Unboxing the Game
Martial Law doesn't come with a board. The huge box comes with over 300 cards, a number of card dividers and foam. The dividers and foam are used to store and segregate cards as the game requires you to distribute them a certain way when you begin play. In addition to this, the set includes "draft cards" that help you make the initial set up work more smoothly. Once all the draft cards are in place, you replace these with a pile of "real" cards for each draft. This type of setup is a bit odd but it does make absolute sense as I can think of no other elegant way to set up over 300 cards on a table. That would be a mess. The creators have somewhat addressed this issue in the rulebook and have designed a pre-made game template you can follow if you're not too keen on the daunting card setup.
Gameplay
The objective of Nightfall is to defeat your opponent by having the least number of "wounds" by the end of the game. Players don't have a set number of lives (as vampires, the undead, and werewolves are essentially immortal in this setting). Every time you damage a player, he or she draws one wound card which in turn gets shuffled back into the deck. In effect, wound cards make a player's deck more inefficient in the long run as they take up the much needed hand space for chaining moves.
There are two types of cards -- Minions and Orders. Minions are essentially creatures and Orders are "instants." Players begin their turn by placing a creature into play and then can chain various actions as long as conditions are met. This is called "Chaining."
Chaining is one of the core gameplay elements that makes Nightfall shine. All cards are color coordinated. When you play a card, you can play an additional card that matches the color of the previous one played. If you have no more cards to play, the next player can chain a series of cards that match the color conditions of the previous cards. And so on. All actions resolve after the last chain is made, and effects get resolved first in, last out. From a gameplay perspective, chaining cards reduce downtime by a lot, allowing all players an opportunity to do something even when it is not their turn.
The game ends when all players have used up the pool of wound cards. A 3 player game may have 30 wound cards and the player that has the least number of wounds by the end of the game wins.
Bottomline
Once the game gets going, Nightfall can easily be one of the most addicting deck builders to date. This is mainly because you're never idle even when it is not your turn so the downtime is reduced drastically with the game's chaining element.
The impression that each player controls one of the four factions is a misnomer. Although there is a 4-way war between the different factions, the cards are all mixed up in the game. The so-called "war" is really for thematic purposes.
As to whether you should get this game or the original Nightfall, that's completely up to you. The main difference between the two is the new "feed" element which allows you to repeat card effects by discarding cards or taking wounds. An average game of Nightfall can take up to around 30-45 minutes.
Sample Cards and Documentation
* more art can be found at the AEG Nightfall Facebook page
* Download the actual Nightfall Game Manual (15MB)
Pros
- hands down one of the best deck building games in the industry
- scales well with 2-5 players
- almost no downtime
Cons
- initial setup phase can be daunting to the new
- rulebook makes the game sound complicated when it isn't
- hard to find in Manila (Neutral Grounds has limited copies for PHP 1,800.00)
- advertised "promo cards" were not included in this set