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Swar is an exciting, strategic, fantasy card game that will see 2-4 players control armies of monsters pulled straight from the rich tapestry of Malta and Gozo’s millennia of history and mythology.
With their battalions of terrors, players will attempt to siege, storm and take prisoners from the many fortified settlements across the island.
Every round, players take scheming and tactical actions to build up sieges, assault villages, ransack palaces and take control of strategic strongholds - all in the hopes of taking enough prisoners to sustain their monstrous armies.
Reworking the detailed lore of Maltese fantasy, SWAR will have you strategizing five moves ahead, only to have to rework everything from the ground up as event cards could change the entire landscape of the game in a second.
Do you have what it takes to be the next great terror to grip the islands?
Players: 2-4
Game Time: 30-60 minutes
Ages: 14+
What's In The Box?
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Each copy of SWAR comes with 200 cards to bring your sieges to life. Every deck also comes with a 6-sided die to be used as a means of counting your prisoners and climbing to the top of the islands' hierarchy.
Inside the box you will find:
76 Monster cards with 34 unique designs and abilities. There are FIVE monster types to make gameplay as exciting as possible: Demons, Undead, Humans, Beasts and Sea Monsters.
20 Location cards of various iconic and recognisable settlements, castles and fortifications from across the Maltese Archipelago
A Lore Booklet. This booklet gives a more detailed look at each monster, and why their perks and strengths are designed that way. It also gives an overview of the old stories passed down for generations.
6 Defence cards to bolster the Castles you siege and make your ascent to victory even harder.
100+ Event cards that change the tides of battle, every single time a player takes their turn.
1 x 6-sided die to calculate your prisoners - aka the spoils of your sieges.
A Note On Language: The names of places and monsters are in Maltese, with Maltese characters, but the game's mechanics are all in English, so they can be enjoyed by everyone around the world! We love to see our myths and legends work their way across the globe!
How To Play:
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Every game, the table is set with 1 Castle card and 3 Villages making up the siege map. These are the game's settlements; these are your targets.
To bolster the Castle's strength, it is also given a Defence card, that seals up any cracks in its foundations and pushes its people to fight harder.
Each turn, players use a limited number of actions to draw new monsters from the dark depths of Malta's history, build up sieges outside the villages or castle, and, when the time is right, strike out at the settlement and overwhelm its defences if their attack is strong enough.
If they are successful they roll the allotted number of prisoner dice, and claim their coveted reward.
But anyone who's planned a siege (maybe in a past life, we don't know where you've been) knows that in an instant the tides of battle could turn and the victory you thought was certain can be snatched away from you.
Other players may ambush your camp and tear through your armies before they have a chance to scale the settlement's walls, and an Event card (picked at the end of every single turn) could change everything. From boosts to your army's strength to re-founding cities fallen for centuries (or, you know, two rounds), the fates have their say every chance they get, and any leader not flexible enough to work around the outcomes of the Event cards will be left behind.
Stretch Goals
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Main Goal: Our main goal is around €4,000 as this is the minimum order required for the decks to be printed at the cost listed in the rewards tiers. However, if you were wondering why you should buy your deck now, during the crowdfunding campaign, here are some stretch goals we're looking to implement once certain crowdfunding milestones are reached.
- €7,000: 4 new Defence cards added to the castle's arsenal
- €10,000: 6 new locations added to the game
- €15,000: 8 new Monsters added to the game
- €20,000: Prisoner tokens added to replace die system
- €25,000: Settlement card backings have unique imagery of location on fire after being "destroyed" in a siege.
- €30,000: 20 new Events added to the game
- €100,000: SWAR Expansion Pack will be instantly confirmed and prioritized. Backers of this campaign who helped unlock this goal will also receive a discount when it launches.
