Ahoy! Brian here – current lead designer of 7th Sea: card game for card players. Today I’m going to do a quick rundown of the new Leaders you will find in the Fate and Fortune expansion and why we went the directions we did.
Vodacce
Across all the factions, we wanted to support alternative playstyles that run differently than the core set Leaders. This meant providing supporting cards in some capacity to the factions, and the existing card pool for only considering a single leader previously. With Vodacce, it wasn’t even a choice. They were getting a strega to begin with, and as her ability to draw before planning your character and scheme was something I had ready to go before even joining the team, her card’s my baby. Strega were a primarily supporting feature in Vodacce’s approach deck previously, so they received sorcery calls to actively participate in the board. I realized once she was totally done, I may have made netrunner’s Personal Evolution on a body here. She entices an aggressive player to engage physically with her witches, but that enables her deadly tricks.
Eisen
Daniella was difficult, and ended up being the least obvious shift in leader play. Kaspar directly encourages recruiting mercs, but Daniella doesn’t have weak influence. She also still has a middling combat stat line. She is similar to Odette – she enables a certain suite of cards and benefits mobbing a single location. Her cost-reduction was a huge boon for Devotion. Love to see it. In truth, I find Eisen’s Leader is actually in their expanded card pool, with hopefully a distinct split in character and deck choices between the two Dietrichs.
Montaigne
Moving to a much easier Leader to design, we have Angeline! We knew we wanted a solo combat leader to stand totally opposite Odette’s playstyle, and her wounding gimmick was pitched immediately, and stuck forever, but it actually became a gameplan with the Kidnapping Technique. Angeline is quite self-sufficient, with her own printed quest each day, but all the Montaigne Sorcerers received some amazing abilities. The Scheme, Hour of Blood, lets any Sorcerer open portals for their compatriots, and Blood Entrance is an expensive surprise action from any enterprising caster. Maxime teleporting for a recruit, or Angeline popping in to punt a foe through a portal are expensive, decisive plays that allow a Montaigne Leader with smaller hand and lower influence really succeed. To me, she fulfills the immediate power fantasy that a player approaches Yevgeni with. A beast of a character, but one that is allowed to seek out their food.
Castille
The Castillian fans are a thorn in everyone’s side, those Scoundrels. So, with Sanjay, we wanted to give a gift of a Combat Leader to those that wished it. Buffing gambled cards is a very Castillian flavor, and striking from multiple angles, with the possibility of an Influence challenge, is a great payoff for the existing discard theme. With the new Scheme, When Least Expected, a single Sanjay can posture duels of all three stats! This gameplan didn’t require new card suites, so the Castillian cardpool in Fate and Fortune focuses on introducing combat effects that are expressly Castille themed, which Sanjay would doubly benefit from. He sticks in my memory, and I believe he was the first card to be designed for the expansion.
Ussura
Yevgeni rears his head in funny ways. Yevgeni has the lowest handsize, and Odette has the highest. Each affects their card pool significantly. Ussura’s existing card pool is full of active, cheap actions, to accommodate the lack of options in a small hand. Fortunately for attempting to make an Academic Leader, all the significant cards engaged with Yevgeni’s high Combat stat. This allowed us to make another independent leader, who did get some cards to play around claiming locations, but mainly just plays with her own textbox. Ekaterina comes printed with her own objectives- Search high and low for artifacts, and if someone is taking your gold, shout them down. Ekaterina fits in the expansion as the character specialist leader. Each game with player characters needs a breadth of styles from obvious to tryhard to unique, and with Ekaterina coming in last, the expansion feels complete as an environment. She did not encounter many changes with this iteration, but probably went through the most concept pitches to end of where she is.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you found a new Leader to love in this expansion. We tried to give you all new game niches to explore. Maybe you’ll even find that a new Faction inspires you!