Thunder and lightning (game)
| lightning and thunder | |
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| Game data | |
| author | Richard Borg |
| graphic | Franz Vohwinkel |
| publishing company |
 Germany : Kosmos Spiele , United States : Rio Grande Games , Greece : Kaissa Chess & Games, Netherlands : 999 Games  
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| Publishing year | 2000 |
| Art | Card game |
| Teammates | 2 |
| Duration | 30 minutes |
| Age | from 12 years
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| Awards | |
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Blitz und Donner (English original title Hera and Zeus ) is a card game by the American game designer Richard Borg for two people. The game was released in 2000 by Kosmos Spiele and was published in the series Spiele für Zwei , at the same time it was published in English by Rio Grande Games in the United States .
In 2001 the game in the English version was nominated for the International Gamers Award in the category for 2-player strategy games.
Theme and equipment
The game is a duel card game in which the two players try to defeat the opponent's cards by tactically using the card set belonging to their deity Hera or Zeus and thereby each try to defeat one of the target or prisoner cards, “ Argus ”Or“ Io ”, found in the opponent's deck.
In addition to the game instructions, the game material consists of:
- 86 playing cards in five colors, including 43 cards each for Zeus and Hera,
- a Zeus and a Hera token, and
- 2 overview boards about the different characters.
Each player's deck of cards consists of 43 cards. Most of these cards are labeled with a value from 0 to 7, which indicates their strength. In a fight without special functions, the cards with the higher values always win. Some cards also have a mythical card; special rules apply to these cards. Some cards are only marked with such a symbol, which identify them as special cards that can only be played once.
Style of play
To prepare for the game, each of the two players chooses whether to play Hera or Zeus and receives the corresponding set of cards as well as the corresponding wooden marker and an overview card showing the properties and the number of individual cards. Each player shuffles his deck of cards and draws 9 cards from his hand, the rest he puts down as a face-down draw pile ( talon ) in front of him.
In the game, each of the two players gradually forms a table display of face-down cards, which consists of a maximum of four consecutive groups of 3 cards next to one another. In each of the three rows there can be one to four cards later. There is also a discard pile for discarded and defeated cards per player.
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Possible actions
per game round
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At the beginning of the game, each player chooses three of his hand cards and places them face down as the first group of cards in the display so that the three cards are opposite each other. The players then take turns taking turns and can carry out as many actions per turn as there are rows in front of them (initially three because they have three cards next to each other). The cards “Hera” and “Zeus” are an exception to this, as they enable another action. As actions the player can draw a card, display a card, challenge an opposing card or use a mythical card; he may do the same action several times in any order, but he must use up all action points. If a player has no card on display at the beginning of his turn, he receives no action points and immediately loses the game.
If a player decides to draw a card, he takes a card from the draw pile and adds it to his hand. Each player can always have a maximum of 12 cards in hand. If he wants to display a card, he chooses a card from his hand and places it face down in a row either in front of, behind or between his cards already on display. If he wants to place the card in the place of a card that is already on display, it is pushed back one place together with others behind it; the maximum number of four cards in a row must not be exceeded. Alternatively, he may start a new row, regardless of whether the other rows are already filled. Cards that have already been placed can only be moved by displaying new cards and otherwise remain in place. The card of Dionysus is an exception, as it allows cards to be exchanged. The player may look at all of the face down cards at any time.
The players may only take a challenge as an action from the second round. A player can always challenge a card if it is directly opposite one of his own cards in the first group. To start a challenge, the player pushes his own card forward slightly, turns it over and thus announces the strength value of the card. The opponent also turns over his card and shows the strength value and any mythical properties of the card. As a rule, the player with the higher strength value wins the duel and the opponent must put his card on the discard pile, the card behind it moves into the first group. In this case, the winning card remains face up and, depending on the actions available, it can issue further challenges against cards that can be advanced. If the strength values are identical, there is no winner and both cards are discarded. If the card involved is a card with mythical properties or if a card with mythical abilities is played as an action, it is treated according to these properties.
