Wyrd Releases: Showdown Icons

Two decks enter, one deck leaves

2 Players, ages 13+, 10-20 minutes

Showdown: Icons is a world of gritty sci-fi card combat, playing with Wyrd’s tendencies to like keeping decks as functional 54 card playing decks as well. So yeah, it’s war with additional punches and kicks.

Before the game begins, each player sorts out both jokers and all four aces. The black joker represents an always-available feint, the red joker lists your combo triggers, and the aces represent your 4 hit points.

Each round, both players play any action cards they wish to, and then play a face up feint card. After seeing both feints, you then select a second card face down as your strike. When all cards are selected, they get flipped over and the feint total is added to the attack card. Highest total wins, unless both strikes are from the same discipline (cunning, intellect, and physical), then the lowest total wins. If both your strike and feint are the same discipline, then you also perform a trigger on your red joker for additional bonuses.

When you lose a round, you flip over the top card in your ace pile. If you’ve taken all four aces as damage, you lose the game. However, each ace has a separate effect, so as you take damage throughout the game, you actually become more powerful with small bonuses.

Showdown uses Wyrd’s favorite plastic coated cards, so some “breaking in” will be required. Managed to shoot the first deck halfway across the room getting the cards out of the box. Slippery little devils. Each deck has 4 ace life cards, a red joker and black joker with base abilities on them, and one entire suit of cards (the character’s suit, or diamonds for the jokers) with built in abilities. Otherwise, the cards are functionally identical to a standard deck of playing cards, with a bit of stylized sci-fi flair.

Also, in theory there was a Malifaux version of the game announced, with each deck representing one of the original 5 henchmen (Von Schill, Lucius, Molly, Collodi, and Kaeris). We’ll see if they put them out, but I’d really like a Von Schill deck as a Freikorps fate deck in Malifaux. Just, more artwork please!