Wot I’m Playing, Part 2: Epic PVP: Fantasy!

Time to focus on something other then a video game (gasp!) I know. But there’s a lot of good card/board games out there, some of which I own, a lot of which I wish I could own… So this one’s about a modular card game that just hit stores. I bought the Kickstarter Version way back when, and quite frankly, it’s become the new go-to game on Sunday Nights for myself and my friends.

Meet: Epic PVP: Fantasy

What do I mean, that it’s a modular card game? Well, you choose a race (staples like Human, Dwarf, Goblin, Dark Elf, etcetera) and classes (generic fantasy classes: fighter, rogue, paladin, so on and so forth.) Each race has its own deck, and each class has its own deck as well. You combine them to form your battle deck.

You take a number of cards out of the deck depending on your race as your life pile. Lose em all, you’re out of the game.

The game uses an aggression mechanic. You get two cards in front of you (called your aggression pile) every turn. You can either draw cards in the aggression pile into your hand, or leave them in front of you. Each card in your hand has three important stats on it.. it’s cost (how many cards out of the aggression pile it will cost to play it), its attack, and its defense. You play attacks against an opponent, who tries to block them by playing a card with an equal or higher defense stat. Defense however, turns into attack, as any defense cards you play become attacks against that opponent the next turn they play. Any unblocked attack does a point of damage.

This adds a really nice tactical view to the game. Are you going to stock pile cards in your aggression pile and unleash several attacks at once, hoping to take away most of the other player’s life pile in one fell swoop, or are you going to play the “chip” game, constantly spamming attacks to try to get the other person to either risk losing life points or draining their own hand by playing attacks.

Each race and class plays differently (the humans can redraw any number of cards into their hand three times a game, while the Dwarf can add to their aggression pile when they take damage from any move with the word “Basic” in the title. There are some combinations that work better then others, of course, but it’s fun to see if say, a Goblin Ranger can take down a Dark Elf Monk. Plenty of replay options here, with 2, 3 and 4 player modes of play (and I think if we could get more people at the table, we could try wacky ideas like a 4 on 4 battle.)

So, definitely a recommendation.  And if you want to try before you buy, Fun to 11 (who designed the game along with AEG) has a print and play version for free here