As Wargamer's resident goth, I was easily charmed by Vampire Lords, a board game that's currently crowdfunding on Gamefound. It's an asymmetric area control game where you play as a crowd of bloodthirsty vampires looking to take over 15th-century Romania. Despite this being a self-published title from Weronika and Maciej Galas, it has the production value of a far more established tabletop series, with stunning woodcut art and suitably spooky components.
You'll find many of the expected features of a wargame in Vampire Lords. The board is a sprawling map with towns and villages for you to take over. Each locale you control nets you some resources each round, and you win the game if you control five or more towns. Alternatively, the game ends after a set number of rounds, with the ruler of the most towns claiming victory.
The race to control Romania naturally results in combat, combat, combat. You'll summon units (both living and dead) to fight on behalf of your vampire lord, and the side with more bodies to throw at their opponent gets to roll a higher-value combat die. The board state becomes even more fluid when you factor in uprisings, where neutral units represent the humans that eventually start to revolt against their supernatural masters.
What makes this feel different from your standard wargame is the game's deck-building mechanics. Each vampire lord has their own deck, with some cards that are unique to them. These decks can be expanded by purchasing new cards during the market phase, and there's a unique graveyard mechanic that helps you cycle through cards that are less helpful to your current strategy.
Vampire Lords has received some high praise in the reviews on BoardGameGeek (though its overall score is definitely inflated by how few tests there have been so far). Players over on the forum site have praised the game's theme, approachability, and - of course - the artwork.
A basic copy of Vampire Lords is available for around $63. There's also a $98 pledge tier offering an expansion that takes the max player count from four to six. Meanwhile, the top pledge adds some collector's minis to replace the basic vampire lord meeples. All pledges come with a free dice tower, too.
You can learn more on the Vampire Lords Gamefound page. If you'd like to chat about the games you're eager to crowdfund, we're all ears in the Wargamer Discord.