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Eternal War

Announcing the Next Cycle of Battle Packs for Warhammer: Invasion

The deafening roar of battle rises […], the sound of a thousand times a thousand men crashing body, blade and shield against a horde of daemonic terrors from the bowels of hell.

    The fate of the world, be it damnation or salvation, will soon be decided.

    This is a world of eternal war.

–Warhammer

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Eternal War, the next cycle of Battle Packs for Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game!

The Battlefield becomes more volatile than ever with the upcoming release of Eternal War. Nearly every card in the cycle allows players to adjust their plans of attack, and new keywords allow you to ambush your foes or strip the fallen of their wealth. Amid the chaos, a few units and legends can put their experience to good use, and an army’s loyalty has never been more meaningful.

Lead Developer Caleb Grace on the Eternal War Cycle:

When I first learned to play Warhammer: Invasion, I immediately fell in love with the speed and ferocity of the game. I enjoyed choosing the zones into which I played my unit and support cards and choosing which of my opponent’s zones to attack. But the game’s speed also steered it to a point where many of the most powerful units featured abilities that triggered when they entered play or left play. I wanted to create cards that drew more focus to the battlefield phase and tactical warfare. I wanted to give attacking and defending players the feeling of being in the thick of combat, where every decision carries life-and-death consequences. So I set about brainstorming a host of new cards that centered around the battlefield phase.

Early in the process, I read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for inspiration, and one quote hit me like an orc choppa to the skull:

“All war is deception. Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.”

What Warhammer: Invasion needed was a touch of intrigue, a way of surprising your opponent with something unexpected, thereby turning the obvious play into the wrong play. That’s why I created the Ambush X keyword. Cards with Ambush can be played facedown as developments and triggered during a new step in the battlefield phase. Before declaring defenders, players can reveal their Ambush cards by paying their Ambush costs and bring these cards’ extra power and actions into the combat. With an element of the unknown added to the battlefield phase, attacks against apparently undefended zones suddenly become trickier and more meaningful.

Once the ambush mechanic took shape, I started building cards that worked around it. One of the major drawbacks to ambushing your opponent was that you still needed to save resources to pay the ambush cost, so another keyword was born: Raider X. Units with this keyword supply you with resources when they survive an attack against your opponent. Those resources can be used to pay the Ambush X cost on your opponent’s turn, to play tactics from your hand, or to fuel other special abilities. The mechanic opens up a host of options that were previously too expensive to consider while you had to focus on building a force to attack your opponent.

Starting with these two keywords, attacking and defending became the theme for the entire set, and nearly every card has an ability that triggers during the battlefield phase. Combat definitely became more interesting during playtesting, and it was rewarding for me to see the playtesters’ reactions as they experienced the ebb-and-flow of battle firsthand. I hope all the Warhammer: Invasion fans out there will also enjoy the game more as a result of including cards from the Eternal War cycle in their decks.

Thanks, Caleb!

Battles rumble at the heart of Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game, and the Eternal War cycle promises to add new layers of tactics and tension to your Battlefield. New units and legends arrive to launch attacks and hatch ambushes, and players gain exciting new tactics to burn their opponents’ capitals.

Look for us to announce the first Battle Pack from Eternal War early next week.

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Source: Eternal War (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3402)