War in the empire! Karl Franz is dead, who will replace him as Emperor? Decide the fate of the Old World in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Elector Counts An Old World Card Game.
Despite being right in the title, this card game has nothing to do with the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay RPG, except for the setting and theme. It is instead a card driven, line battler, where you are fighting on multiple fronts (one per player).
Disclosure: Thanks to Cubicle 7 for giving us a review copy of this Warhammer card game. Some links in this post are affiliate links, using them costs you nothing extra and helps support this website. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Elector Counts is a Card Game set in Warhammer’s Old World
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Elector Counts An Old World Card Game (which I’ll probably just refer to as Elector Counts for the rest of this review) is a two to four player, single deck card game from well known game designer Martin Wallace, which is being published by Cubicle 7.
It is a reimplementation of Martin’s earlier game Doctor Who the Card Game. This newer version has been rethemed to the classic Warhammer Fantasy world, originally created by Games Workshop, and is set before the current Age of Sigmar setting.
Games of Elector Counts are pretty quick, once you get past your first play or two, usually lasting under half an hour. The mechanics are straightforward and most of the weight in the game comes from learning the deck and remembering what has and has not been played. While Cubicle 7 has a listed age of thirteen plus for this Old World card game, the community suggestions on BGG come in closer to eight plus, which sounds about right to me as that’s the age I first started to get into Games Workshop stuff (way back in the 80s!).
In Elector Counts each player controls their own province in The Empire. Players start with a starting location and each turn players add new holdings to their lands, assign defenders to these holdings, and/or send out raiders to attack other players holdings. Combat is deterministic, with the highest total card value on a side giving that side control of a holding. A fun twist is that once you are down to only three cards left in your hand, you must pass those cards to the player on your right.
This card based Warhammer game comes in a small box which contains cardboard Siege and Fortification Tokens for each player, cardboard Shilling tokens, and over one hundred cards. As a nice bonus, you get some spares for each of the tokens. The cards are sturdy, feature awesome Warhammer artwork, clear iconography, and unambiguous card text. The rulebook is a bit wordy, but otherwise good.
We originally reviewed Elector Counts on Episode 251 of The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast, Picking the Perfect Game, and I invite you to check that episode out (among other things, you’ll get to hear Deanna and Sean’s thoughts on the game).
Elector Counts Overview of Play
At the start of a game of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Elector Counts each player gets a starting Location Card and a starting hand of cards with the player to the right of the dealer getting three less cards than everyone else. Hand size is determined by player count, the less players the more cards.
Each turn players will take as many actions as they wish but must end their turn when they are down to only three cards left in their hand. These “leftover” cards are passed to the player on their right. The active player then finishes their turn by refilling their hand with cards from the deck in what’s called the Reinforcements phase.
There are four card types in Elector Counts: Locations, Attackers, Defenders and Support Cards.
Location Cards are played in front of you. They may grant you an immediate boost in coins and will award victory points to the player who controls each of them at the end of the game.
Coins can be spent to purchase more cards. In addition to being gained by playing locations, coins can be gained from some Support, Attacker, or Defender cards.
Attacker Cards are played in front of an opponent’s location card along with a siege token, they must be played in sets of the same card name or as a set of matching allies. Each card has a number and you add these up when resolving a conflicts, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Each location can only hold one set of attackers from a single player. If you play attackers to an undefended location they are played face down. If they are played to a defended location they are revealed immediately and a conflict takes place.
Defender Cards are played at your own locations and, unlike attackers, each defender must have a unique name. The Defender cards are numbered, similar to attackers. Similar to attackers, if the location they are played at is empty they are played face down, but when they are played on a location under attack they are revealed immediately and a conflict occurs.
During a Conflict, which comes up often in Elector Counts, the first thing that happens is that all card abilities go off. Next you total up the numbers on the cards for each side. Attackers must discard cards equal to the total value of the defenders cards, if any attackers remain after this they control that location (which is represented by leaving a Siege Token on that Location card). If the defenders have a higher total, all cards are discarded, the siege token is returned to the attacking player, and the defender gets to place a Fortification Token on that location.
Fortification tokens protect that location card from one attack. The next attack card that is committed to that location is immediately defeated and discarded along with the Fortification token.
Support cards do all kinds of things, like modify attack and defence totals, let you peek at face down cards, move cards around on the table, earn you coins, let you draw more cards, etc. Most supports are discarded after being resolved but some stay in play after use.
In addition to playing cards, there are a few other actions players can take at any point during their turn, including between playing cards, but not in the middle of a conflict.
You can place cards into your reserve, with each player being able to hold a maximum of two cards. This is great for holding onto cards you don’t want to pass to your opponent but aren’t ready to play quite yet. You can also draw a card from the deck at a cost of four shillings per card, or you can discard cards from your hand to gain two shillings each. The pool of shillings in the game is limited and if ever the supply is empty you instead take your coins from the other players.
