It didn’t take long for the Indiegogo to secure enough funding for the first four nemeses, and since then I’ve been developing and beta testing them frequently. Feedback has been really positive so far, so I thought it was about time to give a preview!

Note that many details here could change before release.

Nemesis Challenge Levels

Nemeses currently have 6 difficulty levels.

The lowest is called Normal, and I am targeting a beginner-friendly experience for it. We’ve done beta tests with starter decks and minimal collections and have been able to beat Normal without too many tries. On Normal difficulty each nemesis has 1 special ability.

After Normal you can play against Challenge 1 through Challenge 5. Here’s a breakdown of the levels:

Challenge 1

More cards get added to the nemesis deck list. Usually these cards include new types of threats, like adding an air force to what was a ground-focused deck on Normal mode.

+30% units on all unit cards (rounded down).

-1 cost to all structure and action cards (applied randomly to either minerals or gas).

Challenge 2

A 2nd nemesis-specific power.

Challenge 3

+30% units on all unit cards (rounded down). This stacks with previous bonuses.

-1 cost to all structure and action cards (applied randomly to either minerals or gas). This stacks with previous bonuses.

Challenge 4

A 3rd nemesis-specific power.

Challenge 5

+30% units on all unit cards (rounded down). This stacks with previous bonuses.

-1 cost to all structure and action cards (applied randomly to either minerals or gas). This stacks with previous bonuses.

Some time around Challenge 3 or 4 you can’t just bring strong decks, you have to specifically counter what the nemesis is doing. By the time you get to Challenge 5 your whole team needs to agree on a game plan that counters the nemesis and execute on it perfectly, with good draws and lots of communication… and even then don’t expect to succeed without multiple tries.

Confederate Armed Forces

The Confederate Armed Forces are focused on two main things: production and punishing you for playing expensive cards.

They start with 1 Bunker and 2 Supply Depots per player, as well as a single Siege Tank, operated by none other than Colonel Edmund Duke. The Supply Depots create an incentive to attack early, as each one you kill will make its owner discard a card, but the other defenses make this a bit of a challenge.

Massive Retaliation (all difficulties)

Each turn, if at least one player played a card that costs 9 or more resources, the Confederates do one of the following: (1) Launch a Nuke. (2) Send 1 Battlecruiser per player (3) drop 24 Marines per player onto your side of the battlefield.

Massive Retaliation is primarily a deck-building challenge. Can you figure out how to win without relying on any 9-12 cost cards?

Military Logistics (Challenge 2 and higher)

Cargo Trucks periodically spawn on the cliff and leave the battlefield via the Confederate side. Each one that leaves draws its owner a card and then reduces the cost of structures in its owner’s hand by 1 mineral or gas (chosen randomly).

Military Logistics makes it important to seize control of the center of the map and the cliff. If you play too passively the Confederates will use the extra card draw and cost reduction to play an insurmountable number of Barracks and Factories.

Escalating Tensions (Challenge 4 and higher)

On any turn where the Confederates lose a structure, decrease the limit of Massive Retaliation by 1. (For example, after Escalation Tensions triggers the first time you won’t be able to play cards that cost 8 or more without triggering a Massive Retaliation.)

This final ability makes it impossible to play a typical long-term game against the Confederates. Even if you try to avoid killing any of their structures by playing defensively, they will eventually start to expand onto your half of the battlefield.

Is the best strategy to set up such powerful defenses that you can just stop playing cards once tensions escalate too much? Or should you attack fast and hard, killing them before tensions escalate? Players will have to experiment and decide for themselves!

I hope this was an exciting preview for fans of KeyStone! If it looks fun to you, consider becoming a supporter. If you get the Beta Tester perk you’ll be able to play and watch nemesis mode games before the release, and the more people donate the bigger the expansion will be!

If you have any questions about the mode or the Confederate nemesis, feel free to ask in the comments below. I may not be able to answer every question though, as some parts of the mode are still a work in progress!