Publisher: Slugfest Games

Number of Players: 2-6
Playing Time: 30-45 Minutes
Ages: 8+

This was the game PerAnon had saw, played, and was so taken with he insisted I take a look. He was right in every particular.

When he first talked about En Garde and described it, I was sure it was a game I had played in the 1970's by the same name put out by GDW. It was not. Keeping with the tone of Slugfest Games, En Garde is irreverent and satirical.

You are a foppish but extremely competent swordfighter. You are concerned only with maintaining your poise and making other players lose their poise. Poise is the measure of health in this game. You want to protect it; your opponents want to cause you to lose it. Consequently, you are looking to cause your opponents to lose poise as soon as possible.

Each turn you have decisions to make. Is there an armor or attack enhancement card you can play? Does an opponent have an amour or attack enhancement card in play you want to eliminate? Armor reduces your loss of poise and attack enhancements add to the loss of poise for your opponents. Once you've decided this you will decide which player to attack, will choose an attack, and will play a card chain of attacks, responses, and the like until the attack either succeeds or fails. You then will determine how much poise you have cost your opponent.

Each attack and response you make may affect your own poise negatively. Each special card you play may do the same, negatively or, if you are fortunate, in a positive manner. The goal is to be the last person in the game with any poise, obviously then to be the fond desire of your choice of spectators.

The strategy is deceptive in this game. Since your attacks can cost you poise, you need to be careful not to concentrate too much on a single player or execute attacks that will put you in a position for easy elimination. Since every other player in the game is operating within these same constraints, you have a shifting battle, a constant ebb and flow of advantage, and a desperate scrambling to play your attacks and responses in the most effective manner.

What happens when lose all of your poise? That's when you become even more dangerous. Suddenly you are no longer concerned with the savagery of your attacks. You've hit bottom, you cannot appear any more ragged and rumpled, so you are free to engage in the most outlandish attacks you can initiate. Of course, you are vulnerable as a single successful attack against you will eliminate you from the game. Your opponents see this, which is why you never want to put your poise to zero (0) through an attack you initiate.

The game is fun, fast paced, easy to learn, and deceptive to play. We enjoyed the game so much we pre-ordered it.