If at any point a single player has five Siege Tokens in play, or has five Fortification Tokens in play, or has a combination of both types of tokens in play that totals up to eight or more, the game immediately ends. If this doesn’t happen, the game continues until the “end of game” card is drawn, at which points players continue to take turns until they run out of cards in their hands. We’ve found this to be the more common way that Elector Counts comes to a close.
Once the game ends, players add up the victory points for each location they control and the player with the most points wins. Note this is still what happens even if the game ends because a player has enough tokens in play, that end condition doesn’t guarantee a win, it just triggers the end of the game.
What this overview doesn’t really address is the fact that pretty much every single card in Elector Counts does something else. Some attackers generate you coins when played, some defenders return to your hand when defeated, there are support cards that have permanent effects if kept in your reserve and there are a series of cards that feature rock paper scissor like mechanics where one card automatically defeats another card in combat but is itself defeated by a third card, and so on.
This gives Elector Counts a very TCG feel, where the cards in your hands are going to open up opportunities that go above or around the existing rules.
The other thing that isn’t obvious from this overview is how much Warhammer Fantasy lore is in this game and a lot of the mechanics are tied to that lore. For example it’s the Flagellants that return to your hand ready to defend again after being beaten, and Lumpin Crooks Fighting Cooks make an appearance as an ally card that can be played with any attacker that also generates coins which let you attract more troops. There are many amusing nods to Warhammer Fantasy, that fans of the setting are going to enjoy.
Elector Counts is a unique way to get to play in the Warhammer Fantasy universe
I want to start sharing my thoughts on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Elector Counts by saying that our first play wasn’t great. That first play was at a game convention, after a long day of meetings, demos, and exploring the con with lots and lots of walking.
Obviously fatigue was part of it, but that wasn’t all of it. This Warhammer themed game is rather opaque and has a significant learning curve.
Going in knowing nothing about the game except what we learned from a quick read of the rulebook, we were all foundering. None of us were sure what we should be doing, or why we should be doing it. The cards in Elector Counts don’t really point towards a specific strategy based on what is in your hand, many cards reference other cards and until you’ve seen both sets in play they don’t make a lot of sense.
Learning the deck is key to being able to enjoy this game. I doubt anyone is going to have a great time their first go, unless maybe they are coming over from the Doctor Who game it’s based on. Watching a how to play video ended up helping us out quite a bit. Cubical 7 has an official Elector Counts Playthrough video on their site that I found eye opening.
The key hurdle here is that everyone is using the same deck of cards with the same four card types in there and when you are just starting off you don’t understand the value of each card and it’s effects. In addition, a big part of this game is hand management. You are handing off cards to your opponents at the end of each turn. How do you know what you should keep and what is safe to pass off when you have no idea what’s in the deck?
Thankfully, this is just a hurdle to be overcome and once you’ve done so there’s a solid game here. Even by my second play I was starting to see the design work that went into Elector Counts. It took me a few plays to realize the game is really a line battler or tug of war style game, along the line of games like Battle Line / Schotten Totten, Air, Land, & Sea, or Riftforce. Except in Elector Counts, each player is building their own line and defending that line from multiple opponents.
Once you’ve gotten to know the cards, the most interesting thing in the Elector Counts card game is the way you pass cards to the opponent on your right (the player that goes just before you, not the next player).
When playing with two or three players you will know half of the cards in one of your opponents hands at the end of each of your turns. Deciding what to play, what to pass, and what to reserve, is a big part of the game. This leads to a fascinating decision tree that I really enjoy playing through.
This is one of those card games, like 7 Wonders, Sirens, or Beer & Bread, where you will often end up getting back cards you chose to pass up (which could all be part of your cunning play!), and will cringe when you are forced to hand something good over to your opponent. This is also the aspect of the game that makes all those rock-paper-scissors-style match ups work. Though the odds of them actually coming up with such a big deck are pretty rare.
An aspect of Warhammer Elector Counts that stuck out to us is how different the game plays at different player counts. Most people seem to agree that it’s best at two player, which to me makes sense because of the style of game it is and the fact that the games it is most similar to are all two player games. The card passing system is much more tactical with only two players. Your opponent is either playing those cards against you, or you are getting them back.
This changes at three and four players, as you may be handing one opponent cards that are best used on your other opponents. It leads to a whole different strategic level of play. However, with how many actions a player can take in a turn, the game can really slow down with more players, to the point that we preferred to cap our games at three.
