Hidden Conflict - A game that deserves a second chance

There are things that go bump in the night, and we are the ones who bump back.

Hidden Conflict is a 2-6 player, customizable strategy tile game by Twilight Creations. The premise of the game is while humanity has bickered and fought with itself, the forces of evil have gathered for a final showdown. A last conflict that, if won, will grant control of the Earth. The players play the leaders of one of the factions vying for supremacy of the Earth. The object of the game is to kill all enemy Leaders.

What you having? Six library guards, raw, plus belts and boots. Man, you're gonna need some heavy fiber to move that out.

There are six sets of color coded tiles, one for each faction. The tiles are relatively thick and easily managed. The artwork on each of the factions varies from crisp and clean to downright amateurish. Overall, the artwork gets a thumbs up from me. The factions and border colors are as follows:

Human (White): What they lack in ability they more than make up for in armament and protection. Their Events are effective against night creatures (Vampires, Werewolves, and Ghouls) and also give them the ability to withdraw fighters from a losing battle.

Demon (Black): Demons, along with the Humans, have Events that are effective against night creatures. They also have events that have the ability to kill an opposing fighter. Demons can arm themselves with mystical knives and have amulets that allow their Leader to resurrect fallen fighters.

Zombie (Blue): The last of the day creatures. Zombies have Events that affect both night and day creatures. They also have Events that cause enemy fighters to miss or lose their abilities for a fight. The downside for this faction is that they have no Items in which to equip.

Ghoul (Green): These fetid night creatures have the resurrection ability and knives, just like the demons. They also have Events that have the ability to kill an opposing fighter, as well the ability to soften up enemy fighters with damage.

Werewolves (Yellow): The Lycanthropes, like their undead brethren the Zombies, have no items to equip, but make up for it with a wide range of Events. They have Events that cause enemy fighters to miss or lose their abilities for a fight. They have Events that are effective against day creatures (Humans, Zombies, Demons) and the ability to soften up enemy fighters with damage.

Vampires (Red): The Vampires also have no items to equip, but their Events are more effective. Their Events cause enemy fighters to miss or lose their abilities for a fight. Like the Humans, they can also extract a fighter from a losing battle and, more importantly, have the ability to cause an enemy fighter to fight its own compatriots.

Each faction's army all have identical fighters, so no one faction has an inherent advantage or disadvantage. Each have six fighters for Level 2 (the strongest, second only to the Leader) through Level 6 (rank and file recruits). Each tile has a numerical value for attack and defense strength, similar to creatures from Magic: The Gathering. Lastly, each fighter has an Ability or Restriction. They are outlined below:

Aid: A fighter with this ability can add its attack value to another Aid fighter adjacent to them in the battle lineup. This advantage comes in handy in two ways. One, two weaker fighters can gang up on one strong opponent that they could not normally defeat themselves. Two, it allows you to chose which Aid fighter will take the damage from the enemy fighter. Furthermore, Aid fighters can assist each other with their respective fights if they both survive. This powerful ability is tempered by the fact that it can only be used during your turn, when you are the Active Player. Any Aid fighters from your faction that are attacked by another player cannot assist each other.

Fast: Similar to the First Strike ability in Magic. Normally, attacks are simultaneous in Hidden Conflict, but a fighter with the Fast ability applies their attack first. If an opponent is defeated, it is discarded without fighting back.

Hide: A fighter with this ability may be used in lieu of fighting an opponent. When activated, it causes the fighter to be placed faced down on an adjacent face down stack. If there are no face down stacks nearby, the ability cannot be used. This ability can only be used during your turn.

Leader: Your Leader tile has the abilities of No Event (see below) and Aid.

No Event: If an opposing tile (a tile directly across from this fighter) during the battle is an Event tile (such as Scatter, Daybreak, Flashfire, or Trap), it will have no effect on the fighter with this ability. However, it will not protect them from the Bomb Event.

No Start: These fighters cannot be selected as one of your starting 5 tiles.

Resist: One of the more powerful abilities in the game, in my opinion. A fighter with this ability must be defeated by a lower level opponent or two opponents at the same time (two with the ability Aid). This ability works whether the fighter is active or not.

Scout: The fighter with this ability can look at the top tile of any face down stack adjacent to the combat location, provided that fighter is chosen to fight, but does not engage an enemy fighter. This ability can only be used during your turn.

Included with each faction is a set of Item/Event tiles. There are two types of Events, Instant and Non Instant. The Instant events automatically happens once all tiles are revealed, but before combat. If it's not an instant event, or if it's an item, they are given to their respective owners. They are as follows, along which each faction that possesses the type:

Bomb (Event; all factions): Use this event to blow an entire face down stack to kingdom come. However, it is best to use restraint, as the face down stack may very well hold your own men. Use with conjunction with a fighter with Scouting ability. A face down stack cannot be bombed if it has been chosen to be attacked by the Active Player.

