Images credited to the author
For some players, Trading Card Games (or TCGs) can be very daunting to get into, and as such it tends to be the case that they prefer standalone experiences, even if they offer the odd expansion. Shadows: Heroes & Monsters, by designer Keun Ahn, replicates the look and feel of a TCG, albeit without the endless investment in new cards. It also does a great job of giving players a huge amount of options in terms of how they’re able to win, with numerous ways to earn the game’s victory point currency, Shadow Stones.
Is it worth playing? With the game’s second edition now seeking funding on Kickstarter, let’s take a close look at Shadows: Heroes & Monsters!
Getting Started With Shadows: Heroes & Monsters
In Shadows: Heroes & Monsters, 2-4 players are the titular heroes, sent to the Cave of Ederoth to earn Shadow Stones by gaining experience, acquiring powerful items, or simply through combat. Home to a portal which caused a tear in the space-time continuum, the Cave of Ederoth is stuffed with creatures, items, technology, and magic from different ages. As such, Ederoth is a fertile, if dangerous, ground for the heroes to attempt to prove themselves.
Getting started with Shadows: Heroes & Monsters requires just the one box, and Keun Games promises that, despite the fact that some of the Neutral Skill cards in the first edition are randomized, they won’t sell booster packs for the game at all. In fact, the second edition of Shadows: Heroes & Monsters is set to include the full selection of Neutral Skill cards, which means that players will receive all of these cards instead of the smaller, random selection which could be found in the first edition. It’s worth noting at this stage that I have the 2nd edition prototype, which still contains a random selection of Neutral Skill cards; however, I don’t believe that this hampered the experience at all, and it would only be with longer term play that I’d perhaps want access to the full set of cards.
In any case, setup is a fairly in-depth process, given how many different elements there are in Shadows: Heroes & Monsters; there are also several ways to set the game up, depending on the experience level of the players involved. The rulebook suggests the best ways for beginners to play, but more experienced players can also utilize various methods of choosing which cards can be in use, as well as whether or not to start the game with Item cards.
Despite the somewhat overwhelming nature of setting up, especially for your first game, the rulebook actually does a great job of explaining everything. Though it can take a little while to get going, the step-by-step nature of the setup, along with an excellent illustration and reference system in the rules, means that even newer players shouldn’t have any difficulty.
Once all of the decks and play areas are ready, players will have their own heroes (the four included are shown above), their own deck, and their own library of cards that they’ll upgrade their deck with over the course of the game. They’ll also have damage tokens in their own color, their own secret mission card, and there’ll be a market (stocked with items), as well as the first monster in play.
One thing to note is that the game has player boards, which allows each player to set up their area on and around their board. I wasn’t a fan of these, but Keun Games had provided me with neoprene play mats, which I’d go so far as to saying are an essential upgrade if you do intend to purchase Shadows: Heroes & Monsters; I found that these play mats make the game setup, along with general play, so much smoother. It makes each player’s play area much easier to organize when using these neoprene mats, though of course they aren’t mandatory at all. Note that add-ons such as neoprene mats will be available after the Kickstarter campaign ends, during the Pledge Manager phase.
How to Play Shadows: Heroes & Monsters
Just as setup can be quite daunting, the actual gameplay in Shadows: Heroes & Monsters can initially feel quite overwhelming to learn. The rulebook is pretty dense with information and player turns are divided into six phases, each of which have multiple steps to complete before moving on.
TeamUp Phase
The first phase is the TeamUp Phase, in which the current Leader (that is, the hero with the Leader card) chooses whether or not to take an Experience Token or a Gold Token, and all other players receive one of the chosen token type. Then a Monster-Action card is dealt face down to each player.
Plan Phase
Next is the Plan Phase; here, players select cards from their current deck to be used this turn, with the hand size being determined by which Monster is currently in play. The hand size is three cards when the Level I Monster is in play, four cards with the Level II Monster, and five cards if the Monster is Level III.
Combat Phase
The third phase, Combat, is where the chosen cards are played. Each card has an initiative number, and cards purchased from your Library (more on this later) also have skill requirements too, as you can see in the example above.
On the left, you can see that the hero, Akintunde, has items which add to his three different stats (Strength, Tech, and Magic). His base Strength is 3, but increased to 4 thanks to his Burning Scimitar item. Then you can see his other stats increased with items, raising his Tech stat to 3 and his Magic stat to 3 as well. As the Crescent Slash card (shown on the right) requires that the hero has 3 Strength and 3 Magic to be used, Akintunde can use this card during the Combat Phase.
The Combat Phase is divided further into numbered Initiative Steps. Starting with cards numbered with 1, each player is able to play cards from their hand, starting with the Leader, until everyone has played their initiative 1 cards. This then happens for Initiative Step 2 (cards numbered with 2, of course), and at Initiative Step 3, this is repeated, but then the current Monster also acts.
Starting with the Leader, any Monster-Action cards still face down are revealed, and the symbol on the card is used to determine how the Monster acts, and what effect this has on the current player.
