Forge War
Forge War Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
Game component amounts are not meant to limit gameplay. If you run out of something, use a suitable replacement.
37 double-sided interlocking mine pieces
- 6x Stage I central hex grids (1 dot on center mine)
- 6x Stage I hex borders (1 dot on center mine)
- 6x Stage II central hex grids (2 dots on center mine)
- 6x Stage II hex borders (2 dots on center mine)
- 6x Stage III central hex grids (3 dots on center mine)
- 6x Stage III hex borders (3 dots on center mine)
- 1x central hex tile
- 1x Game board
180 resources
- 40x Copper ingots (orange)
- 40x Iron ingots (black)
- 40x Mithril ingots (blue)
- 20x Emeralds (green)
- 20x Rubies (red)
- 20x Diamonds (white)
- 1x Rule book
- 20x White quest tracker cubes
- 4x Player mats (2-sided, normal / epic game)
- 40x Adventurer tiles
- 120x Champion title & level tokens
82 quest cards
- 18x + 2x Green stage I quests (including 2 removed for the normal game)
- 9x Purple stage I quests (normal game)
- 20x Grey stage II quests (epic game)
- 9x Purple stage II quests (fast-forward variant)
- 12x Red stage III quests (epic game)
- 12x Purple stage III quests (epic game)
8 starting player cards
- 4x "Copper Sword" designs
- 4x "Copper Dagger" designs
Market and reward tokens
- 108x Market cards
- 12x Axe tokens
- 12x Spear tokens
- 12x Mace tokens
- 28x "+1" weapon power tokens
- 8x "Started Quest" tokens
- 15x Bonus tiles
- 12x "100/200 prestige" tokens
- 20x Gold coins (value 5)
- 48x Silver coins (value 1)
- 12x Overseers (3 per player color)
- 20x Disk markers (5 per player color)
- 40x Worker pickaxes (10 per player color)
- 28x Claim cubes (7 per player color)
- 32x Starting wealth cards (16 stage 1, 16 fast-forward)
- 1x Round tracker
Setup Guide
1. Player Elements (p.6)
- a. 1 player mat of their color, correct side up (p.17).
- b. 1 of each of the 2 starting weapon designs.
- c. 3 adventurer tiles with level 1 tokens (4 adventurer tiles in epic game).
- d. Epic game only: A set of 20 champion title tokens.
- e. 3 overseer meeples of their color, set to the side.
- f. 10 worker pickaxes of their color, set to the side.
- g. 5 disk markers of their color, set to the side.
- h. 7 claim cubes of their color, set to the side.
- i. 5 white quest tracker cubes.
- j. 4 randomized stage 1 starting wealth cards.
2. Place Disk Markers (p.6)
- k. Players place 1 disk marker of their color on the 0 spot of the scoring track.
- l. Randomly determine player order and place 1 disk marker of each player color in the corresponding spot of the player order track.
- m. Place 2 others on the merchant to keep track of buys and sells (p.17).
3. Place Round Tracker (p.6)
- n. Place the round tracking cylinder on stage 1, round 1 of the round track.
4. Bonus Tiles (Optional) (p.6)
- o. Epic game only: Shuffle the 15 bonus tiles and randomly place 1 tile face-up on top of rounds 4 and 5 of stage 1, place 2 tiles face-up covering rounds 1 and 2 and rounds 4 and 5 of stage 2 and do the same for stage 3. Note that bonus tiles are optional and should only be used by experienced players and only in the epic game. In addition, if bonus tiles are being used, players should start with 1 fewer adventurer (3 total).
5. Prepare the Quest Deck (p.7)
- p. In separate decks, shuffle the 18 green stage 1 quests and the 9 purple stage 1 quests. Place both decks on the quest draw space with the green deck on top.
- Epic game only: Don't remove the quests from the green deck. Instead of including the purple stage 1 quests, include the grey stage 2, red stage 3 and purple stage 3 quests shuffled separately and stacked in the order of green, grey, red and purple.
