Game: Brawl

Thread: Re: Fight - Super Heroes Version

Christophe Francois — 2008-03-26T03:36:51+00:00

Yep that's right, Replay cards were called Press in Brawl. The only other difference with Brawl is that each deck has 44 cards instead of 35. Besides that the rules are the same.
The Fight characters correspond vaguely to the Brawl characters. See below:

Tiger (Hale)/ Ambre (Morgan)/ Kali (Pearl)/ Duke (Bennet)/ Jack (Darwin)/ SiuTin (Chris)/ Natasha (a new character).

When I replaced them with Super heroes, I tried to match them as best as I could. So for instance Tiger who's got brute force becomes Hulk, Duke who's blind becomes Daredevil, etc. Sometimes it was not possible to find a close match though. This is how I matched them up:

Tiger (Hulk)/ Ambre (Captain America)/ Kali (Iron Man)/ Duke (Daredevil)/ Jack (Wolverine)/ SiuTin (Spiderman)/ Natasha (The Thing).

BTW, if you intend to use my version, the cards fit nicely into MTG card sleeves. Use normal paper, glue front and back, slip into sleeve, and you're ready to play, well, sort of, first you've got to buy 308 card sleeves, print out 616 cards (front+back), cut them out and glue them, and finally make a nice cardboard box to hold all the cards :-)

Thread: Re: Fight - Super Heroes Version

hurstdm — 2008-03-25T14:52:39+00:00

Am I right that I know that card also as a "PRESS"?

Thread: Re: Fight - Super Heroes Version

Christophe Francois — 2008-03-25T00:14:31+00:00

The rules say: "You can play a Replay on a Block to nullify the effect of the Block. When you Replay a Block, you treat the string as if the Block were not there. However, it is illegal to play a Block or a Hit-2 directly on a Replay."
I'll post the rules in English.

Thread: Re: Fight - Super Heroes Version

hurstdm — 2008-03-24T17:54:01+00:00

Very nicely done! But what does the "replay" card do?

Thread: Fight - Super Heroes Version

Christophe Francois — 2008-03-21T03:55:41+00:00

Hi.
I made a nice home-made version of Fight (the French version of Brawl) quite a while ago, was supposed to post it then got too busy. You can see the picture at: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/223393
Anyway, I'll post it now (in PDF files), provided BGG accept it. I used the following characters: Spiderman, Hulk, Ironman, Wolverine, Captain America, The Thing, and Daredevil. The stats used are those of the Fight game (they added a seventh character to the 6 original decks). I have also added the stats in a Word file. Enjoy!

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chezzilla — 2008-01-01T19:05:16+00:00

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chezzilla — 2008-01-01T19:04:56+00:00

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kidsplinter — 2007-10-19T13:38:14+00:00

A few of the Brawl decks

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Surya — 2007-08-31T13:04:04+00:00

French editions

Thread: Re: Multiplayer: 6 bases and 3 Freezes?

cattoy01 — 2007-08-08T03:13:09+00:00

I prefer to see it as a strategic part of the endgame.

I also like to rule that if at any point, all of the bases between two players are frozen, then that particular match is over.

So if you have two bases between you and the player on your right and three bases between you and the player on your left, when you get to your freezes, you could choose to freeze both bases between you and your right hand opponent and look through your discards for some method for beating your left hand opponent (after you've frozen one base that you were winning).

My favored scoring system differs from the rules in that it gives 2 points for a win and 1 for a tie, regardless of the number of bases won.

This is to avoid the problems inherent with decks with a large or small number of bases are played. (as well as the influence of nulls and doubles) I changed the scoring because nobody would ever win if they were sitting next to a player playing Tess.

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Christophe Francois — 2007-06-24T02:46:33+00:00

Fight, Home-Made Super Heroes Version

Thread: Sixty seconds of strikes, smacks, and "See you later"s!

Henry Rhombus — 2006-11-24T08:29:54+00:00

This review first appeared on FunandBoardgames.com.

It's the rare game that lasts less time than it takes to describe how to play, but if you started playing Brawl when this page was downloading, you'd be sorting the cards and getting set for game two by now.

Brawl, as the name suggests, is all about confrontation. Each player has his or her own Brawl deck—which comes complete and is not collectible—and that deck represents a particular character with a unique fighting style. During the game, players try to control three "bases" by throwing hits, blocking punches, pushing counterattacks, and more. A base is simply a card in the deck that depicts your character; bases are the fighting ground where the action happens.

The crux of the fighting mechanism are hits. Hits come in three different colors, and once you start playing a particular color of hit on one side of the base, you have to keep playing that color on that base. Your opponent can usually stop the pummeling only by playing a matching-color Block, but some decks also contain cards like "Reverse," that make the player who throws fewer hits win the base, and "Clear," which removes the base from play. Other cards include:

• Press—which lets you ignore a block and keep hitting.
• Hit-2—which counts as two strikes.
• Double—to double the value of a base from one point to two.
• Null—to drop a base's value to zero points.
• Base—to replace bases cleared during play.

Some characters have balanced attacks with hits in all colors, while others specialize in clearing away bases that they're losing or throwing doubleplusgood punches. The character of each deck will drive your strategy while playing the game—or at least it could after the fifth or sixth game. (You'd have finished that many by now.) With sixteen character decks in print, more than a hundred different duels are possible, each with their own peculiar set of interactions.

And while Brawl is primarily a two-player game, in theory any number of players can duke it out. Each player needs his or her own deck, and the players sit in a circle, fighting only against the players to the immediate left and right. Whoever scores the most points wins; ties result in playoffs, bringing the circle of players smaller and smaller until one person stands on top of the heap.

