Battle Cards

Battle Cards — How to Play

You and your opponent each command your own deck. Play cards from your hand to raise armor, heal your Life Points, or attack — break through the other side's armor and drive their Life Points to zero to win. Play solo against the computer, or head-to-head with a friend online.

Setup

Each player has their own full deck (with Jokers), shuffled separately, plus 20 Life Points. Draw 4 cards to your hand — the rest is your Draw Pile.

On Your Turn

Play one card from your hand. What it does depends on its suit:

• ♥ Hearts (Armor): add the card to your Defense Pile. Number cards do this automatically; face cards and Aces also roll a die for a chance to immediately play another card. Your Defense Pile can never hold more than 3 cards — a Heart played once it's full is simply discarded with no effect.
• ♦ Diamonds (Life Points): number cards roll a die for a chance to gain that many Life Points; face cards and Aces always gain 10 Life Points and always grant another card to play. Life Points can never rise above your starting total of 20 — any extra is simply lost.
• ♠ Spades (Damage): compares against the top card of your opponent's armor. If you outrank it, their armor card is discarded (face cards need a die roll to confirm). Aces are special — see below.
• ♣ Clubs (Attack): number cards only work once your opponent has no armor left. Face cards strike directly for 10, bypassing armor entirely, but every non-Ace Club — number or face — needs the same die roll to succeed. Aces are the only Clubs that skip the roll: they always strike for 10 and always grant another card to play.

If a play grants "another card," you immediately play again from your hand — and if that empties your hand, you draw 4 fresh cards and keep going, all in the same turn. The chain ends the first time a play doesn't grant a bonus card, and it's your opponent's turn.

Clicking a card in your hand doesn't play it immediately — it selects it and asks whether to play it or discard it instead. Discarding sends the card to your discard pile with no effect and still uses up your turn (no bonus, no roll). Jokers can only ever be discarded this way, since they can't be played on your own turn.

Aces

Aces count as 10 for comparisons, like face cards — but as an attacking Spade, an Ace is special: it automatically breaks through any face-card (or Ace) armor, no roll needed, but is automatically stopped by a plain number-card armor. Whenever you play any Ace, you're also offered the chance to discard your remaining hand and draw a fresh one.

Jokers

Jokers aren't played on your own turn. Instead, whenever you're attacked (by a Spade or Club), you may reveal a Joker from your hand to ward off that attack completely.

Rolling the Die

Several actions come down to a single roll of one die. The range that counts as a "success" depends on what you're doing:

Situation	1	2	3	4	5	6
Hearts face or Ace — bonus card?	No		Yes
Diamonds number — gain Life Points?	No		Yes
Spades face — break the armor?	No				Yes
Clubs (any non-Ace) — attack succeeds?	No	Yes

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Winning

The first player to reduce their opponent's Life Points to zero wins immediately — that's the only way to win. If a player can't draw a new hand and has no cards left to play, the game ends with no winner declared.

This and other original games can be found in the book 52+ New Games for Those Old Cards by Kenneth P. Langer.