Dirt and Glory
Dirt and Glory Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 35× Starting Troop card (7 cards in 5 player colors)
- 41× Troop card
- 5× Help card
- 5× Score card
- 9× Location card
- 20× Fuel token
- 5× Score token
Game overview
Each player has their own deck of seven cards with values 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5. During the game, players will acquire new cards with powerful abilities and different values and they will add these cards to their decks to improve it.
The goal of the game is to play cards with a total value equal to the value of the current target location they compete for. On their turn, players play one card without knowing its value in advance. It's up to them when they stop playing more cards, but the player who gets closest to the target number earns the most victory points. After six rounds, the game ends, and the player with the most points becomes the king of the wasteland.
Setup the game
Each player takes seven basic Troop cards in one color, then draws three Troop cards, keeps two, and returns one to the bottom of the Troop deck. Each player then shuffles the seven initial cards and two Troop cards to form a starting deck, placing it face down in front of them. Each player also gets one fuel token, a help card, a Score card and a Scoring token.
Setup steps (as shown in the illustration):
- Take all 7 Starting troop cards of your chosen color.
- Choose 2 out of 3 drawn Troop cards.
- Shuffle all 9 cards you now have to create your starting deck.
- Take a Score card, Scoring token and help card.
- Take 1 fuel token.
Setup the Location Deck
In the game, there are nine location cards divided into sets marked by number of nuts in the upper left corner (1, 2, 3). Return one random location card from each set to the box. From the remaining six cards, create a face-down deck, with 1-locknut cards on top, 2-locknut cards in the middle and 3-locknut cards at the bottom.
Place the troop deck next to the location deck and draw as many cards as there are players in the game and put them face up near the location deck. Place the fuel tokens within reach of all players.
Illustrated table layout labels: deck of remaining Troop cards; available Troops for this round (3 player game); location deck with target number for this round visible; fuel token supply. Setup the location deck like this: locknuts mark the location levels.
Gameplay
The player who last stomped the pedal is the first player. Players take turns clockwise until all pass or overrun.
In the first turn of each round, shuffle your deck of cards (don't take cards in reserve), draw two cards, play one on table face up and put second to the reserve. It is recommended to place cards in the reserve at a 90° angle to keep your cards organized.
Example: A player drew cards with value 5 and 2. He chose to play the card with value 5; the second card, with value 2, he placed into the reserve.
The cards in your reserve aren't as easily accessible as the cards in your deck, but there are ways to use them or get them all back.
In each subsequent turn, you may perform one of two actions:
- Play a card from the top of their deck into the caravan.
- Pass.
1) Playing a Card
If you play a card, place it over your previously played cards so that the values of all your played cards are visible. The sum of card values indicate the speed of your caravan.
After playing a card, always announce the total speed of your caravan aloud. If the just-played card has an ability, you may immediately trigger it. However, none of the abilities is mandatory! If the speed of your caravan is greater than the value of the target location, you have overrun. At that moment, immediately pass. Then choose one of the displayed Troop cards, and place it at the bottom of your deck.
If your caravan goes fast enough, you will get the chance to claim the location for this round, but if you go too fast, you overrun and your attempt ends.
Example: A player played a card with value 4. He decides to resolve it and looks at the top card of his deck. It is a value 2 card. Since his caravan's speed is 12 and he would overrun by playing the value 2 card, he puts it into his reserve, hoping he will draw a card with value 1 next turn.
2) Passing
If you don't want to play another card into your caravan and increase its speed for any reason, you must pass. Choose one of the Troop cards near the location card and place it at the bottom of your deck. Once you pass, you do not play anymore during this round.
Fuel tokens
During their turn, players can also use fuel tokens. There are two ways to use them:
- You can spend one fuel token and put the just-played card into your reserve. You may even do so after triggering its ability. Your turn is over. You may only use this option if you haven't overrun!
- Instead of playing a random card from the deck, you can spend four fuel tokens and play any chosen card from the reserve into the caravan. This way, you can precisely reach the target number. Even in this case you may trigger the card's ability.
Note: You can only have four fuel tokens at a time.
See the help card for fuel token usage.
Reserve
At the beginning of each of the six rounds, you place one of your cards into the reserve. You can also place cards into or out of your reserve by using Troop card abilities or by spending fuel tokens. Cards in the reserve are outside your deck, so you won't use them during the game.
If you want to retrieve cards from the reserve into the deck, you may at the beginning of each round, before drawing cards, take all cards from your reserve and shuffle them into your deck. Then draw two cards, move one to the reserve, then play the other, as usual.
Illustration note: At the start of each round, you may take all the cards from your reserve and shuffle it back into your deck. This way you will have all your cards back in the deck. You might want to do this, if your reserve contains valuable cards or cards with useful abilities or simply a lot of cards.
End of the Round
Once all players have passed or overrun, evaluate the location card. The player closest to the target number receives the highest number of points and marks them on their victory point counter.
Proceed row by row on the location card and allocate additional points or fuel tokens to players further from the target number. All players who have overrun or are on further than third place receive two fuel tokens instead of points.
Example: The player whose speed is closest but not higher than 13 gets 3 points, second one 2, third one gets 1 point and a fuel token. All players who overrun or are next in line gain two fuel tokens and no points.
Ties
In case of a tie in values, the player with fewer played cards in their caravan wins. If the tie persists, resolve it by having each tied player draw one card from the top of their deck. The player with the lower number from the drawn cards wins.
In case of another tie, tied players draw another card from the top of their deck. Again, the player with the lower value drawn wins. If a player doesn't have more cards in their deck to resolve the tie, they automatically lose the tie.
Example: Two players' caravans have the speed of 13 and consist of three played cards. They both draw one card from the top of their deck to resolve a tie. Both of them drew a card with value 1. The tie is still on. The blue player has no more cards in his deck and loses the tie.
If a card's effects say "me" or "I", it simply means "this card".
Start of the next round
Put the location card from the finished round into the box. Reveal a new location card and place the number of Troop cards equal to the number of players next to it. In the last sixth round of the game, do not place any Troop cards near the location card.
Now, each player has the option to add all cards from their reserve to their deck. If they choose to do so, they shuffle all their cards in the game, and form a new deck for this round. If they leave cards in the reserve, they shuffle their played cards (including the cards used for resolving the ties) and remaining deck cards to form a deck for this round.
The player who won the most points in the last round becomes the first player for this round.
Once the game starts, you may not go through the cards in your deck.
End of the game
Play all six rounds of the game. For every two remaining fuel tokens, you earn an additional victory point. The player with the most victory points becomes the king of the desert and the winner of the game Dirt and Glory! Resolve the ties as usual.
Card notes
- Cards with two values: You may play these cards as one of the two values. Simply turn it 180° if you want to use the second value. When drawing such a card during resolving Ties, you may also choose its value.
- Draw 2 cards from your deck, put each back on top or bottom: When playing this card, you may even change the order of the two cards you drew.