The thrill of the game is that you play as quickly as possible, holding the deck in one hand while playing cards with the other hand onto bases or a single discard pile. The final three cards of each deck are Freezes that prevent any more play on a base, so you're racing to win two out of three bases, then freeze your victory before it's stolen away. And if you don't win, simply shuffle the cards and take another sixty seconds to play again.

Anyone eager to serve up some smackdown can find Brawl decks online at Time Well Spent , Cardhaus , Funagain , or from James Ernest himself . All of these links lead to a particular deck or set of decks. Use the search functions on these sites to find more Brawl decks, which are now out of print and disappearing faster than you can punch a monkey.

Thread: Re: Multiplayer: 6 bases and 3 Freezes?

DJ Pirtu — 2006-10-29T13:18:20+00:00

Well, actualy, there are enough freezes in the game to realy end it. Even tough every player is playing two games, there are actualy exactly as many games there as there are player, and thus, there are exactly enough freezes (3 per game) to end the games.
Of coure, there is the problem of ending up with up to 3 bases you can't freeze, even tough you wanted to.

So, what to do wi that? I haven't played that many multiplayer games, but here's a few suggestions:

1) "Not realy a problem"
Accept this, not as a flaw, but as a part of the game. This way, keeping the number of bases manageble has to become part of the game strategy.

2) "6 Freezes"
Just as Rusty suggested, if you use 3 freezes, all the bases surrounding you are considered frozen.

3) "Maxium of 2"
The one I perfer. The maxium number of bases isn't 3 but 2. It removes one way of protecting your base, but there also can only be 1 base you can't freeze, at max. Also gives you more room to play.

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mumblingmutant — 2006-10-19T17:23:15+00:00

Tess

Thread: Re: Multiplayer: 6 bases and 3 Freezes?

kuhrusty — 2006-10-10T11:54:57+00:00

We sort of go with your "6 freezes" line of thinking: when a person slaps down their three Freezes, we just say all bases to their left & right are frozen. "In theory" that could deprive someone of the opportunity to play a card on those last unfrozen bases in the second it would take the person to draw & play their fourth/fifth/sixth Freezes, but in practice we've never had a problem.

Thread: Multiplayer: 6 bases and 3 Freezes?

stray_flux — 2006-10-06T04:31:35+00:00

My question is: When playing multiplayer with 3 bases on your left and 3 on your right, are you considered to have 6 freezes at the bottom of your deck? If not the game could end with bases unfrozen?

For example: People sitting A-B-C-D:
[c] A
D B
C[/c]
and playing with only 3 freezes. If A and C play quickly and choose to freeze the three bases between A and D and the three between C and D, then B is free to play along by himself, possibly getting 6 points, because A and C ran out of Freezes.

Thread: Re: Can't open the breakdown file

stray_flux — 2006-10-06T04:10:06+00:00

GaryP wrote:
Click on the BRAWL Decks button for the contents of each deck, organized by series. Enjoy!
Above link broken: see here
http://www.cheapass.com/bpu/start2.html

Thread: Re: Brawl and Multiple Intelligences

DJ Pirtu — 2006-07-05T00:11:44+00:00

I find this "reviwe" a real interesting one, not least because of the point of view I have never seen before when looking at the game.
Surely, most of this knowlage is not exactly new. Even tough not realy written down anywhere (I've seen) before, I would say that none of the things you say will come as a surprise for any mature person with enough interest in the game.
Even so, I salute you for providing us with a written incarnation of this point of view.
Thank you.

Thread: Brawl and Multiple Intelligences

sdonohue — 2006-04-27T17:46:20+00:00

Brawl is a real-time card game that simulates a fight between two characters. You need two decks to play.

Components
Each character deck consist of 35 cards illustrated with the character on the back and and the character fighting on the front. The cards are of good quality and are pretty resilient.

Game Play
Brawl is a real-time game simulating a fight between two characters. A typical game can take less than a minute. The game is played as a best of three bases match. Game play is relatively straightforward. The players each put one of their “base” cards in the middle of the table, then countdown to start. Once the game starts, you can go through your deck as fast as you’d like. The cards are fairly straightforward.and including moves like hit, block, press, clear and more bases. Basically your objective is to win most of the bases which are left on the table at the end of the game. During play, there can only be a total of three bases but there are often fewer. You win a base by having done more hits to your opponents side of the base than he’s done to yours.
The game ends when all the bases on the table are “frozen”. Each player has three freeze cards at the bottom of his deck.

Intelligences
This review is part of a series of reviews I’m doing as I evaluate games my wife may use in her classroom or that I’m using with my Boy Scouts. Apart from the normal review, I try to identify the kinds of intelligence that the game will use. For an explanation of multiple intelligences, see: my blog post at: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/786097

Linguistics
There is no narrative here, so there is little use for language – card play is just as fast as you can manage it.

Logical-Mathematical
Being able to quickly see which bases you are winning (or losing) relies on mathematics, so being able to choose where to place your next card is very helpful.

Spatial
Although not entirely visual, the game is very fast and those who can see things quickly have an advantage.

Bodily-Kinesthetic
Brawl is not a classic dexterity game, but it is real time. Those who can physically handle their cards faster and place them in the right spot quickly have a definite advantage. There are times when you know you are winning and just need to run down to your freezes as quickly as possible.

Intrapersonal
The game is about a fight. Having enough confidence in yourself to see it as a game and not a fight is critcal.

Naturalist
The hits, blocks, presses and other cards come in different colors and being able to quickly associate the right cards is important.

Age Appropriateness
The artwork on some of the cards in the expansions might be a little risqué for some groups and it’s probably best not to introduce this in a setting where bullying is a problem. For the youngest kide, Brawl can be slowed down to allow them to take turns playing cards (this is also a great way to teach the game). This makes the game much more manageable for kids who may have trouble thinking or moving fast.

