Has anyone else ever played this card game before? It's really cool...
Flying Buffalo's Nuclear War Card Game: Originally created in 1965. The original game included a Valkyrie XB-70 protype as an actual bomber, a Supergerm card (the game's mascot), and a few sheets of poulation mini-cards. The "Escalation" & "Proliferation" expansion packs brought Son of Supergerm and Supervirus cards, MX and cruise missiles, stealth bombers, the Delta Clipper (McDonnell Douglas DC-X) as a bomber spacecraft, a 200 Megaton Warhead, a space platform w/nukes (reloaded by space shuttle - awesome squared), and nuke-firing submarines (which we didn't utilize, but still cool). Plus more population mini-cards.
Me and my two friends each bought one box ($20 each for Nuclear War Original Cards + Nuclear Escalation Expansion + Nuclear Proliferation Expansion), and then combined the cards into a $60 4" monster deck. Then we took the polulation mini-card sheets and photocopied them for extended play (as you're "dead" when you run out of people). We also waved the two turns to launch a missile/warhead combination. You did both in one turn. First we dealt out the population cards... Then we dealt each person their starting hand of cards. Then...We dealt the DAMAGE...
Oh, the damage you could deal:
- Deploy a cuise missile on someone, and, at any time during your turn, you could let it go boom, or let it hover there. On your next turn, the missile moves on to the next player, and you decide again: boom or no boom...
- Why nuke? Deploy Supergerm and kill 25 million. Deploy Son of Supergerm and kill several million people over a three-turn span. Deploying a Supervirus, and each player will have a little of their population die off each time it's their turn. That is, unless someone pulls antidote card and spares everyone...for the moment.
- The Atomic Cannon... Shoot warheads like bullets...Nuff said...
- Why kill? You can always lure away someone's population with propaganda...or a legitimate landing on the moon. However, the beatnick pacifists in your own country may end up defecting.
- However, being dead doesn't mean you're not still dangerous. Any player whose remaining population dies via nuclear attack, or after being subjected to a fatal Secret or Top Secret scenario, gets to launch all their remaining warheads at anyone they choose (w/o delivery device, as is usually done), sometimes leaving a game with no winners. Also, there's a Doomsday Device card that triggers upon your death.
and not deal:
- Not only are several missiles in the deck, but also several missile countermeasures. Nuclear Fail...
- The six sided die rolled for number of kills had numbers 2-6, and a mushoom cloud in place of the 1. If you get the mushroom cloud, your missile dudded. Bummer...
- If the last of your population is exhausted via propaganda, no final retaliation is allowed. Bummer...
- Get a vaccine card, and you're population survives the latest plague. Yay!
- For you Big O fans:
-Get a dome city card (yes, it's an option) to not only avoid plagues, but also environmental catastrophes. Yay!
-A cloning card increases your population. Cool... (If I remember correctly, there was also an "undead" card to "bring back" your dead... OK, so that's weird.)
It's even gotten a
TV Tropes Page and
history pages.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play... How about a nice game of chess? ~ Joshua from "Wargames"
