SPALDING WARGAMING CLUB
Brawl is a real time card game. No taking turns. You just play your cards as you want, as fast or slow as you like. Each deck represents a fighter in some mad mixed martial arts high school; the 35 cards represent different moves and you play them fast and furious.
Gameplay involves hanging 'Hits' of the same colour off 'Base' cards on the table. You can place 'Blocks' on your opponent's stack of 'Hits' - and he can use 'Press' cards to break your 'Blocks'. You can use 'Clears' to sweep away an entire 'Base' and everything on it, then play a fresh 'Base' of your own. Down at the bottom of each deck are the 'Freeze' cards that lock down a 'Base'. Once all 'Bases' are frozen, you add up who has the most 'Hits' on each. The person who dominates the most 'Bases' wins.
Simples? Yes, it is. But it can do your head in. You see, often you cannot play a card (maybe you've got a 'Block' but nothing to block, or a red card but only blue and green stacks in play, or a 'Base' but there are already the maximum 3 Bases in play) so you discard. You can play off your discard pile if you like, so you need to remember what you've discarded. Sometimes it's better to hesitate rather than discard - and sometimes you discard like crazy in order to burn through your deck and freeze all the bases.
It's not just a game of slapping down cards quickly. The decks are different. Hale is a bigger hitter who needs to power through his deck as quickly as possible; Bennett plays slower, with all his 'Clears' and 'Presses'; Pearl is a bit of an all-rounder but can't do much against red cards; Morgan lacks big whallops but can play well in all colours.
I'm not sure it's much like fighting, but it's ferocious and confusing and over in seconds and you just want to do it again. And again. Then try playing it with 3 or 4 people, all with their own decks, so you're playing cards to your left and to your right. Insane! Let's do it again!