20 Strong: Tanglewoods Rose

20 Strong: Tanglewoods Rose Rulebook

Table of Contents

This rulebook, 5 hero cards, 43 enemy cards, 20 item cards, 12 path cards, 3 modifier reminder cards, 1 Reference Card.

Winning & Losing

To win Tanglewoods: Rose, you must defeat all of the enemies attacking the Beast's castle before time runs out.

As in all games of 20 Strong, if your Health is ever reduced below 1, you lose. Additionally, you lose if time runs out and you have not defeated all of the enemies. See "Endgame, Victory, & Loss" for more details.

Setup

Dized. For a quick start use the interactive DIZED Tutorial. It will walk you through the setup and game rules step by step while you play! Simply scan the QR on page 2.
Choose a Hero. Choose one hero freely from among the five hero cards, and select either of its sides to begin the game face-up. Place it as shown in the Table Diagram on pages 12-13. Return the rest of the hero cards to the box.
Prepare the Play Area. Lay out the rest of the cards and decks as shown on pages 12-13.
- Map the Paths. Separate the 12 path cards into four groups of three according to the cards' letters (A-D). Shuffle each set of three and place them in four columns, in alphabetical order, with their daytime (pink) sides face-up as shown.
- Stock the Items. Shuffle the item cards into a deck with their ordinary (light pink) and upgraded (dark pink) sides facing the same way. Place the deck as shown with the ordinary sides face-up.
- Scout the Enemies. Shuffle the enemy cards into a deck and place it face-down as shown.
- Global Effects are Inactive. Place the three global effect reminder cards in a convenient area of the table with their inactive sides face-up.
- Ready Your Reference. Keep the Reference Card where you can refer to it as needed.
Stats. Set your Health, Strategy, and Recovery dice to the values on your hero card and place them near your Reference Card.
Unit Dice. Exhaust one die of each color. Then, gather the remaining 12 unit dice and place them in your dice pool area.

Hero Cards

The Hero Cards page labels the parts of a hero card: Name, Flip Trigger, Ability, Starting Health, Starting Strategy, and Starting Recovery. The example card shown is Beauty – Scholar, starting with Health 3, Strategy 2, and Recovery 3. Its ability, Well-Read, reads: "Any time you gain a random item, draw two, choose one to keep, and discard the other." Its flip trigger reads: "As soon as you have three or more items, flip."

Path Cards

The Path Cards page labels the parts of each path card: on the daytime side, the Day Icon, Path Designation, and Path; on the nighttime side, the Night Icon, Path Designation, Path, and Night Effect.

Table Diagram

The Table Diagram on pages 12-13 labels these areas: Path A, Path B, Path C, and Path D; Modifier Reminder Cards; The Rose Garden; Stat Dice; Dice Pool; Cache; Reference Card; Day Tracker; Hero Card; Active Dice; Banished Dice; Enemy Deck; Enemy Discard; Exhausted Dice; Item Deck; Item Discard; and Inventory.

Round Structure

The structure of each round in Tanglewoods: Rose matches the 20 Strong common rules of play, with no additions. There are no After effects in this game.

Activating Enemies

In Tanglewoods: Rose, you can deploy as many or as few enemies as you want each round. Deploying fewer gives you a respite, but deploying too few each round will make it difficult for you to defeat them all before the day tracker reaches zero.

Each time you deploy an enemy, you'll place it in the location at the far end of a path and then receive a reward. See the sections below for more details.

During Activation, you can continue deploying enemies for as long as you wish, and you can decline to deploy more and move on to Engagement whenever you wish – that is, as long as you have resolved all of the previous enemy's effects, including any + skull effects that arose from that card's deployment.

You can even choose not to deploy any enemies at all in a given round. Just remember: since you only have so many rounds before the day tracker runs out and you lose, you can't do this forever.

Placing Activated Enemies

When you activate an enemy, draw the top card from the Enemy Deck, flip it face-up, and look at the back side of the next card in the Enemy Deck. The next card's exposed path icon – A, B, C, or D – tells you which path to add the just-drawn enemy to (deploy the last enemy in the deck to the path of your choice).

