Lobo: The Vanguard

Why I made this I really enjoy playing Lobo, but sometimes I find the difficulty and lack of player choice incredibly frustrating, and the scoring system requires me to always need to waste paper or use a screen to track. With The Vanguard, I really wanted to resolve these 2 key issues I have with a game that has really fun mechanics. Setup What you need: A standard deck of playing cards Remove Jacks, Queens, Kings (non-Spades) and Jokers Setting Difficulty Just like Standard Lobo, the game's difficulty can be modified by adding 10s or removing 9s. Easy - Keep A-8s Standard - Keep A-9s Hard - Keep A-10s How-to-Play The gameplay of Lobo is exactly the same, the player has 5 possible moves to play: Perfect, Sum, Split, Over, and Fold. Perfect - If the number of the players card matches a card in the Wolf's hand, the player removes both cards and takes the top card from the draw pile. Sum - The player can add any cards in their hand to take out any single card from the Wolf's and take a card from the draw pile. Example: Player uses a 4 + 2 to take out a wolf's 6. The player then draws the top card from the draw pile into their hand. Split - The player may also use a single card to take out multiple cards from the Wolf, but the Wolf gets the top card from the draw pile. Example: Player uses a 9 to remove a 6+2+A(1), and the Wolf will gain 1 card from the draw pile. Over - The player can play a card that is greater than one of the Wolf's cards, but they must put a number of cards equal to the difference into the Wolf's had. Example: Player uses a 7 to take out the Wolf's 6. The difference is 1, so the Wolf gets the top card from the draw pile. Fold - At any time, a player can fold and end the round. If you're not familiar with the original game, check out this video by Totally Tabled: New Mechanics Party Members & Reserves Unlike base Lobo, you will have 3 members in your party, the Jack, the Queen, and the King of Spades. If you lose all 3 members of you party, the game is over and the Wolf has won . These cards are placed below the play area. Reserve cards are placed to the left/right/below the Party Member cards (whichever is most convenient to the player). At the start of a game, all 3 will be face-up, indicating they are actively in the fight. As the game progresses and you lose rounds, you will lose Party Members equal to the number of cards remaining in the Wolf's hand. Example: If the Wolf wins, and has 2 cards remaining in its hand, the player must flip the Jack and Queen face-down. However, all is not lost. If you win a round you have 2 choices, you may either put one of the cards in your winning hand (including the pull from the draw pile) into your reserve OR you may put one of your Party Members back in the fight (flip a face-down Party Member face-up ). Lastly, in the final round, these Party Members will act as wild cards and can sacrifice themselves to help you finish off the Wolf. However, the loss conditions of the game still apply: If you lose all members of your party, the Wolf wins. Which means, you have a maximum of 2 Party Members to use in the final round. Unlike Party Members your reserve cards may be used at any time. A War of Attrition In Lobo, your goal is to get to 100 points before the Wolf does. In The Vanguard, your goal is to tire out the Wolf and reach the end of the deck with 1+ Party Members active to defeat it. The Last Round As the draw pile thins, you reach the conclusion of your battle with the Wolf. This will be the result of a couple difference scenarios: You have played a round and drawn the draw pile to its limits. In other words, you can no longer play Splits or Overs because there are not enough cards. You have started a round with 8 or less cards remaining from the draw pile. In both scenarios, the rules of engagement change. Splits/Overs can no longer be played, and Perfect/Sum moves do not give you any cards. As mentioned before, you can use your Party Members or reserve cards to clear out any remaining cards from the Wolf's hand. Just as it goes for any other round, if the player fails to clear the Wolf's hand, the Wolf wins. If the player successfully clears the Wolf's hand, they win and their score is equal to their final hand's value + 10 for each face card that is face up ( up to 30 ).