Dino Battle! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Two Player Setup
• Overview
  • Game End
  • Turn Structure
• Play Cards
  • Action Card Types
• Draw Cards
• Control Check
  • Shrines
  • Glyphs
• Boons
• Movement
  • Pteranodon Movement
  • Spending Crystals
• Combat
  • 1. Calculating Attack Value
  • 2. Calculating Defence Value
  • 3. Resolve Combat
  • Spending Blood Fruit
  • Dazed Condition
  • Going Extinct
• Turn Example

Components

Per Faction (there are two factions):

• 2 Brachiosaurus
• 2 T-Rex
• 3 Triceratops
• 4 Minmi
• 4 Raptor
• 2 Pteranodon (with transparent bases)
• 2 Turn Sequence Reference Cards
• 6 Species Reference Cards
• 28 Action Cards
• 8 Flagstones
• 2 Player Boards

Other Components:

• 1 Skull Temple
• 8 Board Tiles
• 8 Shrines
• 8 Hills
• 8 Glyphs
• 18 Blood Fruit
• 8 Crystals
• 10 Combat Dice
• 1 Hill Die
• 36 Boon Cards

Two Player Setup

1. Choose a faction colour and take the Action cards, Flagstones, Reference cards, board tiles, and dinos of that colour.
2. Place the four board tiles in your colour in a random order from left to right in the centre of the playing area, with the side with your faction colour facing towards you. Then, interlock them with your opponent's tiles to form the board.
3. Take a Player Board and place it in front of you. Shuffle your action cards into a facedown deck and place it to the left of your player board.
4. Place your Species Reference cards along your side of the board.
5. Place the Shrines on the spaces on the board indicated by a [Shrine] icon (a cluster of three circles).
6. Shuffle the Glyphs and randomly place each one onto a space on the board with a [Glyph] icon, with the side showing the distribution of Blood Fruit and Crystals face up.
7. Place hill tiles onto spaces on the board indicated by the [hill-space] icon. If you would cover a space with a Glyph, place the hill below it, and then place the Glyph on top of the hill in the same space it was in.
8. One at a time, for each Glyph, note the distribution of Blood Fruit and Crystals shown. Then, flip the Glyph to its illustrated side, and place that many Blood Fruit and Crystals on top of it.
9. Place the Skull Temple, Combat dice, and Hill dice to the side of the board, within reach of both players.
10. Choose a starting player. They draw 3 action cards from their deck. The other player draws 5 action cards.
11. The starting player places each of their dinos along a space on their board edge. You cannot place more than one dino of each species on the same tile. Note that because you have four tiles to place dinos on, and you have four Raptors and Minmi's, you will need to place each one on a different tile.
12. The second player places each of their dinos along a space on their board edge, following the same restrictions.

Editor's note on the setup icons: the source prints the icons for steps 5 and 7 as a cluster of circles and does not name them; the step 7 icon closely resembles the step 5 icon. Both are transcribed here by their printed description, with the icon names in brackets added for readability.

Overview

Gameplay is divided into turns. Each turn you will play action cards to move and attack with your dinos.

Game End

You win the game immediately if you make three of your opponent's species extinct, or if you control five or more shrines at the start of your turn.

If your Action card pile is empty and you would draw a card, instead continue playing until both players have taken an equal number of turns. Then, the player who defeated the most of their opponent's dinosaurs wins. If still a tie, the game is drawn.

Turn Structure

1. Play Cards
2. Draw Cards
3. Control Check

Play Cards

Play a card from your hand, placing it into the leftmost empty slot on your player board, and then resolve the card.

You have three slots for cards on your player board. Hence, you may repeat this step up to three times each turn.

Action Card Types

Dino Cards. For each activate icon on the corresponding slot, activate a dino of the species shown on the card.

When you activate a dino, they either move or attack an enemy dino in an adjacent space.

See page 6 for moving and page 7 for attacking.

You may not activate the same dino multiple times with the same card. You may activate the same dino more than once on a turn by playing multiple cards.

If you have fewer dinos in a species than you have activations, excess activations are wasted.

Wild Card. For each activate icon on the corresponding slot, activate a dino of any species.

When you activate a dino, they either move or attack an enemy dino in an adjacent space.

You may not activate the same dino multiple times with the same card.

Skull Temple Card. Choose one of the following:

• Take all the Blood Fruit and Crystals in the Skull Temple offering (page 6-7).
• Gain the top Boon card (page 5).

Draw Cards

Draw the number of cards from your deck shown to the right of the rightmost card you played this turn.

• If you played no cards, draw four.
• If you played one card, draw three.
• If you played two cards, draw two.
• If you played three cards, draw one.

Finally, if you have more than eight Action cards in hand, discard cards until you have eight.

Control Check

Shrines

For each Shrine on the board where you do not already have a Flagstone placed, compare the number of your dinos in adjacent spaces with the number of your opponent's dinos in adjacent spaces.

If you have more adjacent dinos than your opponent, place your Flagstone on it. If your opponent had a Flagstone on it, return it to their supply.

During your control step you never place your opponent's Flagstones or remove yours.

If you have Flagstones on five or more Shrines at the end of your turn, loudly exclaim 'victory approaches!'

If you still have Flagstones on five or more Shrines at the start of your following turn, you win the game.

Glyphs

For each Glyph on the board, check if you have more dinos adjacent to it than your opponent.

If you do, and that Glyph has Blood Fruit on it, take one into your personal supply. If it does not, instead take a Crystal into your supply. If it doesn't have a Crystal either, take the Glyph into your supply.

