Exciting news from KARDS again!

Today, December 17th, marks another huge step for KARDS. We have released the first version of our Early-Access localization project; you can enjoy our wonderful WWII Card Game in seven different languages now!



This initial step of our localization project sees the arrival of the following six languages:

• Brazilian Portuguese
  
• French
  
• German
  
• Polish
  
• Russian
  
• Simplified Chinese

Localization feedback is welcome here: Feedback about the localization

Selecting a different language in KARDS is easy.

1. Click the cogwheel in the top-right corner of your screen to open the menu.
   
   
   
2. Click on the new LANGUAGE button in the menu
   
   
   
3. Select the language you want to see in the drop-down menu
   
   
   
4. Click ACCEPT to switch to the new language.

To switch back to English, simply do the same with English (EN) as the new language.

We have been busy with the game localization for a while now, the actual work has started several months ago. Now, we are excited and happy to open this project for public testing and broad feedback.

What is translated so far?

• We translate card names including names of units, orders, and countermeasures
  
• UI elements are translated including buttons and help texts
  
• The tutorial is translated
  
• Ranks and Achievements are translated

Having the names of cards translated means that you have to search for the translated term in the collection view, not the English original term!

What is not translated so far?

• Some history texts are not available or not translated

We plan to add these missing translations as soon as possible.

Let’s have a quick look back on how the localization project has progressed so far before we look ahead.


During the past weeks, we have received assistance from selected, very dedicated multi-lingual players that assisted us in doing an initial review of the localization. The focus was twofold with this initial review and tried to answer the following questions: Does the language match the KARDS theme of WW2 and strategy? Are there any factual mistakes in the card translation?

Let’s give the following players a round of applause for their help in this large project:

• Zaabluc (Polish language)
  
• Isenberg (French language)
  
• Vimesey (Russian language)
  
• Y-crad (Russian language)
  
• [V_M]_MorS_{Ldr} (Russian language)
  
• Fenrir (Simplified Chinese)

Any errors or mistakes that are still with the translation are on us, 1939 Games, and not caused by any volunteers or volunteer work.

Choosing the right mood and style of the language is a difficult task and can be influenced by personal preference. There exist objective criteria for selecting the correct translation, for example, choosing the right military terms (e.g. Ambush, Smokescreen). However, in such a complex and large project as translating KARDS, these criteria are a bare minimum only and not enough for a successful translation.

Community feedback is important and together with you, we have come a long way already.

Now, we have decided to open the localization project for comments and share it with a larger audience - with you! Please keep in mind, however, that we are still in Early Access.

If you are a native speaker or fluent in one of the newly added languages, we invite you to share your feedback with us!

Sharing feedback is simple! Please use this form for feedback about the localization (also available in-game in the new Language menu):
https://forms.gle/xVqAscFqgdCUvoZQA

We welcome your feedback! You decide if and how much you want to assist here. All of the below is welcome, some of it takes only a few seconds, other feedback up to several minutes.

• General feedback like a rating between 0 and 10.
  
• Additional feedback about specific elements (e.g. cards and UI).
  
• Detailed feedback, for example, errors on specific cards.

We are excited to see how you like the translation so far and are looking forward to your feedback!

While we are looking forward to your feedback, we are also working on adding the remaining translations (e.g. some historical texts are missing) and fixing the bugs (e.g. text in rare cases not fitting on the card).

As localization is an ongoing project, we won’t reach an official “done” state. However, we aim to complete the first step of localization by end of January.

This patch fixes several issues in the KARDS: Allegiance expansion and was deployed on Friday, December 13.



* LIBERATION Kredit cost changed from 6 to 7.
* ARMING THE RESISTANCE Kredit cost changed from 3 to 4.


* B-29 SUPER FORTRESS had sometimes wrong kredit cost when retreated. Fixed.
* The explosion animation on several units was incorrect. Fixed.

This patch fixes several issues in the KARDS: Allegiance expansion and was deployed on December 12.

• The Allegiance symbol has been added to all Allegiance cards.

• INTERCEPTION and SECRET OPERATIVES do not cancel the "Choose one" cards correctly. Fixed.
  
• Cards are sticking to the screen. Partially fixed.
  
• JOINT OPERATION do not deal one damage when you had no units on the battlefield. Fixed.
  
