Bellum Magica Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Game Contents
• Setup
  • Distribution of Castles and Goblins
  • The Human Kingdom
  • Creature Piles
  • Treasure Chests
  • Tokens
• How to Play
• Turns
  • 1) Choose an Active Horde
  • 2) Gather Resources
  • 3) Call Back Scouts
  • 4) Attack
    • Attack the Human Kingdom
    • Attack Another Player's Castle
  • 5) Recruit Creatures
  • 6) End of the Turn
• End of the Game

Object of the Game

You must become the richest of all the evil lords!

Game Contents

• 5 Castle boards
• 25 Place cards
  • 1 Tavern card
  • 7 Farm cards
  • 7 Village cards
  • 10 Town cards
• 76 Creature cards
  • 10 Goblin cards
  • 46 Evil Creature cards
  • 20 Most Evil Creature cards
• 50 Treasure Chest tokens
  • 20 Wooden Chest tokens
  • 20 Metal Chest tokens
  • 10 Gold Chest tokens
• 1 Bonus tokens reserve
• 45 Bonus tokens
  • 20 Shield tokens
  • 17 Roll Again tokens
  • 8 Magic Shield tokens
• 1 Resource tokens reserve
• 60 tokens with food, glyphs and barrels
  • 30 Food tokens
  • 20 Glyph tokens
  • 10 Barrel tokens
• 1 dice

Setup

Distribution of Castles and Goblins

Players choose their Castle board. If players cannot agree, shuffle the Castle boards together and give one to each player. Shuffle the Goblin cards and give 2 to each player. Any remaining Goblin cards are returned to the box as they will not be used in this game. Players place each of their Goblin cards:

• to the left of their castle if they want to improve their production and exploration abilities
• to the right of their castle if they want to improve their attacking abilities.

These improvements are made by sliding the card under the board so that the Goblin's abilities cannot be seen.

In this example, the player has chosen to place one Goblin on the left and one Goblin on the right of their castle. However, if you wanted you could also put the 2 Goblins on the left or both on the right.

The Human Kingdom

The construction of the human kingdom is based on the number of players:

• 2 players: take 3 random Farm cards, 3 random Village cards and 10 random Town cards.
• 3 players: take 4 random Farm cards, 4 random Village cards and 10 random Town cards.
• 4 players: take 6 random Farm cards, 6 random Village cards and 10 random Town cards.
• 5 players: take all the Kingdom cards.

Any unused cards are returned to the box.

Place the Tavern card face up in the centre of the table.

Take the Kingdom cards prepared in the following stage and shuffle each type of card separately. Put these into one pile by placing the Town cards at the bottom of the pile followed by the Village cards in the centre and the Farm cards at the top, with all the cards face down.

Place this pile to the left of the Tavern card. Turn over as many Kingdom cards as their are players and line these up face up to the right of the Tavern.

Creature Piles

Shuffle the Evil Creatures and the Most Evil Creatures separately and make 2 piles of each type of card which are placed face down above the human kingdom.

Turn over the two first cards of each pile and place these in a line below their respective piles.

Treasure Chests

Shuffle each type of Chest token separately (Wooden Chests, Metal Chests and Gold Chests). Make a pile of each type of Chest. Make sure the value of the cards is hidden.

Tokens

Place the two token reserves (Bonus and Resources) somewhere within reach of all players.

The most monstrous player will play first. They should be referred to as Captain. They take the dice and the game starts.

How to Play

The game is played in successive turns. Each turn represents one day.

A day is made up of several events that must be carried out in the following order:

1. Choose an active horde
2. Gather resources
3. Call back scouts
4. Attack
5. Recruit creatures
6. End of the Turn

Turns

1) Choose an Active Horde

You may well be an evil lord but even you cannot force all the creatures to work at the same time!

The Captain rolls the dice. The number on the dice corresponds to which horde will work today. This means that the number shown on the dice decides which characteristic castle line players should take into account for the rest of the day. This is the active horde.

Starting with the Captain and continuing clockwise, each evil lord can buy one round of drinks by spending one Barrel token to force the Captain to roll the dice again to change the active horde. The Captain can use a confusion spell OR a Barrel. Once the Captain has rolled the dice again each evil lord can buy another round again. This is always done in a clockwise order starting with the Captain. This step only ends when no evil lord forces the Captain to roll again.

Confusion spell: if the Captain has a confusion spell, they can use it to confuse the other players and use this to their advantage by rolling the dice again. Only the Captain can use a confusion spell. To do so, they must turn the spell token so that the face is showing. The confusion spell becomes inactive for this turn but can be used again the next day that this player is Captain. A player can have several confusion spells in their stock in front of them and they can all be used on the same day if the player wishes.

Buy a round of drinks: any player can buy a round by spending 1 Barrel token to force the Captain to roll the dice again. The Barrel is put back in the token reserve. There is no limit to the number of rounds that can be bought in a day.

For example, if at the start of this horde-choosing phase the dice was rolled and showed 2 then the active horde for the whole day for all the evil lords would be their horde on line 2 (the line starts on the left side of the castle and continues on the right).

2) Gather Resources

Each evil lord takes food and glyphs collected by their castle's active horde from the reserve. These are placed in front of their castle.