Daybreak (Instant Event; Humans, Zombies, Demons): Any night creatures (Vampires, Werewolves, or Ghouls) selected for combat are removed from play.

Extraction (Event; Humans and Vampires): Discard the Event tile to remove any one of your fighters from combat and place it atop one of your face up stacks furthest from the combat location. This cannot be the face up stack being used for combat and this event cannot be used if there are no other face up stacks. Stacking restrictions apply (no more than four fighters, not including Items, per stack).

Flashfire (Instant Event; Ghouls, Werewolves): This event inflicts +1 damage (-1 defense) to all fighters in this combat round, except those of matching border color. So, if a Ghoul Flashfire went off, it would not affect the Ghoul fighters, but would affect everyone else.

Hypnosis (Event; Vampires): When opposing tiles are revealed in combat, discard this tile to gain control of an enemy fighter opposite the Vampire. The Hypnotized fighter then fight any other fighters on his side who are after them in the combat lineup. This combat occurs before all others.

Lost (Event; Werewolves, Vampires, Zombies): Discard this tile to cancel the special ability of an opposing fighter. This can be used on any other player's fighters, whether you are involved in the combat or not.

Miss (Event; Werewolves, Vampires, Zombies): Discard this tile to cancel an attack from one fighter. That fighter will still defend. The remainder of the combat continues as normal.

Scatter (Instant Event; Werewolves, Vampires, Zombies): All day creatures (Zombies, Humans, and Demons), excluding the ones matching the border color of this event, must be turned face down and placed evenly by the active player to adjacent face down stacks. Stacking restrictions apply and if there are no available face down stacks, the tiles are removed from play.

Trap (Instant Event; Demons, Ghouls): Immediately remove the opposing tile from play, except those of matching border color.

Item tiles are attached to appropriate group's fighters. They can be attached at any time and do not need to be attached when revealed. A fighter can only have one of each type of tile. The types of Items are:

Gun (Human): this item give the Human fighter +1 attack. The item must be attached before the combat round.

Body Armor (Human): +1 defense to a fighter. This item cannot be given to your Leader. It, too, must be attached to a fighter before the combat round.

Knife (Demon, Ghoul): +1 attack to the respective Demon or Ghoul. Ghoul knives cannot be used by Demons, and vice versa. Needs to be attached before the combat round.

Crystal (Ghoul): This item can only be attached to a Leader. Once used, it allows the player to resurrect a dead Ghoul, to be placed at the bottom of the Leader stack. Stacking restrictions apply.

Amulet (Demon): Like the Crystal, it allows the Demon Leader to resurrect a dead Demon to be placed at the bottom of the Leader's stack. Stacking restrictions apply.

Remind me why I do this again?
Rotten eggs and the safety of mankind.
Ah!

Setup and Gameplay: Each player picks a faction and starts setting up their army. The quantity of tiles available depends on the number of players. For example: 2 players will need to have a 29 tile army, including their Leader. A 3 player game will have 25 tiles available. 4-6 players, 20 tiles.
The players are allowed to create any type of army they wish with one caveat: the number of troops from each level have to all be within one of all other levels. For example, you cannot have all six Level 2's and only one Level 6. Your army has to be evenly distributed amongst all the levels you have.

After the army has been composed, you select 5 starting tiles, your Leader plus any four legal tiles (No items, events, or fighters with the restriction of No Start). You may notice that the number of starting tiles goes over the stacking restriction of four. That's all right, only during your starting turn is the restriction waived. After that, the restriction comes on in full force.

After all players have chosen their starting tiles, the remaining tiles are then placed faced down, mixed, and then stacked in sets of threes in a grid pattern. The pattern's size varies with the number of players: 2 player (4x4), 3-4 players (4x5), 5 players (5x5), and 6 players (5x6).

After the board is set up, the Humans start by deciding which face down stack to place their starting stack. The player to the left of the Human player then does the same and so on until all the factions' starting stacks have been placed. If no one picks the Humans, then a player is chosen randomly to start.

The game is played in several steps:

1.Choose fighters
2.Choose location
3.Flip face down tiles to match up with chosen fighters
4.Resolve instant Events
5.Give remaining Events and Items to their respective owners.
6.Compare Attack/Defense numbers of combatants.
7.Discard killed fighters
8.Disperse surviving fighters
9.Move/Stack fighters
10.End of Turn

First, the player whose turn it is selects a minimum of one to a maximum of three fighters. Lay them out from top to bottom in the order in which you want them to fight. You can choose fighters from different stacks, but all stacks in which fighters are drawn need to be adjacent to the combat location. The other restriction is that you may not use more fighters than the number of tiles at the combat location. Example: If there are only 2 tiles in a face down stack, you may only send 1 or 2 fighters, not three. If possible, you must attack each turn.