With experienced players, I find that most games of Elector Counts end because of someone drawing the End of Game card. Once everyone knows the game, it’s rather easy to make sure you stop your opponent from getting a set of eight or five tokens out on the table. However, this isn’t a bad thing as I really enjoy the very end of Elector Counts when everyone is trying to do everything they can to eek out just one more action.
That ending part feels the most like politics in the Warhammer World, and I wish that feeling was somehow spread through the whole game. We’re at the point now that if someone does win the other way (by tokens) it feels unfulfilling (even for the player causing the end). I don’t like how abrupt it is.
The learning curve of having to get to know a one hundred plus card deck is the biggest turn off to prospective players of Elector Counts. For us, I think it was only the Warhammer Fantasy theme that convinced us to keep trying and to find the joy here. If we weren’t already Warhammer fans we may have given up after a play or two and I worry this will be the case with most people who try this game.
Another thing to watch for is the amount of inter-player conflict. This is a card driven wargame and you must attack the other players to have any chance of winning. This is not a game where you can turtle down. There are also a lot of “take that” cards in the game. This isn’t for groups that prefer friendly games, which to be fair is pretty much true of any game with the Warhammer name on it.
Elector Counts can also include elements of bluffing. While not technically required it can be a useful skill when playing those cards face down, either at your own locations or on your opponents. The bluffing aspect is something I personally appreciate but I know it can turn some players off.
Overall, our experience with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Elector Counts An Old World Card Game has been a journey. We had a bad first experience and for a bit after it felt like we were chasing the fun. Once all of us had a few games under our belt we discovered an enjoyable game in a setting we love, but it’s a game that’s not going to be for everyone. In addition to a steep learning curve, Elector Counts is a rather nasty game with direct conflict between players and not everyone enjoys that.
The gamers I think that are going to get the most out of Elector Counts are any of the long time Warhammer Fantasy fans out there. They are going to love seeing famous Warhammer characters from all of the game’s various iterations over the years, even going back to the original Regiments of Renown. Though if you are a Warhammer fan, don’t pick this up expecting any RPG content as you won’t find that here.
The other group who should check this game out are fans of other line battlers. If you enjoy games like Battle Line or Lost Cities you may enjoy Elector Counts. The combat system here, of attackers played at a location being paired off against defenders at that same location, feels very much like those games. This is a line battle game with multiple lines, one for each player.
I want to finish off by noting, again, that if you are interested in this game at all, do not give up on it after just one play. You will most likely start off feeling lost, many card abilities won’t make any sense, and you will not know what you should be playing when or where. Trust me when I say all of that will come together with a few more plays, and Elector Counts from Cubicle 7 is worth a bit of time and patience.
FAQs
What does Elector Counts have to do With Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay?
The only reason WHFRP is listed on the cover of Elector Counts is because it’s part of the same game line. Cubicle 7 publishes the roleplaying game and has grouped this product in with it on their website as it shares the same universe.
You will not find any RPG content in this box.
Do you have to know the Warhammer World to enjoy Elector Counts
There is no knowledge of anything Warhammer or Warhammer related required to play Elector Counts. It is a completely stand alone game.
That said, fans of the Warhammer Fantasy setting are going to enjoy the characters, units, easter eggs and many call backs to years worth of Warhammer lore.
Does Elector Counts have anything to do with the Warhammer Miniature Game?
Elector Counts uses a card based system to recreate battles in the Warhammer Fantasy Setting of The Old World, in particular battles between Elector Counts in The Empire.
There is no overlap with the Warhammer miniature games here except for the theme, and that fact that you are recreating the same type of battles that you could play out through a miniature battle.
Warhammer Fantasy The Old World Elector Counts, An Old World Card Game is based on Doctor Who: The Card Game. That original game won the 2013 Best Traditional Card Game award at Origins. We haven’t personally tried the Doctor Who version but it may be worth checking out. The Board Game Geek ratings are identical for both games.
Elector Counts is a game with a learning curve that rewards multiple plays. On Episode 260 of The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast, Right off the Bat, we talked about games that are fun and engaging right from turn one. Elector Counts is not one of those games. If you and/or your group don’t enjoy games that require this level of commitment I suggest you give that episode a listen for some game recommendations that may be a better fir for you.
If you are someone who likes a game that you need to play multiple times to really get, games that reward experience and system mastery, I’d love to know what some of your favourites are. What’s a game that takes some work to learn but is totally worth it at the end? Let us know in the comments below or start up a conversation over on The Tabletop Bellhop Discord.
- The old Emperor is dead, and his successor is anything but clear.
- In the halls of the powerful, diplomacy has failed, civil strife is rampant, and the trumpets of war ring loud and clear!
- Fight for control of The Empire, securing your holdings with faith, steel, and gunpowder.
- Who among the Elector Counts is worthy of ascending to Sigmar’s throne?
