Archons of War

[Malagar]

hey guys,
its that time of the year again: i have a "new" card game idea i want to share.

basically, im thinking about turning a 28mm miniature skirmish wargame into a TCG. maybe this sounds weird, but miniatures are expensive and not everyone wants to collect/paint minis and terrain (for both players) before being able to play. in addition to that, TCG cards are much better to represent add-ons like spells, items and the like.

so, i am gathering ideas how to represent a wargame using cards. the most important aspect is that i want to stick to typcial TCG mechanics. i dont want to turn this into a board game. this brings up a number of questions, a few have already been answered (i explain later in detail) - while others are still open - here is where i appreciate your feedback!

1. Starting Armies
In a wargame you begin the game with your army already in play. I dont want to do that and keep the typical "build up" aspect of TCGs. So you have a resource mechanic and are able to bring new units into play every turn, effectively building up your force. this changes the scope of play a bit and alters possible victory conditions compared to classic wargames.

2. Resource Mechanic
Tied to the first question, there will be a need for a resource mechanic. something that is obsolete in classic wargames. Im currently thinking about two simple system: A. you gain X resources per turn (where X is the number of turns already passed) basta. or B. you can play cards as resources instead and tap them to gain 1 resource (like in Duelmasters). I still have not decided yet, but i think there could be much more creative ideas or optional resource income sources.

3. Combat
The main aspect of any wargame. Well, in a TCG i dont want to make this mechanic too complex. im thinking about the typical magic the gathering system (assign attackers/blockers and compare attack/defense values). But, i would expand the system by two additional statistics: Speed and Life. Speed determines the strike order (like a "stacked" first strike in magic the gathering) while life means the number of wounds a card can take (you have to track with tokens like in lord of the rings or other TCGs). This system is actually the same as in my other TCG designs (Disciples 3 TCG for example). It represents a powerful expansion of the magic system, without making things too complex. still open to discussion (i havent even considered unit morale in my system).

4. The Battlefield
This is in my eyes the most difficult aspect of converting a wargame into a TCG. As you have no playmat or board, it will be very difficult to keep track of the positions of the various characters/units. In fact, its even more difficult to add a strategic meaning to the positions in the game. Fortunately, I've come up with a solution for this problem - wich I think is the most "well tought out" aspect of this design so far:

4.1 No Board - No Grid
Units cards are attached to Terrain cards to represent their physical location in the game. This is similar to other TCGs where you attach enchantments to monsters or whatever, wich means you know wich cards are connected to each other, without having to track their physical location on the table. There can be as many (or as few) terrain cards in the game as the players like, and each card can hold up to any number of unit cards (except there is a limit on the terrain card, like in confined indoor locations).

4.2 Inherent locations
There are two (or more) basic locations in the game, these are always accessible and prevent terrain cards to be mandatory. The first one is your Deck, the second one your Graveyard. This means you can attach unit cards to either your deck or your graveyard (and so may your opponent). In fact, your units are protecting your deck/graveyard against enemy attacks. These two locations provide starting terrains for your units, so you are able to bring new units into play at theese locations without having any other terrain cards in play. you can also play (and win) the game without additional terrain cards at all, focusing on your two basic locations alone.

4.3 Close Combat Range
One of the most important aspects of wargames is range. in the TCG version, all units attached to the same terrain (or graveyard/deck) are considered to be in close combat range to each other. Only close combat is allowed at this range. In addition, moving into close combat could be considered "charging" while moving out of close combat could trigger your enemies "attack of opportunity".

4.4 Possible extension of range
This depends how difficult we want the game to be: Range could be extended by aligning cards to the four edges of a terrain card. this way, each terrain card could provide four different placement positions for each unit. only unit cards at the same position would be in close-combat, while the others would be in (low ranged) missile combat or in charge range. but this solution makes things uneccessary complex in my eyes.

4.5 Ranged Combat
Its as simple as that: Units placed in different terrain cards are considered to be in "ranged combat distance", this means only missile combat is possible and units have to move in order to be in charge/close combat range to each other. please note that physical location of the units/terrain cards is not important: just the matter of fact that the units are NOT on the same terrain card is enough.

