Lane Battle in a tiny box

Time to showcase another lane battler duel game. One of my favorite genres! 😁 This time we are talking about ⚔️ For the Emperor from Allplay which comes in a really tiny box, but packs quite a bit of a punch! 🥊

For the playing field you set out 7 cards - these will be the 7 lanes you can play cards to. Then you mix both your decks, which are the same, made up of 10 unique cards (though you will draw them in different random order). From here on out, gameplay is simple: 🧐 Play cards one at a time to lanes, doing your best to outplay your opponent and control more lanes at the very end. You always choose from a hand of 3 cards, and draw back up to 3 - and the game ends when you have your final card in your hand, which also acts as a tiebreaker.

The most important mechanic that sets For the Emperor apart, are the Banners. 🎌

After every card placement you check how many cards are in a lane. If it matches the highest flag in the supply you place it there, which “closes” the lane, so no more cards can go there. The first banner is value 4, but subsequent banners go down in value as the supply depletes. This can also cascade, meaning that multiple lanes could close during a single turn, as flags of higher values run out.

This is the primary thing you can strategize around - playing a card, winning the majority over a lane and also closing it. 😉 There are some card abilities though that could change things up - E.g. the ‘2’ and ‘3’ value cards can add bonus strength to another lane.

As it tends to be with these games, just going through the rules doesn't paint the whole picture, as a lot of gameplay is on the cards themselves. I’d love to just list all the cards and their abilities because these are what make the game shine - but I guess that’s too much detail for a quick post. Suffice to say, it is quick and snappy… with the possibility for some tactical plays! 🙂It is the perfect small game to pick up at SPIEL2025. 😉