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The Kickstarter backer box is really cool. It's got a magnetized front lid thingy, and has drawers for the cards and tokens. The production value of the whole game is impressive. The only thing I was disappointed about was that the drawers are quite big, obviously to accommodate future expansions which is a good thing, but the game didn't come with any space holders so the cards don't actually stand up in the drawers like they're intended to, even with the first wave of expansions that came with the Kickstarter. Fortunately I had some foam rectangles from a Cards Against Humanity expansion which fit perfectly while I wait for all of the expansions I will need to compulsively buy.
The game itself is pretty simple and a lot of fun. It's for 2-4 players - for 2 players it's a one-on-one duel, for 3 players, it's a free-for-all, and 4 players it's two teams of two with shared life totals (Similar to the 2 Headed Giant format for Magic: the Gathering).
The object of the game is to eliminate your opponent(s) by reducing their life total to zero. You do this by playing Move cards, which both attack your opponent and block their incoming attacks. Players only start with around 4 life each, so blocking is a very big deal.
There are mini decks for every race and class in the game, and each player selects or randomises one class and one race, takes the two matching halves of the character board and shuffles those mini decks together to make their character deck.
Each race and class deck has a set of basic attacks as well as some more wordsy cards which have conditional effects on them, some of which will in turn become permanent effects which remain in play for the rest of the game.
A quick rundown of gameplay:
Each player start the game with a hand of 5 cards.
On each round of the game, the current player puts 2 cards face down from their deck into their "aggro zone". You start the game with zero aggro, so at this point on turn one you would now have 2, then 4 on turn two, 6 on turn three and so on. The number of cards in your aggro zone determines how many cards you can afford to play, as you can only play cards from your hand costing a total of equal to or less than your current aggro.
After adding aggro, you then have the option of drawing as many cards as you want from your aggro pile into your hand. The trade-off being that the more cards you take into your hand this way, the less aggro you then have available to play them.
The next step is playing attack "move" cards from your hand. You can play as many as you like, provided the total cost doesn't exceed your current aggro.
Move cards are placed face up on the table with the Defense icon facing your opponent. If your opponent has played moves in their last turn, they will have their Attack icons facing you, and you can match up your moves to these to block them. To block, you assign one Defense value to an opposing Attack value which is equal or lower. For each of your opponents attacks you have been unable to block, you lose 1 life point.
Once the blocking is concluded, all of the moves you have played get turned upside down so that the Attack icons are facing your opponent.
And that's the basic turn structure which repeats until there's only one player left standing.
The Move cards with text effects are where most of the tactical meat is in this game. Some will become permanent effects if they're blocked, so your opponent needs to decide between letting the attack through or allowing you a long term benefit. Other cards let you steal cards from your opponent's deck, hand or aggro zone, both weakening their position and allowing you to potentially use their own racial or class abilities against them.
Each player start the game with a hand of 5 cards.
On each round of the game, the current player puts 2 cards face down from their deck into their "aggro zone". You start the game with zero aggro, so at this point on turn one you would now have 2, then 4 on turn two, 6 on turn three and so on. The number of cards in your aggro zone determines how many cards you can afford to play, as you can only play cards from your hand costing a total of equal to or less than your current aggro.
After adding aggro, you then have the option of drawing as many cards as you want from your aggro pile into your hand. The trade-off being that the more cards you take into your hand this way, the less aggro you then have available to play them.
The next step is playing attack "move" cards from your hand. You can play as many as you like, provided the total cost doesn't exceed your current aggro.
Move cards are placed face up on the table with the Defense icon facing your opponent. If your opponent has played moves in their last turn, they will have their Attack icons facing you, and you can match up your moves to these to block them. To block, you assign one Defense value to an opposing Attack value which is equal or lower. For each of your opponents attacks you have been unable to block, you lose 1 life point.
Once the blocking is concluded, all of the moves you have played get turned upside down so that the Attack icons are facing your opponent.
And that's the basic turn structure which repeats until there's only one player left standing.
The Move cards with text effects are where most of the tactical meat is in this game. Some will become permanent effects if they're blocked, so your opponent needs to decide between letting the attack through or allowing you a long term benefit. Other cards let you steal cards from your opponent's deck, hand or aggro zone, both weakening their position and allowing you to potentially use their own racial or class abilities against them.
So, after a few two-player games of Epic PVP, I have the impression that while it's not a super deep game, it is a lot of fun and has a ton of replayability thanks to the vast number of race/class combos you can make. I'm really looking forward to trying it our with a bigger group.
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