Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce The Bloodquest Cycle, the next series of Battle Packs for Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game!

Today, the series’s lead developer shares insights on how its new units, support cards, tactics, and quests are going to spur all manner of creative deck designs when the Battle Packs start releasing in the first quarter of 2012.

From the developer:

The card pool for Warhammer: Invasion has matured greatly through the recent expansion cycles. The different races have developed their own styles, and their card pools have deepened, providing them with considerable options from which to form decks. As such, it seemed like a good time to direct more of our focus to the game’s oft-forgotten cards: the quests.

We haven’t seen a lot of quests at high-level tournament play for a number of reasons. While there is currently no way to target a quest card in the environment, players recognized quests were vulnerable to a different type of control–unit control. Since effects that target units form the most prevalent control in the game, players found it difficult to get much momentum going with their quests. Quests also cost card slots in the deck, which could end up being useless if your opponents could control your units. While the free quests from The Capital Cycle that let you draw a card when you play them are one part of the answer to making quests more playable, we decided The Boodquest Cycle should employ several other methods to make quests more appealing.

Tangible rewards

The previous quests lacked a sense of completion. They provided useful abilities for which you could spend your quest resource tokens, but they didn’t offer any true closure. Most of the time, when you think of a quest, the quest has a specific goal. Slay the dragon. Plunder the treasure. Rescue the captive. Find the magic sword. Once this goal is achieved, the quest is completed (and a new one can begin). We wanted more of these types of quests in the game, ones with specific goals or specific rewards. When you complete this type of quest, we want you to get something tangible for doing so. An example of this is the card Heroic Task. You can choose the card for which you intend to quest, and then you just have to get it!

A quest for everyone

All of the six races have many different quests, but there are several factions that don’t have any–the neutral factions. In The Bloodquest Cycle, these factions receive quests that only they can use, and which make them even more formidable forces.

Synergy with other cards

All the races of Warhammer: Invasion receive new units with quest zone abilities and a slew of cards that trigger off of manipulating the resource tokens on your quests. This is perhaps one of the most important design aspects of the set. Rather than try to replace older quests with newer ones, we want players to go back and take a look at the entire quest pool. When you have great new units with quest zone abilities, you may as well have them quest. Accordingly, many of this set’s cards tie into questing, such as the Dwarf Adventurer.

Quests are a unique and exciting card type for Warhammer: Invasion, and one that we’ve had a lot of fun exploring. While many of them haven’t always been viable at the highest levels of the game, The Bloodquest Cycle should change that.

Developing the other zones

In addition to making quests more interesting, we also wanted to use The Bloodquest Cycle as a chance to increase opposition in combat, provide legends with extra support, and give the game’s races some new sub-themes and strategies. Hope you enjoy the cards.

    –Lukas Litzsinger, Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game Lead Developer

Thanks, Lukas!

The world of Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game grows richer with every Battle Pack, and we look forward to the ferocious battles and heroic quests The Bloodquest Cycle engender, starting in the first quarter of 2012!

Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game is a card game by Eric M. Lang in which 2 players develop their kingdoms and lay waste to their foes. Each side is comprised of either the forces of Order or the forces of Destruction as they seek to extend their empire to include the entire Old World. The Living Card Game format allows players to customize their gaming experience with monthly Battle Pack expansions to the core game.