6. Fill the Quest Offer (p.7)
- q. Draw 8 stage 1 quest cards off the top of the deck, placing the 1st 5 in the top row of the quest offer and the next 3 in the 2nd row.
7. Stock the Market (p.9)
- r. Separate and place the weapon, bonus, and single-use market cards, revealing the top card of each stack (p.9). Place the 4 public starting weapon designs below the board.
8. Stock the Supply (p.8)
- s. Take all of the resources separated by color, as well as the extra adventurer tiles, level markers and coin tokens and place them to the sides of the board.
9. Build the Mine (p.8)
- t. Randomly pick a side of each of the 6 stage 1 central hex grids and assemble them together with the single central hex to form a hexagonal array with a side length of 4 hexes. Then, based on number of players, surround this assembly with a ring of 6 stage 1 hex borders alternating in length so that they lock together.
10. Starting Wealth (p.8)
- All players select 2 of their 4 starting wealth cards and collect the bonuses on those 2 cards.
11. Place Overseers (p.8)
- In player order, take turns placing 1 overseer meeple on any available unoccupied hex of the mine until all 3 overseers for each player are placed.
Normal Game
Setup and mechanics will be described for playing the normal game. Extra mechanics for the epic game will be clearly marked as such.
Setup
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Players should collect the following:
- 1 of each of the 2 starting weapon designs
- 3 adventurer tiles with level 1 tokens (4 adventurer tiles in epic game)
- Epic game only: A set of 20 champion title tokens
- 3 overseer meeples of their color, set to the side
- 10 worker pickaxes of their color, set to the side
- 5 disk markers of their color, set to the side
- 7 claim cubes of their color, set to the side
- 5 white quest tracker cubes
- 4 randomized stage 1 starting wealth cards
- 1 player mat of their color, correct side up.
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Players should place 1 disk marker of their color on the 0 spot of the scoring track. Randomly determine player order and place 1 disk marker of each player color in the corresponding spot of the player order track.
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Place the round tracking cylinder on stage 1, round 1 of the round track.
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Epic game only (optional): Shuffle the 15 bonus tiles and randomly place 1 tile face-up on top of rounds 4 and 5 of stage 1, place 2 tiles face-up covering rounds 1 and 2 and rounds 4 and 5 of stage 2 and do the same for stage 3. Note that bonus tiles are optional and should only be used by experienced players and only in the epic game. In addition, if bonus tiles are being used, players should start with 1 fewer adventurer (3 total).
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Find the 20 green stage 1 quest cards and remove the 2 quests marked with a special symbol ("Investigate the Kidnappings" and "The Cursed Keep"). Find the 9 purple stage 1 quest cards (denoted by the Roman numeral I on the front and back). Shuffle both of these decks separately and then place both decks on the quest draw space with the green deck on top.
Epic game only: Don't remove the marked quests from the green deck. Instead of including the purple stage 1 quests, include the grey stage 2, red stage 3 and purple stage 3 quests (denoted by the Roman numeral III on the front and back) shuffled separately and stacked top-to-bottom in the order of green, grey, red and purple.
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Draw 8 stage 1 quest cards off the top of the deck, placing the 1st 5 in top row of the quest offer and the next 3 in 2nd row face-up.
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Find the green stage 1 market cards and separate them by type (denoted on back) and shuffle each stack. Place the weapon deck on the weapon space. Separate the bonus deck into 2 equal stacks (6 cards each) and place them on the 2 bonus spaces, then do the same for the single-use cards. In addition, place the 4 public starting weapon designs (copper spear, copper mace, copper axe and iron sword) in a row below the market section of the game board.
The cards have different backs to ease organization and sorting. The backs are color-coded for each stage of the game and have icons identifying the card use.
Color Key
- Starting Cards
- Stage I cards
- Stage II cards
- Stage III cards
- End Game cards
- Stage 1 / Fast-Forward (see page 28)
Card types: Starting Wealth Cards, Quest Cards, Market Cards (Weapon, Bonus, Single-Use)
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Take all of the resources separated by color, as well as the extra adventurer tiles, level markers and coin tokens and place them to the side of the board. This is the supply.
