Who let the Wolves out?

We love games that are specifically designed for 2 players, and there have been many that also make fun tweaks on existing genres and mechanics! This time we are talking about 🐺Lone Wolves, a duel game combining trick-taking and area control. Trick-taking is a mechanic which we dismissed for a long time but then slowly warmed up to, especially as there are more and more cool 2p trick-takers out there. But what makes Lone Wolves special? 🤔

If you know trick taking games, the basics are simple: there are 5 suits of cards with values ranging from 2 to 7. Each player gets 13 cards at setup, some remain in the box so you have imperfect information. As you have 13 cards, the game lasts for 13 rounds, playing a trick in each one. This is where things start getting interesting! 😉

You are fighting a tug-of-war over 5 territories. 💪 For each trick the second card has to follow the suit of the first, however you can freely choose which territory to play the card to. Whoever wins the trick keeps their card faceup, the loser has to flip theirs over to its ‘1’ side, but in exchange they get to pick and use a Scar token from that region. 🧐 These tokens can improve either their score or their strength value in some way. Each region is worth a different amount of points dictated by tokens, and you basically want to have more strength on your side of the regions to claim these tokens. After 13 rounds you check for control and award points to find the winner. 🏆

For some more twists ‘2’ value cards can beat the highest ‘7’s, and ‘3’s allow you to peek at Scar tokens. Additionally, the colors of the 1st and 2nd region to run out of Scar tokens become trump colors!

If you enjoy similar 2p games, with either trick-taking or tug-of-war mechanisms, you need to check this out. It’s a fun small box addition to any collection of duel games. 😊