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Today, I'll be introducing a very young card game called Huntik. It's based off of the popular TV show and is getting some very good critiques all over the interbutts.
The goal of the game is to complete a mission as designated by a mission card. Your opponent's goal is to prevent you from completing said mission. It gets much more complex than that, but that's pretty much the jist of it.
Let's start off by describing the playing field:
The field consists of 5 zones. The zone furthers from you is 5 and the closest zone to you is 1. These zones are where your heroes go as you play through the game. We'll go into this further as we go on.
To the right, you'll see numbers 1 through 7. These are the rounds of the game. Again, we'll go further into detail on that when I explain how you actually play the game.
The small yellow boxes on each side give a small amount of information, but generally that's where your deck goes.
GAMEPLAY
All right, let's get started on how to actually play the game. Each player is designated a role, which is random for each game (either flip a coin or roll a die to decide). One player will be the lead player, which is the one looking to complete the mission, and the other will be the defending player, which is the one trying to stop the other from completing the mission.
The game itself consists of 7 rounds. Each round consists of many turns. A round is over when both players decide there is nothing more they wish to do during that round. You'll notice the significance of this when we get into Exhaustion of heroes. You'll notice on the right side of the field that the 7 rounds are split, 4 to one side and 3 to the other. These display who starts the round. The defending player always goes first on rounds 1, 3, 5, and 7. The lead player goes first on rounds 2, 4, and 6.
To begin the game, a Mission card is first chosen by either the lead player or an outside official. Any feature cards that must be used with the mission will also be introduced to the game. The Mission cards and Feature cards are not included in the deck count and are kept in their own separate piles. They do not exist in any zones unless otherwise noted on the card(s).
When the game starts, both players begin with 5 cards in their hands. At this time, both players can choose to mulligan (which can only happen at the very beginning of a game and can only occur once). When a player mulligans, he/she announces how many cards he/she is choosing to switch out, places that many cards from his/her hand on the bottom of the deck, then draws that many cards from the top of the deck.
At the beginning of every round except round 1 (notice this is not every turn), each player draws 2 cards on their first turn. All heroes are also unstunned and put in the ready position.
Again, we'll get more into this as we get into Exhaustion.
During a turn, a player must do one of the following:
-Play a hero card, free action card, or exhaust card.
-Move a ready hero or obstacle he/she controls and possibly start a combat
-Use a hero's or obstacle's free action power or exhaust power.
-Pass, electing to do nothing.
Let's get into the cards and types so that we can clear up this cloud of "What's going on with...huh?"
HEROES
There are three types of heroes used in Huntik: major heroes, minor heroes, and legendary heroes. We won't be going into legendary heroes much here, but be sure to check
the links below for more information.
Major heroes are considered more powerful and useful during a battle. Only one major hero can be summoned per round. Note that this is NOT per turn.
Minor heroes are exactly what they say they are: minor. You can summon as many minor heroes as you wish per round, but only one can be summoned per turn.
Legendary heroes can only be summoned by the text of another card and are not considered as part of the main deck.
Heroes are your fundamental method of completing your missions (or defending successfully). A hero can be put into play in the ready position in zone 1 when it is first summoned. A hero cannot move in its first turn of being in play because you've already performed your action for the turn by bringing the hero into play. Subsequently, a hero can move zero, one or two zones per turn (either forward or back). A hero cannot move backward the same turn it moves forward. If a hero moves across zones, it becomes exhausted. When a hero is exhausted, you turn the card horizontal. It cannot be moved again until it becomes ready again (at the beginning of the next round). You cannot move a hero past a zone that an enemy hero is occupying (unless granted by Unblockable, which allows the movement of a hero past an opposing hero or obstacle). You also cannot move a hero past a zone that is occupied by an opposing obstacle, which are cards that your opponent can use against you to block your movement.
ACTION CARDS
There are also three types of action cards in Huntik: Combat, Free, and Exhaust.
Combat actions can only be used during a fight. They typically provide some kind of attack or defense bonues and are usually free of cost.
Exhaust actions are used at any time during the game, but a ready hero must be exhausted as a cost to using the card, rendering the hero useless until the next round, when it can be readied. These usually consist of useful bonuses to completing your mission, such as allowing a hero to move through a zone that is occupied by an opponent.
Free actions take your turn to play, but do not exhaust any heroes to use. These can have a myriad of effects, but all change the game somehow.
FIGHTS
When a hero moves into a zone occupied by one or more enemy heroes they can start a fight. During a fight the first thing that happens is both players have a chance to play Combat Actions, starting with the turn player. Once a player plays a Combat Action the opposing player gets to play the next Combat Action or to pass. Once both players have finished playing their Combat Actions the fight is resolved as follows:
For this example the turn player will control Caliban. Caliban has 8 ATK and 6 DEF.
The opposing player will control Kreutalk (5 ATK, 4 DEF), Ammit Heart Eater (4 ATK, 5 DEF) and Metzi (2 ATK, 2 DEF)
To determine the number of attacks each player had you add up the combined ATK values of the heroes that player controls in the zone. So for the above example the turn player has 8 attacks to use, while the opposing player has 11 attacks.
During a fight all attacks must be used, in this case the opposing player will aim all 11 attacks at Caliban. Caliban has only 6 defense, and so can't handle the 11 attacks and is placed into the KO'd pile.
The turn player can aim his 8 attacks at whichever characters he wishes, so for this the turn player will aim 4 attacks at Kreutalk, 2 attacks at Metzi and 2 attacks at Ammit Heart Eater. The end result is that both Kreutalk and Metzi are placed into the KO'd pile as their defense cannot block the attacks, Ammit Heart Eater will remain in play because the 2 attacks were blocked by the 5 DEF it has.
Heroes that aren't beaten in a fight don't lose DEF, so next time Ammit Heart Eater has to fight it will still take 5 attacks to take it down.
You can watch the youtube link below for a little more detail on fighting (it may explain it a little better than me too).
Many fights will occur during a game, so make sure you have some powerful heroes at your disposal. For the most part, the rest of the game is dependent upon the mission you are playing. Go out and play around with the game a bit! It's a ton of fun, and is always different when you play. If you still have questions or foggy areas on Huntik, I have included a couple of links below for some more information. One is a Youtube tutorial created by UpperDeck. Beware of the annoying titan in the video. Its voice is completely obnoxious. The other link is a location where you can find the comprehensive rules of the game if you want to delve deeper into it.
Let's complete some missions, yeah? Mission 1: Have fun!
Video Tutorial
Comprehensive Rules
A special thanks goes out to Ensui for helping me correct some of my misconceptions.
Written by DarkBlaze557