4.6 Movement
Now comes the real meat of the system: moving between locations. please remember that locations ARE NOT ALIGNED TO EACH OTHER IN A GRID-LIKE FASHION. All terrain cards are loosely placed on the table (with cards attached to them) in true TCG style. No board, no grid.

If you want to move a card from one terrain to another terrain, you simply compare your units SPEED with the target terrain cards DIFFICULTY. Is your speed higher, your unit arrives at the target UNTAPPED. If it is equal or less to the targets difficulty rating, it arrives at its destination TAPPED. Usually a unit can only move once per turn, but some units can move more often - in that case you have to deduct the target terrains difficulty from your speed and take the result as a base for your next movments calculation.

Finally tapped units cant act anymore during this turn, while arriving at a location untapped allows your unit to perform another action (like attacking), and is considered to be a major tactical advantage.

PS: using this system, units can always move, there is no "blocking out", even if you have speed 1 and the target terrain has difficulty 10, you simply arrive there tapped.

4.7 Artillery and Long Range Combat
A further enhancement of ranged combat could include shooting across several terrains. Similar to moving, you have to deduct your units RANGE from the terrain cards DIFFICULTY. If the total difficulty is equal or less your range rating, you may shoot there, if it is higher your target is out of range. This rules mechanics also seems to be a bit complex in my eyes, but is open to discussion.

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Thats all for tonight, i appreciate your feedback. especially because i have not even scratched the surface of wargames! there are so many sub-systems open for translation/conversion/discussion it would be a joy to hear what ideas you have to offer (like morale, magic, terrain based cover, artefacts, mounts, war-machines, flagbearers, musicians, leaders, units gaining experience, side-quests, objectives, victory conditions and so on and so forth).

-Malagar

[Malagar]

i gave a template for this idea a try. its not as advanced as my previous templates - as my harddrive crashed about a week ago and i still have to recover the data from it (all of my image/icon/template library i usually built up on).

so this is the mere start of something that could later turn into a "miniature skirmish wargame represented as a CCG".

please note that the statistics are missing on this card, its just a skeleton.

[Malagar]

Finally, some random thoughts about the game design itself:

Warbands
In this game you do not control whole armies, instead you control a small warband of heroes and elite warriors. maybe accompanied by a single war-machine and one or two cards representing cavalry or beasts. its small scale tactical wargaming in card form (inspired by dota style warcraft 3 maps and group fighting war-games, i have seen a few here on lackey).

Starting Hero
Each player starts with one hero already in play, this hero is located next to your deck. both deck and graveyard count as locations that can by attacked.

Supply Points
The resource generation in this game is done via supply points. basically you can tap any hero or follower in play to generate one supply point. all cards have a Level (represented by a gold coin symbol) and it costs supply points equal to its level to bring a card into play. as all players begin with one hero already in play, they will always be able to generate at least one supply point per turn. you can save unused supply points for later turns.

Factions
each card is aligned to one of three factions: Good, Evil or neutral. You can only use the supply points provided by a card to play a card of the same faction or a neutral card. This means you can use "good" supply points to either play a good or neutral card. where neutral supply points may only be used to play neutral cards.

there are many subfactions within (like elves, human and dwarves for the "good" faction). but the main distribution is just three.

most items are neutral, but some may be aligned to a faction - this is also true for abilities.

Victory Condition
You have to break your opponents warband, this means you inflict enough damage to destroy your opponents morale and fighting capability. this is done by removing cards from your opponents deck. everytime you attack your opponent, no matter at wich location - any unblocked damage instead "mills" your opponents deck.

Levels
the level statistic of each card has another meaning as well: heroes can only use items that are equal to their level (or lower), and a hero can only attach (command) followers that are <= his level. so a level 3 hero could attach any item/follower of level 1,2 or 3 - but not higher.

movement
as explained in the opening post, cards can move between locations (this includes your graveyard and deck, as well as terrain cards in play) by tapping. if the speed rating of your card is higher than the difficulty rating of the target terrain, you may move there without tapping - but a card can only move once per turn.

card statistics
the statistics i have planned are:

* Level
* Attack
* Defense
* Health
* Speed (replaced with Difficulty for terrain cards).

