Review of Capitol MegaDeck

Blurb from the publisher: 'The Warzone Resurrection Capitol Faction Card Pack contains all Strategy, Tactical and Gear cards for the Capitol faction!'

What you get: Your EUR 25,79 or USD 31,98 or GBP 19,99 will buy you the Capitol MegaDeck for you to start battling in the Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection universe under the flag of Capitol. By now we have seen almost all the Starter Boxes of the Universe, Capitol included. It is reminded that all the rules contained in this rulebook can be found free of charge on the Prodos Games website, even though the free pdfs do not contain the tens of pages of extensive fluff that make the game what it is and breathe life into its history and its armies. Even the actual cards can be found on the Downloads section of the company's site, in order to better peruse before purchasing.

The MegaDecks are a change in production that came up since my initial review of the Capitol Starter Box. Namely, each Starter Box now contains the miniatures, the dice, as well as the squad reference cards and the resource cards. It no longer contains the Strategy, Tactics and Gear Cards, making the MegaDecks a must-have if one intends to play a particular faction in the advanced game that uses cards in addition to miniatures. MegaDecks are all-inclusive; they contain all the cards relevant to the faction, irrespective of whether the miniatures are included in the Starter Box or in other packs. In other words, one does not need to hunt for cards here and there. One single purchase and he is done.

The Capitol MegaDeck contains 245 standard-sized laminated cards with rounded corners at 87,5 x 62 cm. If you have heard of that little game called Magic: the Gathering, that's the size. All the rules are to be found in the rulebook; the box contains nothing else but the cards.

Out of these cards 125 are Tactical, 12 Resources, 48 Strategy and 60 Gear. Unless something changes drastically in the marketing of Warzone: Resurrection, each MegaDeck contains each card the maximum number of times it can be used in a game. As per the rulebook, that would be an absolute maximum of 3 copies of each Strategy card, 5 copies of each Tactical card and 3 copies of each Gear card. Practically speaking, Capitol has at its disposal 25 unique Tactical (13 related to the Starter Box units and 12 related to the additional units), 16 unique Strategy (5 and 11, respectively) and 20 unique Gear cards (7 and 13, respectively). A player's deck cannot contain less than 35 cards excluding Resources, while the Resources a player wields depend on his Warlord type. As an example, the Close Combat Warlord brings in the most resources (8), while the Ranged Warlord the least (6).

I had received the new, cardless iteration of the Starter Box for playtesting (with the exception of the Resource cards which are still included), thus I cannot comment on the changes that the MegaDeck brought. The big overall change is that the MegaDeck also includes the cards related to all the other units of the Capitol faction that were not contained in the Starter Box. There are twelve units that are not in the Starter Box: the Airborne Cavalry, the Leviathan, Mitch Hunter, Heavy Infantry, the Orca, the Blue Shark, the Sea Lions, the Free Marines, the Martian Banshees, Cpt Henry Thomas, the Iron Lady and the K-9 Corps. Each of them gets a unique Strategy, Tactic and Gear card, with the exception of the Free Marines that get one Gear, no Strategy and two Tactical.

Content-wise, expect Camo-Netting, Explosive Shells and Telescopic Sight amongst the Gear cards. Strategy Cards will allow you to perpetually win the initiative, force reshuffles of the cards in the players' hands, fog and flashbanks and a swathe of ways to diminish the efficacy of your opponents, as well as buffs to your troops, earthquakes that do not affect flyers, or my personal favourite, Supply Line Severed: no gear cards can be played this turn. Tactical cards on the other hand will allow you to replace eliminated miniatures on the board, reclaim cards from your discard, null cards that eliminate your opponents' card play and numerous buffs to your units.

The strong points: I cannot but loudly applaud Prodos' policy when it comes to rules and content. Everything, absolutely everything, is free on their website, these cards included. For the number-crunchers out there, there will be no blind purchases, no impulse buying and no disappointment about a unit not working as you wanted it to. You can sit down and take all the time in the world perusing the free documentation, both rulebook and cards, before deciding whether you want to invest on the actual game, what faction you might find most entertaining and what individual units you would like to see in your army. For hardcore players, you can even see your enemies' capabilities and try to devise ways to counter them, again without spending a single cent.

Marketing all the cards of a faction together as MegaDecks was a clever move. It allowed the present holistic approach and eliminated the need to buy multiple packages of unneeded miniatures just to have each card in adequate copies. It's all here; buy it and be done with it for ever.

When it comes to aesthetics and usability, the cards are of a standard, uniform size and not the awkward and practically unsleevable 94 x 68 of the initial Starter Box. The paper is thick and of high quality. Laminated as they might be, I still prefer them sleeved in order for them to last forever. Having round instead of sharp edges helps a lot. The art is taken from previous editions, keeping up with the legacy of the game, while the text is easily readable. It has nothing to do with the insanely small text that can be found on the unit cards which accompany the miniatures and that are not included in this product.

The army building and actual plays of Capitol are definitely enjoyable. There are many buffs, bringing forth the American feel of the faction. There are also however many disruptive plays and meta-cards that alter the game rules. Depending on what units you have in your army and how you choose to build your deck, you can field an army that is either annoying or extremely annoying. Depending on what your opponent fields, you will want to focus more or less on your army instead of his; disruption can work a long way when you field forces with obvious flaws in certain aspects, like speed or firepower. You are not however likely to win a game simply by playing in a negative way. There are cards that will undoubtedly see a lot of usage irrespective of army composition (Profitable, the Tactical that resurrects other cards comes to mind); the game however remains fresh. Every card can be potentially removed from your deck, and you can field armies that sincerely work differently. I'd be extremely interested in seeing Capitol vs Capitol builds where the armies are as far from one another as possible.

It might not sound like much, but I very much enjoy that I have all the cards from the beginning to create my decks of choice and see how they perform as if I had all the miniatures of the faction. This option did not exist before, and running simulations on the drawing board is not the same as playing an unsanctioned game, with the 'wrong' miniatures (ooh, the shame!), trying to figure out what works better.

The weak points: I am in favour of the MegaDeck approach, seeing how it adds value to the game. I only wish that Prodos had done this from the very beginning, and not backstep on its initial policy. That having been said, somebody that buys a Starter Box today knows exactly what he is getting into; this is mostly an issue that touched the first players to embrace Warzone Resurrection.

There are a few typos (nothing grave or confusing), but still. This is the second iteration of these cards. By now the cards should have been perfect.

Some of the cards have a slight, almost imperceptible dent on their side. I am not suggesting that they are marked, they are not. There is no chance one will be able to identify a card by trying to pay close attention to this. It is irrelevant, I am however wondering why it's there.

Conclusion: You can’t do without this MegaDeck if Capitol is your faction of choice. There are many ways to be annoying, like a loud-mouthed Yankee. Which is the one that suits you the most?

To find out more about the Capitol MegaDeck of Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection, visit the Prodos Games website at prodosgames.com/.

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