14 DAY TRIAL // 
Ironclad Tactics is a real-time strategy experience powered by cards, which officially makes it one of the weirdest combinations of genres that I have encountered this year, even before mentioning that it uses a cartoon-like style and takes place during the American Civil War.
Developer Zachtronics is working with a great set of ideas for its title, but they could have added another layer of polish before launching it.
Gamers will need to assemble a custom deck of cards, representing ironclads and infantry support, and then use them in a lane-based battle where the aim is to reach the camp of the opponent and get victory points.
The robots are steampunk-inspired contraptions that have a lot of hitpoints and can be customized using a variety of weapons and add-ons, allowing the player to adapt to a variety of battlefield situations.
Infantry is squishy, but they are required to hold certain victory and action generating points on some maps and can also play a support role later in the campaign.
The battles play out in real time, but cards appear and are discarded based on turns, which means that levels can become a little hectic as players wait for enough AP to gather in order to place a new weapon, while also fiddling with the position of the infantry or survey the stage for new enemy threats.
In Ironclad Tactics, the first attempt at completing a level usually ends in defeat because the player has no way of knowing what kind of enemies he needs to deal with.
When that happens, I usually tweak my deck, using the cards that I have gathered from the previous stage, and try again, making incremental changes until I manage to vanquish the enemy.
The only problem is that luck has a little too much of a role when the first two or three hands of cards are dealt and the only way to react to a bad draw is to simply restart the level.
As more cards accumulate and the enemy becomes tougher, Ironclad Tactics becomes genuinely interesting from a strategic viewpoint and also a little frustrating.
It’s also a little short at just 20 missions and I have the feeling that the team at Zachtronics could have spent more time creating new levels instead of adding the cheesy and perfunctory narrative.
Two interesting modes that could have used a little more work are Skirmish and Nemesis, which allow players to battle a real-world human using levels from the single player, with decks that are normally only allowed to the computer opponent.
It’s a pity they lack polish because Ironclad Tactics is all about chasing more cards and gamers actively miss out on variety by only playing single player and straight up deathmatch.
Humans tend to deploy some very interesting tactics and I was quickly defeated by my first two opponents before I understood that I needed a deck that could deal with a variety of potential opening moves.
The game also has a pretty and informative art style that allows gamers to quickly evaluate how they stand on the battlefield while keeping the attention fixed on Action Points and their card selection.
Ironclad Tactics has a group of very solid ideas and it’s actually fun to play about 60 percent of the time, mainly when the player gets involved with deck setup and in the initial stages of battles.
But it can also be frustrating when the computer wins in 10 turns because my hand offers no cards I can mount a strong defense with.
