Warlords Trading Card Game

Published by SSG and ICE
Designed by Ian Trout
Based on the Warlords III Computer Game Series by SSG
Sold in $8.99 faction decks and $2.99 boosters

Warlords. One of the best tactical combat games ever created for home computers. When it came out it caused a project I was working on to be delayed for 2 weeks while I played the heck out of the game. Now it's a trading card game designed by the same folks as the computer games, and let me tell you its one of the most enjoyable TCGs I've played yet.

The game is sold into retailers as a combo display (one of the first to go this route) with 8 faction decks and 16 boosters. Each of the starters is semi-preconstructed with a stack of cards for that particular faction. The boosters hold a random group of 15 cards that could be anything. With a starter and 2 boosters you can play, and with about 4 more boosters you should have enough cards to try several different tactics.

The game uses original art, as opposed to art taken from the computer game. All of it is of a high caliber, and all of it appears to be Australian artists. These folks deserve more game industry work, so manufacturers should take note of their names. This is a resource that is sorely being under-utilized.

Since the original computer games have retained the feel of a miniatures campaign battle game in many respects, they were able to transition it to the card game genre fairly easily. Using a very similar turn sequence to the . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: June 26, 1998

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