Overall
Brawl is a fun filler. Kids really seem to enjoy it once they understand how the various cards work. It is not a subtle game though and players are often very loud, particularly between matches.

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Skymarshal — 2006-03-19T14:20:13+00:00

Brawl Poster and www.brawl.de Homepage-Background

Thread: Re: Brawl with Fight!

GaryP — 2006-03-08T22:15:18+00:00

Heh. Thanks much. I actually finished reading the French rules and came back on to post that link to the rules and explain Replay. As you said, it does not mention negating Base Modifiers, but this set has no base modifiers. I do rather like that the Base cards in this set are oriented horizontally. It makes it easier to differentiate from the lines of hits.

I am rather curious why they would keep all the other card text in English, but change Press to Replay. "Replay" is just odd.

Thread: Re: Brawl with Fight!

DJ Pirtu — 2006-03-08T20:57:09+00:00

GaryP wrote:
You never got back to explaining what Replay cards did. Do they just start the whole column over again?

Ah. My bad. Checked with Babel Fish and aparently they work exactly like Press regarding Blocks. I did asume this much. Just didn't elaborate it clearly enought in the post. Kinda left explaining the whoel thing about Fight! to the very, very basics there

Anyways, as I suggested, the Replay cards might be good to be used EXACLY as stated in the rules:
Babel Fish wrote:
this chart acts like a anti-Block. One can play Replay on a Block of any color, then to play of other Hits on this Replay. Hits that you play on Replay must be same color as Hits below this one.
This would mean no playing on base modifiers that you could do with Press cards.

And, as one more treat, all the rules of Fight!
In French.
http://www.eclipse-editions.com/infos/IMG/FIGHT_regles.pdf

Thread: Re: Brawl with Fight!

GaryP — 2006-03-08T19:40:54+00:00

Thanks for the interesting article. Note that there are, in fact, European versions of the orginal Brawl decks. These were released in Germany by Turant. I don't know if this release reached outside of Germany or not. However, the French Fight! decks are certainly new and exciting. I think you are probably right in attempting to trim down the Fight! decks to match the card count of Brawl.

You never got back to explaining what Replay cards did. Do they just start the whole column over again?

Thanks again for the info. I think I'll have to keep a lookout for this, as Brawl is one of my favorites. Even if I have to tweak the decks, more fighters means more fun!

Thread: Brawl with Fight!

DJ Pirtu — 2006-03-08T14:33:08+00:00

For those of you who didn't know, the good French have made a new addition to the Brawl family under the name Fight!
Sure, there are a few changes, but some, myself included, don't see them so big that the thing would qualify as its own game.

However, even tough the first time I heard of these cards, I heard of them as reprints of the original 6 packs of Brawl, there are changes. These changes are enought to cause some problems if these packs are intended to use with the usual Brawl decks.
First of, let me point out all the differences I've noted:
1. The deck size is 44 cards, not the usual 35. This is a MAJOR change gameplay wise and I shall return to it later on.
2. The card size is a bit smaller. This comes in handy when playing with Brawl decks because at the end, you can gather all the cards in one pack, square it up, grab the larger Brawl cards and let the smaller Fight cards just slide off as you lift the deck up.
3. There is no Press cards, but Replays. More of these later on.
4. The material is a bit smoother than those of the Brawl decks. Take this as a warning, because these card can easily slide out of their places, especialy on slipery surfaces.
5. The texts on the packs are in French. Big surprise ^_^

And now, to playing with Fight decks agains Brawl decks.

First of, the 44 cards are simply too much. I personaly feel that they give the faster player too big of an advantage. I tried this with a friend of mine and easily played all the 44 cards before my friend could play the 35 of his, thanks to the straight forewardness of all the decks. You can pretty much guess how those games ended.
If my friend had played with the Fight decks, I think I would have ended the game before he would have gotten halfway through his deck. This is only a guess, how ever.

So, I would sugges that when played against Brawl decks, 9 cards would be removed from the Fight decks. I think it would be the most fair for them to be the same ones when talking about single decks. This would create 7 new, hopefuly unique decks to be played against.

Now, I just receved my decks a while ago and haven't had much time to try them out. I did make suggestions of what cards to remove and would like to share them with you lot. Please bare in mind that these haven't been throughly tested for ballance yet.

Amber: Remove 3 Clears, a Base, a Green Hit and Hit-2 and a Blue Hit-2 and 2 Hits.
The deck would weak red, weakish blue and strong green with low number of clears.
This deck seemed hard hitting, but pretty ballanced. It is also the only one I tested a few times.

Duke: Remove a Clear, a Replay, 3 Bases, 2 Red Hits and 2 Red Blocks.
This deck would have strong blue and othewise be pretty weak, but have a few clears.
Tested a couple of games. The deck seemed, not awsome but OK.

The rest are not tested, just planned.

Jack: Remove 2 Hits and a Block is every colour.
I tought I'd make a Replay machine with strong red and a surprise in blue.

Kali: Remove 2 Bases, 3 Clears, a Blue and a Green hit and 2 Red Hits.
This one I planned to be a strong blocker, especialy in blue, with moderate amouth of clears.

Natasha: Remove 2 Clears, 3 Red Hits, 2 Blue Hits and a Block and a Green Hit.
Natasha's overpowering red needed significant toning down, not forgetting other colours. Still should be a hard hitter, tough.

Siu Tin: Remove a Base, a Clear, 2 Red Hits and 2 Blocks, a Green Hit and a Block and a Blue Block.
Should create a relatevily good-all-around deck with blue stronger than other colours.
Seemed pretty ballanced at least against Darwin. I take it as a good sign.

