Card Game Review: ‘Ogre Cheerleaders’ from Paw Warrior

Ogre Cheerleaders from Paw-Warrior Games delivers the flavor of speedy classic card games played in study hall with new levels of complexity more modern gamers crave. A standard deck of cards offers a wide variety of short games like Speed or Pinhead. They are readily replayable since they are such short games, but the overly straightforward rules gradually get old. Ogre Cheerleaders keeps that liveliness of quick play while instituting a variety of actions that will give players plenty to work on for their strategy.

Ogre Cheerleaders begins with dealing each player four cards for their hands, each with its own special rule. The gameplay is straightforward. Players take turns each playing one card onto the table, applying a new cheerleader to the field. The cheerleader cards line up, building off one another to the left and right. Players then use the savvy of the special rules on the cards to remove or reorder cheerleaders to score points.

Each card in Ogre Cheerleaders carries its own special action. Many of them operate from the “Bench,” a side section of the table where cards may be moved or pulled from. This is the real skill of Ogre Cheerleaders: being able to best determine when to pick up and move cards to create scoring sets. Other cards add fun random elements, pulling from an opponent’s hand or the draw deck to immediately play an unknown card. Depending on the cards played, a chain reaction might take place with cards feeding into further actions for a wild turn.

Once a player has set down a card and settled all of the actions, they review the table for sets to score. Players can score on matching suits, each fittingly fanciful or gross as an ogre might be, or by runs of sequential numbers, or by matching the number in play. When a set is made, the player collects it, and sets it aside for scoring at the end of the game.

Play continues until the draw deck runs out. The last round is finished out so that every player has had the same number of turns for the game. When the game is over, players count up the cards in the collected sets. Rather than winning by collecting the most sets, each card is worth the number printed upon it. Players will have to strategize not just to collect sets but to collect the most valuable sets. To do this best, players may need to set up multi-turn strategies of benching certain cards until the perfect one comes in hand. However, waiting too long may have an opponent swoop upon the set.

Ogre Cheerleaders is a card game for two or more players aged eight and up. Games are very speedy, lasting only a few minutes. The standard setup for Ogre Cheerleaders is for two dueling players, but more players may be added in for an even more chaotic game. With its quick play and rapid turns of strategy, Ogre Cheerleaders is perfect for lovers of classic card games.