Doctor Who: Worlds Apart Basics — The Board
In this article we will introduce you to the past, the present, and the future as well as a few related game elements.
Subject to change during alpha and beta testing.
- Your Avatar — a replica of The Thirteenth Doctor’s TARDIS in this case.
This doubles as your “hand,” i.e. the cards you draw are kept inside your TARDIS. - The game’s resource system: Artron Energy.
- The board, otherwise known as the present, shared by both players.
- The discard pile, called the past. This is also shared by both players.
- Your deck, called your future. This is unique to you.
Welcome to Skaro, Dalek City!
This is one of the battlegrounds that you will be able to land and fight on in the upcoming Doctor Who: Worlds Apart TCG in 2021. Each planet has its own unique effect on the game, but for now we will stick to the very basics.
Let’s take a closer look!
Each player has their own TARDIS. The aim of the game is to reduce the shields of your opponent’s TARDIS from 30 to 0, while keeping your own shields healthy. The first player to hit 0 loses the game!
For those new to Doctor Who, it’s the blue telephone box on the left side of the image. “TARDIS” stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space — the time machine that allows The Doctor (and now you!) to travel through time & space.
Before a match begins, both players draw five cards and get the option to discard and re-draw any number of these cards before the game begins. At the beginning of your first turn, you will draw an additional card. You will be able to see the backs of each of your opponent’s cards, so you will know how many cards they have throughout the game.
You can also see how many cards your opponent currently has, but only the backside.
Most cards cost Artron Energy to cast, which is stored in Cells that refresh at the start of your turn.
You start with 5 full Artron Cells. When your Cells are refreshed at the start of your turn, you also automatically gain an additional full Cell, so on your second turn you have 6, on your third turn you have 7, and so on, until you reach the max of 15 full Cells.
We have enough Artron to play 2 Cyber-Warriors on our first turn — let’s go ahead and do that! They will be able to attack at the start of our next turn.
Each player can have a maximum of 10 Creatures in the present at once. It’s still possible to play new Creatures if your board is full, but you’ll have to swap 1 present creature if you do.
Where does the swapped creature go? To the past, of course! This is also where all dead Creatures and spent non-Creature cards go. But don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to travel back in time and revive your fallen allies.
Before the game even begins, you’ve already created and selected a deck of 40 cards that you want to use in battle. This is your future.
Oh, turns out that our opponent passed their turn without doing anything. Great! Now we gain 1 additional Artron Energy, our previously spent Cells are refilled, and we get a new card from our future!
Game on!
We hope you enjoyed this basic introduction to the present, the past, and the future. If you have questions or just want to chat, feel free to join our Discord and Telegram channels.
Stay tuned for the next article where we will cover Attacking & Blocking.
Read our first article to get a better understand of the overall game.
— Allons-y!