The cards involved by both parties are:
| map | Combat value | Mythical properties | number |
|---|---|---|---|
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Hera , Zeus |
- | In the round in which a player plays one of the two god cards, the player immediately has four actions available regardless of the number of rows of cards he has. The player places his god stone in front of one of the cards in the first group and takes its place, all cards behind it are pushed back; if the row already consists of four cards, it may not be chosen and if all rows are full, the card may not be played. The god stone remains in this position and must not be attacked or attacked until the opponent manages to remove it with the help of a Pegasus card. As long as the god stone is in play, the corresponding player can perform four actions in each round. | 1/1 |
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Argus , Io |
0 | Objective cards - if these cards are challenged or if they have to be discarded, the respective player wins the game | 1/1 |
| Medusa | 0 | When the Medusa (face down or face up) is challenged by a player, the challenging card has usually lost regardless of its battle value. Exceptions are the Amazon or the hero who defeat Medusa. Medusa herself may not challenge opposing cards, she always remains passive. | 4/4 |
| Pandora | 0 | When the (face-down) Pandora is challenged, both players immediately lose all cards in the corresponding row. If there is one of the target cards (Io or Argus) among these, the corresponding player has immediately lost. If a player has Pandora in hand and the opponent draws it through a Pegasus card, the player must discard all of his hand cards. If there is one of the target cards among these (Io or Argus), the corresponding player has also lost immediately. |
1/1 |
| Pegasus | 1 | The Pegasus card, when it is in the display, has a combat value of 1 and has no special abilities. If Pegasus is played out of hand as a mythical card, he can attack the opponent's hand or directly against a card on display:
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| Pythia | 0 | Pythia can be played out of hand or on the display. If it is played out of hand, the leading player can force his opponent to show him all of his hand cards. If there is Poseidon or Nemesis in the hand cards, these are placed on the shelf. Alternatively, it can be used to force the opponent to completely reveal one of his ranks. In the display, Pythia can be used like any other card. If she challenges Poseidon or Nemesis, she wins the duel, but if she is challenged by these or another card with a strength value of 1 to 7, she loses. | 2/2 |
| Sirens | - | By playing the sirens, a player can take a card with a strength value of 1 to 7 from the top of the opponent's discard pile into his own hand and use it as his own card. | 1/1 |
| Hades | - | By playing Hades, a player can take any card from the discard pile back to his own hand and use it again. | 1/1 |
| Persephone | - | By playing the Persephone, a player can take back up to 3 of his own Pegasus cards from the discard pile and use them again. | 1/1 |
| Dionysus | - | By playing Dionysus, a player can place a card that has already been laid out in any position in another row or move it in a row. | 2/2 |
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Hero , Amazon |
2 | The hero and the amazon are the only cards that Medusa can conquer. | 5/5 |
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Centaur , fury |
3 | - | 5/5 |
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Cyclops , harpy |
4th | - | 4/4 |
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Giant , Hydra |
5 | - | 3/3 |
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Apollo , Artemis |
6th | - | 2/2 |
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Poseidon , nemesis |
7th | Poseidon and Nemesis are the two strongest cards, but they can be defeated by Pythia. | 1/1 |
The game ends when a player in the display challenges the respective target card of the opposing party with a card with a combat value of 1 to 7 and thus identifies it. Alternatively, your player wins if he draws the opponent's target card from the opponent's hand during a Pgasus attack. The game also ends
- if a player cannot use his number of Action Points,
- has no cards on display at the beginning of his turn and thus does not receive any action points,
- During a Pegasus attack, the Pandora is drawn from the hand of cards and the opponent also has a target card in hand, or
- a player in an opposing row reveals the Pandora and the target card is in the same row.
In all these cases, the player who cannot take any more actions or who has lost his target card loses.
Development and reception
The game Blitz und Donner was developed by the American game author Richard Borg and published in 2000 by Rio Grande Games in the United States and by Kosmos Spiele in Germany at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in the series Games for Two . The following year it was published by the Dutch publisher 999 Games under the name Zeus en Hera and by the Greek Kaissa Chess & Games as Ήρα και Δίας .
In 2001 the game in the English version was nominated for the International Gamers Award in the category for 2-player strategy games, but lost to the game Battle Cry by the same author.
In 2016, Borg published the game Thunder & Lightning in French and English at Filosofia Éditions and Z-Man Games . It is a derivative of the game Blitz und Donner , in which the Germanic gods Thor and Loki compete against each other instead of Hera and Zeus . The game is played according to the same game mechanics, but contains more cards and therefore more special options.
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i game instructions lightning and thunder cosmos games, 2000
- ↑ Versions of Blitz und Donner in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on August 25, 2018.
- ↑ 2001 nominees at the International Gamers Award ; accessed on August 25, 2018.
- ↑ Thunder & Lightning in the BoardGameGeek game database (English); accessed on August 25, 2018.
Web links
- Lightning and thunder in the Luding games database
- Blitz und Donner (Hera and Zeus) in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English)