The Empire has erupted into Civil War as the various Elector Counts fight for control of the locations of the Old World!

Surprisingly this isnt the tagline of a new Games Workshop miniatures game, but the theme of a brand new card game from Cubicle 7!

In Elector Counts, 2-4 players will vie for control of the Empire as they send forces to both attack and defend territories while also undermining and disrupting their rivals!

Massive thanks to Cubicle 7 for sending us a copy to unbox and review! If you would like to support the site then why not order through our affiliate Element Games and save 10% off RRP!

We have also done a full video unboxing to accompany this post, check it out below or over on YouTube

Elector Counts

Cubicle 7 have been creating the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay line for a while now, and we’re big fans of the range with their skill of capturing both the nostalgia and flavour of The Old World and wrapping it all up in an excellent ruleset.

With Elector Counts they have done something really cool – take an “in-universe” card game from the Warhammer World and give it a physical release in the real world! Want to have a game of Elector Counts in your Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign? Great, now you can actually play a game of it in person to determine the results rather than just using dice rolls to dictate who wins!

But it’s not just for use within WFRP campaigns as this is a great standalone card game that makes a worthy palate cleanser on a games night, or something to slip into your army box to play over lunch during a Warhammer tournament weekend! As a game only takes 20-40 mins and a relatively small footprint it’s a refreshing change to be able to play something that isn’t space and time hungry, but is also dripping with Warhammer flavour!

So what’s in the box?

In addition to a full rulebook we also get a double sided Player Aid card that details a summery of the rules along with all the various key words, actions and special rules that you need in order to play without needing the core rules on hand – something that is handy to have and makes it really straight forward to introduce it to new players

There’s also 2 sheets of tokens to represent Siege, Fortification and Schillings for each player along with some spare Schillings in case some go walkies! Cubicle 7 also provide bags in the bottom of the box to sort all these components into once you have finished a game – something that always gets a thumbs up from me as there’s nothing that annoys me more than having to spend time prior to a game sorting tokens out into pools!

The main bulk of the contents are the cards – these are split across 4 main types plus an End of Game card. All of these are covered in gorgeous art both from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay but also the history of Warhammer Fantasy Battles with some classics including the Dogs of War cover art. Each unique card has its own art work and this makes the game look utterly gorgeous players as well as a brilliant hit of nostalgia for fans of The Old World.

Let’s take a look at the different card types:

Attacker

These cards are used to attach other peoples locations – majority of these are straight forward enough with their name showing in the top right and their strength in the top left, however some are a little more complex and will have a keyword showing their allegiance. Ordinarily only cards sharing the same name can be placed to attack together, however you are able to place attackers with the same ally keyword together to represent that they are able to fight together.

Additionally some cards will have special rules such as Assassinate or Steal that do additional things such as immediately defeat a defined target card or steal cash of the defender as they loot and pillage!

Defender

These are the troops that you deploy to defend your locations, like attackers they also have a strength value, but unlike them you are able to mix cards but you can never have two in a location with the same name. This split between how Attackers and Defenders works gives you something to think about in how you place your forces, especially as very often these are placed face down so you never really know what is going to be defending a location you want to attack!

Locations

These cards represent the Locations that your forces are fighting for and are what will ultimately win you the game! Each has a value in the top left that indicates how many Schillings you get when you place it and a value in the top right that represents how many victory points it will earn you at the end of the game. It’s worth pointing out that just because you have placed a location it doesnt mean that you control it, a crafty opponent could take advantage of your thin defences and take it for themselves! Due to this a large part of the game will be balancing what locations you place while also balancing your attackers and defenders to maximise what locations you hold!

Support

Support cards are basically the “Wild Cards” in the deck – these will give you both Schillings and bonuses and effects that can be triggered – for example some will let you see what face down forces are attached to a location. Others will have an effect that may benefit each player – for example each player may earn schillings for each location with a siege token on it – so timing is important on when to play these!

The Game

The way each players hand is managed is quite interesting – you have to end your turn holding three cards, and these cards are then given to the player on your right! So you may end up giving away important and powerful cards if you dont manage your resources well! You are allowed to “bank” up to 2 cards, but that is the limit – so no holding onto a deck of decent cards, it’s a case of use it or lose it which is a brilliant way of keeping the game moving quickly! While you have a fairly small hand, you are able to use your schillings to purchase additional cards – again with the stipulation that you will want to either use these on your turn, or to use to fill your required 3 cards you are giving your opponent! It’ll take a few games with a larger group to see how this impacts games, but I can already see some potential for delicious backstabbing and treachery as you pass a rival player some cards with the Ally keywords they need in order to help them defeat a mutual rival!

The game ends once a player has 5 Siege tokens (Locations that are being attacked but have no defenders), 5 Fortification tokens (Locations that have successfully defended an attack) or a combination of 8 of either of the above. There is also a Game End card in the deck which essentially acts as a hard time limit to stop games dragging on. Once the game has ended each player counts up the victory points of each location they have control of, with the player with the most winning! Again, experienced players may opt not to do an action that results in a token in order to delay the end of the game and to set things up so they score a couple of victory points before time is called!

We’ll be following with our full review once we have some 4 player games under our belts, but already Elector Counts looks to be a brilliant card game that visually is a love letter to classic Warhammer Fantasy that manages to inject the feeling and personality of Warhammer into a quick paced game that is also accessible to non Warhammer fans.

Elector Counts is from Cubicle 7 and is available to pre order now and is released in Q1

Cubicle 7 provided Sprues & Brews a copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther