Rules

Goal

Players represent cities and have 5 lives. If a player loses all their lives, they lose. If a player's deck is empty and they want to draw from it, they lose.

Zones:

Offense (2x4 Cards): Units in this zone can attack the opponent.
Defense (2x4 Card): Units in this zone defend you against units in opponents' offense zones.
Environment (1x8 Cards): Here you can put structure and environment cards.

Other places

Graveyard: Your destroyed structures and environments, your cast spells and rituals and your dead units go here.
Deck: The deck of cards you draw new cards from.
Treasury: The place where you keep your resources like gold and blood.

Game start

Each player draws five cards from their shuffled deck and gets one resource of their choice. The player who begins doesn't draw another card on its first turn. Every other player after draws a card on their first turn.

Card types

Units: can attack and defend, must be placed in the offense or defense zone.
Structures: can only defend and be built in environment zone.
Spells: can only be cast as an action by wizards.
Rituals: need a certain amount of units and at least one cleric to cast them.
Events: cost gold and only one per turn allowed.
Modifications: cost gold and are put on a card. They stay with that card until the card leaves the battlefield or the modification is destroyed. When the modified card leaves the battlefield, the modification goes to the graveyard.

Turn phases

1. Draw a card: First thing you do during your turn is draw a card from your deck.
2. Collect resource: You get 1 resource of your choice.
3. Unoccupy: All cards you control that are occupied, are not occupied anymore (unless an effect occupies them).
4. Action phase: Now you can activate actions and attack in any order you like.
5. End phase: The maximum of cards in your hand is seven. If you have more, you must discard cards until you have seven.

Units

Units have an attack value and a defense value. When units fight against each other, the attack and defense values are compard and if the attack value is higher than the defense value of the opponent, the opponent dies. If they don't die, the attack value is subtracted from the defense value, lowering the defense value until the end of the current turn.
The cards of defeated units are turned around and have to be carried to the graveyard as an action of a unit in the same zone, otherweise they will block the spot.
Units cost resources, mostly gold or blood. You have to pay the amount to recrute them.
Actions () can only be cast during the turn of the person who controls the unit.
Instant Actions () can be cast during any turn and happen instantly.
When a unit does an action, the unit is considered "busy", which means they can't do any other action or defend until the start of the next turn of their controller.

The most important actions are as follows:
Attack (only if the unit is in the offense zone).
Change slot: Units can change the slot where they're placed. They can only change to neighboring slots.
Flee: put the card on the bottom of your deck
Transport corpse from the battlefield to the graveyard.
Cast a spell or a ritual: for wizards or clerics

Structures

Structures can only be built in the environment zone. They add their defense to the city directly. Many structures have effects that improve the units of the army.

Armies

Empire

The empire is all about power and strength. They have strong siege machines, light clerics, spies and strong knights. They might be the most versatile army, as they have many options to win.

Ilráhe

The army of the hot and dry south is all about community, working together and getting more units into their army, even from other players.

Nord

The army from the cold north beyond the iron mountains are well known for their defense, their honor and their tough skin, which makes some of them invulnerable to environments.

Dark Horde

Nobody knows where the Dark Horde came from, but they are a force not to dismiss. Their powerful cultists with their mighty rituals and undead are to be feared. But the blood nobility and the nightmares are powerful beyond imagination.

Goblin-Clans

"For every goblin you see, there are ten nearby that you don't see."- Old imperial proverb. The goal of most goblins is to get more goblins into the game and destroy the structures of their opponents.

Elven Realm

The nature-loving army consists of elves, gnomes, humans and other creatures that live in the woords. But mainly Seedlings, many cards exist to create many Seedling tokens. The nature will spread and so will your units.

Keywords

• Banish: The card leaves the game and goes to the banish pile. These cards can't come back to this game.
• Battlefield: All zones combined are the battlefield. The graveyard and deck are not part of the battlefield.
• Corpse: A unit that was killed becomes a corpse. You flip the card on its back and it stays that way on the battlefield until it's carried to your graveyard. Corpses can't be part of groups and can't defend or take action.
• Destroy: If a unit or structure is destroyed, they go directly to the graveyard (units don't become corpses then).
• Fight: When units fight each other, that can be when defending or attack an opponent, or when an effect calls for a fight, the offense and defense of those units are compared.
• Flee: A unit that flees is put on the bottom of its owner's deck. Can be activated as an action or an effect.
• Gift: When a player gifts another play a card, that means the control of the card changes to the other player. A gifted card stays in the same area, but at the other player. That means when a gift comes from a hand, it goes to the hand of that other player.
• Permanently: A permanent effect stays on the card until it leaves the battlefield (it goes to a graveyard, flees or is banished).
• Sacrifice: A sacrificed unit is considered dead, but not killed, and goes directly to your graveyard.
• Token: Tokens are not part of your deck, they stay outside of the game on a seperate pile, so you can't search for them. When they leave the battlefield, they're put back on their pile.
• Unique: You can only control one unique card with a certain name. If you get a second one with that name, you must decide which one you keep and which you put on the graveyard of its owner. It's not considered killed, destroyed or sacrificed.
  Unique spells can only be cast by unique wizards and unique rituals need at least one unqie cleric casting it.

Grouping

Units of the same army or independent (no army-symbol) can form a group on the same spot on the battlefield. For this they must share the same class and have an officer or general or ruler to guide them.
The attack and defense of the units in the group is added up. They attack and defend as one.

Symbols

: When the card enters the battlefield, it triggers an effect.
Action: The card activates an effect and is then occupied. Can only be activated during your turn and if the units is not occupied.
Instant Action: Same as an action but can be activated during each turn.