Fight 5 – This Means War

If I think about popular culture, five sure seems to come up a lot. It’s the perfect group size, with an odd number tipping the balance so you’ve always got a majority. It’s the fingers on the hand, leading to slang like “five finger discount”. You’ve got five stages of grief, popular video games centering on “Five”, and even imaginary all-female-fighting-forces (I’m looking at you, Pulp Fiction).

None of those seem to apply when it comes to one of the latest games from Neon Knight Games, Fight 5. But it’s sure fun to think about. In Fight 5, you’ll be playing a reimagining of the classic game War with specialty decks and support for more players (Don’t worry, I didn’t bury the lede).

Fight 5 was created by Aaron Hein and Manny Trembly. It was published by Neon Knight Games, a studio of Chip Theory Games. Fight 5 plays 2-5 players (Shocking, I know!) and a game takes about 15 minutes. The box says ages 14+, but realistically this is closer to an 8+ game.

Setup

Each player takes one of the five player decks. Deal the special Clash deck into a series of face-down stacks, each with five cards. Each player shares two stacks with the player on their right, two stacks with the player on their left, and a central stack. This creates a line at two players and a five-pointed star at five players.

Set aside the rest of the Clash deck. I love a short and sweet setup!

Gameplay

The goal of Fight 5 is to win as many Clashes as possible. There are five Clashes in a round, and a bout lasts five rounds. (So many fives!)

In each round, each player draws five cards from their Player Deck. Then, turn the top card of each Clash deck face up if it isn’t already. Each player selects a card from their hand and puts it face down on the table next to each clash. This will always be five clashes, regardless of player count; two against the player on their left, two against the player on their right, and one in the middle.

When everyone is ready, each player simultaneously reveals their cards and evaluates each Clash.

A player wins a Clash if they are the only one to play a Star card. Star cards played by players beat all non-Star cards. (Clash cards that are stars have a power of zero.)

The player that played the highest card this round wins the Clash, as long as that card at least ties the face up Clash card.

If there is a tie between all players, those cards remain as trophies for the next Clash. They won’t be added to the Clash value but the winning player gets to take them.

The winning player takes the Clash card and all face up player cards for that Clash (including previously played cards). They go face down in the player’s Point Pile.

After five rounds, the bout ends. Now calculate scores!

End of Bout Scoring

Players get:

• Five points for each card with a value of ten or more.
• Ten points for each star card
• 15 points if they have the most cards (any value) in their Point Pile. All tied players get the full 15 points.

Ending the Game

The rules say the game ends after three bouts or once a player reaches 200 points, but players can choose to end the game after one or two bouts if they’ve had enough. Whoever has the most points wins!

Impressions

Fight 5 joins a now-growing list of games that are surprises coming from Chip Theory Games. They made their mark with big, deep, gorgeous, incredibly well produced titles (Too Many Bones, anyone?) and have recently pivoted into smaller, more accessible games. Fight 5 is one of those games not geared towards kids and thus not included in the Chip Theory Kids line. Instead, Chip Theory is publishing these kinds of games under their Neon Knights brand.

And Fight 5 feels like a casual game. This game shares a lot of DNA with War, but adds some player agency with card selection, and mixes it up to allow more than two players to play at a time. Adding players doesn’t feel like lessening the game, which is what can happen when trying to split a 52 card deck five ways. It’s quite the opposite, really. Fight Five thrives at higher player counts. Since revealing clash results can be done simultaneously, we would be adjudicating neighboring clashes all at once. Then we’d all come together for the highest stakes of them all, the center clash.

The addition of a third-party “automa” through the Clashes is a good mechanic as well. This anchors the general sense of where the number should end up on a given Clash, which creates a bit of a flow to the game, instead of just randomly putting numbers out to see what happens.

The inclusion of a center Clash that makes every player play against every other player is a clever addition as well. I’ve spent many nights at a table where I never interact with the player across from me because the game only allowed interaction with my neighbors. By adding a center Clash it forces interaction with everyone and simultaneously raises the stakes. At higher player counts, when you win the center Clash you get way more cards than a neighbor Clash. And with ties staying in place and not winning, playing a Star card isn’t always the right answer, either.

As usual, Chip Theory’s quality is very high. The cards feel great and the graphic design serves the gameplay well. It’s not a lush fantasy world, so the art isn’t going to wow anyone, but it does the job and does it well.

Fight 5 isn’t going to blow anyone away with new mechanics, and it’s not going to please the deep strategist. But it’s an approachable game that can support a reasonable player count, analogs well to a game your non-gaming family and friends probably already know, and fits decently into a large purse. This is a good game to play after a long day out where you don’t want to burn too many brain cells on strategy.

You can get your own copy of Fight 5 directly from Chip Theory Games, on Amazon, or at your friendly local game store.

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Chip Theory Games provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Fight 5 for this review.

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