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Randomly pick a side of each of the 6 stage 1 central hex grids and assemble them together with the single central hex to form a hexagonal array with a side length of 4 hexes. Then surround this assembly with a ring of 6 stage 1 hex borders alternating in length so that they lock together. In a 4-player game, these border tiles should all be resource-side up. With 3 players, 3 contiguous border tiles (2 long and 1 short) should all be flipped to resource-side down. In a 2-player game, all border tiles should be flipped to resource-side down. The stage in which a mine tile belongs can be determined by the number of dots located on the center hex on the side of the central hex grids and the center hex of the border tiles (see page 10).
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At this point, all players should select 2 of their 4 starting wealth cards and collect the bonuses on those 2 tiles. Players place all resources, tokens and adventurers in front of them. This is their pool.
Possible wealth: Coins; Copper, iron and emerald resources; Level 1 adventurer; Level up 1 adventurer; Place a claim token on the specified public design.
While 2 level-up bonuses can be used on a single adventurer, the maximum starting level for an adventurer is 3.
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Going in player order, players take turns placing one of their overseer meeples on any available unoccupied hex of the mine until all 3 overseers for each player are placed.
Icons
- Copper, Iron, Mithril, Emerald, Ruby, Diamond (resources)
- Gold Coin, Green Coin
- Adventurer, Prestige Points, Level adventurer up
- Mace, Spear, Axe (weapon types)
- Market Card, Quest Card, Discard after use, Quest
- Overseer movement, Worker movement, Power
Order of Play
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Players will start a round by replenishing the market cards and quest offer. (Page 9)
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They will then move overseers in the mine to collect resources. (Page 10)
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Next, they will rearrange player order based on positions in the mine. (Page 11)
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Then players will head to the market to perform 1 market action. (Pages 14–15)
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Lastly they will enter the castle to accept quests from the king and manage their existing quests. (Pages 21–22)
Players can also interact with the merchant (page 17) and their own market stalls (page 13) at any time during a round.
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At the end of the round, players will remove quests from the quest offer. (Page 24)
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In the epic game, if an optional bonus tile occupies the next space on the round track, it is resolved before moving to the new round. (Page 26)
Start of Round
Replenish Market Cards
- Reveal the top card of each of the 5 market decks by turning them face-up. If a normal iron weapon design is drawn from the weapon deck (iron spear, iron mace, iron axe or iron greatsword - denoted with a special symbol in the upper left of the card), place it below the board with the public weapon designs and reveal a new weapon card (repeating the same process if another normal weapon design is drawn). If it is the 1st round of the game or a new stage, this happens before choosing starting wealth cards or placing overseers.
- There are normal mithril weapons that go with the public weapon designs in stage 2 of the epic game.
Replenish Quest Offer
(not done on 1st round)
- Move all cards in the quest offer as far forward as possible, leaving no open positions between them (pushing cards in the 2nd row into empty 1st row spots).
- Then deal a quest card from the quest draw deck to each empty position at the back of the offer. If the quest deck of a single color is depleted, continue dealing cards from the next color.
Mine Phase
In player order, every player may move a single overseer meeple of their color in the mine once, with the purpose of collecting resources by generating workers. After each player has made a movement in the mine, the 1st player in the player order may make a 2nd overseer movement, however doing so will lock them into last place in the turn order for the following round (see page 11). The following restrictions apply to overseer movement:
- Overseers can move in straight lines across the grid through any number of empty hexes.
- Overseers can only end their movement on an unoccupied resource hex.
- Overseers can move through any number of contiguous workers in a straight line (regardless of color) after moving through any number of empty hexes, but must then end their movement on the next unoccupied hex.
- Overseers cannot move through other overseers.
After the movement of an overseer, workers (colored wooden pickaxes) are generated based on the following:
- The hex on which the overseer started its movement generates a worker of the same color as the overseer.
- Any workers the overseer moved through that were colored differently than the overseer change to the color of the overseer.
