I’ve planned out this deck for Top Trumps. I haven’t spent too much time on it so far, so it is still pretty crude. I’m sure you disagree with half the stuff I have chosen!
Those unfamiliar with the game should look at toptrumps.com. It is a card game where you win the cards from other players by getting highest value for your chosen category, winner is the player with all the cards at the end of the game.
There are hundreds of official packs. They used to be about weirdly mundane things like boats and cars (I had a set for supersonic planes) with real-world values for top speed and size, but now they are mostly for characters in films or tv shows.
If anyone fancies turning these into a nice looking set then they are welcome to (they’d need a short blurb and pic for each card), but I have left a playing card reference if you want to have a go at playing it in the meantime, strip the deck of all other cards, see your current card then look up the corresponding character on the chart.
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Rank Magic Ob. Int. Combat Evilness Playing card
Chaos Dwarf Warrior 100 5 15 6 40 7 2�T�
Chaos Dwarf Deathmask 200 5 13 7 50 8 3�T�
Infernal Guard 80 6 35 6 53 8 4�T�
Infernal Ironsworn 90 6 39 6 59 8 5�T�
Infernal Castellan 600 5 9 8 72 9 6�T�
Immortal 250 5 38 7 63 8 7�T�
Chaos Dwarf Engineer 150 6 1 8 38 7 8�T�
Daemonsmith 840 9 3 9 48 10 9�T�
Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer 800 9 7 9 43 10 J�T�
Sorcerer-Prophet 900 10 5 10 75 10 A�T�
Bull Centaur 300 7 28 7 65 7 2�T�
Bull Centaur Ba’hal 500 7 26 7 69 8 3�T�
Taur-ruk 750 7 25 8 84 9 4�T�
Great Taurus 120 6 29 6 83 6 5�T�
Bale Taurus 170 6 34 6 90 7 6�T�
Lammasu 650 9 20 9 68 9 7�T�
K’daai Fireborn 93 8 49 2 67 7 8�T�
K’daai Destroyer 95 8 50 2 100 7 9�T�
Hellbound machine 77 8 5 1 85 9 A�T�
Snotling 1 1 42 3 5 5 2�T�
Goblin 5 3 48 4 19 6 3�T�
Orc 20 3 44 3 31 5 4�T�
Black Orc 30 2 20 5 39 5 5�T�
Slave Ogre 38 2 45 4 61 4 6�T�
Slave Giant 35 2 40 4 80 4 7�T�
Hobgoblin 40 3 23 6 20 6 8�T�
Hobgoblin Wolfrider 42 3 21 6 24 6 9�T�
Sneaky Git 45 3 15 7 27 9 J�T�
Hobgoblin Murderboss 50 4 22 7 25 7 K�T�
Hobgoblin Khan 60 4 17 8 67 10 A�T�[/php]
(categories are Rank, Magic, Obedience, Intelligence, Combat, Evilness - can’t seem to get it to line up nicely!)
Basic rules for play:
Deal out the whole deck to all of the players. Player to dealer’s left goes first. They look at the card on the top of their deck, pick a category, read it out aloud and the corresponding number for that card. Each other player then reads out the number for that category for top card of their hand. Highest number wins. Winner takes all of the cards played in that round and puts them at the bottom of his pile. He now gets to choose the category for the next round. If the winning cards are tied, all the cards for that round are placed in the middle and another round is performed - the winner of which wins all the cards in the middle (or repeat again if another tie, etc).
There were several key design decisions based on the existing decks I have access to (Bugs, Dinosaurs, and Cars 2):
There have to be 30 cards in a deck, with six categories giving the values for each deck
Some categories use a huge scale, others use much smaller scales - this means there are more chances of a tie in certain categories
I needed each card to have at least one weak/strong value - the overall stronger cards don’t have to be the weakest for that category, but below average
Many of the values are subjective, everyone will probably disagree with at least one value on each card (my son has the Cars 2 deck which gives McQueen a huge Friendship value, but the main point of the film is how he isn’t being a good friend! (well apart from the merchandising))
Some of my reasoning:
I combined aspects from the LoA list, the classic 4th-RH list, and general fluff to come up with the list of cards.
The Sorcerer-Prophet was so similar to the Sorcerer Lord that I figured they should be the same card. Their main obedience is to Hashut, but you don’t rise through the ranks without a bit of personal ambition! Engineers are just reckless.
The values are really just a means to an end, something that allows the cards to compete.
Obedience was one of the tougher categories to fill out, maybe I should just replace it, but it was an easy way to give the toughest cards a weakpoint
Giving values to the bound creatures was pretty tough, so arbitrary really - are they smart and tricksy daemons or mindless beings who don’t really know much about the non-Chaos world around them?
I’ve planned out this deck for Top Trumps. I haven’t spent too much time on it so far, so it is still pretty crude. I’m sure you disagree with half the stuff I have chosen!
Those unfamiliar with the game should look at toptrumps.com. It is a card game where you win the cards from other players by getting highest value for your chosen category, winner is the player with all the cards at the end of the game.
There are hundreds of official packs. They used to be about weirdly mundane things like boats and cars (I had a set for supersonic planes) with real-world values for top speed and size, but now they are mostly for characters in films or tv shows.
If anyone fancies turning these into a nice looking set then they are welcome to (they’d need a short blurb and pic for each card), but I have left a playing card reference if you want to have a go at playing it in the meantime, strip the deck of all other cards, see your current card then look up the corresponding character on the chart.
