My own brainstorming based on what's been said:
A player's board is divided into two rows: the Homefront and frontline/battlefront.
Lose when you run out of homefront cards. Or maybe if you take one attack without any homefront cards.
Start game with your homefront filled with random* face down cards. They still count as "HP" (Or more like Pokemon's prizes or Kaijudo's shields), but don't actually do anything while they're face down.
Playing an actual resource card lets you draw the face down card. (Maybe some cards get you a bonus when flipped or whatever)
There's a limited number of homefront slots. Perhaps they are labelled and certain infrastructure only works/ works better in certain slots. 5 slots A-E. Perhaps higher lettered/#'d slots are more expensive to build on or are just better.
Should the frontline also have a slot limit?**
Cards (without haste) can't be played directly to the battlefront. They start in the homefront and must be deployed to the front before they can attack. Perhaps they can retreat as well for defense. Most things can't target them directly there. Perhaps units on the frontlines can be attacked by enemy units YUgioh style.
Things can't be deployed onto tapped homefront cards?
Running out of frontline cards moves homefront cards to the frontline?
When an enemy unit gets an attack through on you they can destroy one of your (tapped?) infastructure cards.
Your infastrutcture may have a defense value that enemy units have to overcome to destroy them.
By default, infrastructure taps for 2 of a resource- that gives more room for tuning the power level of infrastructure cards. You can have not quite double power lands that tap for 3, and "dual lands" etb untapped but give you a choice of two resources.
Tokens are the basic fighting units? Amny decks just produce lots of them instead of more powerful unit cards?
Some homefront card ideas:
- Barracks - taps for manpower, needed for most battlefront units, especially cheap ones.
- Factory - taps for material, used on home and battlefront cards- especially sturdy ones.
- Bank - taps for $, the most generic/flexible resource. Replaces another resource? 2brid mana eal?
- Academy - taps for research, never spent on units directly, just other infrastructure.
- Runway - any unit placed on this slot can advance immediately to the front.
- Lab - pay to draw cards.
- Market - trade one resource for another.
- Fortifications - Play on top of another card to take a hit from it.
- Minefield - damages units that destroy it.
- Super ___ - Needs a basic ___ to be played. Replaces that ____. Is better than ____.
*Or maybe you draw a ton of cards at the start and put down whichever ones you want? Heck, maybe you draw one card at a time and decide whether you want them in your hand or facedown in your homefront. That's a lot of decision making right away and might overwhelm players. That's especially true if players get to draw the facedown cards later- basically
brainstorming.
**I guess if you have multiple units in one battlefront slot that wouldn't limit army size. I like big armies. The big upside is that what you play in homefront slot A could have a direct effect on what you have in battlefront slot A.