Card types
the card types planned until now:

* Heroes
* Followers
* Items
* Abilities
* Terrain

Combat
1. tap a hero/follower to attack an enemy at the same location (you can attack enemies on different locations only if your card has the ranged strike ability).
2. your enemy may only counter attack if his card is untapped
3. if conterattacking: compare the speed values of both combatants - the one with higher speed goes first
4. deduct the targets <defense> from the attackers <attack> value
5. deduct the rest from the targets <health> value - this damage is permanent, use tokens to keep track of wounds
6. if dealt more or equal damage to the target, remove the card from play by putting it into the graveyard
7. deal any excess damage to the opponents deck

...work in progress...

[Dragoon]

You might look into Summoner Wars, which is a ccg/wargame hybrid.

I'm opposed to good/evil sides. (But I'm a fan of grey and greyer morality, so ignore this)

The resource system sounds a little bit slow. I think it's better to have all cards have a supply value, giving an amount of supply points when they 'tap'. Thinking about other resource systems, you could give all cards have a supply value, and you 'may' discard a card from your hand during your supply phase to gain that amount of supplies.

[Malagar]

Thanks for the reply

I know summoner wars, its pretty cool - but what i dislike is that it uses a grid. grids are in my eyes completely agains the typical ccg spirit (magic never used a grid and thats a good thing).

regarding the resource system: i just dont want players tap items and abilities to generate resources, thats why i limited it to just heroes/followers. maybe i can come up with a better system in the future.

the good/evil: well, actually you can play any way you like, the 3 factions give you lots of freedom. my background world has some relation to hell/heaven battle thats one point why i have chosen this system. more important: i dont want the player to be limited to a "dwarf only" or "elf only" deck. thats why i put all good/evil races into one of the three factions. this enables you to mix dwarves, humans and elves in a "good" deck - PLUS adding a few neutral characters like ogre mercenaries and the like.

more info later, if anyone has thoughts to share - you are welcome!

[Malagar]

updated the templates, still WIP though...

[Dragoon]

Thanks for the reply

I know summoner wars, its pretty cool - but what i dislike is that it uses a grid. grids are in my eyes completely agains the typical ccg spirit (magic never used a grid and thats a good thing).

regarding the resource system: i just dont want players tap items and abilities to generate resources, thats why i limited it to just heroes/followers. maybe i can come up with a better system in the future.

the good/evil: well, actually you can play any way you like, the 3 factions give you lots of freedom. my background world has some relation to hell/heaven battle thats one point why i have chosen this system. more important: i dont want the player to be limited to a "dwarf only" or "elf only" deck. thats why i put all good/evil races into one of the three factions. this enables you to mix dwarves, humans and elves in a "good" deck - PLUS adding a few neutral characters like ogre mercenaries and the like.

more info later, if anyone has thoughts to share - you are welcome!

I think the faction stuff indeed gives each player a lot of freedom. I just dislike the terms good and evil.

Not interested in the discard for resource system? I have playtested it, and it tend to work well, however, card balance is pretty hard to get right.

I am not a fan to roll cost, equipment & follower limit into one stat. Please let the card cost remain different from any other stat.

Last but not least, I suggest removing card types from the type line. Have these somewhere different.

[Malagar]

Good/Evil: Yeah, the game was greatly inspired by the old computer game "Archon" as well as Alderacs planned CCG called "phase". both games had this strong Good VS. Evil theme, and as my project does not feature any kind of political/religious aspect and concentrates on fighting instead - i thought it would be a good idea.

Resource system: Well, the system i got now - and its working quite nice - is completely different, and somewhat new (thats why i like it): During your turn you may decide to draw up to two cards from your deck. Or you draw just one or no card at all. When drawing 2 cards you gain no resources, but when drawing one card, you gain one supply point. If you decide to draw no card at all, you will receive 2 supply points to spend. That way its simple, new and speeds up gameplay by an enormous amount.

