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Click on the thumbnails to have a larger version of the pics.
Guardians is a collectible card game created by Keith Parkinson and Luke Peterschmidt, edited by FPG in august 1995. This game was translated in french, german, dutch and hungarish. Here under is the first advertisings of the coming of the first edition.
he aim of
the game
Guardians proposes a battle between
two (or more) Vierkuns or Guardians for the control of a
kingdom constituated of territories: the disputed lands.
To win, you must, helped by
your creatures, eliminate the adversary within his stronghold or else occupy all the territories of the kingdom.
Each Vierkun has a stronghold, more or less powerful
creatures, terrains which give an advantage to his creatures, shields to
protect the creatures that move in the kingdom, magical objects and spells.
he cards and
the gameplay
What makes the game that
exceptional, is the graphical quality, the humorous elements of the cards
and the efficiency of the rules of the game.
The universe of Guardians
doesn't come from a book or a film, therefore the authors could freely explore
the principle of card games to collect.
Thus, besides the classical
creatures very well illustrated (dragon, wizard, vampire, titan, ...) parodical super-heroes (Captain South America, Judge Dredge, Silver Server
or The Amazing Cider-Man) are to be found, a wink at Magic (Black Locust, Lizards of
the Toast),
homages (Floyd the flying Pig, Dork Age), and so on.
There are 3 types of
creatures in Guardians: the Mortals (cards with a white board), the Elementals
(cards with a grey board) and the Externals (cards with a black board). The
Mortals are more strong when fighting against Elementals, the Elementals are
more strong when meeting Externals and the Externals are more dangerous facing
Mortals.
During the combats, the possibility
to bribe the adverse creatures with special cards (babes, gold or beer !) animates the game with humor and
makes each meeting uncertain.
Finally, the text of each
card modifies the rules so that there is an infinity of combinations.
The preparation of the deck
is the most strategical phase. It is possible to build thematical
decks: undeads, knights, pirates and so on.
ow to get
cards ?
The development of Guardians
has been definitively stopped since several years, but it is still rather
easy to get cards from players.
In order to play, one starter
per player is sufficient!
ow
to recognize the different editions and expansions
The basic game, the "Limited Edition", is recognizable by a blue point in the copyright line, the "Revised Edition" has a white point. There are 279 different cards. Under, a box of starters.
The cards were printed on 3 sheets of 100 cards each : a sheet of rare cards, a sheet of uncommon cards and a sheet of common cards and one sheet of 50 rare cards.
On the sheet of rare cards each R1 was printed only once, the R2 twice and the R3 three times.
On the sheet of uncommon cards each U1 was printed only once and the U2 twice.
On the sheet of common cards each C1 was printed only once, the C2 twice and the C3 three times.
The uncommon sheet was printed four times more than the sheets of rare cards and the sheet of common cards was printed twelve times more than the sheet of rare cards...
The frequency to find a card per box is :
R1 0.25
R2 0.50
R3 0.66
U1 1.00
U2 2.00
C1 3.00
C2 6.00
C3 9.00
In theory, you need at least four boxes to get all the cards... but its only in theory !
You can find the corrected list here.
Here are a box of booster
packs and one of them.
The first extension, the Western Extension, "Dagger Isle", has a dagger in the copyright line. It contains 123 cards, with lots of pirates in it.
The cards were printed on two sheets of 100 cards each : one rare and one common.
On the rare sheet, each card R1 was printed once, each R2 twice, each R3 three times, each R4 four times.
On the common sheets, each card C1 was printed twice, each C2 four time, each C3 six times, each C4 eight times.
The common sheet was printed twice more than the sheet of rare cards.
The frequency to find a card per box is :
R1 1.00
R2 and C1 2.00
R3 3.00
C2 and R4 4.00
C3 6.00
C4 8.00
In theory, you need at least one box to get all the cards.
The C1 cards are as rare as the R2 cards and the C2 as the R4...
Some mistakes in the official spoiler list are corrected in our list.
The illustration created for a spell named "Blood Gambit", which was on the pre-published list, did not fit with the effect of the spell. The drawing was re-done, but did not fit with the name of the card. At last the card was renamed :Spectre's Ward. Some advertises for this extension.
Here are a case of 10 boxes, a box of booster packs and one of them.
The booster boxes give the recipe for the Chili Extravagansa !
The second extension, An Even More Western Extension, "Drifter's Nexus", has the symbol of the infinite. It contains 120 cards with a Far West atmosphere, the disciples of the Entropy.
The cards were printed one 3 sheets of 100 cards each : one rare, one uncommon and one common.
The uncommon sheet was printed twice more than the sheet of rare cards and the sheet of common cards should be printed three times more than the sheet of rare cards... but I need to verify this. If somebody as open a complete box please give the composition...
On the rare sheet, each card R1 was printed once, each R2 twice, each R3 three times, each R4 four times.
On the uncommon sheets, each card U1 was printed once, each U2 twice, each U3 three times, each U4 four times.
On the common sheets, each card C1 was printed once, each C2 twice, each C3 three times, each C4 four times.
