Orc Wars is one of Tablestar Games' offering in their HeroCard line of board games for 2007. I had a chance to sample this game at Origins this year, and I have to say I was quite impressed with its implementation.

First, a quick recap of the HeroCard dueling system, which is the core mechanic of each of the HeroCard board games. The characters are typically represented by a sculpted plastic figure and three attribute cards. These cards have values for (B)ody, (M)ind, and (X), which tell the player how many points he can spend playing his action cards. Action cards come in three varieties: Exclusive (only one per the player's turn), Restricted (as many as the player can afford during his own turn), and Fast (as many as the player can afford, during any player's turn). Each card displays an attribute and cost which, when played, subtracts from the available points on that attribute.

During a turn, the player discards from his hand if he wishes, draws up to 3 cards (not to exceed the hand limit of 7), "clears" up to 3 cards from his attribute stack by placing them in the discard pile (last on, first off if there is more than one card played on a certain attribute) to make more attribute points available, then takes his "Action Phase", which is when action cards are played, and when most of the gameplay takes place. Aside from card duels between players, this is also when pieces are moved around the board and other various in-game actions take place.

Orc Wars has some very intriguing variations on the standard HeroCard game. The premise is essentially that of a dungeon raid, where one or more elves maneuver their way through caves, finding treasure and accomplishing other assorted goals, while the other player takes the role of the Orc King and/or several squads of orcs. When fully expanded to four players, the scalability and implementation of the many-versus-one system really shines.

Like most HeroCard characters, the Orc King has a set of attribute cards that define his stats. The orc squads are considerably different. Rather than a sculpted plastic figure, there are a number of card stock punch-outs of orcs, and of bases that the player can assemble to stand their orc upright. These bases have 5 different colors and symbols that indicate 5 different orc "clans". Essentially, the player mixes and matches the red, blue and yellow-clothed orcs with the various bases to indicate the clan and the stats.

This is the interesting part of the squad tactics. Each red, blue or yellow orc represents 4 attribute points in Body, Mind or X (respectively). If orcs from the same clan are in contiguous spaces, the sum total of their colors indicates the stats for that squad. So a squad of 2 red, 2 blue and 1 yellow orc from the same clan clustered together would have 8B, 8M and 4X to spend on action cards. But say an elf cuts into the middle of that squad and kills a blue guy. Now that they are no longer in a single cluster, one pair has, say, 4B and 4M, and the other pair has 4B and 4X. They no longer total up until you can link them back together.

Furthermore, each clan gets its own exclusive action. So you can move your black clan over here, attack this guy, move your yellow clan over here, attack the other guy, and so forth. Not only that, before your movement phase of each turn, your orcs "reinforce". You get one new orc of any clan already in play for each elf you face. So a two-player game, you get one orc reinforcement, but in a four-player game, you get three orcs reinforcement. This also gives you the opportunity to swap out your stats by choosing different orcs for your clan, essentially fine-tuning your squads to your hand of cards. Also, since the player only has one hand to control up to 5 different clans, the orcs come with a deck of "Dirty Tricks" that can give them an advantage over their foes. In most cases, success with the orcs depends on swarming the battlefield and extending the length of the game as long as possible to overwhelm the opponent(s).

Against these odds, how do three lone elves prevail? They have their own special abilities at play. The Paladin comes with the base game, and whenever he kills an orc, any other orc from the same clan that is adjacent to him gets nuked. So he can wander into a crowd of black-clan orcs, kill one, and wipe out maybe three or four all at once. The Sorceress can potentially attack orcs at "range", can kill a second orc if her attack is sufficiently high, and can wipe out a crowd of adjacent orcs if her block is sufficiently high. The Ranger can break up his three movement points (all other characters get only one move per turn), and therefore has the ability to move three separate times in one turn, and attack as many times as he can win the battle and be adjacent to an orc. So the elves can be powerful individually against the orcs, but as a cooperative team, they can really step in and do some damage. Similar to the orcs' Dirty Tricks, the elves can gain bonuses by collecting various treasures they find in the dungeons. So success with the elves typically depends on their ability to dismantle squads quickly and punch holes in the defense.

The reason I refer to each team's strategy as general is because the game ships with five scenarios published in the rulebook, each with its own board layout, play style and victory conditions. The game board itself is a collection of hexes that can be arranged as illustrated for each scenario, or conceivably in any configuration the players wish. The wide range of possibilities greatly increases the replay value of this game.

As usual, the artwork is excellent and well-tuned to the theme, and the components are sturdy. The base game ships with Orc King (and his orcs) and Paladin, expandable to four players with Sorceress and Ranger. It's also a heckuva lot of fun. The imbalanced nature of the game appealed to me, and I especially liked playing as the orcs, who require some pretty crafty play to hold off the powerful elves. I continue to be impressed with the way this company takes the basic dueling system and turns it on its head in a different way with each new release. If there is one Hero Card game worth getting... well, it's probably Rise of the Shogun, or Galaxy. But once you are accustomed to the general way the system folds into the board games and you're ready to move into a deep strategy game, you can't beat Orc Wars with a +5 Mace of Hitting. It just might be their strongest title yet.

(8/10)