Tiger: Remove a Base, 2 Clears, 2 Green Hits and a Hit-2, a Blue Hit, a Red Hit-2 and a Block.
Another hard hitter needing to be toned down. I left blue with relatively little hits but 2 hit-2s. UNBALANCED!!

Also, to tone these usualy pretty hard hitting decks down a little more, I suggest that you don't play Replays as Presses, but just cards that will nil the effect of Block cards.

Ofcourse, there are just suggestions I made up with little planning. Most compositions of the original decks can be made from the Fight decks by removing cards. I'm just gonna say what you get from a certain deck. Should make a small and simple enought list:
Amber -> Pearl
Duke -> Bennet
Jack -> Darwin
Kali -> Morgan
Amber -> Pearl
No Fight deck has the cards to make up Chris

And finaly, to end all this ranting, I would like to thank you for reading this far.
Now, I'm not claiming to be a game ballancing guru, a ruler of any kind nor a man, whose words would bare any authority. The things that are not solid facts are simply my personal opinnions and suggestions.
I made up these new compositions I couldn't find anything similar already in here. If you have suggestions, corrections, links to similar topics/sites/stuff-like-that or personal experiences, please share them with me. I would certaily appriciate them all.
Thankyou again and good play

Edit 18. December 2006: Found out that the Tiger variant is way unbalanced. With only 2 clears and no relplays he's extremely weak against ANY deck with a few blocks. Have to think of something else.

Thread: Re: Rules question: how do "clears" work in the BRAWL card g

Octavian — 2005-12-19T22:38:41+00:00

Jason has it right. It removes the base from play and goes unscored, so you want to Clear a base that you are losing.

-MMM

Thread: Re: Rules question: how do "clears" work in the BRAWL card g

TheLongshot — 2005-12-19T21:59:01+00:00

Been a while since I played Brawl, but from what I remember, a "Clear" removes a stack from the game. It does not count in the final results.

Jason

Thread: Rules question: how do "clears" work in the BRAWL card game?

jordan1207 — 2005-12-19T21:14:16+00:00

Hi!

I just got a few Brawl decks, and the game looks pretty fun, but now I have what may be a very dumb question:

When a player plays a clear card, and clears the given base (and cards played thereon) away, does that base later get counted, or is it effectively removed from the game and from counting when it is cleared? In other words, if you are winning a base, do you or do you NOT want to play a clear card on that base?

Thanks!

Jordan

Thread: First three way fight

Jpwoo — 2005-11-22T04:51:52+00:00

Before roleplaying tonight we had some time to kill. While reorganizing the dining room when we painted it the freebie origins brawl decks resurfaced. So! I suggest Jeff, Jeff and I play a game or two.

Yes Three Jeffs playing a three way game of Brawl. This was Jeff3's first time playing but there are only a couple of rules to learn so it didn't take long.

We played three quick games I think, perhaps four. Playing three way is interesting I like that you have to split your attention it makes an already brutal speed type game all the more confusing and frantic. There are a few more chances to play off your discard pile.

Jeff2 was playing one of the foglio Decks, and Jeff3 and I were playing two of the catgirl decks. Generally we think that the foglio deck is a bit stronger than the other decks, but this could perhaps be due to our playing styles. And this proved as true in the three player game as it does it the two.

Jeff2 took the first couple of games with low scores of 2 or three. I eventually won a single game as well, but this was mostly due to the other two Jeffs duking it out over some crazy big stacks.

The score multiplier cards spread out a bit more which is nice, so there isn't a huge stack worth 4 or 8 points as sometimes happens in the two player game.

All in all I find this game interesting enough, but it isn't a favorite. I do enjoy playing speed games though. If I knew more kids in the 10-14 year old range I think this game would fit the bill perfectly.

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Nekura — 2005-09-28T15:43:18+00:00

New card types introduced with Catfight set

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greuh — 2005-09-16T11:55:48+00:00

The limited 7th character of the french edition of Brawl.

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greuh — 2005-08-22T14:20:58+00:00

6 of the seven characters of the french edition

Thread: First time played: with bonus mini review.

Jpwoo — 2005-07-13T04:29:52+00:00

April made Fajitas they were quite good. As she watched Rose Red on tv EvilJeff and I played Brawl for the first time. Some of our friends had gone to Origins and apparently brawl was one of the promo deals that was being given out. Both Scott and Tom didn't want the decks so we took them, and a pack of the punch out pirates card game, those ships are just too cool.

We have all three catgirl decks, and one studio foglio deck, the guy with a weird shaped head and a red and white helmut.

I picked a catgirl at random, taking the punk rock one, and EvilJeff took the club foglio guy.

We played one game in 'training mode' and the rest in full speed.

We were both playing trick decks I guess, and that may not have been the best option for learning on, His deck has lots of nulls, holds and reverses, my deck was full of clears and reverses. I think his combination of reverses and holds trumped my clears. Basically a Clear card means you destroy a stack, and a hold card prevents you from playing a clear on a stack. So Jeff won a lot! (I will also admit that perhaps Iam not very good at the game!) I did manage to put together a couple of ties, which I considered victories.

I switched to the jungle kitty girl, whose backstory includes wild marmosets, so that made me happy. The jungle kitty is certainly more straight foreward, and better suited to playing the tricky raver kid. I beat him a couple of times with the new kitty, but I still lost most of the fights, the reverses killed me. But that is to be expected I suppose.

I played the jungle kitty as if she had a reverse...but she doesn't! so that isn't good. I will remember that for next time.

Mini Review:

This game is a speed game where you play cards rapidly from a deck, trying to accumulate more hits and win small battles, and thus points.

The game is easy to learn.