The frequency to find a card per box is :
R1 1.00
R2 and U1 2.00
R3 and C1 3.00
R4 and U2 4.00
U3 and C2 6.00
U4 8.00
C3 9.00
C4 12.00.
In theory, you need at least one box to get all the cards.
The R2 cards are as rare as the U1 cards and the R3 as the C1...
Some mistakes in the official spoiler list are corrected in our list.
Here is a booster pack.
The booster boxes have
a false Scratch and Sniff sticker !
The last extension, The So Far Western It's Eastern Expansion, "Necropolis Park", has the letter omega. 102 cards with undeads and reptiles.
The cards were printed one 2 sheets of 150 cards each : one uncommon and one common.
On the uncommon sheets, each card U1 was printed twice, each U2 three times, each U3 four times.
On the common sheets, each card C1 was printed once, each C2 twice.
The common sheet was printed twice more than the sheet of uncommon cards...
The frequency to find a card per box is :
U1 2.00
U2 and C1 2.00
U3 4.00
C2 6.00
Some mistakes in the official spoiler list are corrected in our list.
Here is the box and a booster pack.
The booster boxes give some correct dresses for the SuperModel !
In this extension, a card named Stiverin, has never been realized. Instead, the Exploding Tweezle can be very very rarely found (a card for one case of ten boxes). It allowed to win gifts from the American editor. Tweezle is a caricature of Dave Gentzler !
Clergy Ann is card from the game Dark Age and is found instead of a common card C2.
Here, you see and here download a complete spoiler all cards in english (and in French, German and soon hungarian) with all promos and variants, rarity. Usefull for trading on the forum.
he Traveler's
Guide to the Mid Realms
« The Traveler's Guide to the Mid Realms » give lot of advices and explanations above the rules. It is provided with lot of pics and funny advertising.
he Promo cards
They are seven :
Barrow Wight, from the magazine Combo number 8 (I'm looking for a scan of the cover, please)
Druk, from the magazine Ventura #2 from september-october 1995
Land Drake (with a different back), from the magazine Capital City Advance (I'm looking for a scan of the cover, please).
The promo Land Drake has an off-color bonus of 6 instead of 5 and the bribbery symbol, the lips, is black and white.
Chaos Summoner, from the magazine Inquest n°8
The three first promo cards were reprinted in the Dagger Isle expansion. They differ by a black point instead of the dagger in the copyright line.
Cheesy Con Souvenir Tweezle which was distributed by Luke et Keith in the GenCon '95.
Exploding Tweezle was also distributed by Dave Gentzler and Luke Peterschmidt in game conventions (Bay Area Slugathon in 96 for exemple).
Tweezle the Sneaky (thanks Thierry and Buck Blankenship) could be exchange against a exemplar of the « Traveler's Guide to the Mid Realms » Only 5 Tweezle the Sneaky were distributed by Dave Gentzler to people who find the 3 allusions to the pop group Pink Floyd, he put in the Traveler's Guide, these allusions are not Pink Flamingos or Floyd the flying Pig ! This Tweezle would have been included in the next expansion set.
If you know something about... philbarfly(a)free.fr
he present
and future of Guardians
In the beginning of 97, FPG planed to edit a box with two starters, a booster pack from the Revised Edition, a booster pack from Dagger Isle, a new (unknown) card, and two boardgames, with new simple rules for beginners ; a new expansion was also planed with new terrains (The Seven Seas) ; Luke Peterschmidt had even worked on rules for a Campaign Game, but FPG stopped all activity in the end of 97.
Never mind, you can download here the boards I made and take part in the Challenge of card creation we organize.
Luke send me the fifteen cards he made and the rules of the Campaign Game, to see here.
At last we work on a non-official extension named The Seven Seas !
They add a new card you can find in Revised booster packs, in place of a common card which give a discount when buying Guardians cards :
They already have published the first two expansions and they are preparing the last one Necropolis Park. András (aka Cleric) told me that the translation is done (by him) and he assumes it is going to come out after March 2005. It seems 100 card sheets were not available, or were too expensive, so it was printed with 20 cards per sheet.
My name in hungarish is "Phil, a kocsmalégy". Sounds good isn't it ;-)
András is working on the "official errata-list" of the hungarian edition. He also wrote few articles for "Fanfár" magazine - most of these are kind of "Creature Class Critiques". There are eight of these articles until now - about Demons and Devils, Ogres, Knights, Pirates, Giants, Forces, Fairies and Undead. Maybe you'll read them (translated) on this website soon...
Guardians
is edited by FPG Inc. and Jeux Descartes for the French version.
Guardians TM, a game created by Keith Parkinson and Luke Peterschmidt.
(c) 1995, 1996 Keith Parkinson and FPG, Inc.
Guardians is a trademark of FPG, inc.
FPG and Guardians are trademarks of FPG, Inc. (All rights reserved).
Illustrations (c) 1995, 1996 Brom, Don Maitz, Keith Parkinson, Mike Ploog,
James Warhola, Den alias Beauvais, Wilson, Sweet, Shaw, Kelly, Elmore, and
Hescox...
All the
pictures presented on this site are and stay propriety of their authors.
This site has been realized with the authorization of Jeux Descartes.