• Cards that cost more than 7 Kredits do not show correctly in the kredit curve window. Fixed.
  
• Player tags are not shown correctly while in a battle. Fixed.
  
• Units that are retreated after JUGGERNAUT was used on them die the turn they are played again. Fixed.
  
• 15th MOTOR RIFLES do not always remove immunity from the HQ. Fixed.
  
• Sd KFz 222 can sometimes give a boost when it should not have. Fixed.
  
• Giving an infantry unit Fury after it had moved to the frontline allows it to attack the same turn. Fixed.

This patch fixes several issues in the KARDS: Allegiance expansion and was deployed on December 11.

• The wording on several cards was updated to increase clarity of the card and its effect(s).

• Cards that allow for choice between two effects sometimes caused a card to be stuck above board. Fixed.
  
• 85th Pioneers did not reduce cost of Resistance cards in hand. Fixed.
  
• French 75 sometimes did not adjust range correctly on losing Mobilize. Fixed.
  
• Sortie repaired unit at the end of each of your turn. Fixed.
  
• Combined Arms did not give +1+1 when you had just a tank on the battlefield. Fixed.
  
• Barrage did not adjust attack correctly on 1-attack units affected by -2 attack until end of turn. Fixed.
  
• A-36 Apache could not attack across battlefield. Fixed.
  
• Alpine did not trigger on added units as it should. Fixed.
  
• Attack on Panzer III-L was not updating correctly. Fixed.
  
• B-29 Super Fortress sometimes cost 9. Fixed.
  
• Type 94 TK did not show card it adds. Fixed.

Allegiance, the enormous first KARDS expansion, introduces 150 additional cards along with the two new ally nations of France and Italy.

The additional allies add new flavors, enable interesting new battlefield tactics and significantly increase the strategic depth of the game. Numerous balance updates and bug fixes round up this completely free expansion.

Completely for free, Allegiance was published on December 10 and is an automatic update for all KARDS players.



With the arrival of Allegiance on December 10, KARDS entered a completely new era.

These are the highlights of Allegiance:

• Two new nations become playable as ally nations: France and Italy
  
• 150 new cards in total with 22 for each of the existing five nations
  
• Elite cards can no longer be used for ally nations
  
• 3 new core abilities: Resistance, Mobilize and Alpine
  
• 26 completely new achievements and tweaks to existing achievements
  
• Balance updates for eleven existing cards
  
• Draft matches include now France and Italy as ally nations, and yield expansion card pack as reward until the end of this month
  
• Numerous bug fixes and UI improvements

For the full details on all changes, head over to the KARDS Allegiance patch notes.

Join the friendly community and KARDS developers on Discord.

With new abilities and keywords, the new ally nations let you explore and develop completely new strategies!



The French cards span the entire war effort with units from before the Fall of France through to the Free French Forces. With a strong Resistance theme, the French cards bring a new mechanic designed to disrupt enemy play and to disrupt your opponent’s hand.

The Italian forces are more aggressive as they are designed to seize the initiative by taking the frontline and overwhelming the enemy. Italian units benefit from operating together as they give buffs when played in unison.

Read more about the new nations in the blog Two new ally nations with Allegiance: Welcome France and Italy

Expanding player choice and versatility, Alliance introduced new abilities to KARDS closely tied to the new ally nations. The new abilities in Allegiance are called Mobilize, Alpine and Resistance.

Alliance also introduces new mechanics related to choice, the power of choice in playing a card and in drawing cards and selecting the right tool for the task.

Read more about the new game mechanics in the blog KARDS Allegiance - New game mechanics explained!

Alongside the two new nations, the existing five nations receive 22 new cards each as reinforcements as well. These cards bolster current strategies and enable you to explore fresh directions with each nation.

Part of Allegiance is also a balance pass on eleven existing cards.

To celebrate the arrival of our latest KARDS reinforcements, we have added 26 new achievements! Prove that you are a worthy leader, can you claim all the new achievements?

We have also added new daily missions for new players!

Read more about the new game mechanics in the blog KARDS Allegiance - New achievements and card updates!

There is a lot more to KARDS Allegiance!

• Two new ally nations with Allegiance: Welcome France and Italy
  
• New game mechanics explained: Mobilize, Resistance, Alpine
  
• Allegiance introduces Card balances, new Achievements and Draft adjustments

For the full details on all changes, head over to the KARDS Allegiance patch notes.

