| Info
Players – 1 to 4
Time – 20 Minutes
Difficulty – Super Simple
Game Type – Card Game (Trick-Taking)
Release – 2019
Designer – Balázs Bodnár
Artists – Balázs Bodnár, Gergely Nagy
Overview
Undead, pirates, werewolves and just about anything else remotely gothic fantasy all crammed into a rather small box.
The theme itself is more of just a rather nice aesthetic pasted on top of a trick-taking game with a few unique quirks. Though I should quickly point out that the art style is one that evokes a ‘you either love it or hate it’ emotion, with a little bit of risqué character art and quite a lot of cleavage. For myself and my partner, we weren’t too bothered by it and a lot of the artwork was very creative and well made but I would definitely have a quick peek at some of the artwork before buying.
Shardhunters is essentially, a trick-taking game. You and up to 3 other players compete in a ‘Hunt’ that consists of 4 ‘Combats’ (tricks). Though it has been given a nice twist by the introduction of ‘Hero Cards’ that can give you unique abilities in the hunts or extra opportunities to earn ‘Bloodshards’, a currency you use to buy more heroes.
Components
The game comes with only two different components. The first is a deck of cards that consists of 27 Hero cards, 35 Monster card and 4 Rule cards. The second is a set of 12 Bloodshards, which are small red tokens.
The Hero cards each depict a different Hero, their name, ability and type. The Monster cards on the other hand are separated into 4 different colours; White (which does not count as a colour in the game), Yellow, Blue and Red. Each Monster card also has a number between 1 and 4.
There’s not really much you can say about the components of this game, except that they are nice quality and as already mentioned, the artwork on them is very nice (in my opinion).
external imageImage by Balázs Bodnár
Set-up
Setting up this game could not be simpler. You essentially just separate the Monster and Hero cards, pick a Hero card at random (though it has to have a certain symbol), get a Bloodshard and deal out 7 Monster cards to each player. Done.
This is one of things that instantly made me fall for this game, there was no hassle or faffing about with lots of different pieces and tokens. Once you’ve set it up one time, it won’t take you more than 2 minutes between siting down with the game and starting a Hunt. But this simplicity doesn’t mean this game is all skin and bones. Oh no! There is some juicy strategy to sink your teeth into as well.
Play
Once you’ve finished your Sonic like set-up, you’re ready to go on a Hunt! Or as us mere mortals call it, a round. Each Hunt is made up of 4 Combats (tricks) where each player plays some cards and highest combined total wins. You may have noticed that if you get 7 cards each but there are 4 Combats, then how do you divide the cards. I’m no maths wiz but 7 and 4 don’t seem to be two numbers that match well. In each Combat you use a different number of cards, 1-2-3-1. This allows you to use different strategies with the cards you’ve drawn and their abilities.
That’s right! Even the Monster cards do stuff.
Remember how I said the Monster cards are different colours, well it turns out it’s for a reason. Essentially, the white cards aren’t special, the yellow are used when there is a tie but nothing else, the blue make it lowest combined number wins and then red cancels out the blue cards effect.
So, if you have a red 2 and a white 4 you could play that in the second Combat to all but ensure that you loot a healthy number of cards to put you in the running for winning the Hunt.
If you win a Combat, you loot all the cards played in that Combat. You win a Hunt if you have looted the most cards in said Hunt, which will then net you a shiny (not really) Bloodshard. Woohoo! Once you’ve got 3 of those red little circles you can hire a Hero which will lead you to more ways to earn Bloodshards or possibly alter how you play, or your cards work.
external imageImage by Balázs Bodnár
This is where I should stop and say, I have only played this as a 2-player game so maybe the problems I am about to mention do really affect games with more players.
Some of the Heroes are broken, and not just a little bit. For example, ‘Ignatius, the Inquisitor’ allows their owner to draw 8 cards instead of 7 which gives you a significant advantage, especially if you are my partner and you get Ignatius as your second Hero and I haven’t even hired my second yet. I rarely won ever again, losing quite embarrassingly.
But that’s not as bad as ‘Tobias, the Inventor’. He changes it so that his owner doesn’t do the normal 1-2-3-1 but instead does 1-1-4-1. This basically ensures a victory in the third combat, and in a 2-player game means you loot 7 cards, which is half the total possible. You can’t lose! Well you can if you lose all the other combats and your opponent loots more coloured cards than you but that’s unlikely to happen.
I will say that most of the Heroes abilities are fun things that shake up the flow of the game and add a bit of strategy but there is the odd one that ends up shaking it up too much and the whole game becomes a mess.
Final Thoughts
Despite my criticism of some of the Heroes abilities, I really like this game. Genuinely. It’s a fun quick trick-taking game that gives you some room to strategize and mess about with different abilities while also having a healthy amount of luck so that the game always starts as an even playing field, no matter how experienced anyone is. It’s simple but with just enough spice to make you want to play it again, and its so quick you’ll be able to find oodles of time to do so.
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