Baraxton: The Guilds Conspire Mechanics
Having arrived in the Accordlands, we now journey to the trade city of Baraxton. Business is booming in Baraxton, a thriving metropolis strategically nestled between two great rivers and fiercely autonomous from the grasping hands of greedy monarchs. Instead of traditional governance, six guilds have come to run the town, each offering their unique services, protections, and posing their own threats. Though commerce is currently shared, competition and ambition among the guilds grows with every passing day, setting the tone for Baraxton: The Guilds Conspire. Each guild has a mechanic shared by one other guild that reflects their values and helps them achieve their goals. There are also some city-wide mechanics equally available to every guild. Let’s go through them!
SUPPORT (REVEL/SCION)
The altruistic Revel and Scion guilds rely on the strength of community and teamwork. Revel consists primarily of clerics and rogues, and are most often represented by the Free Kingdoms. Scion consists primarily of clerics and fighters, and are most often represented by the Dwarven Forges. These are always the first guilds to consult when one needs support.
Support is a keyword sometimes represented at the top of a text box in its own line, as part of a larger static ability, or referred to by another action or effect. While many cards give varying amounts of bonuses to varying stats to a variety of targets, support only refers to a bonus of exactly +2 to exactly ATK, AC, and skill, and only to your characters who are adjacent to your supporting character. Worth noting is that a character does receive a stacking bonus from multiple sources of support, most commonly when they are positioned between two characters with support raising the total bonuses they receive to +4 ATK, AC, and skill. Conversely, a character cannot provide multiple stacking instances of support — meaning that if a character has support and gains the keyword a second or third time, the bonuses they provide will not increase to +4, +6, etc.
CONSUME (ARCHON/LOGOS)
The insatiable Archon and Logos guilds crave power and knowledge at any cost. Archon consists primarily of fighters and wizards, and are most often represented by the Deverenian Empire. Logos consists primarily of clerics and wizards, and are most often represented by the Elven Branches. Nothing is truly lost, as long as there is more to consume.
If a card with consume is in your discard pile, you can play it. Consume is always followed by a numeral or description of a number. To play a card from your discard pile using consume, in addition to paying the card’s other costs, you’ll also have to banish a number of cards equal to the consume value on the card. Cards can be granted consume and can have multiple and varied instances of the keyword. In the case of a card having consume twice with different values, you can choose which instance of consume to use when playing the card from the discard pile.
BOUNTY COUNTERS (VALOR/WHISPER)
The predatory Valor and Whisper guilds are always on the hunt. Valor consists of primarily fighters and rogues, and are most often represented by the Nothrog Legions. Whisper consists primarily of rogues and wizards, and is most often represented by the Mercenary Guilds. As long as you have coin, they will take care of the bounty.
Bounty counters are a new type of counter that can be placed on a card. They don’t inherently have any effect, but cards will refer to bounty counters in a variety of ways — such as in their static text, cost, or effect. Both guilds have an italicized tag line when placing bounty counters on other cards. Whisper a Name and Hunter’s Mark don’t have any game effect, they just alert you to the act of placing bounty counters and help build identity for the guilds. A card in play can have any number of bounty counters on it, and those counters are removed when the card leaves play.
TRADE
With money constantly changing hands, a port teeming around the clock, bustling daytime bazaars, and guild halls taking job after job, you could almost describe the city of Baraxton with a single word — trade.
Some cards in the set instruct you to trade. This is a keyword that prompts you to take an action, in this case of drawing and discarding a card. Similarly to journey, this action is not optional unless prefaced with the word may. Trade is not tied to any single guild, class, or faction — it’s just a part of the daily life in Baraxton.
CLASS SYNERGIES
Lastly, Baraxton is a city where class matters in both the worldbuilding and the mechanical sense. Actions will respond to the character performing them differently, characters might check on the class makeup of your army — in Baraxton, the first and main thing to judge a person on is their class.
There are several ways that a card might check for class. Some cards spell it out in their static text, cost, or effect, while others us class symbols to let you quickly scan the card. The use of class symbols is always self referential, and most typically appears on actions and items. If a card shows class symbols with dashes next to them, the class symbols are essentially replacing the text “If this character is a [class]”. Many of the guild coded cards work best when played by characters that possess both of that guild’s primary classes, allowing them to gain multiple or all of the card’s modular effects.
No matter which guild you’re aligned with — or even if you’re sticking with a single class warlord — Baraxton: The Guilds Conspire will be packed full of options for your deck. This article marks some of the very first of many spoilers to come, but there will be a large gap between now and the majority of the card pool being spoiled ahead of release. You can pre-order Baraxton: The Guilds Conspire at your local game store, online through Team Covenant, and elsewhere Warlord products are sold.