Newly activated enemies are placed in the farthest location in their path (at Range 4), one location past its last path card. However, if that location already has an enemy in it, first displace the previous enemy one location toward your hero. If this relocates it onto another enemy, displace that enemy forward as well, and so on, to create room for all of the enemies. For clarity's sake, "displacement" is distinct from "movement." Effects that trigger when an enemy moves are not triggered by displacement.

If an enemy is displaced off the close end of its path, it enters the castle, dealing your hero damage equal to its Damage stat, and is then discarded. This enemy has not been defeated, and you do not receive the rewards it would provide on defeat, but it is eliminated from the game, which does bring you closer to victory.

Some enemies have the + skull modifier. As in other 20 Strong games, these force you to immediately activate an additional enemy. These additional enemies are placed in exactly the same way: observe the next card to see which path to use, displace any enemies you need to in order to make room, and so on. Additional enemies that also bear the + skull modifier lead to even more activations.

Deploying Zero Enemies

If you deploy no new enemies at all in a given round, you may recover up to seven dice. As above, enemies you are compelled to activate do not count as being deployed and are not included when evaluating this zero-deployment rule.

Enemy Cards

The Enemy Cards page labels the parts of an enemy card: Keywords, Name, Abilities, Reward, Health, Damage, Path Icon (on the back), and Gold. The example enemy shown is Three Goblins in a Trench Coat (Health 3, Damage 2). Its ability reads: "When Three Goblins in a Trench Coat is defeated, activate a number of enemies equal to your lowest stat." Its reward reads: "Gain one random item and upgrade it," or 2 Gold.

Placing Activated Enemies: Example

The example spread on pages 19-21 shows the steps of placing an activated enemy:

The next card in the deck has a Path C icon.
The drawn enemy goes to Path C's farthest location.
The enemy that was there before is displaced.
This enemy is unaffected.

The example enemy Spellcaster (Health 4, Damage 1) has the ability: "In the Suffer Damage step, Spellcaster deals damage to you after moving regardless of his current location." Its reward reads: "You have unlimited Range for the remainder of this round," or 1 Gold.

Your Hero's Path

As you defend the castle, you can only pay attention to the enemies approaching on one of the four paths at a time.

At the beginning of each Engagement, place your hero card below one of the four paths. This is your hero's current path. You can only apply hits to the enemies on your path (Range is also a factor – see "Range" below).

At any time during the Strategy phase, you may change your path by exhausting any ready or unapplied die. Then, move your hero card to below any other path you wish. Going forward, you can attack the enemies on the new path instead. To be clear, you may even do this in the middle of applying damage. Say you generate seven hits, but it only takes three hits to eliminate all the enemies on your current path. You can apply those three hits, exhaust a die to change your path, and then apply the remaining four hits to the enemies on the new path.

Range

How close an enemy is to your hero is an important factor in determining whether you can attack it.

The distance to a given enemy is its Range from you.
The maximum distance at which you can attack an enemy is your hero's Range.

The enemy in each path that is in the location closest to your hero is at Range 1, the enemy in the row behind that is at Range 2, and so on. See the diagram on pages 26-27 for a visual demonstration.

Your Strategy stat indicates your hero's Range. If you have Strategy 2, you can attack enemies at Range 1 and Range 2, for example. An enemy at Range 1 is considered adjacent to you.

At any time during a round's Engagement, you may increase your Range by 1 for the remainder of the Engagement by exhausting any ready or unapplied die. This can be done multiple times in an Engagement. Temporarily place any dice exhausted this way below your Strategy die as a reminder of your new Range (which will be the value of your Strategy die plus the number of dice below it). Move these dice to the exhausted area in the Exhaust Dice step.

The diagram "Enemy Distance on the Four Paths" on pages 26-27 labels the rows as Range 4, Range 3, Range 2, and Range 1 (Adjacent), with the Hero's Row at the bottom, and the columns as Path A, Path B, Path C, and Path D.

Daytime & Nighttime

Each of the 12 path cards has a daytime and a nighttime side. Path cards flip from daytime to nighttime and back as instructed by various rules, cards, and powers.

