Succubus (Guardians)

For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).

Guardians was a collectible card game created by Keith Parkinson and Luke Peterschmidt, published by Friedlander Publishing Group (FPG) between 1995 and 1996. The game was noted for the quality of its artwork. Some of the artists involved in the game included: Keith Parkinson, Mike Ploog, Don Maitz, Brom, James Warhola, Den Beauvais, Darrell K. Sweet, Larry Elmore, Ken Kelly, Chris Achilleos, Tim Bradstreet, Richard Hescox, Mark Poole, Rowena Morrill, Shaw, and Wilson Keith Elmore. This game was translated in French, German, Dutch and Hungarian. The game also had a series of expansion sets that included: Guardians Revised Edition, Dagger Isle, Drifter's Nexus and Necropolis Park.

The aim of the game was a battle between two (or more) Vierkuns or Guardians for the control of a kingdom constructed of territories: the disputed lands. To win, you must, helped by your creatures, eliminate your adversary within their stronghold or otherwise occupy all of the territories of the kingdom. Each Vierkun has a stronghold, more or less powerful creatures, terrains which give an advantage to certain creatures, shields to protect the creatures that move in the kingdom, magical objects and spells.

There are 3 types of creatures in Guardians: the Mortals (cards with a white board), the Elementals (cards with a grey board) and the Externals (cards with a black board). The Mortals are stronger when fighting against Elementals, the Elementals are stronger when meeting Externals and the Externals are more dangerous facing Mortals.

In this game was a Succubus card.

Game Summary

• Designer: Keith Parkinson and Luke Peterschmidt
• Publisher: Friedlander Publishing Group
• Players: 2-4
• Age range: 12+
• Playing time: Approx 45 min
• Random chance: Some
• Skills required: Card playing, Arithmetic, Basic Reading Ability

Basic Game Play

Each player starts with a Guardian, a very powerful creature with special abilities. In front of the Guardian you place a set of 3 strongholds. These are locations that give you bonuses. In front of these are 3 empty spaces that terrain cards will be placed. These will match up to the other players 3 empty spaces thus creating the board.

Onto your stronghold you can place creatures under a shield to keep them hidden. Only creatures under a shield can move and they can move up to 2 spaces with some restrictions. There is a limit to what can be put under the shields so you can not make your army too big.

When two armies meet they battle. Combat is fairly detailed. Both players pick up their cards from under the shields to make a combat hand. Each player secretly chooses one creature and they are placed down on the table. The stronger then covers the weaker. This is repeated for each creature until only one player has creatures left in his hand. He can then assign these creatures to help any of the previous creatures placed. There are many modifiers involved and each stack of creatures must be checked for a winner. All losers are discarded. After determining each battle the total strength of each army is checked. The weaker army must then retreat or the attacker in case of a tie.

To win you must either control all six of the lands between the strongholds, destroy 5 of the opponents shields or destroy the opposing Guardian.

Succubus Card

The Succubus card in the Guardians Card Game by by Friedlander Publishing Group.

External links

• The original source of some of the information in this article on Wikipedia
• Chez Phil, Fan de Guardians - Set information and ruling summaries, card database, background information on cards and other collectible items, storyline information, Seven Seas: an unofficial set cards...
• Guardians at Board Game Geek.com
• Guardians CCG - A blog detailing Guardians Solo Adventures, which is a single-player adventure-type rules variant, and including new user-generated cards specifically made for this variant.