Cost/Limit: okay, i think about it. but then i need another stat just for the limit - that seems kind of a waste of space and numbers. cost is called "level" in this game and so a level 5 hero costs 5 supply points and can attach up to 5 other cards to itself. I dont see any problem with that, but i understand your point. if this would be a RPG/real wargame i would split up the statistic too. but for a ccg with simplified/streamlined rules and not very much space on the cards i would rather combine cost and limit into the "level" stat for sake of simplicity. and it makes sense: a stronger hero is more costly and therefore can attach more cards.

yeah i think about putting the keywords/types into the middle of the card. the way it is now, it was just easier to layout. to put them into the middle i have to either increase the black space and put them there in white color. or there has to be one more graphical element to put the words on (like a steel or wood bar between the picture and the text box).

PS: got a phone call from the computer center today, seems like my old HD cannot be recovered anymore *CRIES*. all my aliens VS predator templates, the Galaxian community project templates, my Disciples 3 templates and all other CCG related design stuff is GONE! <well, this actually forces me to start something new and creative - haha!>

thanks for your feedback!

[Kevashim]

Why can't the evil faction have the regular Elves and Dwarves for a change?

Elves and Light Elves, Dwarves and Light Dwarves instead of Elves and Dark Elves, Dwarves and Dark Dwarves.

Always strikes me that good is the default state of both of those races and "Dark" is an evil variant.

[Malagar]

@Kevashim: Im mostly limited to the graphical resources the net has to offer. Otherwise i would change the background world completely and run riot. would love to see a world where orcs are arabian etc. with no black/white scheme involved, instead each race would feature its own set of morals and everything would be layers of shades of grey. But this will be a free game, relying on internet resources - so im somewhat forced to have a stereotype high fantasy world.

Finally, here are the quickstart rules as PDF document. written after work in a hurry, so this is in no way complete. i see this more like a base to work on

http://www.zockergilde.net/files/aow-quickrules.pdf

PS: sorry, the rules sheet is a bit big (1,7MB) and may not fit on a single DIN-A4 page (it was intended to). i will fix that later this week. excuse the trouble please.

EDIT: UPDATED the quick rules, ists now just 140kb. Added two important rules aspects:

* Each unit may only move once per turn, no matter if the cards become tapped due to movement or not.
* During combat, when the number of attackers exceeds blockers, assigning additional attackers to a Hero is only possible after all blocking Followers received an additional attacker.

[Malagar]

updated the "good" template, still not happy with the icon, sprinkled edges on the card border are a bit too much as i think

besides that, im almost ready to start designing the first few cards, rules are ready (see previous post), templates are almost ready, thinking about to start with 5 factions - 36 cards each, plus 36 completely neutral cards - that would be a nice 216 card "premier set".

[Dan55]

I was thinking of something similar, however much smaller (more skirmish) in size.  Something like Necromunda or Judge Dread using the Bab5 ccg game mechanics.

[Malagar]

@Dan55: yeah i played necromunda back in the days. the background world is very atmospheric and would be ideal for a card game. and even without the background world, a skirmish level card game based around a party of gang members is also a cool idea.

when designing my game i had something like warcraft 3 in mind: a unit of rank and file troops led by a hero (that can level up and carry equipment).

regarding my project: i found a way to spice the combat system up a bit more without using dice or any other additional components.

### UNIQUE AND DICELESS, NON-RANDOM COMBAT SYSTEM FOR CCGs ###

the whole idea of this system is to break up the standard "compare numbers" mechanic, without adding a random element

I have seen a few games that feature not only Attack/Defense values but instead some "challenge" ratings to enable the players to compete in various fields (a game of thrones for example). they add things like "might" and "intrigue" to the standard "combat" values found in ccgs. this system could be translated into a pure combat based ccg as well, by dividing the single "attack" statistic into three or more "combat styles" (already seen in 1on1 fighting card games).

THE STATISTICS

so, instead of having an "attack" or "power" rating, each card would feature one or more "combat tactics" ratings. when attacking, the player can choose the rating that fits his unit and the situation best. i was thinking about:

* Charge
* Melee
* Skirmish
* Ranged

now thats 4 "attack" stats instead of just one. sounds complicated, but i will throw other stats out instead (armor and health, as these will be realised using special rules).