Daytime. None of the location cards have effects while on their daytime sides.
Nighttime. When on their nighttime sides, some path cards grant the Armor keyword to the enemy on that card. See "Keywords" on pages 32-33.

Enemy Turns, Movement, & Damage

The way enemies deal damage is a bit more complex in Tanglewoods: Rose than in other 20 Strong games.

In the Suffer Damage step, each undefeated enemy that is active takes a turn. Resolve enemy turns one path at a time, from path A (on the left) to path D (on the right). On any given path, closer enemies take their turn before farther enemies.

When an enemy takes its turn, it moves one location closer to your hero on its path. Be aware, however, that some effects can move an enemy more than one location at a time.

If an enemy ends its move in a location, its turn is over, unless an ability or keyword says otherwise.

If a moving enemy moves off the close end of its path, it enters the castle and deals damage to your hero. Reduce your hero's Health by the enemy's Damage stat and then discard that enemy. You don't gain the enemy's reward, but it is removed from play and reduces the number of enemies standing between you and victory.

For clarity's sake, note that each enemy that enters the castle deals its damage individually (as opposed to all entering enemies adding up their damage into a single damage total).

The Rose Garden: Indicating Defeated Enemies

The placement of enemies across different locations can make it confusing to keep track of them. To help keep defeated enemies separate, move them to the Rose Garden – a new table area – where they can wait to be processed and discarded in the proper step.

Exception: If you defeat an enemy with an instant reward (diamond icon), you must immediately decide whether to take the instant reward or the gold reward. If you take the instant reward, gain it immediately and then discard the enemy. If you would like the gold, add it to the Rose Garden and gain the gold during the Gain Item Rewards step.

Gaining & Spending Gold

Any time you defeat an enemy in Tanglewoods: Rose, you have a choice. You may either gain the reward printed on the left side of the enemy's reward area, or the Gold on the right side of the reward area.

Gold is represented by the gold icons on each enemy card. To harvest an enemy's gold, simply place it in your Cache, a new area of the table where you can easily see which cards are there and how much gold they offer.

You may spend gold from your cache any time outside of Engagement by discarding cards from your cache to pay for the rewards listed on your Reference Card.

You do not get change back when spending gold, and rewards must be paid for separately. For example, if you have cards with 5 Gold and 2 Gold in your cache, you could spend the 5 Gold for +1 Recovery, which costs 4 Gold, discarding the 5 Gold card. You do not get the excess 1 Gold back nor can you combine it with your 2 Gold to purchase a 3 Gold reward. You could, alternatively, spend both cards for the "Discard one active non-boss enemy" reward, which costs 6 Gold.

Deployment & Gold Rewards

The Reference Card's Deployment & Gold Rewards table, as printed on the Table Diagram page (page 12), reads:

Cost	Reward
Deploy 1	Gain one random item.
Deploy 1	Flip a location to its daytime side.
Deploy 1	Recover up to two dice. If you deploy no enemies during Activation, you may recover up to seven dice.
3 Gold	Upgrade one item in your inventory.
3 Gold	+1 Health
4 Gold	+1 Recovery
5 Gold	+1 Strategy
6 Gold	Discard one active non-boss enemy.

Note: the three Deploy rows show the cost as "Deploy 1" (an enemy deployed) rather than Gold; the five rows below them show the cost in Gold. The Items section below quotes the upgrade reward as "Upgrade one random item in your inventory," which differs by one word from this table; both are transcribed as printed.

Keywords

Tanglewoods: Rose has nine keywords, each represented by an icon, that provide enemies with special powers.

There are two types of keywords: individual and global.

Individual keywords only relate to the enemy they are printed on (or, if on a path card, the enemy in that location). They modify that enemy's behavior or trigger one-time effects.
Global keywords affect all enemies that are active. The modifier reminder cards have Active and Inactive sides to help you keep track of which global keywords are active at any given time. When an enemy with a global keyword enters play, flip the corresponding card to its active side. Whenever an enemy with a global keyword leaves play, review all of the active enemies to see whether it's time to flip that card back to its inactive side.

