Skytear Factions | Skytear

Skytear Factions

Discover the four factions ruling over the world of Olan Taa

The War for Skytear

SKYTEAR IS THE ENERGY that permeates the universe. Exploited for centuries to create and develop civilizations, most of the territories of Olan Taa have been drained of Skytear. THE WORLD of Olan Taa is composed of myriad floating islands drifting around a core of pure Skytear energy. Sentient beings have created magic wells that drag Skytear fragments from nearby, like magnets.

Armies from the FOUR REALMS march towards the border islands to reinforce their boundaries and claim new energy sources.

This is an age of war.
THE WAR FOR SKYTEAR HAS JUST BEGUN.

Review on boardgamegeek.com by gimlianon · May 2020 · Ontario · Canada

"The card play is a lot of fun and the heroes are all very distinct."

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Amazing 1v1 card driven MOBA. Picked up in retail during COVID crisis and have been playing on TTS. The card play is a lot of fun and the heroes are all very distinct. The designers are also super active in the community and are incredible helpful and enthusiastic.

Kurumo

CRAFTER OF WAR

Kurumo Warriors

KURUMO is a lively God, passionate and caring about its followers’ needs. Most of its people’s creations, from the simplest agricultural tools to the finest and deadliest war-machine, are created under its guidance.

Heroes of Kurumo can submit their target to the God’s judgment and a burnt MARK appears on the target’s skin. Kurumo heroes are naturally attracted by marked enemies, like wolves by a bloodied prey.

Gameplay

Kurumo warriors mark their enemies to coordinate powerful attacks toward them.

Their heroes are mostly aggressive and their power cards help them even more lethal. Get ready to strike twice, burn enemy mana to prevent them from performing any evasive reaction, or even block their healing!

  • Playstyle: Aggressive
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Asymmetry: Mark

Liothan

LORD OF LIFE

Liothan Shapeshifters

LIOTHAN bases its approach to creation on perfecting research and comparative study. Nothing is left uncontrolled; each aspect is calculated and studied, down to the smallest details. In the fragile natural balance of Olan Taa, efficiency must be kept at maximum to achieve goals and survive.

Heroes of Liothan SHAPESHIFT themselves into animals, exploiting natural features usually sentient beings lack, like wings, gills or claws. They use natural features like forests, cliffs and hollows like wild animals hunting their prey.

Gameplay

Liothan heroes transform themselves into wild animals at will and hunt in packs: the more they are, the stronger they become!

They are focused on sustain, self-healing, and spawning new minions to outnumber their enemies. Liothan power cards are perfect to draw multiple cards, predict, and prepare an answer for every situation.

  • Playstyle: Defensive
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Asymmetry: Shapeshifting

Taulot

KEEPER OF THE UNDERWORLD

Taulot Followers

TAULOT is probably the darkest and most introverted God—for sure the most stubborn and grumpy. By following their Creator’s philosophy, Taulot’s worshippers are very reluctant to build relationships with other Realms and prefer to rely only to their forces.

Heroes of Taulot erects unstable PILLARS that can unleash huge amount of Skytear when crumbling, allowing them to generate spells and effects beyond limits.

Gameplay

Taulot warriors act like a collective hive mind: they place pillars all over the battlefield and use them from anywhere as catalysts for their powers.

Their power cards increase armor, skirmish damage, and strongly influence where their enemies are going to move (or not move!). They are also known for interacting with their past, making them unpredictable and - from time to time - insanely aggressive.

  • Playstyle: Mid-Range
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Asymmetry: Pillars

Nupten

RULER OF MIND

Nupten Illusionists

NUPTEN was the first God to teach its worshippers to channel and manipulate Skytear, creating a brand new race of superior beings that ruled above every other creature. Arrogant and conceited beyond imagination, it believes its skills are superior to all other Gods.

Heroes of Nupten summon ILLUSIONS to manipulate other people’s minds and feelings. Some of their most powerful magicians, though, are able to impose their mind over matter as well, somehow bending parts of reality to their will.

Gameplay

Nupten mages deceive their enemies summoning illusions of themselves... and use them to extender their powers over the battlefield.

They are unpredictable and threatening to play against, thanks to their power cards full of counterspells, misdirection, and the highest concentration of direct damage spells.

  • Playstyle: Mid-Range
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Asymmetry: Illusions

Explore the Universe

Two fully illustrated books explore the world of Olan Taa with all its heroes and notable places.

Heroes of the New Hope is the first volume of the Skytear Chronicles which tells the stories of the 12 heroes that are fighting for a better future.

Champions of Olan Taa is the second volume of the Skytear Chronicles and explores the stories of the 12 heroes fighting to maintain the current order.

Get the books

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The Tutorials

Videos and resources to help you learn the rules, including the print & play version.

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The Digital Version

To play Skytear with all 28 heroes on a digital tabletop simulator with people from our Discord server.

Is it really Free?

Yes, we shared 100% of Skytear for free online, no strings attached!

Even though we designed Skytear to be played in-person around a table with cards and miniatures you can touch... we decided to make a free version available online to grow the global community and play tournaments with hundreds of participants all over the world.

With this said, if you are sold already, and prefer to play in-person (it's like 100 times better!) you can browse our shop and enjoy free worldwide shipping from one of our 5 warehouses around the globe.

Otherwise, if you are still on the fence about it, just sign up above and we'll send you emails to evaluate Skytear and get started playing it!

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Review on boardgamegeek.com by Rob Mordak from Ontario, Canada

"Honestly, this is a steal of a price and probably the most cost effective game on the market today (I would know, I own hundreds of them)."

