Lone Wolves

Players become leaders of wolf packs in Lone Wolves, fighting over regions to become the Alpha. To assert your dominance and secure victory, you send wolves out to territories. The stronger wolf wins and strengthens your pack's position – but despite gaining a scar from the fight and becoming a lone wolf, the weaker one learns from the experience and improves its pack's standing for the next encounter. In your struggle, you must know when to bare your teeth – and when to go it alone.

Lone Wolves is a duelling game for two players with elements of trick-taking and area majority, played over thirteen rounds (tricks). Players start with thirteen cards, and each trick consists of the players each playing a single wolf card, of which there are five suits, each with cards 2-7 (thirty cards). However, the cards are played into one of five territories of the player's choice, each of which awards points to the player who controls it at the end of the game. The value of the card represents the strength sent to that territory. The winning card of a trick stays face up, while the other player's wolf is flipped to its lone wolf side (with a strength of 1). The owner of the losing card receives a scar token to place in a territory, and scar tokens have effects such as awarding points for specific cards played into territories, changing strength values or affecting the points awarded in territories.

Unlike most trick-taking games, however, the trump suit in Lone Wolves is dynamic and changes as the game progresses. When all scar tokens have been taken from one territory, the corresponding suit becomes trump; when this happens a second time, the trump suit changes again. The push and pull of knowing when to take or lose the trick means there are no weak hands – only weak leaders.

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