Battle Line

Two player games don't get a lot of notice from me. It's probably because I love the dynamics that come with having a group of people play a game. It started with Magic: The Gathering where I hated dualing, but loved building and using decks designed for multiplayer as it was much more interesting for me. These days the only two-player games that I partake of are the occasional games of Mastermind or the bedtime-frolicking with the girl, which has all of the negotiations, pain, thrill, heart-break, area-denial, and victory conditions of the best board games around. Yes, I just compared my married love life to a fucking board game. Blow me. :D

Then comes along Battle Line, a card game for two players that has a theme rooted in ancient warfare. The game has a Troop deck with cards numbered 1 to 10 in 6 colors or suites. Additionally there's also a rule-breaking Tactics deck that sees limited but powerful use. There are nine flags that represent the eponymous battle line. Players in turn play up to three cards in those areas in order to try and get essentially a better 3-card poker hand than their opponent. If a player can prove that their hand cannot be beaten, excepting the intervention of Tactics cards, that player claims the flag. The game is over when a player takes any five of the nine flags or when a player takes three adjacent flags, which represents an overrun in that section of the line.

The games theme, the types of soliders printed on the cards from lowly pikemen to mighty war elephants, is awesome. The game actually plays pretty fast (depending on the players of course) and the endgame is wrought with game-breaking decision. Frankly the games only problem is that it's almost too short. This is easily remedied by playing a best of 3, 5, 7, etc game series. At $20, it's well worth it for any size gaming group.

Battle line gets a 10 of 10 VP from me. The game is just about perfect and deserves a spot in everybody's gaming library.