Cards

Overview

A hand of four cards, 2 Red, 1 Blue, 1 Yellow

Cards are what players interact with most frequently. They allow the player to deal damage, protect their train, and control the fight in a variety of ways.

Every card is associated with the locomotive or one of the Carriages. They represent that train unit's abilities, so the player must add that unit to the train at the start of or during the run in order to have access to any of its cards. And if a train unit is lost during a run, that carriage's cards are lost.

At a glance, players can determine the category of a card's effect by its border color:

• Blue cards apply defenses to the train.
• Red cards are offensive, damaging or impairing enemy units.
• Yellow cards affect initiative, the grid, the player's hand, Action Points, or enemy units in non-damaging ways.

At the beginning of every turn, the player draws cards from their Deck to fill their hand. At the beginning of a run, the player's hand size begins at four cards. The player's hand size can be upgraded via modules. Most cards are played exactly once during a turn and then discarded. Discarded cards make their way back to the Draw pile to be drawn into the player's hand at a later turn. Many cards allow the player to draw extra cards in the middle of a fight, and this can be done regardless of the player's hand size. At the end of every player's turn, their entire hand is discarded.

Players do not need to count cards. At any time, the player can view all the cards in their Deck, the Draw Pile, the Discard Pile, etc. These views do not show the player the order in which cards will be drawn, but this information may be crucial in some situations.

• 
  Draw Pile at the bottom left
• 
  Deck at the top of the screen
• 
  Exhaust Pile at bottom right
• 
  Discard Pile right next to it

Action Points and playing cards

5 AP currently; 5 normally expected per turn

Artillery Attack requires 2 AP

Cards are played by spending their Action Points (AP) listed above the card with the lightning bolt icon. For example, the card Artillery Attack requires 2  AP. At the beginning of a run, the player has 5 AP per turn. Many cards award the player extra AP, so players frequently will have more than their normal expected AP during a turn. In the screenshot, 5/5 means 5 AP left this turn (top) out of 5 AP normally expected each turn (bottom).

When not enough Action Points are left to play a card, the AP number and icon will turn red. Clicking on a card that costs too many AP will show the message Not enough AP and prevent the player from playing that card.

Clicking a card will either immediately play it or show a preview of the effect. For example, a red card with a targeting range will allow the player to target an enemy unit or grid space. Clicking again then plays the card.

Effects that change their own AP cost

Cost Up

This card's AP cost increases by 1 each time another card is played.

Cost Down

This card's AP cost decreases by 1 each time another card is played.

Many cards have the effect Cost Down or Cost Up on them. When these cards are in the player's hand, every other card played in that turn will lower or raise the AP cost of that card, respectively. Therefore, Cost Up cards are best played at the beginning of the turn, and Cost Down cards are best played once their AP cost has reached 0 . For example, Shield has the Cost Down effect, making it appropriate for a player to leave it for last after doing everything else they can to avoid taking damage.

Charged

This card's AP cost and power is equal to your current AP.

Cards with the Charged effect will consume all remaining AP in a turn in order to boost its power. For maximum effect, Charged cards are best played at the beginning of a turn or after other cards that increase the player's current AP.

Inflation

This card's AP cost increases by 1 each time this card is played.

For the duration of a fight, cards with the Inflation effect will get more expensive every time they are played. Its cost can exceed the normal AP each turn gets.

Exhaust effect

Exhaust

Card is sent to the exhaust pile until the end of the fight.

Cards played with the Exhaust effect are placed out of play in the Exhaust Pile until the end of the fight. Unlike other cards that go to the Discard Pile, cards in the Exhaust Pile are not recycled into the Draw Pile to be drawn again into the player's hand. These cards are generally much more powerful.

Some cards, for example Into the Furnace and Out of the Furnace take another card from the player's hand with them to the Exhaust Pile as part of their cost. Both cards will then be out of play until the next fight.

Target and impact ranges

Artillery Attack's targeting pattern

Most cards that affect units will have limitations on which units it can affect based on where the unit is relative to the carriage in the grid.

