The Spoils

I went out and bought a couple Spoils starters last night. What follows are my impressions having only looked at the cards and rules, but not having played the game:

What Seems Cool

• It's easy to learn. If you know Magic, you know The Spoils. You've got five factions with matching resource cards, characters, tactics (one time spells), and locations. Characters have life and strength. The game ends when you lose all the influence off your faction card.


• There are some interesting differences from Magic. The structure of the game is a little looser than M:TG or AGOT. The way things reset at the beginning of your turn and cards you draw is determined by your faction card rather than hard coded into the game rules. You can always spend your resources to draw cards, which I think will be nice for the situations when you've drawn a ton of resources but don't have anything good to do with them.


• The Mulligan rule is nice. You draw up your initial hand (sized differently depending on whether you go first or second) and then you may put any number of cards on the bottom of your deck and draw up again. You also start with two resources of your choice out, so you've got a reasonable chance of a good start. A huge improvement, in my opinion.


• Attacking seems a little more tactical. You may attack as many times as you like in your turn, provided you have untapped characters to do so. Your attacking characters form a Party, which may then target a location or the opposing characters faction. In addition to the familiar Strength and Life, each character has a Speed stat. Combat is resolved in a series of steps, with the speedier characters assigning their damage first, so slower characters may never get the chance to deal their damage.


• The card backs are pretty sweet, and the ink smells decent, but I don't think it's Carta Mundi. The art seems ok, but that's not my primary interest.

My Concerns

• Perhaps too much like Magic. I was dissatisfied with Magic for a few reasons. Some of those reasons appear to have been addressed, but it remains to be seen whether there are enough interesting variations in game play to warrant extensive play.


• It's collectible. Enough said, although I may post something else on the nature of collectible games later if I get inspired.


• Many of the cards are intended to be humorous, and I hate humor. Or maybe not quite hate it, but it's easy for it to ring false. And it generally doesn't stand up to repeated viewing. I'm a curmudgeon, when it comes to this. Humor and games with longevity are a tough mix.

Ok, this post got out of control for a game most of you will play once, but there you go.