Designed by AcA Milosevic, Future Heroes is a combat card game for 2-4 duelling players. Players each have a character card that gives them an asymmetric ability. They draft hero, magic and weapon cards and allocate them to the three randomly drawn Arenas which they are contesting. Each Arena has its own special rule; for example, Arena 10 adds +2 to all orange card heroes used in battle.
The game is easy to learn and play. On your turn you can 'trade' by discarding a card to replace it with a card of the same type. You're drawing the replacement from a face-down draw pile, so you could end up with a card that's worse or less helpful than the card you discarded, tho' a character that has the 'Preparedness' power does have the distinct advantage of being able to draw two cards and choose between them. Whether or not you 'trade' a card, you draw a card from the Event deck and follow the indicated instruction. This could be a Fight or Duel for an Arena, with players putting together their hero, weapon, magic combo. The weapon and magic cards you play to a hero will add to their combat strength but usually only when the card colours match... That means there can be an element of bluff as you maybe allocate a card that has no effect but which tricks your opponent to burning through their more powerful combos...
Other Event cards can let you pick (blind draw) a card from an opponent's hand or require an opponent to discard a card from their hand; in either case, they get to draw a replacement, so these Events function more like additional 'trade' actions. Rearrange Heroes lets you switch heroes between different Arenas: this can be particularly useful when new Arenas have come into play after a battle has been resolved. Potion and Shield Events are played to a player's character card from where they can subsequently be deployed. Potions increase your total strength in a battle by +3; Shields can be used to cancel a Duel card - helping you to evade a likely loss.
We've enjoyed Future Heroes as a light filler-length combat game where players are often making push-your-luck decisions to manage and hopefully improve their hands. There's a high luck factor because the timing of battles is down to Event cards over which you have no agency. Decisions over deployment are mostly determined by the colour of cards you've drawn and the special rules at the Arenas in play but, with lively table talk, there's plenty of scope for bluff and bluster as players trick their opponents into overcommitting to a battle in order to put themselves in a stronger position at other Arena locations. And tho' Future Heroes has the appearance of a head-to-head duelling game, we've found in our plays at Board's Eye View that the game shines best at three and four players as that increases the scope for strategic misdirection.
Hectic Games have Future Heroes on Kickstarter right now. Click here to check it out.
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