon Masters to create their own homebrew scenarios.

So if the game receives strong enough community support, we may start seeing community created scenarios shared on the internet. If this happens, the playtime of the game could reach to unlimited potential. When played as a real tabletop RPG with people creating their own adventures, Dragori Games claims one can play the game for decades.

Besides, if you end up getting true all-in for Tanares RPG, the cost includes board games as you cannot just buy minis from board games.

In this case, Tanares Adventure expansion has reported playtime of 300 hours just like Stormsunder Triology does.

Therefore, the winner here is to be determined.

Winner – TBD

Miniature Comparison

Despite being purely cosmetic, miniatures are considered crucial element of adventure board game. Some may even consider this as a primary reason for purchasing the particular adventure board game especially on the kickstarter as those miniatures are often much higher quality than the ones you get from games available on the retail stores.

For this reason, miniatures should be considered as part of overall game value.

When looking at miniatures, I look at three main things from a miniature novice perspective:

1. Quality
2. Quantity
3. Reusability

Stormsunder

Quality

Lazy Squire Games places a strong emphasis on the miniatures. Majority of their campaign updates are related to miniatures.

If you see their minis, this approach actually makes sense. They are certainly a strong attraction to the game.

The material used here is PVC. From the miniature layman’s perspective, the general consensus is PVC material are stronger but less detailed than resin material (ref).

However, looking at PVC samples of Stormsunder miniatures, how much more detail do you need or can we physically get?

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With an optional Stormbrush painting, the details of miniatures are even more apparent.

Though I have not seen that many of miniatures and these are all through the computer screen, I feel Stormsunder minis look by far the most detailed miniatures I have ever seen.

In fact, someone who originally had zero interest in minis, these minis made me want to collect them.

Having said this, I would not be surprised there are those of you who actually see the detail is a bit too much, especially those who wants to do own painting.

Quantity

When it comes to the number of miniatures we would receive with Stormsunder, what we have to worry about is the storage space.

The ACT 1 alone will come with 135 miniatures. If you went all-in, you are looking at 510 miniatures.

If you were buying Stormsunder just for miniatures, you are looking at under US$1.50 per mini unpainted, and painted is only little over $2 per mini. It’s an incredible value considering the quality of the miniatures we are seeing.

Reusability

The third element of miniature assessment for me is the reusability. If one mini can be on your table twice in a different setup, in a practical sense it provided twice the utilization.

You may consider using “high quality mini” like ones from Stormsunder in other games because the other game may not have any mini to represent variable skeleton armies or because these minis are simply superior and aesthetically more pleasing to have on the board.

In order for minis to be reusable in other games, there are two requirements.

One is a type of mini, which is a soft requirement. Monsters like vampires and skeletons are common amongst many board games so there are more potential scenarios these can be used.

On the contrary, game’s unique monsters may not have a direct corresponding appearance in other games so their use will mostly be limited to proxying non-existing mini for a given game.

The second requirement is a bit more strict. This is a miniature size. There are various standard scale size for minis. When the size is not compatible with the game you are playing, it would look out of the place, but the real issue is the size incompatibility that may hinder from proper gameplay.

Stormsunder uses 32 mm scale. This is unfortunately, not most common size of miniatures and it will not be compatible in games like D&D.

Furthermore, Lazy Squire Games first IP, Wild Assent and Stormsunder do not have any official cross compatibility support of their miniatures. I had really wished they had made optional but official support of using Wild Assent minis on Stormsunder and vice versa.

Tanares RPG

Quality

The sculpt for Tanares RPG miniatures look exceptional. In general, Dragori Game’s miniatures appear more vibrant than that of Stormsunder minis.

The Tanares series also uses PVC with some ABS for their miniatures.

The most standing out minis in Tanares series are their huge and gargantuan size miniatures like dragons.

Quantity

There are total of 277 miniatures from Dragori Games. With ultimate all-in, each mini will cost just under $3 without painting. With painting, the price goes up to almost $4 per mini.

It is important to note that painting in Tanares are real multi-color painting in contrast to Stormsunder’s essential single color painting. However, Tanares mini paintings are only limited to handful of minis.

Reusability

When it comes to reusability, Tanares minis has very high reusability factor.

First, these are compatible with D&D. Second, the game uses lots of standard fantasy monsters so there are many minis that are reusable in other settings.

Perhaps, the most important reusability factor here is that all three games Dragori Games released to this date are compatible to each other. For instance, all miniatures created for Tanares RPG will have utility in their board game Arena: the Contest and Tanares Adventures expansion.

Dragori Games actually created board game components for new Tanares RPG minis that previously did not have any appearance in board games such as hero pads with their attack cards and villain cards.

So if you end up getting ultimate set of Tanares series, every mini you get are immediately usable at least in two different games and perhaps three as Arena: the Contest is technically a PvP centric game.

Judgement

As a miniature novice, when comparing the quality of miniatures, my eyes first went straight onto the detail.

However, after reading the Youtube comment of the King of Average about comparing Arena: the Contest and Stormsunder minis, I got convinced that vibran cy factor, which he called “evocative poses” of minis are equally important.

When looking at the miniature comparison pictures posted by Lazy Squire Games, Stormsunder minis details are undoubtedly superior to the games like Kingdom Death Monsters.

However, when having these side by side, I can potentially see myself getting partial visual dyslexia in a busy board game tabletop environment.

So my personal conclusion at this time about the quality of minis between Stormsunder and Tanares RPG are the tie.

When it comes to number of minis and therefore, price per mini, Stormsunder is an unequivocal winner. However, this factor is hugely challenged by extremely high reusability factor of Tanares RPG. Essentially, their minis are twice and some may even been three times usable than Stormsunder minis. If you look at this way, 277 minis in Tanares RPG suddenly means 554 equivalent.

The winner here is to be determined category until I can actually see both minis in person next to each other on the game board, but one thing I can say here is either game should not disappoint player from miniatures perspective.

Winner: TBD

Impression

On this very first rounds of two of my most anticipated adventure board games in 2022, I compared value related elements which are gameplay time and miniatures.

Stormsunder reports massive 300 hours of gameplay potential. Although no clear gameplay time known for Tanares RPG, it has potential of “decades” of gameplay. Stormsunder’s most detailed miniatures I’ve ever seen comparing against highly vibrant, extremely reusable Tanares RPG minis.

Both games are undoubtedly A students here and the battle continues.