Modified, concise rules for first-time players.

Setup and Materials

Make sure you have a 50-card deck for each player, 3 combat zone cards, and a dice or coin.

1. Place the 3 combat zones in a line between the players.
2. Randomly decide the first turn player with dice or coin.
3. Shuffle your deck and draw 7 cards. If you are unsatisfied with your hand, you may shuffle your hand into your deck and draw another 7 cards once per game.

Turn Structure

Each turn, a player proceeds through the following phases.

Ready Phase:

• Turn all cards on your side of the board upright to ready them. Cards that are turned sideways are considered exhausted.
• On your first turn, nothing happens during this phase.

Draw Phase:

• Draw a card. If you play first, skip this on your first turn.

Main Phase:

• Place 1 card face-down into your supply zone. You may do this only once per turn. Newly played supply is always ready.
• Play a unit, action, territory, or item. You must pay its cost, shown on the top right of the card, by exhausting (turning sideways) **that many ready supply.
  • Units and Items enter the staging zone. Units enter exhausted (turned sideways), while items enter ready. Territories are played directly on a combat zone and remain there.
  • Actions have a one-time effect, and are sent to discard after that effect is resolved.
• A ready unit can attack a combat zone by exhausting. No more than one unit can be in each zone; if an enemy unit already controls that zone, move to the Combat Phase.
  • Exhausted defenders do not return damage! So attack them when they are vulnerable.
• You can play cards and move units as many times as you want, as long as you can pay the costs.

Combat Phase:

• Combat begins when a unit attacks a combat zone controlled by an enemy.
  1. Resolve any On Attack and On Defend abilities the cards may have.
  2. Before any damage is dealt, the defending player may play any number of counter cards that affect battle.
  3. After the counter step, a ready defender may exhaust itself to retaliate. Retaliating allows it to return damage to the attacker.
  4. Units deal damage to each other simultaneously. A unit dies when its health reaches 0. Keep track of damage on each unit until the end of the turn.