Battlecrest Card Game Review: Pocket Tactics That Punch Up

About Battlecrest: Fellwoods Base Game, from BoardGameGeek:

What is the mark of a true champion? Legendary heroes clash across the Neververse to find out. Battlecrest is a card-based tactical skirmish game for 2 players (1-4 with expansions). With perfect information, players must truly outwit their opponent to win. Characters are composed of 6-card sets featuring a hero card, a health tracker, and action cards. Occasionally a minion or item will replace an action card. The map is built of 6 cards as well, with the cards randomly placed in a set pattern. Players take turns maneuvering their characters around the dynamic, and often dangerous map while unleashing powerful attacks. As action cards are used they open up new possibilities and empower the character's battlecrests. Build up to decisive strikes or refocus to get powers back. Every character has a unique set of actions and preferred tactics, so no two battles play the same. Shots ring out in the overgrown forest. A rugged pirate, festooned with weapons of war, stomps into view. He scans the nearby treeline with practiced rigor. In the gnarled canopy above, a celestial goddess calls for an ancestral blessing against this implacable foe. With a divine roar she drops to the ground below, swinging her ornate staff with the strength of a thousand lifetimes at her waiting target… The Fellwoods Base Game includes two heroes, Akhena and Mutiny (and his minion, RIG), and the Fellwoods map. All in just 18 cards, packed in our little wallets. No additional components are needed to play. The Fellwoods is a large, enchanted forest covering a remote, mostly unknow planet. Enormous, hulking trees, dense moss and vines, and shrouds of mist lock the secrets of the forest within. Wild Magic is very much alive here, protected by guardians and spirits. Fellwoods Map Set: 6 Landmark cards Akhena is cosmic energy personified. A font of ancient knowledge provides her with a flexibility that mere mortals lack. In battle she draws guidance from powerful ancestor spirits, giving her both durability and strength in equal measure. To defeat her is to defeat mortality itself, for what could be more deadly than a living goddess? Akhena Hero set: 1 Hero, 1 Health, 4 Action cards. Akhena AI Sheet: for solo play, requires Imperator expansion. This rugged raider has seen better days, but that won't stop him. He's got a head full of schemes and an array of ill-gotten loot to keep him going. Wily and clever, Mutiny knows better than to pick a fair fight. The best battles are the ones that end in a single shot from afar with his clockwork RIG helping to pin the target down. Less fuss that way. Mutiny Hero set: 1 Hero, 1 Health, 1 Minion, 3 Action cards. Mutiny AI Sheet: for solo play, requires Imperator expansion.