For example, Artillery Attack can reach most grid cells that are not adjacent to the Artillery carriage. The carriage is at the center of the range pattern, where the brighter lines intersect. The horizontal brighter line represents the track, and the locomotive will be to the right of the carriage.

Other cards' ranges do not reach as far as Artillery Attack, have bigger or smaller blind spots, can reach enemies that are closer, or have entirely different patterns. For example, the cards Intent Button, Carpet Shot, and Suppressive Fire can only target enemies aligned vertically with their respective carriage, with no range to the left or right.

Some fights do not have large enough grids to see the entire targeting pattern. This can happen when the maneuverable track is short or when the carriage is too far left or right on the track (horizontally), when there is a cliff or canyon (vertically), or during smaller fights earlier in the run where the grid is smaller by default.

Impact Range

Carpet Shot's target and impact range

Cards that affect more than one grid cell have an Impact Range, Explosion Range, or similar grid on their card back separate from the Targeting Range.

All damage and effects happen to all cells in the impact range equally.

For example, although Carpet Shot can only shoot straight up and down from the Artillery carriage, it hits 3 cells in a line parallel to the train. Therefore, it hits any enemies that are just to the left and right of the vertical targeting line, even though it cannot directly target those grid cells.

Card modifications

Carpet Shot card showing a modifiable value in green.

Many cards have modifiable values, and all cards' AP costs can be modified. Modifiable values appear in green in the card's text.

When completing a fight with the Card modification reward bonus, the player is shown three randomly selected cards from their deck with random modifications applied to them. Modifications are diverse: Some are more powerful than others, and some are exceptionally good for certain runs or in combination with other cards in a situation.

• AP cost down
• Damage up
• Damage up and AP cost up
• Added effect, for example Flip or Blind

Numbers in plain gray in the card's text cannot be modified. For example, Carpet Shot is never modifiable to hit 5 cells in a line.

• 
  Completing this green-dot map encounter allows the player to modify a card in their deck.

Adding cards during a run

The run starts with a specified set of cards for the chosen locomotive and Carriages. During the run, the player may be rewarded with or purchase additional cards. If so, the player is given a random selection of cards from all cards unlocked and available.

• Reward for winning a fight: Choose one of three random cards.
• Upgrading a carriage: Choose one of three random cards associated with that carriage.
• Shopping at Chop Shops: Purchase any of five random cards with scrap—with the option to purchase a reroll with scrap.
• Green dots on the map that offer Card duplication reward: Choose any one card from the deck to duplicate.

When adding cards during a run, the preview of the card includes a stack size in a box in the top left, for example x2. This is how many cards are added for the purchase price. Many cards, especially red cards, come in pairs.

Every run, the player must re-acquire any cards that are not innate to the locomotive and carriages.

All effects

There are many effects that buff the player's units, debuff enemy units, or change the playing field. Every effect is described in-game; a tooltip will appear over the card after a short delay. For additional descriptions of the effects and interactions, find the article on the specific card.

List of Effects

Name	Turns	Text
Blind	1	Blinded units cancel their intent. They move and create intents randomly while blinded.
Burn	1	Burning units take 1 damage at the end of their turn.
Charged	—	This card's AP cost and power is equal to your current AP.
Cost Down	—	This card's AP cost decreases by 1 each time another card is played.
Cost Up	—	This card's AP cost increases by 1 each time another card is played.
Destabilize	1	If this unit receives damage, it will skid one cell backwards. Does not work on Heavy units.
Exhaust	—	Card is sent to the exhaust pile until the end of the fight.
Flip	1	Flip the unit's intent.
Ignore Shield	—	Action will ignore shield.
Inflation	—	This card's AP cost increases by 1 each time this card is played.
Innate	—	Guaranteed to be drawn first at the beginning of a fight.
Move Target	—	Move affected units away from the carriage. [Note: does not work on Heavy units]
Sabotage	1	This unit receives 1 damage the next time it moves.
Speared	1	If this unit is damaged, draw a Spearwall card from the draw or discard pile.