After the summer break 🙂
Simple but fun game based on playing from a hand of cards representing robots. Each has special powers and affects the stack (stak) in different ways, making it more tactical than a simple rock-paper-scissors exercise.
The game functions by giving each player a stack of cards as well as a hand. Each turn, players take a new card from the shared draw pile and may add a face-up card to the stack, trash a card from the stack or from their hand. When a card is played, it will have “entry effect” that may operate on the stack ordering of the player or opponent.
Once all playing/trashing is finished for a turn, the player may attack the card on top of an opponent’s stack with the top card of their own. The battle itself is quite simple and just a matter of comparing power, although assuming your bot survives its first battle, it can go on to attack the newly revealed card underneath. The real tactical consideration goes into the pre-attack stack manipulation phase.
There is an open turn structure which allows players to carry out actions in any order and any number of times. This means they can react to the often unpredictable results of long entry effect chains, or to cards that their opponents play defensively during your turn.
The game is also customisable: you can adjust the complexity or game length by adding more Staks for each player or by changing basic game mechanics.
Game description from the publisher:
London, 1873 – The Royal Academy of Space Exploration has announced its intention to launch a mission to Mars by year’s end. In its quest to claim, fully explore, and map the great red planet, the Academy is holding recruitment competitions for various positions on the crew. A position central to the crew’s mission, the Astronautical Engineer must be resourceful and efficient in his construction of various mechanisms and ship maintenance.
In Mars Needs Mechanics, players represent engineers and tinkerers from all over the Empire who have come to compete for this prodigious opportunity. Starting the game with only 30 cogs (currency), players will utilize unique game mechanisms that emphasize timing to collect sets of components and build steampunk mechanisms aimed at earning even more cogs. At the end of the competition, the engineer with the most cogs will earn his place as Astronautical Engineer on the crew of the H.M.S. Victoria VII.
When venturing in Limbo at the edge of the galaxy, scouts found a new form of energy: Titanium. First experiments showed it could push back the frontiers of technology, and even open new horizons for human capabilities. This news was more than enough to stir up the greed of humankind’s greatest factions. Each has sent fleets to take over nearby planets where Titanium is abundant – and even seems to be in constant expansion. From that point on, armed conflicts were bound to happen, and this war will be settled only by controlling the Titanium deposits…
As leaders of these great factions in Titanium Wars, players will purchase buildings to master new technologies and increase their earnings, build their own fleet of custom battleships to defeat their opponents, and expand their space empire. They will have to prove bold, insightful and tactful if they want any chance to win this fierce war.
WARMACHINE High Command is a deck-building card game for 2–4 players set in the steam-powered fantasy world of the Iron Kingdoms. This stand-alone game can be played with just the contents of this box or combined with other WARMACHINE High Command products for a customizable experience. Leverage your resources, rally your armies, and dominate your foes to set your banner above all of western Immoren!
This box contains game rules and 386 cards, including:
89 Cygnar cards
89 Khador cards
89 Protectorate of Menoth cards
89 Cryx cards
15 Winds of War cards
15 Location cards
Amicale Games Club 