The interactive story of Volkov’s Escape was initially created as a way to tell the story of Roman Volkov, and the secret coup that resulted in his Exile.
It gives players and lore-heads the backstory to Volkov, as well as characters like Adam Zoff and Candela Zeana, and the tech-forward nation of Trionvice.
It also gave us the unique opportunity to create a mini set of 20 cards that are derived specifically from the interactive story!
So, what does Set 000 bring to the game specifically? We’ll touch on both of the leaders in the set, and 5 of the most interesting and influential cards.
First, let’s take a look at the leaders, whose names you’ll recognize from Genesis of Conflict. In Volkov’s Escape, they feature different abilities that reflect their positions of power shortly before Volkov’s exile.
Premier Roman, leader of Trionvice.
We’ll let you compare Premier Roman against Roman Volkov, the Exile yourself, but keen-eyed players will recognize similarities between the abilities of both cards.
PUSH is an ability that allows you to find a drone in your arsenal and put it with your board, without paying its resource costs.
It’s also an ability that we’ll see consistently going forward, specifically available on the current leader of Trionvice.
FURY is similar to the Exile’s ability REVENGE, and at a glance might look less powerful than the latter ability. But don’t be fooled by the lower number of cards discarded; the lower number allows for the ability to still make an attack with your forces on the same turn.
Premier Roman also has a very unique ‘asterisk ability’. Through his leadership and control of Trionvice’s technology, whenever a non-soldier drone is ready on your board, an enemy discards the top card of their arsenal.
This asterisk ability combines beautifully with the PUSH ability, and by using cards like Abandoned Forces, your opponent’s arsenal won’t stand much of a chance.
Adam Zoff, Weapons Developer.
Before the coup that installed Zoff as the premier of Trionvice, he was a talented weapons developer, and a co-founder of GR Weapons Systems.
Taking a look through some of the drone and army forces from set 001, players will notice that a few of them have ‘GR’ titles in the name. Adam Zoff likely had a hand in many of their designs.
INVENT allows the player to find an army force or intel card from their arsenal and put it in their hand.
Forgive us, but players will be able to ‘invent’ the best options for themselves as they need throughout the game.
DELIVER is a big ability that lets a player put any combination of up to 3 army force or intel cards with their board for free, ready to use. All 3 cards must come from the player’s hand, and each card must be uniquely named, so look for different cards to create strong combinations.
Protecting your hand, and strategically using INVENT to maximize your options can result in a massive play.
As the flavor text says…Package delivered.
These two leaders square off and give players another unique way to play. They also give us a really cool way to evolve the backstory and lore of our leaders and the world of Warsaken.
Now let’s take a look at some of the other interesting cards in the set!
Magnetic Cuffs is an intel card that locks out an enemy soldier until your next turn. It won’t be able to attack or block and loses all ability text while the Cuffs are attached.
Watch out though! When the Cuffs are detached from the soldier, it regains any ability text it had, which means any activated abilities will fire. Be careful who you slap these Cuffs on!
Covert Connections is an intel that lets you find 2 supplier forces in your arsenal and put them in your hand.
Call in your favors, and have your suppliers find you some assets while they use TERRITORIAL to ensure your opponent’s suppliers can’t stick around.
GR Headquarters is a fabrication building that uses CRAFT repeatedly to help you find non-soldier forces or innovation intel cards from your arsenal.
Is that Adam Zoff’s office right near the top…?
Sev-R is a drone with the unique ability to give your leader a health boost.
While Sev-R wasn’t talked about in the interactive story, we took a little creative liberty to design a one-of-a-kind drone that Trionvice is capable of producing.
Above and beyond Sev-R’s health boosting, it’s also no slouch in battle thanks to STEALTH and a mid-range attack and health value.
Secret Coup is a morale card that can significantly change the game on the fly.
If a player is willing to pay some generic resources and a hefty 3 morale, they’ll be able to swap the leader they have in their legion with a leader from their sideboard. Any damage and compromised status are transferred to the new leader, and the new leader will arrive with ability timers set to their full value.
If things aren’t going well in your game, or you want to surprise your opponent with different abilities (including static asterisk abilities) to change up the game, this is the ticket.
We’re very excited to see how players use this card in the future. We’ve got some ideas we tested ourselves, but we’ll hold those tight for now!
BONUS CARD!
Roman’s Prototype was originally released in set 001 – Genesis of Conflict.[br]
We decided to reprint it with alternate art because of its importance to the story of Volkov’s Escape, and the future stories and characters the Prototype is connected to.
Make sure to look really closely at the cockpit!
Going forward, we plan to create more mini sets between the main sets of cards, using them to tell important stories that start, end, and progress the arcs of many characters and nations.
If you want to see the rest of the card designs for Volkov’s Escape, make sure to join our Discord. We can’t help ourselves; we like to leak our designs to the community!
The cards from Volkov’s Escape will be available later this year for purchase and play. In the meantime, head on over to Warsaken Standard to start learning gameplay rules, or The Store to grab some card packs.
If you find the lore of Warsaken interesting and want more, jump over to the Lore page for more!