The components are just a deck of cards, each player needs their own deck. Each deck is different with the various characters having different strenght and weaknesses. I like the artwork on the cards, it certainly is a nice flashy little game.

This game plays quick, so any shortcomings of the game are certainly overlooked by the amazingly quick playing time. I don't see this as the kind of game you would play on game night, but rather something you might play if you were on break at work or vacationing at the beach or camping. I could see this asa good glovebox game, to pull out and play when you get stuck somewhere idle.

I don't know how much a deck costs, but for free, I enjoyed this game!

Thread: Session Report

Fawkes — 2005-04-04T01:06:12+00:00

Ty and I broke out some Brawl decks. Ty was toting his promotional Ting Ting deck, while I decided to try one of the newer characters that we hadn’t seen in action yet. This would be the Catgirl, Nickie.

Brawl [2P]

Nickie is a tricky character to play, running an enormous seven Clears and sporting limited Hits in all three colors. She has a single Reverse and a couple of Doubles, so there’s a bit of sneaky potential, but without any Holds, Presses or Nulls it would be tough against Ting Ting. Ting Ting is a fairly straightforward fighter, dominant in Red, with a bunch of bases, a few clears, a couple of Doubles and her infamous three Wild Blocks. My lack of experience with Nickie showed in the final tally of a race to seven wins.

Brawl – Final Record:
Ting Ting (4-1-2) d. Nickie (1-4-2)

Despite the outcome, Brawl still produced the adrenaline surge that makes it one heck of an amazing game.

Thread: Session Report

playersgc — 2005-01-10T19:21:09+00:00

This is a game I've enjoyed teaching several friends who were new to board/card games. I'm trying to get some friends together to play games, and this is a good filler, and a fast two-player game.

One of my favorite things about Brawl is that it has a "practice" mode that really seems to work pretty well. It gives the newbie a chance to get used to the mechanics and figure out a possible strategy for the deck.

At the end of a relaxed weekend, we wanted to play a few quick games, and this fit perfectly.
My wife, Karen, had the Chris deck, and I had Darwin. We tried two practice rounds, then two full-speed "tournament" rounds.

The game goes so fast even in practice mode that it's hard to talk about each individual turn. Karen discovered that playing Chris is rough because she has no "Press" cards, and no "Hit-2"'s either. That means she has to rely on her "Clear" cards to get rid of bases she's losing when she gets blocked, and there's only 2 of those! What she needs to do is get as many red and blue hits down as fast as she can and burn through her deck to get to the end before her opponent can do anything else. Her deck is labeled "easy", but that's only if you've got the dexterity to move fast.

Darwin seems easier to me, despite the website claiming he was the "weakest" of the basic set. All those "press'-es he's got help out a lot, even with only one clear. I've never played against anyone with more playing experienec than me, so I could be wrong about that.

I won the first three rounds we played. On the last round, we traded decks, and my wife won. I think it was because of the deck. Maybe we just don't know how to play Chris well.

Overall, this is a fun game to fill time with. The rules are a little tricky to learn at first, but the practice mode really helps a lot. It's a lot like playing "Spit".

Thread: Re:Can't open the breakdown file

sdiberar — 2004-12-18T01:31:38+00:00

Adeptus (#69998),
Oops.
It's supposed to be an .xls file, and that's how I uploaded it (I thought...)

Thread: Re:Can't open the breakdown file

sdiberar — 2004-12-18T01:30:48+00:00

Adeptus (#69998),

Thread: Re:Can't open the breakdown file

GaryP — 2004-12-10T01:06:50+00:00

Adeptus (#69998),
No idea what that is, and I don't feel like bothering to figure it out, since you can find all the information here:

http://www.beatpeopleup.com/start2.html

Click on the BRAWL Decks button for the contents of each deck, organized by series. Enjoy!

Thread: Can't open the breakdown file

Adeptus — 2004-12-09T13:56:24+00:00

Can anyone tell me what kind of file is the deck breakdown on this entry? I downloaded it but can't open it. Tried with TXT, RTF, DOC, PDF, even XLS and PPT, but doesn't open

Thread: Re:Ranma 1/2 characters for Brawl

Adeptus — 2004-12-09T12:40:04+00:00

sdiberar (#69749),
Thanx

This gave me an idea: To make some decks for Yu Yu Hakusho characters, maybe sometime

Thread: Re:Ranma 1/2 characters for Brawl

sdiberar — 2004-12-08T08:38:41+00:00

Adeptus (#69621),

Good question. I've lost my original notes, but give him another Blue hit and Green hit.

Thread: Re:Ranma 1/2 characters for Brawl

Adeptus — 2004-12-07T19:36:35+00:00

sdiberar (#38922),
Why does Ranma's deck have only 30 cards instead of 32??

Thread: User Review

elcomadreja2 — 2004-08-09T04:32:05+00:00

If you like playing the card game 'speed', you will like this. Thinking fast is essential but playing fast, not always so. Depends on the deck you use. It's most satisfying when you snag a win by hitting your opponent's side of the base, which is a bit counter-intuitive. It usually works like this: once a color of hits is started, those are the only ones you can continue with. So if your opponent is short on say red, and you start the red for them, they've pretty much lost on that count.

It's too bad the original decks have been discontinued because much of the fun is in playing the different combinations of decks, even if you discover that some matches are stilted (I have not tried the new decks). I have them in those ccg sleeves to keep them from wear. My personal favorite is Bennett. It's just kind of my style to win by non-direct means. I hear he does well in tournaments too.

I have heard some complaints about illegal plays messing up the game. This has not been a problem for our group. When the cards are not clearly displayed or something goes wrong, we just say 'hold it!' straiten them out, and continue.

