The gnomes are fighting for dominance of the gardens. Gnomes from the lawn, hedge, veggie garden, orchard, flower garden, and herb garden can be recruited to build a ceramic empire.

In Invasion of the Garden Gnomes, players form melds (sets of gnomes from the same part of the garden), each representing a columns of garden gnomes armed to the teeth. The smallest set of each color will be squished and not score, and larger sets score more points. Whenever a new column is formed, a special effect is triggered (usually good). Between games, twelve different special powers are randomly allocated between the six type of gnomes, making for very different games and necessitating different tactics.

This game’s core mechanisms are based on Knizia’s card game Vampire. Invasion of the Garden Gnomes introduces special powers for each color and more vicious competition within each color of meld. The game includes “junior rules” that allow you to play a simpler game, more similar to Vampire, and the “full rules” are notably different from the the game’s predecessor and involve deeper strategy.