My first RPG review for this site: Cold Steel Wardens by Blackfall Press LLC

Before I forget:  I bought this with my own money.

First off, I want to say, I love the Iron Age of Comics, but I'll also be one of the first to say that a lot of it was crap. Mostly an excuse for blood fueled, ultra-violent revenge porn. But when it was good, it was fabulous, and deep, and dark and went places that the still somewhat active Comics Code would not have allowed. And a lot of modern comics and stories still don't. So finding this game and with someone talking a serious take on it, without going into self-parody, like Marvel's Deadpool (who was the poster child for all bad Iron Age characters, in my opinion) or pointless violence (like a lot of DC's Vigilante, Deathstroke the Terminator and Marvel's Punisher comics of the early to mid-90's. And most of Images comic lines, I'm sad to say), was a Godsend. And exceedingly rare.

Having read the game, but not tried the system, I can't honestly say how it runs. And so I won't. I will however go into impressions from what the game gives me, via the game system, the setting and the overall tone.

First off, the basic premise is that most characters are beginner vigilantes, whether they're street level paladins like Spiderman and Daredevil, Batman and Nightwing, Cloak and Dagger, heroic mercenaries like Luke Cage or Daniel Rand AKA Iron Fist, or out and out killers for justice like the original Vigilante or Punisher. However, it also implies that they're not very well trained, having a basic level of combat and investigative training. Which if you ever read most Iron Age styled comics, this is not the case, most vigilantes have a background from which to draw on a lot of skills, usually military and/or police, or if not, they'd have done some sort of training or have powers, that make them more than a match for multiple gang members at once.

A lot of the pre-made characters certainly seem capable of doing so given the dice numbers, according to the basic math I've done, which is by no means exhaustive, or sadly, likely accurate, White Room testing can only do so much. Oddly the text keeps inferring that death should be feared at all times, but that's unlike most of the setting material it draws from, it creates a bit of a disconnect. Heroes and Vigilantes should not fear death, it's something they have had to deal with, will have to deal with. Their own, or others. It's how they deal with it that matters. Most of the enjoyment of a game like this is more the moral quandaries and situations that don't always involve murder. Although, admittedly, some villains just need a good killing. Death should have meaning, after all, most vigilantes will encounter it often, whether caused by their own hands, or they have to deal with the victims of crimes.

The powers are a nice touch, most street level heroes don't have any or much if they do have some. And they're kept, for the most part, relatively low powered, save for two, but they've always been a bit of a game breaker, but at least here, they've kept them from breaking the system too hard. The two I'm talking about? Invisibility and Phasing. The ability to bypass a lot of situations always break the system.

The gear is typical grim and gritty, typically found in the stuff like Sin City or The Punisher. No fancy wrist guns or the like. Which for the most part is well within setting. The issue is the armour. Now, realistically, armour technology has almost always lagged behind weapon technology. However, in most comics it's almost always at parity. The Punisher's body armour has always been reasonably bullet resistant, as he's usually one man taking on an army of goons. Most vigilantes, which tend to get together in groups no larger than two or three, rarely four or higher, tends to face off on groups of twenty or more, sometimes even at once. So a lot more protection is necessary than what is provided.

You could, in theory, go for the Powers to mimic the higher level of defence, but forcing the players to up their arsenal by using a subset of the rules, that apparently are supposed to be rare seems a little counter intuitive to me. The amount of money given at character creation is also a bit lacking. Let's face it, the most famous killer vigilante started out as a Spiderman villain, but had an arsenal from Day 1. Others have extreme to superhuman levels of skill to avoid taking damage, admittedly, but the base system doesn't seem geared to handle that. Although, that's just me eyeballing the basic math.

However, I will state that most of the above are easily rectified if you're like me and house rule the crap out of everything you play. And really, it's just gear, it's not like you're rewriting the system from the ground up.

The critical damage system, which is called 'Strain' here has two sides to it, physical and mental, each having a often crippling effect to the player's character. On the whole it's a cute idea, but in implementation, I'm finding that it could lead to issues where campaigns end, because physically injured characters take a while to heal, and players don't want to go through that much 'down time', worse, if they are amenable, a lot of these can be bypassed all together, by simply 'waiting' the prerequisite amount of time. This is assuming they don't flame out and go in a blaze of glory during the adventure in which they take any damage that severe.

The mental Strain chart is a whole 'nother ball of wax, one that, the designer admits, can get sticky for some crews out there. And even among those that are OK with it, it can end up with a character that's unplayable do to mental issues and potential conflicts among the various situations and characters (not Players, in this case.)

As a whole, I'm not too keen on either system, although in theory it shouldn't happen too often.

There is an oddity in the book's layout, however. The investigation creation kit, with suggestions as to how to create them is just in front of the Game Master's section. I would have put it in with the rest of the GM's information, simply because the GM is the one who'll be using that most often. But other than that, it's a useful resource with three ways to set up an investigation style adventure. I will touch on the GM's section below, as I have a bit to say about it.

Now, the setting of New Corinth. This is an expansive and modestly detailed rust belt-esque city that you can plunk down anywhere you want. It's a self-contained module with no outside links to any one nation, although it does assume American for convenience sake. It's made up five major districts and goes into some detail, but I'm finding that there's a lack of actual information on the districts except for key elements. Now that would be fine, normally but it's written in such a way to leave very little wiggle room. And the fact that there are no mention of Asian gangs, which was a huge thing in the Iron Age, especially with it's love of Ninja and anything martial arts related, is a bit of a crime to me.

But it's full of bit and major characters, easily fueling that side of the game, there is an extensive list of types of adversaries (including, yes, Ninja, but no one that would hire them) both mundane and somewhat supernatural. All well done and detailed just enough to give one ideas. And there's even a small selection of premade Vigilantes for the Players to pick from.

There's a section in the GM's chapters, explaining what the author believes makes up an Iron Age styled game, most of which I agree with but, like almost all fandoms, we'll all have our outliers. However, there's one thing that he keeps going on about, and that is death, namely player death, and how to make it meaningful even if it seems pointless. Which is great if you're trying to run a Noir game, in which the 'hero' such as they are, are less likely to live at the end of the tale. But in a Superhero type setting like the Iron Age of comics, even though a lot of them are not superhuman themselves death of a character is not something that is feared. Sometimes it happens, as in the case of DC's Vigilante or Marvel's Scourge of The Underworld, but at the same time, once the character is dead you lose the character's potential for change, growth or even epiphany. And frankly, it's so unlike the Iron Age, I'm not quite sure what the author was trying to do with the game.

Which all boils down to my issues with this game. It starts out strong with great ideas, but it then dives into a different genre altogether as if without realizing it.

I'm not going to give this a rating, I've come to realize that a number is arbitrary and in no way reflects information given, so instead I shall as a simple question at the end of each review.

Should you get this book? If you like the Noir, or just want a setting to riff and rip off? Yes. The mechanics seem solid, and the investigations section are very useful for any system. The layout, other than that one hiccup, is easy to read and flows from one chapter to another. But if you're looking for a feel of the comics of the mid to late 80s and 90s in a book, this needs a lot of mental massaging. It can be done, it's just do you want to?