Join the friendly community and KARDS developers on Discord.

Allegiance, the enormous first KARDS expansion, introduces 150 additional cards along with the two new ally nations of France and Italy. Numerous balance updates and bug fixes round up this completely free expansion.

Allegiance is an automatic update for all KARDS players.

Published on December 10.

• Two new nations become playable as ally nations: France and Italy
  
• 150 new cards in total with 22 for each of the existing five nations
  
• Elite cards can no longer be used for ally nations
  
• 3 new core abilities: Resistance, Mobilize and Alpine
  
• 26 completely new achievements and tweaks to existing achievements
  
• Balance updates for eleven existing cards
  
• Draft matches include now France and Italy as ally nations, and yield expansion card pack as reward until the end of this month.

We have three detailed dev blogs with great information about the changes in Allegiance, please have a look at them for all the details:

1. Two new ally nations with Allegiance: Welcome France and Italy
   
2. New game mechanics explained: Mobilize, Resistance, Alpine
   
3. Allegiance introduces Card balances, new Achievements and Draft adjustments

• France and Italy are now available as ally nations to support the existing five nations.
  
• Three major abilities have been introduced:
  
• Mobilize: A unit with Mobilize gets +1+1 at the start of their turn and loses Mobilize when damaged but not the accrued buff
  
• Resistance: Resistance cards always go to the enemy and clutter up their hand, potentially completely bogging down your enemy!
  
• Alpine: When an Alpine unit is deployed or added it gets +1+1 for each other Alpine unit you control.
  
• 26 new Achievements are now available, mainly in conjunction with the new nations.
  
• Draft matches include now France and Italy as ally nations and yield expansion card pack as reward until end of this month
  
• New daily missions for new players have been added.
  
• General Changes
  
• Elite card can now only be used for the main nation of a deck and no longer for the ally nation as well.
  
• Overhaul of the KARDS in-game Shop for easier navigation and the arrival of Allegiance expansion packs. You now can purchase expansion card packs from the shop!
  
• The deck viewer UI has been updated
  
• The game history sidebar has been improved. Cards that trigger at the start or the end of a turn are now shown as entries. You also see which cards were triggering damage (e.g. No. 10 Commando).

• CRUSADER Mk II: Removed Smokescreen
  
• SEXTON: Removed Smokescreen.
  
• PANZER III-L: Changed the buff conditions from “Has +1 attack if you control infantry or air unit. Has +3 attack if you control both” to “Has +1 attack for each non-tank unit type you control”.
  
• YAK 3: Increased deployment cost from 3K to 4K. Increased damage from 2 to 3. Added: Costs 1 less to deploy if you control a French unit.
  
• Ki-27 NATE: Increased operation cost from 1K to 2K. Increased damage from 2 to 3. Removed Ambush ability.
  
• J1N1 GEKKO: Reduced deployment cost from 6K to 5K.
  
• PRECISION BOMBING: Increased cost from 3K to 4K.
  
• RESCUE MISSION: Increased cost from 3K to 4K.
  
• COMBINED ARMS: Combined Arms take into consideration now tank types as well increasing the maximum buff you can get by +1+1.
  
• WE CAN DO IT: Upon play, you no longer receive an extra Kredit slot. The remaining benefits are unchanged.
  
• SEABORNE INVASION: The two random US cards you will receive in the frontline when playing Seaborne Invasion are now limited to those that cost 3 Kredits.

• When cards were spawned into an empty deck, the visual of the empty deck were not updated and showed the deck to be still empty. Fixed.
  
• When AWOKEN GIANT destroyed a unit with more than 2 defense, you didn’t receive a card draw. Fixed.
  
• P-40 N-5 didn’t trigger before enemy units were deployed. Fixed.
  
• When 756th REGIMENT and SHTURMOVIKk attacked targets with active Ambush and got destroyed, they still dealt excess damage to the enemy HQ. Fixed.
  
• ENEMY SPOTTED didn’t get triggered when the enemy took over the frontline by spawning cards there (e.g. with SEABORNE INVASION). Fixed.
  
• NAVAL BOMBARDMENT didn’t work correctly against the AI. Fixed.
  
• In the pack opening scene, the Resources counter didn’t update even though you received the correct amount of Resources. Fixed.
  