SELECTING STATISTICS

when a player attacks, he must choose one of the four stats to use for the combat resolution this turn. some stats can only be used in certain situations and they all have a different combat result. your opponent can choose a stat that fits him best, but the attacker chooses first and this might change the available stats the defender may choose from.

* Charge - You can only use the carge value if your unit moved this turn. This way they are charging into combat, throwing all their weight onto their enemies. This combat tactic can only be used when attacking, and deals enormous amounts of damage to your opponent.

* Melee - The basic combat tactic used when attacking or receiving either melee or charge attacks. deals a moderate amount of damage.

* Skirmish - This is the most flexible combat type, as you can use skirmish either in close-combat or in missile combat. you can use skirmish also when your opponent charges, attacks via melee or shoots at you. the drawback of this tactic is that it deals the least amount of damage.

* Ranged - this combat tactic may only be used when shooting at an opponent from afar. you can also defend using this stat, but only against charge or shoot. deals moderate amount of damage.

RESOLVING COMBAT

you must know that in this game, you will most likely attack with 2+ cards instead of just one. a stack of 2+ cards is called a "unit".

to resolve combat, first choose your battle tactic, then your opponent chooses his. finally you add the combat values of the chosen statistics of all cards in your units together and compare the results. the player with the higher total wins the combat. the outcome of combat varies depending on the combat tactic you have choosen (i have not completely designed this part yet, ideas are).

* Charge - for every point your total exceeds your opponents, you deal 1 damage to his unit.

* Melee - for every two points , you deal 1 damage to the unit.

* Skirmish - for every three points, you deal 1 damage to the unit.

* Ranged - for every two points, you deal 1 damage to the unit.

i was thinking about capping the maximum amount of damage you can deal to the number of cards in your unit. so a 5 card unit can deal a maximum of 5 damage, even if you surpass your opponents result by 12 points.

APPLYING DAMAGE

when a unit receives damage, the owner of that unit may distribute the damage among his cards in any way. most units can only sustain one point of damage and are discarded, but there are special rules that allow a unit to withstand 2 or more blows, or armor abilities that "soak up" the first point of damage dealt.

<insert fancy damage distribution system here that i have not fleshed out yet (to prevent placing all damage on the same card while not a single point of damage on the other cards in the same unit)>

COMBAT EXAMPLE

Imagine an Orc player attacking a Dwarf player. Both units consist of 3 cards and are about to start a melee combat. the orc player moved into melee this turn and so may also use his Charge rating if he wants to.

Orc Unit
1x Orc Boar-Rider Card (3 charge, 2 melee)
2x Goblin Wolf-Rider Cards (1 charge, 1 melee)

Dwarf Unit
1x Dwarf Miner Card (1 melee, 1 skirmish)
1x Dwarf Militia Card (2 melee)
1x Dwarf Gunner Card (1 melee, 2 skirmish, 2 ranged)

The Orc player decides to use the "Charge" stat, as he may do so because he moved into combat this turn (whatever that means).

Although the dwarf player could use "skirmish" or "ranged" to counter the attack, he chooses "melee" because the other two statistics provide lower totals.

The Orc players total = 3 + 1 + 1 = 5 charge
The Dwarf players total = 1 + 2 + 1 = 4 melee

The Result 5 > 4 (5-4=1)

because the orc player has chosen "charge" the remainder of the two totals (5-4=1) effectively deals one damage to its opponents unit (if he had chosen another combat tactic, the remainder would not have been high enough to deal any serious damage).

the dwarf player decides to apply the damage to his "Dwarf Miner" card, effectively destroying it.

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Phew...thank you for chewing through this wall of text. Toughts anyone?

[Malagar]

rules got updated according to the new (final) system, things are coming together quite nicely. this version of the rulebook is not finished, but enough to give you the idea if you followed the project progress so far. expect the final rulebook version within a few days.

http://www.zockergilde.net/files/aow-quickrules.pdf

[Malagar]

rules got updated and moved to a new place (google drive/docs) - final card template is up (still workin on the icons and readability of the card text) - enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_SmPTyBilZOUkp2TmhRaU14LTQ