[php]
Rank Magic Ob. Int. Combat Evilness Playing card
Chaos Dwarf Warrior 100 5 15 6 40 7 2�T�
Chaos Dwarf Deathmask 200 5 13 7 50 8 3�T�
Infernal Guard 80 6 35 6 53 8 4�T�
Infernal Ironsworn 90 6 39 6 59 8 5�T�
Infernal Castellan 600 5 9 8 72 9 6�T�
Immortal 250 5 38 7 63 8 7�T�
Chaos Dwarf Engineer 150 6 1 8 38 7 8�T�
Daemonsmith 840 9 3 9 48 10 9�T�
Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer 800 9 7 9 43 10 J�T�
Sorcerer-Prophet 900 10 5 10 75 10 A�T�
Bull Centaur 300 7 28 7 65 7 2�T�
Bull Centaur Ba’hal 500 7 26 7 69 8 3�T�
Taur-ruk 750 7 25 8 84 9 4�T�
Great Taurus 120 6 29 6 83 6 5�T�
Bale Taurus 170 6 34 6 90 7 6�T�
Lammasu 650 9 20 9 68 9 7�T�
K’daai Fireborn 93 8 49 2 67 7 8�T�
K’daai Destroyer 95 8 50 2 100 7 9�T�
Hellbound machine 77 8 5 1 85 9 A�T�
Snotling 1 1 42 3 5 5 2�T�
Goblin 5 3 48 4 19 6 3�T�
Orc 20 3 44 3 31 5 4�T�
Black Orc 30 2 20 5 39 5 5�T�
Slave Ogre 38 2 45 4 61 4 6�T�
Slave Giant 35 2 40 4 80 4 7�T�
Hobgoblin 40 3 23 6 20 6 8�T�
Hobgoblin Wolfrider 42 3 21 6 24 6 9�T�
Sneaky Git 45 3 15 7 27 9 J�T�
Hobgoblin Murderboss 50 4 22 7 25 7 K�T�
Hobgoblin Khan 60 4 17 8 67 10 A�T�[/php]
(categories are Rank, Magic, Obedience, Intelligence, Combat, Evilness - can’t seem to get it to line up nicely!)
Basic rules for play:
Deal out the whole deck to all of the players. Player to dealer’s left goes first. They look at the card on the top of their deck, pick a category, read it out aloud and the corresponding number for that card. Each other player then reads out the number for that category for top card of their hand. Highest number wins. Winner takes all of the cards played in that round and puts them at the bottom of his pile. He now gets to choose the category for the next round. If the winning cards are tied, all the cards for that round are placed in the middle and another round is performed - the winner of which wins all the cards in the middle (or repeat again if another tie, etc).
There were several key design decisions based on the existing decks I have access to (Bugs, Dinosaurs, and Cars 2):
There have to be 30 cards in a deck, with six categories giving the values for each deck
Some categories use a huge scale, others use much smaller scales - this means there are more chances of a tie in certain categories
I needed each card to have at least one weak/strong value - the overall stronger cards don’t have to be the weakest for that category, but below average
Many of the values are subjective, everyone will probably disagree with at least one value on each card (my son has the Cars 2 deck which gives McQueen a huge Friendship value, but the main point of the film is how he isn’t being a good friend! (well apart from the merchandising))
Some of my reasoning:
I combined aspects from the LoA list, the classic 4th-RH list, and general fluff to come up with the list of cards.
The Sorcerer-Prophet was so similar to the Sorcerer Lord that I figured they should be the same card. Their main obedience is to Hashut, but you don’t rise through the ranks without a bit of personal ambition! Engineers are just reckless.
The values are really just a means to an end, something that allows the cards to compete.
Obedience was one of the tougher categories to fill out, maybe I should just replace it, but it was an easy way to give the toughest cards a weakpoint
Giving values to the bound creatures was pretty tough, so arbitrary really - are they smart and tricksy daemons or mindless beings who don’t really know much about the non-Chaos world around them?
I have many decks of top trumps myself (as well as the old Citadel Combat Cards which were GWs blatant idea steal) and having a Chaos Dwarf version would be awesome.
Thanks! I need somewhere to spit out the results of my crazy obsessions, and teaching Top Trumps strategies to three-year-olds wasn't going to be enough (I was successful, they can beat me now). If I'd managed to find a decent blank-card template you'd have seen a printable deck by the weekend!
Varden: "Vile" sounds much better than "evilness", might have to switch that, thanks.
I’ve mocked up a few cards, just need some pictures. Anyone want to volunteer their art or photos of models (preferably the latter)? I’ll give you credit on the card itself and make a pdf for anyone who wants to print them out. I will probably even make a pro-looking deck of the whole lot which anyone will be able to buy directly from the card manufacturer.
You’re more than welcome tu use anything you think suitable from my Painting Log (and I’m going to be adding a couple more pictures of a Bale Taurus once I get home this evening)
Thanks to Thommy and Vogon for offering the use of your pictures. I expect I’ll use a few of each of your photos if I do the whole lot. Here are the mock-ups I promised. I’m still not 100% decided on how best to present some aspects. The white lines around the edges of the photos was a pure accident, but I might do it intentionally for the rest to give it a cleaner look.
I’ve also been thinking about adding a number to each card so that they can be used as a random number generator if someone has forgotten their D20 - or I could just adjust the rank numbers to do that. Maybe I could also create cards that emulate the scatter/artillery dice. Any other ideas?
If anyone is doing their own CD magic cards then this would be something to bulk up a pro-printed 54 card deck.