• Some card backs and cards where missing shadows when opening packs. Fixed.

As always, please let us know what you think about this update and please report bugs either on Discord or directly via a bug report ticket.

Dear friends!

The first-ever KARDS expansion "Allegiance" is ready for release on December 10. With Allegiance, we will see fundamental changes and exciting new opportunities coming to KARDS. Fantastic times!

So far, we have revealed that new nations and new mechanics will arrive with Allegiance (check out the previous two blogs here and here). In this blog, we are going to cover several other changes and adjustments coming with Allegiance.



Before we go into the details, here is a quick refresher about Allegiance:

• Two new nations become playable as ally nations: France and Italy
  
• 150 new cards in total with 22 for each of the the existing five nations
  
• Elite cards can no longer be used for ally nations
  
• 3 new core abilities: Resistance, Mobilize and Alpine
  
• New in this blog: 26 completely new achievements
  
• New in this blog: Balance updates for eleven existing cards
  
• New in this blog: Draft matches include now France and Italy as ally nations and yield expansion card pack as reward until end of this month

Let's dig into the details!


The new expansion has 150 brand new cards that are only available by opening Allegiance packs or National packs. As bonus, if you are a new player, the starter decks have been adjusted a little and have a few Allegiance cards each.

Draft will include choices from both sets. The new ally nations - France and Italy - are available as options, but only as allies. To compensate for their limited card pool the rules for picking a card for them is a bit less restrictive than for the other nations, so you can expect a bit more variance in rarity picks when it comes to these two ally nations.

To celebrate Allegiance, the guaranteed fixed you get as a reward for drafting will be an Allegiance pack until the end of December! After that, the pack will be of the base set again. Other rewards remain the same.

We’ve also updated the store to allow for purchase of Allegiance packs, because that’s how we can buy our kids new shoes.

We are adding 26 new achievements to the game.

In addition to achievements based around playing some of the new cards (for instance playing French cards or Alpine units), we have also added achievements for ranking up and for drafting. Plus, we finally have the Countermeasure achievement. There are also two new hidden achievements to discover.

Because of the new achievements we have reconstructed the achievement rewards a bit to stretch them over more achievements. We also used this opportunity to make the rewards more consistent based on levels, which will result in some early achievement having better rewards, at the expense of some of the later ones. This, alongside the new achievements, should help brand new players gain cards faster.

Finally, we are making slight adjustments to 11 base set cards. Some of these changes we’ve been sitting on for awhile but didn’t want to deploy because of the World Championship, others are linked to the localization project, and some we just wanted to fiddle with. Without further ado, let’s get to them.


The Crusader is a mainstay of many British decks, often paired with Commandos. Having two key units both having Smokescreen puts too much reliance on enemy having removal orders as an answer, so we decided to remove Smokescreen from one of them. The Crusader seemed a better fit for a change, and the higher defense can actually be relevant, for instance against Gunship Mission and Eagle Claws. Plus it aligns it better with other British tanks, which tend to have higher defense than attack.


This change was actually prompted by localization requirements, but we actually find it hits the mark balance wise as well. Swapping Smokescreen for 1 defense weakens the unit a little bit, but the unit was a tad too powerful beforehand, so we’re very happy with this adjustment.


Another victim of the too-many-words committee, but here we felt we had wriggle room for an improvement. The new version not only reads better and fits better with similar effects on other cards, but also is slightly better in most cases. So a win-win on all fronts.


This one is a result of the thematic-matter committee poking its nose in. As can be seen on the picture this particular version is being flown by a French pilot, a member of the Group the Chasse Normandie 3, a regiment of French pilots that flew for the Soviets. To reflect that partnership we are altering the Yak 3 slightly, making it particularly powerful when allied with France.


Yet another victim of wordiness, the Ambush ability had to go. Increasing the attack to 3 is particularly powerful for this unit because you want to trade it with another unit to trigger the destruction effect and now there are many more trading partners to choose from. To reflect this, we increased the op cost to 2, as air units with attack of 3 with an op cost of only 1 is too powerful.


This seems like an innocent change. It’s not like increasing the damage of your orders has been lighting up the big stage recently, right? Right? Guys?