Thread: Ranma 1/2 characters for Brawl

sdiberar — 2004-06-07T00:00:25+00:00

It's easy to see why Brawl and Ranma 1/2 would make a perfect match: goofy, readily identifiable characters who seem to love to beat each other to a pulp. I've never gotten around to actually making up these decks (too much time to find all the right art), so I'm just going to post the deck compositions I had in mind for these characters.

Ranma Saotome (male form)
5 Bases
Hits: 4 Red, 4 Blue, 5 Green
Blocks: 1 Red, 2 Wild
4 Clears, 3 Feints*, 1 Press, 1 Reversal

Ryouga Hibiki
4 Bases
Hits: 7 Red, 4 Blue, 4 Green
Hit-2s: 1 Red, 1 Blue, 1 Green
Blocks: 1 Red, 1 Blue, 1 Green
2 Clears, 3 Holds, 2 Presses

Akane Tendou
4 Bases
Hits: 8 Red, 3 Blue, 4 Green
Hit-2s: 2 Red
Blocks: 2 Red, 3 Blue, 1 Green
1 Clear, 1 Hold, 3 Presses

Shanpu (Shampoo)
6 Bases
Hits: 2 Red, 7 Blue, 6 Green
Blocks: 1 Blue, 1 Green
6 Clears, 2 Nulls, 1 Reversal

Genma Saotome (panda-form)
5 Bases
Hits: 5 Red, 3 Blue, 7 Green
Hit-2s: 1 Green
Blocks: 1 Red, 1 Blue, 2 Green
3 Clears, 2 Feints*, 1 Hold, 1 Null

Happousai
6 Bases
Hits: 4 Red, 6 Blue, 5 Green
Blocks: 1 Red, 1 Blue, 1 Green, 1 Wild
3 Clears, 1 Feint*, 1 Double, 2 Reversals

* The Feint card works like this:
A Feint can be played on any Block or Hit (including a Hit-2). Only a Hit can be played on a Feint, but any color Hit may be played.
What this allows you to do is switch colors mid-string (though you don't have to). It also works like a Press in letting you get around Blocks (however, unlike Press, you can't play it as a base modifier.)

Have fun, and let me know if you actually make the decks!

Thread: User Review

dice-o-matic — 2004-05-03T15:49:25+00:00

Synopsis:

BRAWL is the name of this much promoted card game from James Ernest Games first debut in 1999. They promote it as the worlds fastest card game because unlike games like warlord and magic, you play the cards as quickly as possible so that you can get through your entire deck while still retaining control of the base cards. This is best played as a drinking game in my opinion since it is almost impossible to not accidentally make an illegal move and possibly have to forfeit the game. The rules are sketchy at best making it very difficult to figure out rules and game play. But also unlike other card games you buy a set and that is all you need there are no booster packs to augment your "deck" Instead you buy a different set and use the one you prefer. Each Set has its own set of attacks and special moves and some contain no special moves at all. The artwork is simple but nice and there isn't a lot to figure out on a card which can sometimes be a pain in the more complicated card games.

Types of Cards:

There are 4 basic types of cards in BRAWL. The first is the base card. Each set or deck contains 3 base cards. At the beginning of play each player places one base card in the middle of the table and shuffles the other 2 into their decks. All play is done on the base cards either your opponents or yours. It makes no difference which bases you control at the end as long as you control the most possible bases at the end of the game. The rules state that if both players control the same number of bases the game is a draw but this will only occur in games of more than 2 people. The second type is a Hit card. These come in 3 colors, Red, Blue and Green. They may also have x2 or some other number behind them which is self explanatory. The third is a block card. These allow you to block the hit cards. This is where the illegal moves come in. You can only play a Block card on a same colored hit card. If you accidentally play a blue block on a red hit…you lose the game. This can and will happen often since you don’t take turns when you play a normal game you play your cards as fast or slow as you like so if you play a red block then your opponent throws down a blue hit…you lose the game. The fourth and final type of card is the freeze card. This will stop all play on a base and whoever has the most hit cards wins that base.

Game Play:

Each Player begins to play laying hit and block cards on the base. You can play them on either side of the base blocking your own attacks if you like to burn cards faster. Your freeze cards are at the bottom of your deck so one strategy is to play as fast as possible to burn through your cards and freeze the base while you still control it. You can also play the top card off your discard pile if you like. You don’t have to take turns you can play at your own pace. If you play a card you didn’t want to play you can pick it back up if you haven’t played another card already, if you have and it was an illegal play…you lose the game. At the end of the game after all three bases have been frozen you count all your hit cards that Werner blocked and whoever has the most hit cards wins that base. If both players have the same number of hit cards then the base goes to the player who’s picture is on the base. That is the only time that ownership of the base means anything.

Sets:

One of the more interesting thing about this game is that though there are only 4 sets currently each set is illustrated by different people. You can buy each character in a set individually or collectively as a set. One of which is Phil Foglio one of the most famous fantasy novel and adult comic illustrators. The sets that are currently out are the basic set which has 6 different characters, each with its own set of special moves. Ting-Ting contains only 1 set of cards. This is actually a cross-promotional licensing deal with a game called Shadowfist by Z-Man publishing. If there is sufficient interest in this they claim that there will be more sets in this genre. Club Foglio also has 6 while Catfight only has 3. All are nicely illustrated and each character contains all the cards necessary for 1 person to play.

Final Thoughts:

This game while fairly easy is not for those with a lack of patience or that are easily perturbed. As I have said it is very easy to make illegal moves so be sure to arrange all house rules beforehand so there are no arguments and remember…in the immortal words of William Shatner: “Its only a game”.

Thread: User Review

zombiemonkey — 2004-03-15T17:40:57+00:00

Brawl is a lightning fast card game from the Cheapass Games guru, James Ernest. Played in real time, the object of Brawl is to be the player with the most bases when the game ends.

