The king has vanished and the noble houses are battling for the throne! Oh, and they’re all animals.
What Is Whisker Wars?
Whisker Wars is a card battle game for 2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 45 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $30 for a copy of the game. There are also multiple pledge tiers that include upgraded components, expansions, playmats, and more.
Whisker Wars was designed by Sean Fosse, Logan FitzGibbons, and Michael Maldonado and published by Glasshouse Games, with illustrations by Vittoria Pompolani.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Whisker Wars Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. In particular, I received an update on card changes after the prototype was printed, so some of the cards pictured have been marked up by hand. Also, there have been some changes to the morale tokens.
Here’s what comes in the base game:
- 4 Faction boards
- 4 Morale trackers
- 79 Warrior cards
- 20 Backup cards
- 4 Reference cards
- 4 Reminder cards
- 5 Crown tokens
- Banner card
- Banner standee
The faction boards are pretty simple: it’s primarily a morale tracker that goes from 1 to 20, but on a small board that includes a large illustration and the faction name, with a small token to track it.
The bulk of the game is the cards, of course: all of the cards have animal-based names, many of them quite punny, and we really enjoyed reading the names out loud. (One of my favorite card names is “Chimpansiege.”) Warrior cards have a number that corresponds to their speed—higher numbers will trigger before lower numbers. Backup cards show a little trumpet icon, and are instant-effect cards. The illustrations on the cards are excellent, depicting various animals as medieval-era warriors (and other roles).
How to Play Whisker Wars
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to win two crown tokens by reducing opponents to zero morale.
Setup
Give each player a faction board and morale tracker, set at 20. Everyone reveals a random card from the deck, and the player with the lowest number takes the Banner card and standee.
Shuffle the deck and deal 7 cards to each player.
Gameplay
Each round has three steps: deploy, battle, and recruit.
Everyone simultaneously selects 3 warrior cards from their hand and deploys them face-down.
Once everyone is ready, all cards are revealed for the battle step, and then resolved in speed order from highest to lowest. If more than one player has the same speed, cards are resolved clockwise starting with the player who has the Banner.
After resolving a warrior card, flip it face-down. When a card would cause you to lose morale, you may use one of your face-up cards to block the damage, but then you turn it face-down, which means it will not resolve its own effect later. If you reduce a player to 0 morale, you gain a crown token and that player discards all of their cards (both their hand and any cards currently deployed in battle). If you knock out the player with the Banner, you may take it.
Backup cards can be played from your hand at any time, and will have various effects—these cannot be blocked by warriors.
After all warriors have been played, the player with the Banner gains 1 morale.
Finally, there is a recruit step: all warriors in play are discarded, and players may discard any number of cards from their hands. Anyone who has 0 morale resets to 20. Then, everyone draws back up to 7 cards (or discards down to 7 cards if they have more).
Game End
The game ends when a player has gained 2 crowns and wins!
Why You Should Play Whisker Wars
I was sent an early prototype of Whisker Wars, and I know that the Glasshouse Games team has continued to tweak and balance the game in the meantime, so some of my experience of the gameplay may already be outdated, but I got a good feel for the game and what it’s like.
At its core, the game is about figuring out how to use your cards to take out your opponents and protect yourself, which takes a little bit of prediction and timing, as well as knowing when to give up some offense in favor of defense. Since you only get crown tokens if you’re the one who brings somebody’s morale to 0, the timing is particularly important. You don’t want to do all the work, and then have somebody else sneak in, finish them off, and get all the credit … but chances are that’s going to happen at some point.
The game uses morale instead of health or hit points—thematically the idea is that morale affects the loyalty of your soldiers, so if morale drops then your soldiers abandon you. But then you rally some new troops, reset your morale, and try again. Mechanically it’s not that different from hit points, but I suppose you can feel a little less murderous—though of course these are warriors and there must be some actual physical combat happening in the story.
The first step each round, deciding which cards to deploy, is a big piece of the tactics. Higher numbers trigger first, so you can get out and seize the initiative, and maybe force somebody to use some of their slower cards to block so they don’t hit you back. On the other hand, some of the low-numbered cards are very powerful, so if they stay in play, they can be quite effective. In particular, there are a few cards that let you steal the banner, which restores 1 morale at the end of battle. The early bird may get the worm, but it’s the last thief who gets to keep the banner!
Whenever you get hit, you can decide whether to give up one of your warriors that round to block the damage, as long as you still have some warriors face-up. If you go fast, you’ll exhaust all of your warriors quickly, which may mean that you’ll be a sitting duck for the rest of the round. Going late gives you some flexibility, particularly if you can figure out who might try to hit you and plan accordingly.
If you’re not entirely happy with the way things are going to play out when the battle cards are revealed, you can use your backup cards to manipulate things. There are backup cards that can bump a warrior to the front of the line or the back, changing up the turn order.
The earlier version of the game required winning a lot more crown tokens, which made the game drag a little when you had more players, but the 2-token victory feels about right. It will still take a little bit longer in a 4-player game, but I know that the designers have made some tweaks that mean there’s a lot of ways to lose morale and not as many ways that you can get it back, which makes the game play more quickly, and makes each of your decisions feel more crucial.
If you enjoy games with lots of different card effects and interactions, and particularly if you’re up for some animal puns, check out Whisker Wars!
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Whisker Wars Kickstarter page!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a prototype of this game for review purposes.
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