May The Riftforce Be With You (also: custom guild ideas)

 Riftforce

Riftforce is a recent lane combat game (like Battle Line or SolForge or something) that I've been playing a lot on BoardGameArena lately. I haven't played a whole lot of this type of game in the past, and frankly, the ones I have played didn't excite me that much for on reason or another. I kinda liked SolForge I guess, but that was about it.

But Riftforce... Riftforce is pretty awesome. You start out by drafting a team of 4 different Guilds which will make up your deck. Each guild (or suit) will have 9 cards (4x 5's, 3x 6's, and 2x 7's), and each guild has an effect - how much damage it deals, or in what way, when activated.

On your turn you simply choose from 3 options...

1. Play: Put up to 3 cards (matching guild or value) into play in the same lane, or each in an adjacent lane
2. Activate: Discard a card from your hand to activate up to 3 cards matching that card's guild or value
3. Check & Draw: Collect points from any lane where you have unopposed cards, then refill your hand to 7 (you can't do this if you already have 7 cards)

Activating a card allows it to do its thing - dealing some amount of damage to an opposing card and using whatever its guild effect might be. Cards can take their value in damage before they're discarded.

You score 1 point for each opposing card you kill, and 1 point for each lane you control when you Check & Draw, and it's a race to 12 points.

And that's it. The rules are simple, but the game play is varied and interesting, especially due to the way you draft your guilds for the game. There are 10 total guilds in the base game, and each player plays with 4 of them per game. During setup, each player is dealt 1 guild at random, then drafts 3 more from a supply of 7 (the last one isn't used). Since each guild has an ability or effect, they can combo together in interesting ways. Removing 1 guild and being dealt one at random go a long way toward keeping you from always leaning on the same guilds.

To be honest though, since you use 4 guilds per game, and some of the guild effects are kinda similar, it doesn't necessarily feel like you're playing a wholly different game each time. but there's an expansion coming soon (is it out yet?) that adds 8 more guilds, which I'm sure will help, I look forward to those being added to BGA.

Base Game Guilds

Here are the 10 guilds in the base game:

• Crystal: Deal 4 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift. When killed, opponent gets 2 points instead of 1
• Fire: Deal 3 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift. Deal 1 damage to the ally directly behind this card
  
• Water: Deal 2 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift. Then move to an adjacent lane and deal 1 damage to the 1st opposing card at that rift
• Air: Move to any other rift, then deal 1 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift and each adjacent rift
• Earth: Deal 1 damage to the each opposing card at this rift when this comes into play. Deal 2 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift
• Plant: Deal 2 damage to the 1st opposing card at an adjacent rift, then move it to this rift
• Thunderbolt: Deal 2 damage to any opposing card at this rift. If it dies, deal 2 more damage to any opposing card at this rift.
• Light: Deal 2 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift. Heal 1 damage from any ally
• Ice: If the last opposing card at this rift is damaged, deal 4 damage to it. Otherwise deal 1 damage to it
• Shadow: Move to any other rift, then deal 1 damage to the 1st opposing card at this rift. If it dies, score an additional point

Expansion Guilds

Here's what's to come in the expansion:

• Beast: Move this beast to an adjacent location. If there is damage on that beast, put 3 damage on the first enemy in that location. Otherwise, deal 2 damage on him.
• Lava: Deal 2 damage each to the first enemy in the adjacent locations. Put 1 damage each on this lava and all allies in front of this lava.
• Love: When playing this love remove all damage from an ally in that location. Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location.
• Magnet: Deal 2 damage to the last enemy in this location. Move this enemy and magnet to an adjacent location.
• Acid: Deal 3 damage to the first enemy in this location. Deal 1 damage to the second enemy in this location. If the acid destroys an enemy, you will not receive a Riftforce.
• Sand: Move this sand to any other location. Deal 1 damage to each enemy in this location. Remove 1 damage from this sand.
• Music: Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. If that enemy is destroyed by the music, play it on your side of the Rift at an adjacent location.
• Magic: Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. If you have less than 7 elementals in hand, draw 1 elemental.

Custom Guilds

I see that someone has posted a fan expansion on BGG with 15 custom guilds in it. Here are some of my own ideas for guilds (some might be similar to the ones on the fan expansion, I wrote them down before seeing that):

• When activating and there's no card opposing, +1 Riftforce
• When activating and there's no card opposing, opponent loses 1 Riftforce
• Choose an enemy (any card?) at this location with damage on it and return that card to its owner's hand 
• Do 2 damage to the first enemy in this location, then shift 1 damage from one opposing card to another
• When activated, get 1 Riftforce and discard this card. Opponent does not gain Riftforce for this
• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. After you Check & Draw, deal 1 damage to the first enemy in this location.
• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. Before you Check & Draw, each of ~this move 1 opposing card from their lane to an adjacent lane
• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. If they die, draw a card
• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. If they die, activate any one other card in play
• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. You may put a card into play at this location
• Move all damage on opposing cards in this lane onto one card
• Move up to 2 damage from allies in any lane to any enemies in that same lane
• Heal up to 2 damage from any card(s) in play. For each, deal 1 damage to any card opposing the healed card
• cards that don't have to come into play adjacent to each other or something... "After coming into play, move this to any lane"
• would it be useful enough to have a Trap sort of effect: "Opponent's cards at this Rift cannot move" (trap water, air, shadow, and I think one or 2 of the expansion ones)
• Destroy the first enemy at this location. You may not activate any other cards this turn. [meaning they must activate alone]   
• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. When ~this comes into play, heal 1 damage on any ally

And a few ideas from my friend David: 

• Deal 1 damage on the first enemy at this location. Add 1 card from your hand to any location. This new card comes with 1 damage on it
• When you play this card, it comes with 2 damage on it. [When activated] Discard this card with no effect, add two cards to two different rifts
• If this is the first ally at this location, deal 3 damage to the first enemy at this location. Otherwise, deal 1 damage to any enemy at this location

It might be nice to see some guilds with non-standard card distributions - an all-5s guild that's weak, but easy to activate. A guild with some 9s (instead of 7s?), which can only activate each other, but are very hard to kill. I saw that the fan expansion linked above had some of that in it.

Edited to add:

• Deal 2 damage to the first enemy in this location. Move an ally from this location to any other location. deal 2 damage to any ally in that location and 1 damage to that ally
• Deal 1 damage to each enemy at this location
• Deal 1 damage to the first enemy in this location. Activate another [~this] that has not been activated this turn
• Tank: deal 1 damage to first enemy here and move to the front of the rift. For each damage dealt to this Tank, heal 1 damage from a non-Tank ally
• Deal 1 damage to the first enemy in this location for each [~this] here. Only the frontmost [~this] in the location may activate 

This game lends itself well to making custom guilds, and it would be easy to play them... if I had the game and played in real life! Playing only on BGA, I will have to be content thinking up fun guild powers and never playing with them. Hopefully the expansion will be implemented soon (though the base game is only in Beta, so it might be a while)

Have you thought of your own guilds? Post them in a comment below!