Warhammer Combat Cards introduces players to the Warhammer 40k lore and, at the same time, provides a truly competitive mobile gaming experience.
Warhammer Combat Cards by Flaregames is an online collectible card game (CCG) where players collect cards, level them up, and create decks to beat opponents from all over the world.
The tactical CCG runs on both Android and iOS mobile devices and currently has three modes: Casual, where players have to beat decks created from the same card class; Ranked, in which players create single-fiction decks and use them to fight their way to the top of the rankings, and Campaign, where one has to use cards from a certain faction to beat AI-generated decks that get progressively harder as time goes by.
The gameplay
Warhammer Combat Cards contains three classes of cards: Imperial, which is composed of the Space Marine and the Servants of the Emperor factions; Ascendant, which contains the Eldar, T’au, and Necron, and the Destroyer factions, in which Chaos and the Orks count themselves in.
There are four tiers in terms of a card’s rarity: Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. While the game claims that the rarity does not affect a card’s power, in reality, the rarer cards have slightly better statistics, which can make or break a game especially at the highest echelons of play.
The game has three types of attacks: Melee, Range, and Psychic. A card can only fight back if it contains the same type of attack; thus, players consider these interactions when creating a deck.
Cards can have different starting abilities such as Shield (which blocks several enemy attacks) and Terror (which reduces the enemy’s’ attack strength by half for a limited number of instances), among others.
Overall, these mechanics make for a sufficiently complex game that is easy to learn, yet hard to master.
The game experience
The interface of Warhammer Combat Cards is easy to understand. The buttons for specific actions are indicated by their color and size, and the game is extremely responsive, thus allowing players to focus on the gameplay itself.
Furthermore, when one gets disconnected from the game, the client tries to reconnect to the game for some time, thus ensuring that players will not lose progress due to an accidental internet shutdown or inconsistencies with the internet connection.
One thing to note is that when a player flips the cards, one can see card-related flavor text, which adds depth and context to the game’s aesthetic and overall gameplay.
The community
The Warhammer Combat Cards developers are continuing to introduce a lot of new content and adjusting the cards’ strength in the game, thus allowing for a diverse metagame to flourish.
Moreover, the community forums are packed with players which attest to the vitality of the game.
The developers of the game also do interactive giveaways from time to time in which players get rewards for solving puzzles or finishing in-game milestones.
The takeaway
The game’s controls are responsive, the soundscape and design capture the Warhammer vibe excellently, and the gameplay is both engaging and balanced at the same time.
It is easy to see why Warhammer Combat Cards has gained a reputation as one of the best Warhammer 40k-related mobile games out there at the moment.
Images courtesy of Warhammer Combat Cards.