Now that winter is finally here, the bad-weather committee informed us that, due to heavy blizzards, achieving precision with your bombing was getting progressively harder. So we promptly changed this card, end of story.


This was a tough choice to make, because Rescue Mission is such a fun card. But sometimes tough love is what the baby needs and this card was becoming too ubiquitous in durdly decks all over. And we are not fond of cards being ubiquitous because it’s such a difficult word to spell.


Data indicates that players are not interested in combining their arms to get the most out of Combined Arms, so we are improving Combined Arms to allow for stronger combination of arms. Simple, right?


They said we couldn’t do it, but we didn’t listen to the naysayers and went ahead and did it. There are a bit too many ramp cards in the environment and more coming in the expansion. Changing this card was best because it already does a bit too much and we want pure ramp cards to shine more.


The variance on this card was already a tad high and with numerous new US infantry units arriving with the expansion, we felt the variance needed to be reigned in a bit. There is still a fair amount of randomness in the card - you can get a 2/2 or a 5/5 for instance, but it is getting more reliable.


That’s it for the base set changes. Note that as there are a few elite cards changing, if you feel this negatively affects your recent crafting decisions, feel free to contact us and we’ll work something out.


Otherwise, we are getting super stoked for delivering Allegiance. Keep your eyes out for the patch notes that details all the features and fixes found in the update.

See you on the battlefield!

Congratulations to the winner of the KARDS World Championship 2019:

GEARBOT - KARDS World Champion 2019

In a dramatic and nerve-wracking World Championship finals on December 8, Gearbot won the best-of-five series against GKZhukov with 3-2.

Over the past three months, more than 1,000 players from around the globe have battled to reach the finals for a chance to compete for the title of the first KARDS World Champion and for part of the $6,500 prize pool.

The four best players were ready to battle it out at the KARDS Headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Before we go into the details, let's have a look at our four champions qualified for the semi-finals!

Have a look at each of the info sheets.






This final weekend of the World Championship kicked off with the semi-finals and the battle for 3rd place.

GKZhukov and Gearbot won the semi-final matches relatively clearly against Drogear and Fenrir with 3-0 and 3-1.

Fenrir won the match for the 3rd place against Drogear and scored a solid 3-1 victory.

Reaching the semi-finals of the KARDS World Championship against almost 1000 contestants is a major achievement. Congratulations to Fenrir and Drogear!


The final battle between Gearbot and GKZhukov couldn't have been more dramatic. The pressure on both players was immense.

While Gearbot was considered by the community to be a tad bit stronger, GKZhukov certainly had shown a convincing and strong presence in the semifinals.

The five final matches showed a tug of war between Gearbot's unconventional and strong LAST RITES + M6A1 SEIRAN combo featuring a more defensive style throughout the opening and middle game.

While Gearbot started strong and scored an early victory 1-0, GKZhukov was able to claw back and evened out the score to 1-1.

The following matches were testimonies for the great skills of both players. With excellent tactical maneuvers, great strategic planning and cunning mind-games, it was an exciting display of what the best KARDS players are capable of and a joy to watch! KARDS is indeed quite easy to learn, but you can also go extremely deep. The battle waged forth and back until the score was 2-2.

The final match had to decide!

This final match was a mini-drama in itself, it was unclear till the end who was going to win. After 11:34 minutes in that final match and 16 turns, Gearbot won the final match and the title of KARDS World Champion 2019.

Fair sportsmanship all around as GKZhukov immediately shook hands and congratulated Gearbot for winning the finals and for becoming the first KARDS World Champion.






The full and final results of the KARDS World Championship Finals:

1st place and KARDS World Champion 2019: Gearbot
2nd place: GKZhukov
3rd place: Fenrir
4th place: Drogear

Match for the 1st place: Gearbot vs GKZhukov 3-2
Match for the 3d place: Fenrir vs Drogear 3-1

Semifinals 1: GKZhukov vs Drogear 3-0
Semifinals 2: Gearbot vs Fenrir 3-1


The recordings of the semifinals and final are available on KARDS YouTube.

Subscribe to KARDS YouTube as we will upload the individual tournament matches and footage in the following days.

Welcome to the Finals of the KARDS World Championship 2019

Live broadcast on Twitch



Over the past three months, more than 1,000 players from all around the globe have battled to reach the Finals of the KARDS World Championship 2019 for a chance to compete for part of the $6,500 prize pool.