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OK, to start off, this is a M"O"BA (Multiplayer "Online" Battle Arena) Type game so your protecting your "bases" with your heroes and you generate little autonomous soldiers to assist.

While never really liking the video game version of this type of game, I actually quite enjoyed the table top version.

Wanting to test the waters before diving too deep, my fiancee and I sat down, watched the 5 minute tutorial video followed by her sleeveing the cards while I read the rules out-loud.
The 5 minute video does an excellent job showing you a super quick over view of parts, areas and heroes but it does miss out on important facts (especially for first game players) for:
1. How to build a deck (Yes, an example is provided in the tutorial in the rules but a quick flash on screen of the deck would have been nice)
2. How to use the outsider (the wording on the card is a little strange and the fact that, if you don't know there will be other outsiders, and you read the provided outsider card "set up, they can't move" followed by his possible actions: MOVE, Skirmish (a action that you can move up to two times), etc you can get very confused.
3. Missing this as an opportunity to display the game as shown in the tutorial to help the two parts flow together

That being said, we followed beginners draft, I was elected first play (which is only a bonus because you get a card that...lives on the table...or in your hand (unclear) and you never switch roles (maybe this is to allow 2nd player to always have the final hero activation?
I chose....red, she chose yellow and blue and I got the remaining green (Everything here has a specific name for the faction, their god and etc but they are complicated and super hard to remember), we build our decks as was exampled in the book, set up the board, got the objective cards and ....started

Truth be told, the game actually is super simple to play on the basic rules, without a worship action you do lose depth but you greatly gain quick action. We were killing either others minions and heroes right away and enjoying the strategy of hero placement and the like.
The outsider (while being complicated to use the first time around) wasn't as powerful as the lore led us to expect (which is actually a great thing as to not allow a huge power shift) and the mechanics and everything flowed very well.
We played a very forgiving game of take back actions, draw cards we forgot to grab etc, and it was actuality enjoyable. The tower attack never happened as we always managed to just be close enough in "mana" strength to avoid tower damage but we understood the concept relatively easily.

I ended up winning by completing the secondary objective of double kill on turn 5 and we both had an enjoyable time through the whole process. I wish we weren't as intimidated by the worship action and the the more advanced character sides but we were actually both very glad to have played the basic game first to understand the core concepts.

Pros:
+ Cost: for $99 you get a FANTASTIC supply of unique and well detailed miniatures, quality tokens, GAME TRAY and board. Honestly, this is a steal of a price and probably the most cost effective game on the market today (I would know, I own hundreds of them). The content here is close to a CMON KS level of product.
+ Community: I was able to find answers to all my questions within seconds of googling the answer, on top of that their are tons of support vidoes online and a very active discord and facebook community.
+ Insert: This cannot be stressed enough, super well done, the plastic isn't the best, nor is it always easy to remember where very hero fits, but this is just a fantastic bonus, plus it fits sleeved cards (sort of).
+ Miniatures: you get so many cool unique sculpts (YAMI oh my), and the detail and quality is excellent
+ Future support: not only has it been said from day 1 that leagues and new releases will occur ASAP and frequently, they have lived up to it. Today we received an email with a new campaign that has started that allowed us to input our game scores to see which faction has more control over the continent.
+ Variety: Different secondary objectives, card drafts, many hero choices, many outsider choices, etc, etc. The game gives you so much flexibility be it tactical, objective, etc that it makes every game unique and exciting.

Cons:
- Rulebook Flow: I have to put this first as I think that the rule book is the most important thing in a game, and this one just doesn't have all the information I need. While i know its impossible to list every possible question and situation, I think some major examples (such as setting up the outsider on the game board) are missing and that really hurts. (Yes, there is a FAQ and errata page set up, but it kinda sucks that those things couldn't have been in the rule book that's only a few months old). I also feel that many more example situation explications and diagrams should have been included for game play. The card drafting is a tiny 1 paragraph at the end of the book yet its ...1/3 of the game play? Shouldn't it be front and center? Do I always play with all 4 factions or was that just my tutorial game, can I just play 1 faction...These are my current questions. Again, yes, I know that their are probably answers online and a giant FAQ etc, but this is not a board AND ONLINE game, I should have these answers out of the box.
- Skirmish action: I strongly dislike that I cannot hit minions with this action, while I'm sure its fundamental to some game play mechanic, it's such a bad feeling that my damage 4 +2 card character has to use that attack to blow up a 1 wound 0 Armour nobody dealing 7 damage but then draws a 0 when attacking the hero 1 second later.
- Main Game objectives: So the main, always on objective is break the enemy nexus and you win, woo, but in a 5 turn game, as far as I can tell, unless your opponent leaves one flank completely unprotected and ignores you bulldozing in on that side, it's not going to happen. I guess it's not a huge deal when you have the 3 other mission objectives, I just think that Nexus only win is not possible in a 5 turn game. (Obviously the game designers have play tested this WAY more then my 1 attempt and it must be possible, it just think it's an un-achievable goal, and its the main win condition).

Final Thoughts
If you enjoy board games with minis and don't hate the MOBA style of game play, you'd be foolish not to pick this up. The game has a small footprint, tons of content, infinity replay-ability, awesome miniatures, asymmetrical factions, uniqueness, community, etc, etc, it really is a great game. While my cons list has more quantity in it than the pros, that's only my first thoughts and changeable aspect. This game has a LOT of potential and I recommend you pick it up and suggest your FLGS start supporting it. Plus I think they offer world wide free shipping on orders of $99 and up (aka the base game) and if that's not customer service, I don't know what is. Very excited to watch this community grow.

-Rob

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