The premise of Battleline is you are tying to control 9 flags. You win the game when you control any 5 flags, or 3 in a row. You do this by playing sets of 3 cards on your side of each flag, trying to build suits while your opponent plays cards on their side of each flag to try to build sets that beat yours.

The components are awesome. The flags are wooden and painted red. The cards are incredible. So much so that they are very difficult to shuffle. They are thick and with a great shiny finish. Every set of cards in every game published should be half as nice as these are.

There are 6 suits of 10 cards each. Each player takes turns laying one card at a time, and then drawing one card. Each player holds 7 cards in their hand. There are also 10 Tactics cards which may be drawn and/or played instead of the suit cards. These are special power cards which will allow you to do things such as steal an opponents card, discard an already played card, or play a card and name it's value at a later time.

One of the rules regarding tactics cards is that you can draw as many as you like, but you cannot play any more than one tactics card than your opponent has played. So if my opponent plays one tactic card, she cannot play another one until i have played one.

Battleline is a tense game. Every time a card is played, there seems to be an endless amount of decisions to make. Do i wait and try to get 3 in a row of the same suit, or try for 3 of a kind? should i start at a new flag or try to complete a set at one I already started? If i lay down this card which i know is really good, will my wife simply steal it from me on the next turn? (she does it almost every time it seems)

When i first started playing Battleline with my wife, she won every game. I was trying too hard to figure out what to do. My wife used to say "It's not life or death Scott!" Now if i am not sure what to do, i will just lay down the best card i can and hope for the best. It has actually worked better for me, and i win about 25% of the games now!

Even though i lose so often, i still hope i can improve, my wife loves to beat me, and so i love Battleline too!