Last week I looked at some of the behind the scenes stories from cards in our new expansion, REDLINE: Battle of Neom. And this week I wanted to take a look at some more of the stand out cards featured in the set and share how they came to be.
We really wanted to focus on telling a story with Battle of Neom and creating flavorful cards was critical towards doing so. Cards that only help portray the massive battle between the CPM and UNE, but cards that also tell small stories in themselves.
Dimitry Koskof
In our previous sets we always made it a point to portray neither faction as entirely good or bad. It was hinted that the United Nations of Earth despite trying to keep the peace was always a bit oppressive and overbearing with how it expected other peoples to follow its leadership. And the Crimson Pact of Mars despite always raiding Earth for resources were just planetary refuges trying to survive at the end of the day.
However our approach changed with Battle of Neom as we know every good story needs a strong villain. And when making our first “REDLINE villain” we know we wanted him to be a real bastard.
In the Neom story Koskof is a powerful, slightly paranoid, CPM General from the old guard. Above all else, he wants to secure a strong future for the CPM as the dominant power in the Solar System and sees the UNE as the main obstacle in their path towards solar system superpower status. All the CPM needs is time to reestablish it’s power on Mars and Koskof is deathly afraid a UNE invasion would riun that. His plan to invade Neom, dubbed Operation Immortal is guaranteed to buy that time by forcing the UNE to defend Neom and weaken them through attrition of forces or the loss of prestige at home if they stand helpless to save the city from total destruction. Though many in CPM high command see the invasion a waste of valuable forces that the CPM can’t afford to lose, Koskof believes their sacrifice cements a greater future for his people. His means easily justify his ends, no matter the cost.
When designing his card we really wanted a way to represent his cavalier outlook towards his own forces and so gave him an ability where his leadership and ambition becomes a detriment to his troops by forcing damage on them every turn. However, if a player rejects Koskof and doesn’t damage one of their efreets Koskof goes straight to the scrapyard. But draws a card on his way out thanks to his casualty trigger.
Nomrally it costs and extra two resources to replay a General in REDLINE, but Koskof and his ideas don’t go away so easily and so a player can bring the deranged General back for only 4 recon and start the process all over again. Looping this turn after turn allows a CPM player to generate extra card draw consistently, if inefficiently. General Koskof it turns out, is hard to get rid of, no matter how much you may try.
His was a super fun card to design and we’re very happy with how it turned out. Everything from the art, the mechanics and the flavor all ended up as homeruns and we can’t wait to see some of the Koskof builds players make with him in command of their decks.
Greenzone
As REDLINE continues to grow and expand it provides us extra room to continue to build upon the identies of the CPM and UNE factions.
One area we’ve always wanted to explore within the UNE is their ability to secure and gain control of missions and territory easier than others. This fits with their role in the REDLINE universe as the stewards of Earth and the populations left behind after the exodus of the BRIMEA nations and later the CPM.
Battle of Neom was a perfect opportunity to expand upon this design space as the main goal of the UNE in the set was to regain control of the super city itself. The UNE would be fighting for control of every block and street in Neom so we wanted that struggle to cross over into some of their new cards like secure the perimeter that makes capturing missions slightly easier.
Greenzone is another card that allows UNE players to have greater control of the battlefield. As evidenced by its higher cost, Greenzone can be a very powerful card when used at the proper time. It can be used to grab an heavily fortified mission out from under an opponent’s nose or win a game on the spot if you already have four missions controlled on the redline and grab the final fifth with it before he turn ends.
Civilian Evac
Strategy cards are still relatively new to REDLINE as they were only introduced with our previous expansion, REDLINE Siege. As static effects effects, the card type allows us to introduce unique abilities and conditions into the game that aren’t tied to General or efreet cards and allow players to customize how their decks play when they hit the table.
Civilian evac is another home run design I feel as it fits perfectly within the Battle of Neom. When in play, the UNE not only has to race to secure the city, but rescue the innocent civilians trapped inside as the battle rages around them.
It’s a flavorful design that the UNE player really has to invest in for a payoff. But when it does, drawing three cards and gaining a large recon boost can be powerful.
Originally in testing, the civilian counters could only be gained when an efreet retreated from a mission, but this was super unplayable as an efreet can only retreat once combat had begun. This forced the player to go looking for fights and risk taking damage when all they wanted to do was leave in the first place. We changed it to whenever an efreet leaves a mission which made gaining civilian counters much easier and the card more dependable.
This is all counter balanced with the fact the card does take a lot of setup and time to see any payoff. In turn, players will sometimes send efreets to missions they’ll never be able to capture just for a chance to go on a rescue mission and this sets up a nice cat and mouse game between players as the other tries to catch and stop them from doing so.
Early versions of the card also had the player scrap it once counters were removed but we changed how they were chased in to only removed to give players a chance to go back and keep rescuing civilians. Neom is a big city after all!
Hoplite
The Hoplite has a unique story behind it as it was the result of our 2nd community efreet design contest.
During our Kickstarter for REDLINE Siege we ran a community contest where players would vote on and design a new efreet for REDLINE over a series of polls.
They got to vote on pretty much everything from the new efreet’s faction, head style, leg type, weapons loadout and even name. The end result was a light efreet armed with cannons and playable in any deck as it is a neutral unit. Our first community designed efreet, the Migidae, also ended up being a neutral unit which is nice to see. Our REDLINE players love to share between factions it seems.
As we are currently in the middle of our Kickstarter for Battle of Neom, we are also running a new community efreet design contest for it as well. Help us design our next efreet for REDLINE and we’ll turn it into a card for our next expansion! It’s a lot of fun to see what our players come up with! Who knows what our new efreet will be?
Neom World Stadium
Story wise, Neom World Stadium used to be a popular event and sporting destination famous in the world when Neom was still in its glory days. But during the Battle of Neom, the stadium becomes the center of a major battle as the UNE fights to reclaim control of it and then use it as a base for further attacks deeper into Neom. The cards, secure the perimeter and greenzone actually show the stadium in UNE hands after the battle for it had ended.
So the location played an important role in the Battle of Neom. And we wanted the card for it to feel important as well. Early designs involved coin flipping as a way for players to gain extra bonuses by calling heads or tails as players do before the start of a football game. We also thought about a mini points type mechanic where players could play a mini game with the card too. And while those were fun ideas, they didn’t fit well with what Battle of Neom was trying to do.
In a game like REDLINE: Tactical Card Combat, where so much of the play is simultaneous, it’s important to have a system to take care of any tie breakers, or actions where players must make choices at the same time. Having initiative decides who goes last during their deploy phase, when retreating in combat or when two units make attacks with the same speed. It’s nice to have initiative for sure as it gives the player with it a little bit of extra information before making their own decisions in the game.
In the end, we designed the stadium to allow for a change in initiative. This fit with the theme of the card as a sporting stadium but also was a way to allow players to influence the ebb and flow of battle as combatants often trade positions on offense and defense regularly.
Having the initiative is a design spaces we’d like to explore more in future REDLINE expansions. There is a lot that can be done with the idea of taking command and how it can change how games are played. Neom World Stadium may be the first card to reference it, but I would not expect it to be the last.
Dear Diary…
REDLINE: Battle of Neom is full of even more fun and unique cards to play with and build around.
Be sure to check out and support our Kickstarter for REDLINE: Battle of Neom continues to help us continue funding and unlock all of our amazing stretch goals!
