Guardians

Guardians Section

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My school project site about CCGs (Swedish)

Guardians is a Collectible Card Game (CCG), just like Magic: the gathering. Unlike Magic, however, Guardians never had any world championships, pro tours or even umpteen expansions. As far as I know, Guardians only had three expansions, one of which never seems to have reached Sweden, and it seems few people played it for long. The reason probably was the rules, Guardians is quite complex and there was quite some room for misunderstandings before you got the hang of it. That was a pity, because most other things are great about the game. You couldn't get a bad first impression of Guardians because it all looked so wonderful. Card illustrations were allowed most of the space on the cards, many of them broke their borders too (we still don't know if the Polar Ice Ogre can fly or not ...). And those illustrations ... They are still among the very best you can find in a CCG, no matter how good the new Magic artwork is. Also, the whole game has a humorous edge, but without ruining the atmosphere, which Magic lacks. Magic may have some silly Goblin jokes and pictures, but Guardians has Floyd, the Flying Pig, Giant Aunts and some gloriously funny artwork to match the names. I'll take Thackle before any Magic creature any day ...

Gameplay isn't as straightforward as in Magic and, as I've said above, that was probably the problem. You start the game with a Guardian card and three stronghold cards. In front of your stronghold are two empty rows of three spaces each, the disputed lands. Beyond them are your opponent's stronghold and Guardian. There are three ways to win. Either you take control of all six disputed lands, kill your opponent's Guardian or destroy five of your opponent's shields. A shield is a special card which enables a group of creatures to move in the disputed lands. Creatures are put into play on your stronghold cards and, once they are covered by a shield, are able to move out into the disputed lands to fight for your cause.

Combat is also more complex than in Magic, and occurs when a shield enters a space occupied by an enemy shield. Basically, you pick one of your creatures at a time and it is matched up with one enemy creature. Highest vitality, a number normally between 1 and 30, wins. If one player has more creatures than the other, these become secondary attackers and may attack any unbeaten enemy creature, adding their vitality to that of the previous attacker. The process is made more complex by tings like spells, command cards, ranged attacks and best of all: bribery. There are three bribes, beer babes and gold, and a creature may have a weakness for one or more of them. If it has, you can play the corresponding bribery card to force the creature out of combat before your own creature has to fight it. It's very annoying to have your 24 vitality Great Ba'te taken out of action with a single beer bribery ...

If you've never played Guardians, you'll probably never realise just what you've missed. But trust me, you really have ...

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