Alliance The Card Game Kickstarter Preview by David Lent
Alliance The Card Game is a fantasy combat game where leaders and their armies fight each other to gain control of the Kingdom of Alliance. The Kickstarter begins Feb. 7th, 2019. Alliance will have a basic ruleset, which is for kids and an advanced ruleset for teenagers and adults. This preview will cover the basic ruleset, because the advanced ruleset is in the final stages of playtesting.
The starter set includes two decks of cards (one for each faction), a dice, hit point tokens, rules scroll and a mounted map. The artwork on the box and all of the components is fantastic. In addition, the dice is a really high quality metal dice. The prototype I received has cardboard card cases, but the author told me that the final version will have plastic cards and deck boxes that are both tear resistant and waterproof.
Alliance’s cards represent units, generals and leaders. They all have their class, combat type (ranged or melee), roll numbers, attack numbers and hit points. The roll numbers are the numbers that unit has to roll to hit the enemy and the attack numbers are the corresponding damage that hit does. In other words, it’s a mini combat results table right on the card. In addition, each card has some interesting flavor text written on it.
The game setup is very easy. Each player places their leader on their leader space of the board and then shuffles their deck. Next, each player places the top five cards of their deck onto the five army spaces on their side of the board. Last, both players roll and the highest goes first. In the event of a tie, each player rolls again.
Each turn has the following sequence of play where the first player goes first and completes all phases before the second player’s turn begins
1) Placement Phase
2) Combat Phase
3) End Turn
During the placement phase, the current player checks for any open army spaces on his side and then draws one card and places it in an open space. Only one open space can be filled per turn.
In the combat phase, the current player gets to attack twice, but none of his characters may attack more than once. When attacking, he chooses which creature is attacking and declares its target. The dice is rolled and he checks if it is the same as any of the roll numbers on his card. If it is, his character deals the corresponding attack number’s damage to the target. If the damage meets or exceeds the target’s hit points, it kills the target and it goes to the slain box. In cases where the target still has hit points, a token with the new hit point number is placed on the target card.
If all of a player’s units and generals are slain, then the leader moves to an army box and may begin fighting. Leaders have a lot of hit points, more roll numbers and do a lot of damage. However, they can only attack once per turn.
The basic game is fun, but will be most appreciated by kids who are 6 to 12 years old in my opinion. I feel teenagers and adults will crave the advanced rules when they are finished, because they differentiate between ranged and melee attacks and allow you to move characters to different positions in lieu of attacking. Melee attacks will only be allowed against characters directly above yours or diagonal to it, while ranged attacks can attack any enemy character. This promises to give the game more strategy and re-playability.
Like all Kickstarters, Alliance will offer rewards. The most unique reward is an offer to create a custom character for you and put you in the game with their upcoming faction decks.
I look forward to trying the advance rules when they are finished and wish the author Cole Kornell the best of luck with his Kickstarter.
The Kickstarter page is:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1863829881/118014457?ref=637631&token=2315b958