Battlecards are best decribed as a "scratch-and-slay trading card game" that preceded the popular Magic: The Gathering, and Pokémon Trading Card Game craze.

There were a great variety of cards arranged into types which included artist profiles, quests, tactics, advanced game rules, checklists, spells, and shields, but the main cards were Fighters.

Each Fighter card had a series of 25 silver scratch panels around its main central illustration to represent locations of the body. For the basic game, players take turns to make an attack by scratching away a panel of their rival to reveal the symbol underneath. When enough wound symbols were found, one of the fighter's 'life' panels would be uncovered and a skull symbol signified his defeat. The dead fighter card would then be given to the winning player who could use the card's 'purse' (an amount of gold listed in the corner) to purchase 'Wondrous Treasure' cards by mailing Merlin with gold equal to the price agreed on a Trading Post card. These are the rarer "Gold" and "Silver" edition of the 'Wondrous Treasure' cards.

Quest cards normally required collectors to study their cards carefully then send the correct ones to Merlin so they could claim a reward of gold. For example, to claim a token worth 100 gold, St. Charity's Quest required you to collect five men with no gold in their purses, which obviously required you to defeat them first. Lord Magnoble's quest was worth 200 gold if you identified the artists of the five unsigned pieces in his collection.

Two different series exist: the UK version and the US version. The US series had 139 cards in the basic series plus eight chase treasure cards (T1-T8). US #140 was the Emperor of Vangoria, not available in packs but redeemed by mailing in all 8 treasure cards (and effectively "winning" the game). The #140 card was available in "Gold" and "Silver" chased versions like the 'Wondrous Treasure' cards by completing the Emperor quest using Gold and Silver 'Wondrous Treasure' cards. US cards were standard US trading card sized with gold scratch-offs and an eggshell finish. The UK series had 149 basic cards as the 8 treasure cards were numbered within the basic set, plus there were two additional strategy cards not included in the US set. The UK Emperor was #150, again only acquired by redeeming all 8 treasure cards. UK cards are larger than the US cards, have a gloss finish and silver scratch-offs. There are also extra rules to cater for using shields in the UK version.

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Fighting Fantasy Battle Cards