This is Sweep again. I've already introduced myself, but now I'd like to introduce what I and my friends have been doing.
In the spirit of keeping everyone informed, and partly in response to Snowdrop's recent call for regular updates/reports, I'd like to introduce you to a new rules set. Myself and my friends have settled on the name 'Wesnoth: Battle-Tactics' - or just WBT for short. Let me tell you a little bit about it.
WBT uses similar card types to the ORC, but (we think) places a larger emphasis on unit-to-unit combat. That emphasis is produced in two main ways -
1) WBT allows for two types of 'combat' - raiding (which units do on an individual basis, and which offers smaller rewards to the attacker, but is harder for the defender to stop), and battle (which is a form of mass-combat more like that seen in the ORC and in games like Magic: The Gathering).
2) In general players will have the chance to make multiple decisions as part of each 'real combat' (that is, each battle) in WBT - even if all the creatures involved are 'vanilla' creatures (that is, creatures with no rules text).
Some other interesting features of WBT are:
- Cards are not 'marked' (or 'tapped', 'committed', or whatever). Instead they move to different zones of play - ("into the field", for example) and their abilities are limited (or increased) depending upon which zone they are in.
- A very simple turn structure, with only two phases.
- An element that is, functionally speaking, superficially similar to resource piles in the ORC, but really quite different, and branded to allow the notion of 'terrain' to matter...
- A variable number of 'fronts'.
- You win by reducing your opponent's influence to 0, and their influence is equal to the number of cards in their draw deck.
- You have a standard hand size rather than a maximum hand size, and can draw up to it at the end of your turn.
The WBT team has also been developing cards (all still at the 'concept' or 'approved for playtesting' stages), which, when we get sufficiently organized (soon!), we will put onto Cardscape. Obviously these cards are designed for use with the WBT rules, but hopefully they provide ORC developers with as much inspiration as we've been taking from their creations!