Review – Gudnak

Gudnak (GUHD-nak) means war in the Orcish language, or at least according to the rulebook. In this tabletop card battle, players will square off on a 3 by 3 board with 20 cards each and try to defeat each other by either outlasting their opponent or attacking their Stronghold. If an enemy card is ever in your Gates space (the square directly in front of your Stronghold), then you are Sieged, and instead of drawing a card to start your turn, you discard one. If you are ever Sieged and cannot discard a card because you’re out of them, you lose the game. So is it as tactical and deep as 4D chess, or just checkers with more rules? Read on for the review!

Review

The Core set in Gudnak consists of 4 factions: The Refractory (paladins), Shardsworn Alliance (elves, goblin, orcs), The Gloaming (Undead), and the Delguon (miskatonic dwarves). Each have their own play style, from the burst-tactics of the Refractory to the powerful graveyard-recycling of the undead Gloaming. Each faction also has an extra set of cards you can use to completely change up their heroes and abilities, but it isn’t enough for 2 complete decks. You can play 4 with players, but you’ll all have to play different factions unless you have 2 core sets or expansions. The rulebook details in the back how deckbuilding works, and even has 2 preconfigured setups for each faction. Or you can mix and match to get the heroes and tactics cards you want. 

Gameplay consists of drawing a card (or discarding if you’re Sieged), and taking 2 actions. You can Draw, Deploy, Move, Attack, Defend, Use ability, and Play Tactics. Most of these actions, when they involve them, will fatigue units, making them unable to perform more actions that same round. Certain factions have abilities to sidestep this rule, so they can either move units without fatiguing them or force them to move even after they’ve become fatigued. Besides your heroes, fighter units come in 3 basic flavors: Hunter, Soldier, and Brute. They function like a bit of rock-paper-scissors in that Soldiers get +1 when attacking Hunters, Hunters get +1 when attacking Brutes, and Brutes get +1 when attacking Soldiers. You can also Deploy fighters on top of each other in your back row when they share 1 or more traits—this is called a Stack. When you move a Stack they stay together like a unit, but only the card on top can be affected or Attack. If they get defeated, they go to the graveyard and the next card down can now interact. In this way, you can move several units around the board quickly, or protect a powerful card with a smaller fighter. Units also come in 1, 2, and 3 power, which can further change or adapt your tactics. 

Gudnak ends up feeling a lot like a Chess cage match where you don’t know if you’re going to draw a Queen or a Pawn next. Being able to adapt on the fly and reconfigure your strategy based on what you draw and what your opponent does is crucial, and knowing when to play a 1-power soldier versus your 3-power Brute is key to victory. Games play quick enough that defeat is never bitter enough to keep you from saying, “Lets try that again.” On top of that, the art has a cool comic-book style that has unique pictures on each card, but doesn’t muddle the information. The symbology is easy to understand, which is good when you spend the whole game looking upside-down at your opponent’s cards. 

Quick, tactical games; easy to understand and entertaining rulebook (never seen unarmed combat suggested for determining 1st player); interesting factions with eye-catching art; deep gameplay that hits the sweet spot of easily explained or understood but hard to master, and all of it in a small box but with plenty of expansions and booster cards if you wanted to dedicate a corner of your gaming shelf to Gudnak alone. Oh and they chose a font for the title cool enough to be read correctly both upside down and right-side up. I’m looking forward to my next game; you should go get your own. 

A review copy of the Core Set and 1 booster pack was provided by the publisher.