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Level 99 Games are known for taking different gaming genres and turning them into thematic board games. With the BattleCon series this is their tabletop version of the head to head fighting genre. Trials Of Indines is the 4th main box in the series, adding in 10 new characters to the collection, who can either be played stand alone with each other, or mixed in with any of the other boxes for some increased variety of matchups.
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The box comes with all the components needed to play straight up, punch sheets with standees and tokens, packs of cards containing all the characters base attacks and unique styles, in depth rules, a quick play guide and a whole brochure of story and flavour text, plus tuck boxes so each fighter can store their gear in one place and a board to track the fighting as it plays out.
Select Your Fighter
The ten characters included in the box all play in different roles with a unique special ability. Examples include Cindra, a brawler in hand to hand combat who merged with a Pheonix soul and is reborn when she dies, Dareios, a wandering brewmaster who who tinkers as he mixes drinks and potions that give him tools and advantages in combat, Dravil, a tactician from the North who mixes up different advanced Dragon styles in combat, and Hayden, a Mage who mixes in different Psionic abilities as he fights.
Once you choose your character grab their kit, all neatly packed up in their tuckbox. Everyone shares the same basic base attack types, such as punch, pull or dash, but each fighter has a set of cards that they use for the unique styles they use for their attacks, including one unique base type of attack that only they can use, and a finisher, a powerful attack to use once during the fight. Any relevant tokens or extra cards are also stored in the box too. There is also a character card to give to your opponent, containing the details of what you can do allowing opponents to attempt to plan for each other's actions.
Ready, Fight!
Each turn all fighters select an attack pair to use for the round, by combining a base and style together, the base card giving the base range, power and speed for the attack, and the style showing how the fighter applies it. You could have a quick fighter's Diving Strike, a faster form of the attack that can bypass the opponent's guard, up against a Fracturing Strike, a more powerful attempt that will push them back on a successful hit. Attacks will be revealed simultaneously, with the faster attack being performed first, so speed and priority can be vital, hitting and stunning your opponent will cancel their attack, or you may be able to dodge out of range of their counter attack, watching it miss effortlessly. Played attack pairs are set aside facedown for two turns, so you'll have to use some different combat attacks for the following turns until they become available again. That's the game basics, just keep hitting and dodging each other until one fighter deals enough damage to the other to KO them.
There are other further options in combat that can be used. Every character has a finisher to use once during the fight, super powerful so don't miss or waste the attack. Force counters can be used to activate overloads, a limited effect boost for the turn to be faster or stronger for that attack, or you can even use fighter specific effects that are listed on each character card.
Sudden Death
The basic game mode out of the box is for one versus one duels. However, all the components and rules are included for multiple fighters, so two versus two tag matches, multiplayer battle royales or even one-sided one against two or even three opponents. Advanced players can opt to play as two characters themselves as they mix it up. If you choose to take on multiple opponents with one character you can use super or ultra bonuses, boosting all your attacks as well as giving you innate abilities to really power up.
Using the box contents there are 45 different match ups to play through with just the basic rules of play, not to mention any lopsided fights, but if you think that isn't enough, you get bored of any particular fighters or just fancy trying something new, you can always pick up single promo characters or even another core box, and everything can be mixed in without any hassle, as long as you don't pick up an older edition that is or they may be a few slight differences across the cards.
Game Over
Overall Trials of Indines has a very simple underlying ruleset, it's simple enough to know what your options are each turn, just pick a pair of cards and resolve the effects. But more rules build up on top of this, meaning the ruleset becomes more complex than it may first appear. It doesn't take too long to master, and some of the more advanced options can be left out for the first few games. The characters are giving a ranking of difficulty to use too, so the first couple of games can be with the Easy characters before moving onto Advanced and Complex ones in due time.
The game can also be played as you would on a video game console, not sure what to do, just button bash, play random cards and see what happens, the unpredictability where nobody knows what is coming could be a hidden advantage. Or perhaps you pick your favourite character, practice every possible move pairing to develop some killer combos, and study all of your opponents fighting styles so you'll always be able to launch the perfect counterattacks against your foe.
However you choose to play is entirely up to you!
