World War Two collectible card game Kards was recently supplied with its third major expansion, codenamed Breakthrough. With a total of 81 new cards, Breakthrough adds in a huge selection of new strategic and tactical options, including new card mechanics, new attacks, and the new Research action.
As always, the Breakthrough expansion’s new cards are solidly based on actual World War Two military history, just as the core Kards and all its previous expansions have been. And as usual, Kards remains free to download and play from Steam, and the Breakthrough expansion is free, as well.
World War Two ushered in a vast amount of new technology and innovations, all discovered and accomplished through numerous breakthroughs in research. That factor is the basis of this expansion by introducing Research as a new gameplay feature. According to the announcement post, you can use the Research phase to “either support your current strategy or to create a strong complement”, meaning you can seek to research items that will directly support your forces, or that can be deployed as a force of its own. Research gives you the option of gaining small but quickly-earned rewards, or choosing to continue researching in hopes of gaining that breakthrough discovery that could lead to such things as the Manhattan Project.
The German Blitzkrieg deployed the Pincer Movement during World War Two to devastating effect. It now finds its way into Kards with the Breakthrough expansion, by way of certain units having the Pincer modifier. When you play a unit with the Pincer ability, you can select another friendly unit as its battle buddy, and as long as both units are on the battlefield at the same time, they both receive the card’s stated Pincer benefit, such as a +2 to Attack.
Another new Breakthrough mechanic is the ability some new cards have to ‘control’ enemy units. This allows for the representation of confusion on the battlefield, and of units completely switching sides in warfare. For example, some cards can gain control of an enemy 3 or less card for one turn, and other cards can recruit an enemy card and cause it to join their side completely.
To see all 81 cards in the Breakthrough expansion, march over to the Cards Collection page on the Kards website.
Source: Kards / 1939 Games