Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Official Word: The Lore Masters
Lore is the unique aspect of BattleLore that everyone is eager to know about. The latest post on the official DoW blog gives us our first indepth look at how it works.
Lore tokens (kept in a common Lore pool) are used as currency to fuel the legendary actions of the player’s legendary characters, the Lore Masters. (As an aside, that was a fortuitous choice of name for this site—I had no idea there would be a ‘Lore Master’ in the game.)
These advisors sit off the map on the player’s War Council sheet. They are the Wizard, Cleric, Warrior, Rogue and Commander.
It is implied that at the start of an adventure you will have to decide which Masters to invite to your side, and that the Masters can be at different Levels.
The Wizard allows the player to draw a single Lore token from the pool and ‘place it in a goblet’ to become your initial Lore reserve. (This goblet is no doubt the cup we saw in our first glimpse of the game set up here.)
You also must choice one from a draw of four random Lore cards from the Wizard’s Lore deck. (Since there are 60 Lore cards, and four Lore Masters that use them, it’s possible that each has a deck of 15 cards).
Spells have a Name, a Power Cost (to be paid in Lore tokens when the spell is cast), a Phase of Play (when the spell may be cast), a Target, and an Effect.
The card also has a Lore Master Class symbol, which in this case is the Wizard’s Hand. The Spell shown is an expensive (7 Lore tokens) Portal, which allows you to teleport a target unit up to 3 hexes (+1 hex per Wizard level) in any direction to a vacant hex.
The shot of the War Council sheet shown seems to be the top half of the sheet; the Wizard is shown in place, though it’s not clear if, since the Wizard appears to be printed on the sheet, he is a permanent part of any Council. Note that the map of the battle on the table is a BattleLore board.
With the Wizard, you may cast a Spell once per turn by paying the appropriate Power cost in Lore tokens. At the end of your turn, after drawing your Command card, you may either draw 2 Lore cards, selecting one and discarding the other, OR draw 1 Lore card and 1 Lore token, OR draw 2 Lore tokens.
The four remaining Lore Masters are as follows. The Cleric can ‘soothe, protect and heal’, not to mention ‘wield a heavenly wrath upon his enemies’.
The Warrior ‘never seems to sleep, may lack a sense of humour, but his sheer grit and determination more than compensate’.
The Rogue is ‘cunning and nimble … a jack-of-all-trades. His talent lies in his remarkable resourcefulness and ability to disrupt the enemy’s best laid plans.’
The Rogue’s Backstab card is shown, which causes Bonus Strikes rolled by your enemy to rebound against himself.
Finally, the Commander (shown here) does not play Lore cards, but instead dictates the size of your hand of Command cards.
The Lore cards and Lore Masters certainly add a whole new level of play to the Commands & Colors system, not to mention a whole new set of choices. A player’s selection of Lore Masters will influence the entire character and fighting style of his army. Next, we’ll hear about the War Council and, presumably, how you choose your group of Lore Masters and their Levels.