Once you have checked for control of all Glyphs, for each Glyph you took into your supply:

1. Return the Glyph to the box.
2. Draw two Boon cards. Choose one to gain and discard the other, placing it into a discard pile next to the Boon deck.

Boons

Boons fall into three types - Action cards, Event cards, and Upgrade cards.

Action Cards are added to your hand when gained.

Event cards are one-off effects. When you gain an Event card, resolve it immediately, and then place it in the discard pile.

Upgrade cards grant ongoing abilities.

Upgrade ALL cards apply to a player and affect every dino that player controls.

Upgrade ANY cards are assigned by the player who received them to a specific species.

Other upgrade cards are species-specific. If you gain an upgrade card that applies to a single species, tuck that card under the corresponding Species Reference card.

If you would gain a Boon card which corresponds to species that is extinct, instead treat it as an Upgrade ANY card and assign it to a species of your choice.

Movement

Move a number of spaces up to the value shown on the dino card, according to the following rules:

• You may move through spaces containing your dinos but cannot finish your movement there.
• You may not move through spaces containing Glyphs.
• You may not move through spaces containing your opponent's dinos. You may not move through spaces containing Shrines.
• Going from a non-hill space to a hill space counts as moving two spaces.
• There is no additional movement cost to moving from one hill space to another, or from a hill to a non-hill space.

Pteranodon Movement

Pteranodons may move through spaces containing any player's dinos, Shrines, or Glyphs, but cannot finish their movement there. They ignore the additional movement cost of going from non-Hill spaces to hill spaces.

Spending Crystals

You may spend Crystals at any time during your Play Step. This includes mid-way through resolving a card.

Each time you spend a Crystal, draw an Action card or move (1) one of your non-dazed dinos.

You may not spend a Crystal to move a dino from a non-hill space to a hill space, as this requires two movement.

Each spent Crystal is placed in the mouth of the Skull Temple. Sometimes they will roll out into the offering, and sometimes they will be lost forever.

Combat

Choose an enemy dino in an adjacent space to attack, then follow these three steps.

1. Calculating Attack Value

Roll combat dice equal to the attacking dino's strength. This is shown on Species Reference cards in the lower-right hand corner.

For each non-dazed dino you have other than the attacker in a space adjacent to your target, roll an additional combat die.

If you are attacking from a hill space to a non-hill space, also roll the hill die.

Then, you may spend Blood Fruit to re-roll dice (see below.)

Add the value of the action card that activated the dino to the total value of the dice rolled. This is the attack value.

2. Calculating Defence Value

The defender rolls combat dice equal to the defending dino's strength.

If the defender is on a hill space, and the attacker is not, they also roll the hill die.

Then, the defender may spend Blood Fruit to re-roll dice (see below.)

Finally, total the value of the dice rolled. This is the defence value.

3. Resolve Combat

If the dino with the lowest combat value is defeated. In a tie, neither dino is defeated.

If you rolled one or more dazed results, and the opposing dino was not defeated, daze them (see below.)

Return defeated dinos to the box.

Spending Blood Fruit

Blood Fruit is spent during combat. When you spend Blood Fruit, for each fruit spent, re-roll one combat or hill dice.

You must re-roll all your dice at the same time.

You may not re-roll the same die multiple times.

Each spent Blood Fruit is placed in the mouth of the Skull Temple. Sometimes they will roll out into the offering, and sometimes they will be lost forever.

Dazed Condition

When a dino is dazed, place it on its side in the space it was in. The next time it would activate, instead stand it up.

Dazed dinos roll one fewer dice in combat. They do not count for the purpose of flanking during combat. They do not count for the purposes of determining control.

Going Extinct

If the last dino of a species is defeated, flip the Species Reference to its extinct side.

Dino cards of that species now count as Wild cards.

If you make three of your opponent's species extinct, you win the game immediately!

Turn Example

It's the yellow player's turn. They play a Minmi 3 card into their first slot, activating up to 3 Minmis.

The yellow player moves two Minmis and attacks with a third. They roll two combat dice (one for the Minmi's strength, and one for the flanking Triceratops) and get a 5 and a dazed result. They spend 1 Blood Fruit to re-roll the dazed result, and get a 10. This leaves them with an attack value of 18 (10 + 5 + 3 from the card). The defending player rolls one combat die and gets a blank result. They elect not to spend Blood Fruit and their Minmi is defeated.

Next, the yellow player plays a T-Rex 3 in their second slot, moving both T-Rex.

Next, they play a Triceratops 3 in their third slot, attacking the enemy Triceratops. The yellow player rolls three combat dice (two for the Triceratops' strength, and one for the flanking T-Rex). They get a 10, a dazed result and a 15, and don't spend Blood Fruit. Their attack value is 28 (10 + 15 + 3 from the card). The defending player rolls two combat dice and gets a 15 and a 15 and doesn't spend Blood Fruit, giving them a defence value of 30.

The attacking Triceratops is defeated. The yellow player flips their reference card to show that the species is extinct and that those cards are now wild. The defending Triceratops is dazed.

The yellow player then resolves their Draw Cards step, drawing one action card, and moving their played cards to the discard.

Finally, the yellow player resolves their Control Step. They place one Flagstone on the central Shrine, as they have two dinos adjacent to it compared to the blue's 0 (dazed dinos don't count). They also control 3 Glyphs. Two of them have Blood Fruit on, and so they gain two Blood Fruit. The last has neither Blood Fruit or Crystals, and so they remove the Glyph token from the board, draw two Boon cards, choose one to gain, and discard the other.