Now, the four best players, our KARDS Champions, are ready for the last battle!

Reserve some time this weekend! Tune in to the KARDS Twitch channel and follow the action:

Saturday, December 7, at 8:00 p.m. UTC / 3:00 p.m. ET
Saturday, December 8, at 7:00 p.m. UTC / 2:00 p.m. ET

Watch live and see which one of our four champions will outmaneuver and outgun their opponents to be crowned the world’s top KARDS player 2019.

The live steam will also reveal additional Allegiance expansion cards, have discussions with the KARDS team, and of course commentary and match analysis. Don't miss it!

Over the past three months and via three different stages, each increasingly more challenging, the Finalists have proven themselves. Have a look at our champions (alphabetically ordered)!

DROGEAR
Drogear started playing KARDS in the Early Beta and has been with us ever since. He is a dedicated KARDS veteran with more than 1300 hours of playtime and serious knowledge. Drogear is from Sweden.

The recorded best position for Drogear is 4th place in Season 7.

Drogear's favorite nation in KARDS is British.

Fenrir
Fenrir started playing KARDS in June this year and has rapidly gained knowledge and skills. With close to 400 hours of playtime on record so far, he is an adversary not to be taken lightly! While Fenrir is a Chinese citizen, currently living in the US.

The recorded best position for Fenrir is a 17th place in Season 8.

Fenrir's favorite nation in KARDS is Japan.

Gearbot
Gearbot started playing KARDS in Early Beta and has one of the oldest accounts in KARDS, only surpassed by few. With almost 500 hours of playtime, he has spent his time to efficiently improve his skills and KARDS knowledge. Similar to Drogear, Gearbot is also from Sweden.

The recorded best position for Gearbot is a 1st place in Season 7.

Gearbot's favorite nation in KARDS is Japan.

GKZhukov
GKZhukov surprisingly started playing KARDS almost on the same day as Fenrir (June 2019) but has a less playtime. With a bit more than 250 hours of playtime, he has impressively climbed the ranks and was able to reach top positions in a surprisingly short amount of time. GKZhukov is from the UK.

The recorded best position for GKZhukov is a 9th place in Season 8.

GKZhukov's favorite nation in KARDS is Britain.


Our four champions are ready for the final challenge now! Who will have the final upper hand in the end? The veterans with the most playtime and experience, those that have proven to climb the ranks fast in a short amount of time?

Who are your favorites?

The format of the Finals is similar to the previous Championship tournament:

• A best-of-five series with pre-locked decks

The winner of the semi-finals on Saturday will proceed to the Finals on Sunday. The losers will compete for the third place.

The decklist will be published shortly after the selection period has ended on Friday, Dec 6, at 23: 59: 59 UTC.

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, for the latest news!
Especially keep an eye on the #KWC19 hashtag.


if you would like to have a refresher or if you are just looking for further info about the KARDS Championship, look no further! We have all the info listed below.

Announcing the KARDS World Championship
Championship Stage 2
Championship Stage 3 - Recap Week 1
Championship Stage 3 - Recap Week 2
Championship Stage 3 - Final round
Celebrate the Finalists of the World Championship

YouTube Championship videos

{LINK REMOVED}Stage 3 - Player decks week 1
{LINK REMOVED}Stage 3 - Player decks week 2
{LINK REMOVED}Stage 3 - Player decks week 3

Hello friends!

Let's reveal the new game mechanics coming with the arrival of the two new ally nations France and Italy in the Allegiance expansion on December 10!

In true KARDS spirit, these new mechanics are rooted in history and continue our efforts to give KARDS a genuine WW2 feeling.

Are you ready?



The two new abilities in Allegiance are called Mobilize and Alpine.

Mobilize is mostly found on French units and Alpine is mostly found on Italian units, but there are a couple in other nations and going forward these keywords are considered available in any nation.

The Mobilize help bubble reads:

Unit gets +1+1 at start of its turn. Unit loses Mobilize when damaged.

This means that as long as the unit with Mobilize hasn’t received any damage, it will grow by +1+1 at the start of every one of your turns. The units with Mobilize are generally priced in such a way that if they are damaged immediately, they are underwhelming for their cost, if they get the bonus once they are generally on par and if they get it two or more times they are starting punch above their weight.