The space in front of player's castles is their stock, containing resources and treasure chests. All players must be able to see other players' resources and easily count how many chests other players possess (but NOT their value).

3) Call Back Scouts

Each player counts the treasure cards brought back by their castle's active horde (left side). The player with the most treasure cards immediately wins a Metal Chest card which they take from the corresponding card pile and place in front of their castle. If there is a tie between players who have the most treasure cards, each player involved takes one Wooden Chest instead of Metal Chest. If no one has a treasure card, skip this step.

Note: When taking Treasure Chest cards, you can look at these in secret but you must place them face down so no one can see them.

4) Attack

Following the turn order (starting with the Captain and continuing clockwise), each player can carry out one attack by choosing from the following possibilities:

• Attack the human kingdom
• Attack another player's castle

Attack the Human Kingdom

Each Place has the potential to be defended from a certain number of attackers. This is shown by the number in the card's shield.

In order to attack one of the visible Places, the active horde (on the right side of the castle board) must have at least as many swords as the number shown in the shield on the Place card.

For example, to attack the Place opposite, an active horde would need at least 3 swords.

When a Place is attacked, the player attacking collects the spoils shown at the bottom of the Place card. They take the corresponding resources and chests from the reserve and place these in front of their castle. The Place card is then discarded.

Magic shields and swords: certain Places are protected by magic shields. This type of shield can only be defeated by magic swords which can only be obtained with certain creatures. As with non-magic shields, the active horde must have at least as many magic swords as shown on the card to attack a place protected by a magic shield. Magic swords can also be used in place of non-magic swords.

Note: To attack a Place with both kinds of shield, players must have at least as many magic and non-magic swords as shown on the card.

Example: To attack this Place, players must have: 1 magic sword and 6 non-magic or magic swords (players are allowed to combine both kinds of swords for the total non-magic swords).

Attention:

• Unlike the Place cards, the Tavern is never discarded. It remains in place for the whole game and its spoils can be pillaged with each turn by each player.
• Treasure chests to be won are taken randomly from the corresponding stock of chests. Players can only check the value of these chests once they have been placed in front of their castle.
• A player can never have more than 2 Barrels. They must refuse any more.

Attack Another Player's Castle

Players can attack another player's castle instead of attacking a place. For this, the rules are the same as for attacking Places. Each player's castle has the potential to be defended from a certain number of attackers. This corresponds to the sum of the shield printed on the Castle board combined with the Shield tokens that have been added to the Castle. The attacking player must have at least as many swords as this total in order to attack.

The rules for magic and non-magic swords apply as before.

However, for the attacker to win spoils, the active horde must contain thieves (on the right side of the castle). Each thief allows 1 Chest of any kind to be stolen from the player being attacked. Several Chests can be stolen at once if a player has several thieves in their active horde. If a player has no thieves, they cannot attack an opponent's castle.

When stealing Chests from another player, the Chests which are taken should be placed in front of the attacking player's castle without checking their value. Once they are in the player's stock, this can be checked.

Example: your active line is line 2. You decide to attack the castle of another player with a Shield worth 2. Your 2 swords defeat the Shield and the attack is a success. Thanks to your thief, you steal one Chest from this player.

At the end of the attack phase, if one or several players have 10 or more Chests then the game ends immediately (see End of the Game).

Important: each time a player has one or more Chests stolen from them, they win a Shield token showing 1 which they add to their castle's total defense level. Be warned that even if several Chests are stolen from a player, they will only win one Shield token.

5) Recruit Creatures

Each player can recruit creatures by spending their food and glyphs. There is no limit to the number of creatures a player can recruit per turn as long as they can pay the cost to recruit them.

The cost to recruit creatures depends on the creature and is shown on the back of the cards in the 2 creature piles:

• Recruiting an Evil Creature will cost 2 food tokens,
• Recruiting one Most Evil Creature will cost 1 glyph + 4 food tokens OR 3 glyphs.

When recruiting a Creature, players put the resources they are paying with into the reserve and take one of the two creatures that are face up that corresponds to the resources they have spent. Once the Creature has been recruited, immediately flip over a new creature from the corresponding pile to replace the one that has been taken. Players place the newly recruited Creature on the left or right of their castle by sliding the card in the space below the cards already present in their castle so that the Creature's abilities cannot be seen.

Certain creatures will also win Bonus tokens when they are recruited. These Bonus tokens can be found on top of the Creature illustrations.

If a Creature with a Bonus token is recruited, the corresponding token should be taken from the reserve and placed on the Castle board.

These Bonus tokens (Shields) increase the number of attackers the castle can withstand, or have Confusion spells (that allow the Captain to roll the dice again). Bonus tokens are permanent and cannot be lost.

6) End of the Turn

Replace the kingdom cards that have been discarded with the next cards in the pile. There should always be as many Place cards showing as there are number of players. In addition, the Tavern card should always be present. The Captain gives the dice to the player on their left, who becomes the new Captain. A new turn can start.

End of the Game

If a player has 10 or more Chests after the attacking phase then the game is over. Players add together the values of their Treasures and the richest player wins the game.

In the event of a tie, the player with the most Chests wins the game. If a tie persists, the players who are tied share the victory.