No turns are taken - players deal cards onto either the bases in play or if they can't or don't want to play the card, onto their discard pile. To win a base, players must have the most hits on their side of the base. Hits can be played on either side of a base, and are colour coded (red can be played on red, green on green and blue on blue). To stop Hits being played, Blocks can be played onto them providing the block is the same colour as the string of Hits. A Press can be played to nullify the effects of a Block. Hit-2s are worth 2 Hits, Clears can be used to take a Base out of play and Bases can be played onto the playing field, with only three Bases allowed in play at one time. Last, but not least, each player has three Freeze cards - which are always kept at the bottom of each deck. These cards, when played on Bases, Freeze them thus taking them out of play. Once all Bases are Frozen, the game ends. Whoever has more hits on their side of each Base wins that Base; the player with the most Bases wins the game.

The appeal in Brawl comes largely from the fact that games often take no longer than a minute or two, and it has a surprising amount of strategy for such a fast paced and simple game. Play is addictive and engrossing, with a real 'just one more go' effect. Later series of Brawl decks introduce a few more card types, thus complicating matters slightly, but all decks are compatible with one another regardless of the series they are from. As the decks are all reasonably priced, it is not too hard to build up a small stable of fighters to play with, and the packs make it easy to choose which fighters to purchase as attributes, strengths and weaknesses are all listed on the back of each fighter's box. The first series are easiest for beginners to get to grips with die to the simple cards and effects involved, with later sets (Club Foglio, Catfight, Ting-Ting) each having specific cards that add an extra layer of complexity to the game.

The decks are graphically appealing, with cartoony, brightly coloured characters and easy to recognise card types. Very well designed cards with high production values mean that all decks are satisfying to look at and play with.

Fast, fun, cheap and very compulsive, Brawl plays like a frantic head to head video game - which in my book is no bad thing - and is highly recommended, both as filler between larger, more serious games or as a series of quick games on a rainy day. As the decks are so small, Brawl is also easy to carry and can go pretty much anywhere that you can!

Note: So far I have played with the following decks - Bennett, Hale, Chris, Pearl (Series 1, sadly now out of print) and Rent, Mischo (Club Foglio).

Thread: Session Report

MarkEJohnson — 2002-11-10T18:56:51+00:00

Patricia left, but the MM game was still going on. Mike and I had just 15 minutes or so, the right amount of time for him to teach me BRAWL. I had sort of stayed away from this game until now. I haven't been very impressed with much that James Ernest has published, and Falling didn't do it for me at all. However, at a game convention I had the chance to try Lift Off, a multiplayer realtime card game that those around me compared to Brawl. Since I enjoyed Lift Off, it was high time to try Brawl. Good stuff! I'll happily kill time playing that little game from now on, and I hope Mike keeps bringing it. Maybe I need to buy a few decks myself. (I heard that one week Mike and someone else--Winton?--launched into Brawl games whenever the rest of the folks stalled while deciding what game to play next. Love it!)

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

We've started playing more and more Brawl. For some reason, I am really warming to this game, to a near point of obsessiveness. It has the quickness of play and addictiveness of pitting different fighters against each other like Button Men. The actual play involves fairly simple tactical decisions, as well as skill in timing your attacks (a la Tamsk). But at really high speed.

You often find yourself turning up a card and pausing on it for a few seconds (especially for Blocks) just to see if your opponent is going to do something that makes it valuable.

The neatest thing is that different fighters PLAY very different because of the card mixes.

The multiplayer rules are pretty close to unplayable, so it is a 2 player game.

And I am just a bit confused on the rule regarding playing from the discard.

We played a few test games last night, sucked some other folsk into it, and by the end of the evening the War Room had sold out of something like one and a half boxes.

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

By one of the designers of cheapass games it consists of six decks of various difficulties. You play it as a rapid trick taking game trying to get the most base cards. You have special cards such as blocks (stop you laying down a color), clear (clear a base off the table with all the attached cards) and Freeze (stop playing cards on a base). One of the fastest filler I have played (two to four minutes at most and this with three people playing). I think the playability may wear off fairly soon but if you only have five minutes a really nice filler and decks are available for under ten dollars.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Tina, Doug, Janet

Richard Vickery posted some glowing comments about this Cheapass card game, so I picked up a few decks to try it out. It's an interesting "real time" card game that is designed ideally for two players, but does support multiplayer play.

Each player plays with a complete deck, of which there are 6 available for purchase. The decks are classed as "Easy", "Moderate" and "Advanced" and this really relates to how many different card types are present in the deck. As a game, there is nothing very difficult about Brawl.

The basic idea is to score more "hits" than your opponent, assessed when the game ends. You play your deck in real time, holding the 40 odd cards in one hand, and use the other hand to turn 1 card up. That is your hand size - 1 card. You may hold this card for as long as you like, play the card onto the table, or play it onto the discard pile. From there on you may draw your next card from either your deck or discard pile.

Cards are played to the table onto foundations. In the two player game there can be three foundations - known as "Bases", and these are cards in your deck. If you draw a Base, you can play it to the table creating a new foundation (providing there is a slot there for it). Hit cards, in green, red or blue, are the most common cards in your deck and these can be played on EITHER side of any foundation. Once a colour has been committed to one side of a foundation, it locks it in so only hits of that colour can be played there now. Block cards, in the three hit colours, can be played onto Hits to prevent further hits being played on one side of a Base, however a Press (only in the more "difficult" decks) will unlock a Block.

The fun card - Clear - allows you to sweep a Base along with all cards on it off to the side, creating a slot for a new Base. This is your "there is no way I can win this base, so my opponent isn't going to either" card.

