In this boardgame, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Leopold I, died suddenly on December 31st, 1665. Now a new king needs to be elected, and all the monarchs are sending their 'election supporters' to Vienna. Besides the political level, the devil is interfering as well, bestowing supernatural powers on his followers. There are also demons, monsters, the Golem, and other supernatural creatures.
The 'election supporters' engage in secret missions to further their goals, which results in small warbands fighting it out in the dark over captives, arcane artefacts, or trying to plant bombs.
You have very few miniatures in a typical game (fewer than 10), but these are very detailed in their stats and their skills/traits. The basic rules aren't that complicated, but get complex quickly when the effects of the skills and specific equipment rules are added.
There are no dice rolls in this game, what you dice for in other games is handled by card decks (normal cards 2-8 & 2 Jokers), although the game comes with viusally matching card decks). Both players play a card hidden, then they are revealed simulataneously – this is the equivalent of dice roll in other games. To the card value, you add stats and equipment boni, who has the highest number won that test and, for example, inflicts damage on the opponent. But both players can reinforce their value, playing additional cards from their hand (same symbol +1, same number +2). There is a black and a red joker, which count as low/high value or auto-fail/auto-success, depending on the test type.
For some tests (e.g. ranged combat, sprint tests) you need to draw the top card from your deck, reinforcing in ranged combat from your hand for example is possible – a complete random card/value. For other tests (e.g. closed combat), players can decide to draw the top card from their deck, or choose one from their hand. Hand cards are limited, though, in most scenarios you get two per turn, so sometimes you need to draw from your deck. When you play from your hand, and have matching cards to reinforce, you are of course very effective.
When you have 4 cards [8s and Jokers] in your discard, you re-shuffle your deck.
For each character, you have a character card, which provides stats/rules, and which gets tagged when a character was active in a phase. In addition, you have smaller sized cards for each piece of equipment that character carries (weapons, armour, other equipment); an optional rule also has you allocate the weapon a character has in hands at the beginning the turn, making you decide if you have a musket equipped or a sword for the turn.
The cards are my biggest critique with the game, often all the cards from all (2-4) players take up more table space than the game board.
I do like the meticulously details of these games (e.g. muskets need to be reloaded before you can fire them again), which help build a narrative during gameplay. The scenarios have great replayability, the characters are unique and interestelingly designed.