Note that Mobilize is only lost on damage, not necessarily just combat. So a Bloody Sickle will remove the Mobilize, but a Mobilize unit with Heavy Armor could for instance fight and retain its Mobilize status as long as the Heavy Armor stops all combat damage. Upon losing the Mobilize status the unit will no longer gain +1+1 at the start of your turn, but it will retain any bonuses accrued so far.

The thematic idea with Mobilize reflects the general unready state of the French army at the outset of the war - they had plenty of manpower and some decent equipment, they just needed time to organize and gear up. Time was not what they got, which can be reflected in KARDS by fast blitz decks disrupting the Mobilize units before they can really get going. So when playing a Mobilize deck you want to delay and disrupt the enemy to give your Mobilize units time to grow into something fearsome.

Many of the Mobilize units have effects linked to maintaining the Mobilize status or losing it. Here is an example:



There are also cards that take units with Mobilize into account for play effects, restrictions, etc. Here is one example:



Note that a unit only counts as being Mobilized while it still has its Mobilize status, i.e. it hasn’t been damaged yet.

Another strong theme the French have is linked to the French Resistance, starting with the namesake card:



Resistance cards always go into the enemy hand.

There are several French cards that create Resistance cards when played, both units and orders. Resistance cards clutter up the enemy hand, the only way to get rid of them (apart from rare self-discard strategies) is by playing it, this both causes you to lose a kredit (for playing the card) and the top card of the your deck - if the resistance is strong enough it can even run you out of resources! This of course reflects the nuisance the French Resistance movement caused, tying up valuable men and resources.

Keeping the Resistance cards in hand can also be risky. Apart from the risk of losing a draw if you have a full hand, there are cards that become more effective the more Resistance cards the enemy has in hand. See for instance:



That’s it for France. Let’s take a look at the other new keyword, Alpine.

The help bubble for Alpine reads:

When an Alpine unit is deployed or added it gets +1+1 for each other Alpine unit you control.

So the first one you play gets no bonus, the second one gets +1+1, the third one +2+2 and so on. This means that they can quickly snowball a basic unit into something very strong if left unchecked.

The thematic idea for Alpine is that while some Italian units performed at subpar level due to equipment and morale issues, there were many crack Italian units that fought extremely well during the war. The Alpini units were among those that performed well and the Alpine keyword reflects that on their own they are not that great, but if you manage to concentrate them they can become a very potent force. The reason for using the Alpine term is to allow other nations to dip their toes into this keyword, as most armies had some sort of mountaineer troops that can get the Alpine designation. Let’s take a look at a basic Alpine unit:



With just a single Alpine unit on the battlefield, this comes down as a 3/3 and draws you a card and it can be even bigger if you happen to have more - in other words, the mountaineers can snowball very quickly (pun intended).

There are also cards that support Alpine units or benefit Alpine units in some fashion. Some of these cards are Alpine themselves, others are not. Here is an example of the former:



Italy also has a strong theme of getting advantages while they are on the front foot. Many of their cards have effect boost or play restrictions based on battlefield position - if they are doing well, then these cards can be very powerful, but if they are behind they struggle. In addition, many of their cards start out strong, but can then become weaker the more opposition they face. So with Italy you want to seize the initiative and keep it. Here is one example of an Italian card that can be very strong while they have the upper hand:




There is one final mechanic we want to showcase. It is only found on two cards in the new expansion, but we expect those two cards to make a splash. Here is one of the two, you have to wait until the 10th to see the other:



Even as a 3/3 for 2 is a decent value due to the protection clause and in a dedicated Alpine deck it consistently is at least 4/4, which is very solid for 2 kredits.

Just to make sure there is no ambiguity regarding the ability - this stops orders that directly target a specific unit. It can still be affected by cards that don’t have specific targets like Naval Operation or Death From Above. So while it stops a lot of heat, it is not a blanket protection against all orders.

That’s it for the second part of the Allegiance mechanics.

Stay tuned for one more dev blog to discuss other general changes coming with our big update on December 10th. In the meantime, let us know what you think in the comments below!


Learn more about Allegiance and read the following articles
Allegiance expansion announcement and pre-order deal
Revealed! Two new nations with Allegiance
Allegiance game mechanics - Part 1
Allegiance card reveals - Week 1
Allegiance card reveals - Week 2


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