Next, you choose a combat location. The location must be orthogonally (not diagonally) adjacent to your selected fighters. If you happen to start disengaged from either an enemy face up stack or a face down stack, you must use your turn to move your stacks so that at least one is adjacent to either an enemy face up stack or a face down stack.

Then, you flip over face down tiles you are attacking in order, with the first one matching with the first of your chosen fighters. If you attack a face up stack, you match the top tile with your first fighter and so on.

Once the sequence has been established, you then resolve any Instant Events. The Active Player decides the order in which the Events resolve if there is more than one.

After that, the Active Player then distributes any Items and/or Non-Instant Events to their appropriate owners, according to the border color of the tiles.

After that is concluded, the meaty part of the game begins! Starting with the first fighter, its Attack number is compared to the opposing fighter's Defense number. If the Attack number equals or exceeds the opposing fighter's Defense number, that opponent is killed. This process is repeated as many times as their were fighters chosen. If it turns out that one or more of the revealed tiles are fighters of the Active Player's Army, they do not fight their own. Instead, they stay in place for match up purposes only.

If any fighters were killed, they are removed to the Graveyard in the 7th step, along with any Items that may be attached to it. If your Leader is killed, you remove all your face up stacks from the board and any of your tiles revealed from face down stacks are discarded without being resolved or encountered.

After step 7, if there are any surviving tiles, either enemy or friendly, they must be distributed to their respective owners. These tiles are placed at the bottom of a friendly face up stack furthest from the combat location that is able to accept them. Remember, after the player's first turn, a face up stack can never have more than four fighters per stack. If there are no legal stacks to place the fighter, it is placed in the Graveyard. Then, the fighters chosen for battle, along with any friendly fighters that were flipped from the stack, are placed in the combat location if there are no more tiles present in that location. If there are still tiles present, your fighters go back to their starting locations. If you attacked a face up stack, any surviving fighters are place back in order as they were prior to the combat. Your fighters will do the same, unless the combat location was cleared of tiles.

After step 8, you may now move and stack your fighters, regardless if they fought that turn. Each fighter can move a number of spaces up to their Level. So, the weaker fighters move further than the stronger fighters. Stacks my move to any open area as long as they move in orthogonal directions and don't jump over a face down stack. At the end of your turn, you must have one of your face up stacks next to either an enemy face up stack or a face down stack. Furthermore, as part of the movement phase, you can rearrange the sequence of your fighters in you face up stacks. The advantage to this is if anyone attacks the stack, they'll do it in the order that you set. The downside is that you must show the other players what order you are stacking them in, so there is no hidden information.

Once you have finished the above steps, play passes to the player on your left. The game continues until a player eliminates all enemy Leaders. In the event that all Leaders are killed, then the player with the most fighters wins. If there is a tie for most fighters, then the player who has the lowest level total of all his or her remaining fighters wins.

Look, Sammy, I'm not a very good shot...but the Samaritan here uses really big bullets.

Things I like: Since all the armies are alike, there is no distinct advantage of one faction over the other. They are all evenly balanced, so there won't be any fistfights over who gets to be the more powerful faction. Also, the real depth to the game is how you construct your army and your subsequent style of play. You can use all your faction's Events and Items available to it, but that will lower the number of fighters you have. You can go the opposite way, forgoing Items and Events to have the maximum amount of fighters, but you run the risk of being beaten back by an opponent's judicious use of Events or, in the Case of Trap, Bomb, or Daybreak, you will sustain higher casualties because of the higher percentage of fighters in your armies. Another thing I like is that although there is some blind fighting early on, that dwindles significantly as players take their turns, revealing tiles and eliminating face down tiles.

Aw, crap

Things I didn't like: First and foremost, the rules that come with the game SUCK to the nth power. They are not well written at all and they give next to no examples to show you how to play the game, much less explain how Abilities, Events, and Items work. Fortunately, Twilight Creations have available for download the revised rules for the game. These rules certainly explain a lot of the puzzling questions about how the game is played left from the original rules, but in some instances the revised rules infers things by context, not by concrete example. They do have a step by step example of how a turn is played, but they don't show you exactly how certain Events can be played (For instance, giving the prospective player examples of how Hypnotize, Scout, Miss, or Hide actually work in the turn sequence; or showing when Items, such as Crystals or Amulets, can be used). The other thing I accepted but didn't care for was the lack of diversity between the factions. The only thing that was different were the Items and Events, that's it. A little more diversity could have made it better, but then there would be cries of, “this game is broken! X faction is too powerful!” So, I will have to accept the way the game is comprised.

Mmmm... nachos!

Overall, with all its warts and bumps, I really like Hidden Conflict. It's got customization, numerous choices to make, and strategic depth. It's definitely a game that should get a second chance, with the revised rules, of course!

Final rating: 8/10.