Reference & Reminder Cards

Modifier Reminder Cards. Each modifier reminder card has an inactive side and an active side. As printed:

Bolster – Inactive: All enemies have +1 [icon].
Bolster – Active: (text printed on the card; the card art shows the Bolster icon.)
Expose – Active: When you suffer damage from an enemy, you must reduce your [icon] and/or [icon] rather than your [icon], if possible.
Plus Speed – Inactive: In each Suffer Damage step, active enemies move two locations instead of one.

Transcription note: the icons on the modifier reminder cards are printed as symbols and are shown on the cards themselves; they are marked [icon] here. The Bolster – Active side's text could not be read reliably from the supplied scan and is not transcribed.

Reference Card. The Reference Card has two sides: Deployment & Gold Rewards (transcribed above), and Keywords. Transcription gap: the nine keyword definitions printed on the Reference Card's Keywords side are too small to read reliably in the supplied scan, so they are not transcribed here. The keyword definitions must be checked against the printed Reference Card.

Time Runs Short!

At the end of each Cleanup step, decrease the day tracker by 1. (See "Endgame, Victory, & Loss.") Each number represents a day, and you only have so many!

Items

The item cards in Tanglewoods: Rose are similar to the items in other 20 Strong games, as well as other Tanglewoods games, in that each one has both an ordinary side (light pink) and an upgraded side (dark pink).

When items are added to your inventory, they are gained with the ordinary side face-up. Flipping an item to its upgraded side requires spending gold on the "Upgrade one random item in your inventory" reward.

Items are always discarded (and reshuffled, if needed) with their ordinary sides face-up, regardless of whether they were upgraded while in your inventory.

As normal, items take up inventory slots until used or discarded, and your number of inventory slots is equal to your Strategy stat.

Defeated Enemies as Item Rewards

In addition to item cards that can be bought with gold, defeated enemies with Single-use and Ongoing rewards may also be gained as items. During the Gain Item Rewards step, for each of these cards in the Rose Garden (see page 30), decide whether to gain it as an item or as gold.

If gained as an item, it takes up an inventory slot and is treated the same as other item cards except it cannot be upgraded and is discarded to the Enemy Deck discard.

Item Cards

The Item Cards page labels the parts of an item card: Name and Effect. The example ordinary-side item is CATapult, which reads: Single-use icon: "Roll all ready dice. You may apply any rolled hit to active enemies, returning the rest to your dice pool." The example upgraded-side item is Armageddon Machine, which reads: Ongoing icon: "While the Day Counter is at 3 or less, all hits deal +1 damage."

Endgame, Victory, & Loss

Tanglewoods: Rose has no endgame; the regular rules of play apply through the entire game.

Winning: To win, you must overcome every enemy card. That is, the Enemy Deck must be empty and all active enemies must be defeated or otherwise discarded.
Losing: If the day tracker would be reduced below 1 and you have any enemies still active or in the Enemy Deck, you lose the game. As always, you also lose if your Health drops below 1.

Difficulty Scaling

The difficulty table runs from 0 to 10. These 11 levels allow you to make Tanglewoods: Rose easier or harder.

You must choose your difficulty level during setup; it can't be altered during play.

If you are a beginner to 20 Strong, try your first game at zero. If you have played 20 Strong before, try your first game at 5. If you succeed, move up a level until you can beat the game at 10, and if you're finding the game too difficult, feel free to move down a level.

Difficulty Level	Effect
0	Start with 18 days and add one random enemy to your cache as gold.
1	Start with 18 days and one random item.
2	Start with 18 days.
3	Start with 17 days and one random item.
4	Start with 16 days and +1 Health.
5	Start with 15 days.
6	Start with 14 days and -1 to any stat.
7	Start with 13 days and flip the four Range 1 locations to their nighttime sides.
8	Start with 12 days and flip the four Range 1 locations to their nighttime sides.
9	Start with 11 days and flip all locations in one chosen path to their nighttime sides.
10

Round Flow

Activation. Deploy any number of enemies.
Engagement.
- Strategy Phase (repeat = Strategy stat): Commit Dice, Roll Dice, Apply Dice.
- Resolve Phase: Suffer Damage (enemies take turns), Exhaust Dice, Recover Dice, Gain Item Rewards, Cleanup (decrease day tracker by 1).