The last three cards in your deck are Freeze cards. These can be played on a base to Freeze it up, preventing any further play to that Base. The game ends when all Bases are frozen, and you count hits on your side of all bases, claiming the Bases you score more on. Ties are broken in favour of Base ownership.

It's an intriguing game that only takes about 3 minutes to play, real time. Those 3 minutes are spent frantically flipping through cards and trying to make split second decisions on where to play your cards. If you get ahead on your Bases, you want to get through the deck as fast as possible to get to the Freeze cards. Playing a hit card on an opponents side of a base can be a problem for them, especially if they don't have many hits in that colour, etc.

Our three player game saw 2 Bases set up between each player, and you effective play the other two players at once (ie. you have 4 Bases you can initally play to). We played one "training game" where we took turns to play cards, then tried one real time game which I thought was a lot of fun. Janet and Doug game out with 2 Bases each and Tina had 1 Base. According to the rules, Janet and Doug would play off for the victory.

While the game is not everybody's cup of tea, I'd be interested in playing a 5 or 6 player game sometime (you play the person on your right and left). As a filler or a closer, I think it would work well.

Doug's rating: 6 ... real time mayhem, but there is a game there.

Thread: Preview

BoardGameGeek — 2000-07-09T18:09:36+00:00

Brawl is a strange game - but I mean that in the best possible way!

First, to set the stage, let me explain a little bit about how the game works. Each player has a deck of cards that represent the abilities of a particular character (there are 6 in the initial release - each sold separately - and there is no reason more could not be produced, so don't be surprised to see new decks in the future). Each player places one "base", with a graphic representation of their decks character, on the table between them. They take the three "freeze" cards that each deck comes with, and places them at the bottom, and shuffles their remaining cards. Once both players are ready, play begins. There are no turns - whenever you want to, you may take a card off the top of your deck, or off the top of your discard pile, and either play it to one of the bases, or discard it. There are only a few card types - hits, strong hits (hit-2), blocks, presses, more bases, clears and the three freeze cards I mentioned earlier. Hits and blocks come in three different colors (Red, Blue and Green), while the other cards do not have colors.

Hits and Hit-2s may be played to a stack on any base, and on either your side or your opponents. Once a hit has been played on your side of the table (by you OR your opponent), you may only play more hits of that color on that base.

Blocks may only be played on a stack of hits of the same color, and while a block is on a stack, no further hits may be played.

Presses clear blocks from a stack, to allow you to continue playing hits.

Clears allow you to clear a base from the table, assuming it is one of the outside bases (i.e. not surrounded by other bases on either side). This is a good tactic if you find yourself losing badly with no hope of catching up.

Bases may be added to the table, and provide additional opportunities to play hits, blocks and all the rest.

The three freeze cards are there to end the game - once a base has a freeze card played on it, it may no longer have any cards played to it. No more hits, no clears, nothing. It essentially locks the situation of that base in place.

After all bases are frozen (generally done when a player is ahead and is able to cycle through is deck quickly to get to the freeze cards), the game is over.

The winner is the one who wins the most bases. You win a base by having more hits on your side than your opponent has. If there is a tie, the person whose base it is wins.

That's all there is to the game - frenetic card playing, very fast paced. What makes this really interesting, though, is the different character decks, each of which has a different combination of cards. Hale, for example, one of the "easy" rated decks, hits pretty hard (has a lot of hits and hit-2s), but he doesn't have much in the way of subtlety, so he has very few blocks and presses. Bennett, on the other hand, is a bit more tricky - he hits hard, but only in 2 of the three colors, and has a lot of blocks, clears, bases and presses.

The different decks, with different styles, is what elevates Brawl from being simply a neat idea, to being a fun game. It IS real-time, which means it gets frenetic and hurried, but it is also a lot of fun.

Thread: Preview

BoardGameGeek — 2000-07-09T18:09:36+00:00

I've been playing this CheapAss effort for the last month and really enjoy it.

This is the real-time card game that features a one-on-one biffo. Each player has their own nicely illustrated deck that is comparable with major companies for production value in terms of colour pics and card durability. The females are in typical manga voluptuous semi-clad form, but maybe that was an unavoidable tradeoff to lure in 16 year old males.

The game can be played multi-player or two player, and includes a turn-based version. There are about 6 card types, each in a three suits (colours). Each character has a unique distribution of these in their deck with their own illustration on each card type. The essence of the game is just playing "hit" cards on your opponent's "bases". The decisions come in which suit to play where - depending on your opponent's strengths it may be beneficial for you to play hits against yourself as this will constrain your opponent to follow on in that suit. You only work with one card at a time which you may take off your deck or the top of your discard pile, and this card must be played or discarded. As there are at most 3 bases at any one time, your card only has 7 possible destinations (either side of the base, or to the discard pile) however often this decision is surprisingly tricky, and you would love to know what card your opponent is holding in their hand.

The real-time aspect is fun and is best with just two players. It is not just frantic slapping down of cards, but has occasional "samurai standoffs" where each player is waiting on the other to be the first to weaken and play a card.

The multiplayer game works OK too. I find it best with the turn based option, mainly because you now have a choice of 13 play locations for your card which makes play even more interesting, so that the game works OK without the time pressure. The downside is that this lets slow players draw out the game.

This is clearly not the deepest game there is, and there is a substantial random element, but as you can play a match in 2 or 3 minutes, the better player will usually win in a 15 minute session. You will need two decks to start, and I would recommend a couple of the advanced or intermediate characters as they are more interesting to play. Morgan and Darwin are probably a good choice. The game is a bit expensive by CheapAss standards, but unless you are seriously adverse to real-time games I think you will get plenty of value out of this game.