Note that, if players attack the Monster with cards from their hand, their face down Monster-Action card is revealed, with any further attacks during the turn triggering another Monster-Action card being drawn and resolved against them. Monsters are defeated once they’ve taken enough damage tokens from a single player to reduce their health to zero; this is one big reason why players have damage tokens in their own color.
In the image above, you can see that the Croconees Monster has 5 health, and five damage tokens. However, as the yellow player has dealt two damage and the red player has dealt three, Croconees won’t be defeated until one player has solely dealt five damage to it. The Combat Phase ends once Initiative Step 6 has been completed.
BuildUp Phase
During the next phase, BuildUp, players can gather any resources they earned in the Combat Phase, such as Gold, Experience, and Shadow Stones, and place them in their Inventory. Starting with the Leader, they can then spend Gold, by purchasing items from the Market, or study; that is, using Experience to purchase new cards from their Library of Neutral Skill cards (at the cost of three Experience Tokens per card), adding them to their current deck.
CleanUp Phase
Once all players have completed this, they move on to the CleanUp Phase; the end game triggers are checked (the game ends if any player has nine or more Shadow Stones, or if the Level III Monster has been defeated). Some tokens will be removed from cards during this phase, and cards played during the Combat Phase will be returned to the owning player’s current deck. Monster-Action cards are also discarded from the play area, and finally the Leader card is passed clockwise to the next player.
Finally, the Refresh Phase will see the next level Monster drawn if the current one was defeated, and the Market can be restocked with cards if there are any empty slots (from cards having been purchased). Victory goes to the player who has the most Shadow Stones at the end of the game.
If that all sounds like a lot, it is; however, the double-sided player aid cards are a huge help, even though the aids themselves look fairly overwhelming at first glance.
Is Shadows: Heroes & Monsters Fun to Play?
Despite having a bit of a learning curve when starting out, with a few rounds under your belt, Shadows: Heroes & Monsters isn’t actually difficult to play at all. It does have a pretty impressive range of card effects and synergies, which offer a surprisingly wide range of strategies to be employed, with this also being affected by which cards are in a player’s Library during any given game. As a smaller selection of cards is dealt to each player from the Neutral Skill card deck, each game’s “meta” can change dramatically during each session.
Though there’s a random element to the cards you’ll have access to in each game, you choose what cards to add to your current deck, and you even choose, rather than draw, what cards you’ll be using in every turn. It’s a very strong element of the game which really sets it apart.
One of the most compelling elements of Shadows: Heroes & Monsters comes in the form of the different paths to victory, with a diverse number of ways to earn Shadow Stones. For example, it’s possible to earn Shadow Stones by knocking out other players or by defeating the current Monster, but Shadow Stones are also gained just by buying items from the Market, or when spending experience to Study and add cards to your current deck.
What this means is that the game’s touted PvPvE experience (that is, Player vs Player vs Environment) works really well; not only can you play fairly aggressively, either against other players or the Monster, but it’s perfectly possible to sit back and make gains from Study or the Market, with each hero having their own playstyle and bonuses that can lend themselves to these different approaches. As I’ve already mentioned, but feel it’s worth stressing, planning a turn in advance, by choosing cards from your current deck rather than drawing at random, is also a really interesting mechanic.
It is, of course, also possible to change your strategy on the fly even after having chosen your cards (to a certain extent), with some real flexibility in being able to combine a combat-heavy approach with Study and buying at the Market to get ahead. Its clever item system, which allows for players to improve their stats and play the more powerful cards they purchase from their Library, is also really well implemented.
Shadows: Heroes & Monsters really does feel like a TCG, though without the constantly evolving – not to mention costly – meta; with the variation in the card pool from game to game, there’s still a great deal of variation during each session. Players can’t ever quite be sure of what their opponents will be doing next, which leads to a good amount of bluffing and prediction (in fact, prediction is an actual mechanic used on some cards!).
Will they be the target of an attack? Will the Monster instead be defeated? Will their opponent ignore them and go for other options this turn?
It’s full of clever touches, with a good mix of gorgeous, varied fantasy and sci-fi art, thanks to its time-space portal setting. Added to this, the fairly open approach to securing victory, allowing for a multitude of individual or combined playstyles from game to game, or even turn to turn, gives it a great, non-linear feel.
The Card Gamer Verdict
Aesthetically pleasing and with excellent components, Shadows: Heroes & Monsters is a game which certainly isn’t lacking in ambition in just about every area, including in terms of its clever, wide range of mechanics.
Though this does make it tough to get to grips with, getting over that initial hurdle reveals a rich selection of gameplay elements, with an impressive range of methods to secure victory. Non-combat strategies are perfectly viable, which feels unusual, and very welcome, for a TCG-style game.
If you succumb to its charm, Shadows: Heroes & Monsters provides a good deal of longevity, and the second edition definitely improves upon the solid foundation laid down by the original release.
Want to check out other TCG-style, standalone experiences? Take a look at our reviews of Mindbug and Adventure Time: Card Wars.
