Button Shy is proud to announce that the next game to hit Kickstarter in our Wallet Games series is Anthelion: Conclave of Power, a 2-player game designed by Daniel Solis (designer of Junk Orbit, Kodama: The Tree Spirits, and Pod-X). Those who backed, or saw the campaign for, Liberation will be familiar with the setting here as both the Liberation and the Dynasty will return to your table. But this time the game takes on a more political setting, as each side attempts to recruit figures into their conclave in order to sway the galaxy to their cause.
SETTING THE SCENE
Setup for the game is quick and easy: Place the location cards face-up between the players in a line as seen below. Shuffle the Liberation, Dynasty, and Rogue character cards into a deck. Randomly deal out 5 character cards to form a row going down from the middle location card in the play area, as shown below.
NOTE: These are prototype images.
GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW
The game begins with the Liberation player, and alternates after that. During your turn, you will use two different Petition Actions (represented on Character and Location cards by this icon: ), resolving them one at a time and in the order selected. Unless the petition contains the text “may” or “if able”, you must be able to complete the entirety of the Petition action in order to select it during your turn. These petitions are used to Push and Pull Characters toward your side of the galaxy and, ultimately, recruit them into your Conclave. When a character moves past your Threshold toward you, they are no longer considered in play and reward you with the star value printed on the card. The first player to gain 10 Stars into their Conclave is declared the victor.
THE LOCATIONS
Anthelion: Conclave of Power comes with five different Location cards: one neutral, two generic, and two Threshold. Each side’s unique Threshold Location will be placed closest to them, and every location has a Petition action that can be used. The Threshold Locations also contain an Attribute, providing ongoing effects (in pink text) throughout the game to provide an asymmetric gaming experience.
NOTE: These are prototype images.
As you can see here, this is a Dynasty card and the bottom of the card indicates this is a Location and a Threshold. It has a Petition power called Divide, which is only usable by the Dynasty player, and allows the Liberation player and the Dynasty player to each Pull a different Character one step toward their Threshold. It also has an Attribute called Fortified, which provides extra Stars for recruiting Character cards with a Dynasty affiliation.
THE CHARACTERS
Anthelion: Conclave of Power comes with twelve different Character cards that are spread across three factions: Liberation, Dynasty, and Rogue. While you are not limited to recruiting Characters that are keyed to your faction, there are usually incentives to do so. In addition to having Petition text, these cards also frequently have either Attribute (pink text) or Resource (green text) abilities. Those Resource abilities trigger once the Character has entered your Conclave by advancing past your Threshold, and remain active at all times from that point.
NOTE: Now this is a final image!
As you can see here, this is a Liberation card and the bottom of the card as indicated by both the symbol and the text in the top-left corner. It has a Petition power called Fly, which allows you to Push her Character card toward your opponent, but then Pulls all Characters passed over toward your Threshold. It also has a Resource ability called Opposition, which provides extra Stars if your opponent gains certain cards into their Conclave. You can also see, on the left side, that this Character is worth one Star when she enters your Conclave.
NEW CHARACTERS AND END GAME
When a Character card is recruited to a player’s Conclave, a new Character is drawn from the top of the deck and placed face-up at the middle Location. Should the deck ever deplete before a player has triggered the end of the game, the discard pile for Character cards gets shuffled to form a new draw deck.
The game ends immediately when a player has achieved 10 or more Stars in their Conclave. It is possible, however, for this to happen for both players at once. In this instance, the active player would be declared the winner.
PREPARE YOUR CONCLAVE
Anthelion: Conclave of Power is launching on Kickstarter January 2nd, 2019 and will be priced as low as $10 plus shipping and will come packaged in our standard vinyl wallet for maximum portability. We hope you'll use a Petition to Pull a copy into your Conclave during the campaign.
In the meantime, keep your eyes open for some additional articles that will appear in the coming weeks. We’ll cover some basic strategies for Anthelion: Conclave of Power on January 4th, and then preview some of the cards in the Androids expansion that will be released during the Kickstarter campaign (and come included with the base game for all Kickstarter backers while the campaign is running) on January 11th.
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BUTTON SHY PROJECT STATUS
- Liberation - Here and being assembled. Expect to start shipping in early January.
- Twin Stars: Adventure Series II - Partially here, waiting on deluxe content. Expect to start shipping in late January.
- The Perfect Moment - Partially here. Expect to start shipping in early February.
- The Maiden In The Forest - Not received yet. Expect to receive and ship in late January.