Guardians of Xobos (2018)

Overview

The Guardians of Xobos is a sci-fi themed tabletop game inspired by RTS classics, in which players compete to gain control over the last active source of energy on the planet. A long, long time ago Patrons, great explorers of the universe, arrived on Xobos and after gathering enough power to continue their journey, they left Guardians there to protect the planet. The Guardians of Xobos cared for the energy sources for centuries, but once the planet began to fade, they started to fight each other in order to survive.

The game is full of dynamic action tactical and strategy battle with unique mechanism of upgrading units by creating "links" between the Guardians. The player can give orders to his units, so that each unit can be supported by a different Guardian to gain healing powers or improved attacks. Since the Guardians can be upgraded via technology, one unit can act as a "tank" with a huge amount of damage or healing powers. In the game it is also possible to focus on economy by building structures for gathering resources and producing smaller units called Quarks.

To win the game, the player must gather Energy to revive the dying source and have the highest amount of Energy in round 15, the last one in the game. In The Guardians of Xobos there are 5 structures for gathering resources, upgrading units and protecting the territory.

Each turn consists of two phases: Phase 1: Tactical phase, in which players move units (Quarks and Guardians) around the map and place tokens to mark attacks. After each player takes their turn, the fights between units are resolved (the player attacking other units declares damage he/she deals upon an enemy unit).

Phase 2: Economic phase, completed simultaneously by all players, in which each player can establish links between Guardians, create Quarks, start building structures, and build technology tiles to boost units (or upgrade other military aspects of units or buildings). Important note: there is no randomness in the game, no dice rolling or card drawing. In fact, there are no dice or cards, but only Units and Technology Tiles available for purchase using certain resources.

From the beginning of the first round players need to focus on various aspects of military and economic development to gain control over the last active source and each of the 15 rounds is more and more intense. —description from the designer