Holdfast is built for 2-8 players with games anywhere from 5 minutes long to several hours. It all depends on how many cards your group plays with and how many players sit down at the table. But it only works if everyone uses the same number of cards. Each player takes turns harvesting their bounty, spending it to play their cards, and assaulting one another if so desired. The stronger your hold and the more resources you have at your disposal, the better a chance you have at winning.

Unlike other popular card games of the sort, Holdfast is unique in a few ways. Players do not have life totals. Keeping their holdfast from falling is the name of the game. Bounty doesn't go away between turns. It persists for as long as you don't use it, meaning you can stock up for sweeping plays. There is a shared discard pile called the "Middling". What you put in there, another player can try to use. Where most card games are about drawing the right hand to see your plans through, Holdfast ensures you'll almost always be able to play your entire deck.

That's great, but how do you win?

It's about being the last player standing. You win by having no more enemies. You lose in one of two ways - your hold has no more structures and you can't seem to build a new one, or your hold has no more denizens and you cannot succeed in raising more. What's a sovereign without their hold? What's a leader without their people?Losing only happens when your deck is empty.

So you might be thinking, why play anything at all until you might start losing? The game only checks if you've lost at one particular time each turn. It's designed to give you a last chance to get back on your feet. But if your enemy takes out all your structures or all your denizens, then they can assault you directly. And when they do, you lose cards from your hand. The better you defend yourself, the more opportunities you can afford on future turns.

But if that's how it works, why assault at all? The cards on your field cost you bounty each turn to maintain, and when you have no more cards in your deck that maintenance cost grows each turn without end. Eventually, the game will price you out.

How do I craft a winning strategy?

Winning is a delicate balance of building the best defenses, fielding the strongest populace, finding a unique advantage, and risking it all on the right opportunities. You can win by total defense if you can stave off the ever-growing costs. You can assault your way to victory by tearing down the enemy perimeter and removing threats from their hand. You can eliminate an enemy's army without ever stepping onto the field. Lay traps, build walls, stow away your valuables, and usher in a new dawn.

You cannot play Holdfast alone (yet), so grab a friend! You need a 64-card deck, exactly that number, with no more copies of each card than allowed. How do you know the number of copies allowed? Check the card's "copy-count" - a badge that appears at the bottom of the image. This denotes not only how many can be in your deck but the strength of the card as well. The better it is, the fewer you can run.

Shuffle your deck thoroughly and split into two piles. Each player picks wich of the other's two piles becomes their deck, and the remainder becomes their hand. Yes, half your deck becomes your hand. Decide who goes first. The second player gains extra bounty (five in a two-player game, or two per other player in larger games) to offset the advantage the first player has by going first. Once all that is done, you can begin!

Your field has three zones: courtyard, perimeter, and outlands. The outlands are shared and dangerous; the courtyard is safe. The perimeter separates them.

You must build your perimeter by connecting two or more structures. If breached, the perimeter collapses and courtyard merges with outlands until rebuilt. This is called "zone collapse".