The summer is over and Castle Combat is ready to go for its Fall Campaign. First off is a new set that will be released this week. The above cards are some examples of the new stuff we’re going to see in booster packs. Also, those local to Falls Church, VA can now pick up Castle Combat cards at Victory Comics, the first retailer to carry packs. Last, but certainly not least, is that KidRealm will be hosting a weekly Castle Combat club at the Falls Church community center starting October 1st. Registration is on their site, and members will receive an exclusive Castle Combat card not available anywhere else.

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Rob over at KidRealm has been busy. Not only has he released a new game, Emoji Zoom!, but Castle Combat has received a fairly major overhaul. A new 200+ card set has been released using the updated graphics of the last update, but also changing the structure and rarity of the cards. Now cards are divided between Common and Legendary. There’s different rarities for each type, but these two distinct types of cards make up the new deck format.

Called Half and Half, each 16 card Castle Combat deck can contain up to 8 Legendary cards, using only a single card for each Legendary. Commons make up the rest. Using old cards? That’s fine! Rare cards take up Legendary slots. Rule of thumb? Up to half of your deck can be Legendary. After that, the rules remain the same. No mixing Good Guys and Bad Guys, and decks can be 1 color or 2 color, and have neutral cards mixed in.

How do the new cards look? Really nice. They’ve come a long way since I’ve started playing Castle Combat. Card descriptions are now inside a bronze plate at the bottom of the card, and card numbers have been added to every card so players can track their collection. The new booster packs will contain 4 Common cards and 3 Legendaries.

Last, but not least, I had mentioned Emoji Zoom at the top of this post. These are a deck of round cards, each with an Emoji and a number on them. They can be used to play several games like a matching game, a dexterity tossing game, and more. My 6-year-old has been having a lot of fun with them. It seem Emoji are a popular thing at school right now, so the game hits the market at just the right time.

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“The first wave has arrived in Sagaheim!  The Legendary 5 Fleets!  Over 4000 years ago 5 Star Fleets (Red, Blue, Green, Purple and Black) arrived in ancient Sagaheim.  They built 5 pyramids  and taught early man about magic and battle.  The different color fleets introduced aliens into Sagaheim to help them boost their armies.”

Cosmic Combat is a new set of cards from KidRealm, creators of Castle Combat. These new cards introduce 5 alien races that can be added to Castle Combat, or played in their own game. Each Castle Combat pack purchased will have 1 Cosmic Combat card included, and Army Packs will have 3.

I’ve got some on the way, and will report back once I’ve had a chance to try them out!

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The latest Castle Combat newsletter, The Gauntlet, recently went out with news of new cards, a new tournament format, and new starter decks.

The new cards for the month are:

Onion – An orange Wizard
Woeden – An orange Kobald king
Ikkabod the Odd – An orange, pumpkin-headed creep.
Preceval the Pure – A purple level 6 Good Dragon.
Grendel the Great – A blue Dragon Lord back for a limited time

The new tournament format, 4-2-6, will be hitting play soon. Decks can be 12 cards, with a 4 Legends max, 2 Rare max, and 6 Common minimum structure. New starter decks with the 4-2-6 format will be on sale soon from KidRealm.

One thing that wasn’t mentioned in the latest Gauntlet is an updated will be included in the new starter sets, and the cards themselves have been cleaned up, getting rid of the pixelated look of the previous sets. The new cards are much cleaner, and more professional looking.

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Castle Combat has a some rule changes in their 2015 Rulebook update after a summer of gaming and suggestions. You can check out the changes here. There’s also 3 new rare cards that have been reprinted and updated. These cards, Aurora, Sir Bad Drake, and Perceval the dragon.

Also, don’t forget to checkout the new Castle Combat Youtube pages. There’s an official channel, alone with Castle.combat 8, and CastleCombatKid.

My 5-year-old and I are still having tons of fun with Castle Combat, and I think it’s time to order more packs to try and snag some of those rare cards.

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Castle Combat came right out of the blue for me, and I was very interested to give it a shot after reading about KidRealm and what Rob has done with his camps and card game. Card Combat is self published, and definitely looks that way. The art is a bit crude, the cards aren’t always perfectly centered or cut, and booster packs are little paper envelopes with the Castle Combat logo printed on them.

Does it in any way effect the quality of the game?

No. It doesn’t.

Castle Combat is a CCG based off the card game War. Players each have a deck with 15 warriors in it, draw 3 cards, and place a card down simultaneously. Powers are resolved and a die is rolled for each player. Add the number on the card to the die roll and take into account the effects of the power. Highest number wins and then the winner goes to that player’s Winner pile while the loser goes to that player’s Dungeon pile. The goal is to get all the opponent’s cards in their dungeon. When your draw deck runs out you shuffle your Winner pile for a new draw deck.

Of course there’s plenty of different armies, cards, and powers to choose from. Tournament legal decks can consist of 2 colors and neutral characters. A deck must be all Good Guys or all Bad Guys. Mixing those two are not allowed. There’s also some limits on Legendary characters and such.

It a very simple game, but it’s perfect for younger children who have an interest in CCGs. I played with my five-year-old and it’s now his favorite game. We recently got some more booster packs for his birthday and he’s had a ton of fun checking out the characters he’s gotten and trying to make the best deck out of them. That leaves me with he leftovers. He wins a lot.

I’m really glad I past the rough exterior into Castle Combat. I’ve found a game I really enjoy playing with my little guy, and he has a CCG to play with me that’s a bit easier for him that Pokemon or Magic at this point.

One last note. There’s some great resources for the game here. That includes small e-zine issues, a rules summary, a printable battle mat, and more.

A copy of the Castle Combat Starter Set was provided free for review.

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KidRealm was another booth I found out of the way from the main gaming area at Toy Fair. A really interesting company, KidRealm runs camps for kids with geeky activities. There are LEGO games, Minecraft & Pokemon camps, Engineering camps, tabletop gaming camps, and more. Not only that, but they also put out their own game, Castle Combat.

Castle Combat is a CCG based on War with some very interesting twists. I was very impressed with how low the barrier to entry was for the game, and how it looked like it was something my 4-year-old could play yet something my older kids would enjoy. The game is sold in starter decks, booster packs, and single cards. There’s well over 200 cards to play with now and there looks to be more coming in the future. Even their business card at Toy Fair was a card for the game with a QR code sticker on the back.

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