Nightfall: The Coldest War

Players enact supernatural conflicts set in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, recruiting creatures and wielding tactics passed down through generations to fight the darkness. This is a competitive deck-building game where players play and chain cards by matching a card’s main color to a linking color on the previous card; chains open a shared opportunity for opponents to add cards before resolving. Cards resolve last-in, first-out, with instant effects triggering as cards come off the chain to deal damage, summon defenders, or alter the board. Players score wounds into opponents’ decks, and the winner is the one left with the fewest wounds; accumulating wounds speeds a player’s deck, increasing tempo and the size of future chains. New mechanics include moon phase cards that apply global effects and illustrated wound cards.

Players: 2–5 best 2
Playing time: 45 min
Age: 12+
Complexity: 2.8 / 5