- Any workers the overseer moved through that were the same color as the overseer are overworked and defect to another player. The worker changes its color to the color of the player who has the fewest number of workers on the board, not counting the active player. In case of a tie, the worker changes to the color of the tied player who is earlier in the current player order. These changes are determined individually in the order in which the workers were passed over by the overseer.
After the worker generation is resolved, all workers spawned and passed over by the overseer generate a single resource of the same type as the hex they occupy and give it to the player of their current color. Note: Workers only provide resources to a player when they are generated or passed over by an overseer. They do not generate resources every round.
It is not mandatory to take an overseer movement each round. A player may choose to pass and do nothing instead.
Mine hex types: Copper Mine, Iron Mine, Mithril Mine, Emerald Mine, Ruby Mine, Diamond Mine (each also marked with a stage 1, 2, or 3 location indicator).
Strikes
After resources are produced, check the mine for contiguous groups of 5 or more workers of the same color. These groups of same-colored workers go on strike and are removed from the board. Players must check for strike after any changes are made to the mine (i.e. overseer movements or worker movements).
Example
For blue's overseer movement, he moves his overseer to the right, jumping over 4 workers (2 blue and 2 yellow).
- First, he generates a worker on the space the overseer leaves.
- He then passes over his own worker. Out of his opponents, purple has the fewest workers on the board (1 to yellow's 3), so that blue worker becomes purple.
- The overseer then passes over 2 yellow workers and turns them blue.
- He now passes over another blue worker, but now there are 2 purple workers (1+1) and 1 yellow worker (3-2), so the last blue worker becomes yellow.
- He then must end his move on the next unoccupied space.
- Blue gets 2 iron and 1 emerald for this move. Yellow and purple both get a copper. Lastly, the 2 yellow workers that became blue now form a group of 5 blue workers with the blue workers above and below them, which is enough for a strike, so these 5 workers are removed.
Rearrange Player Order
At the end of each mine phase, player order is rearranged based on the number of workers in the mine. Tally the number of workers each player currently owns in the mine. Whoever has the fewest workers is now 1st player, the player with the next fewest is 2nd and so on. If there is a tie, the order for those tied relative to each other becomes opposite of what it was previously. Exception: If the 1st player in the mine phase took their 2nd overseer movement, they are automatically locked into last place in the order determination and are not considered when determining the other players' order.
Example: In the 3-player example above, the player order started as purple, yellow, blue, and so blue is the last to move. Purple declines to take an extra move, so a new player order is now determined. Blue has the fewest workers (1), so they are moved to 1st in the order. Purple and yellow are tied with 2 workers each, so their order switches relative to each other from what it was previously, so the new order becomes blue, yellow, purple. If purple had taken an extra movement, they would have been last either way, so it probably would have been advantageous to do so.
Market Phase
In this phase, players can take a single action in the market section of the board that will give them some advantage in the game.
Market Cards
There are 3 types of market cards available for purchase during the market phase: (1) Weapon design cards; (2) Market bonus cards; (3) Single-use cards.
All cards may have any of the following:
- Name
- Adventurer level requirement
- The price in gold for which they can be purchased. Exception: When playing the normal game, use the number in the green circle (if any) as the purchase price.
- A prestige point value for owning or claiming the card, or, in the case of single-use cards, a reminder to throw away the card after purchase.
Weapon Design Cards
- There are 2 types of weapon designs: public weapon designs, which are denoted with a special icon on the card, and unique weapon designs, which have full color art and are worth more prestige points than public weapon designs.
- Weapon designs are not weapons themselves, but allow the player to forge that weapon through the expenditure of resources. Once a player buys a unique weapon design card, they place it below their mat and it stays there for the rest of the game. In the case of public weapon designs, buying into the card means placing a colored claim cube on the card. Once a player owns a weapon design, they can forge as many of that weapon as they are able. The necessary resources required to forge the weapon are listed on the left side of the card, and the power of the weapon and weapon type (if any) are listed on the right side.
- Weapon types consist of: axe; spear; and mace. If a weapon symbol contains multiple types, the weapon counts as each type shown.
- A player can only have a single marker on any single public weapon design.
- Weapons forged are given to adventurers embarking on quests (see page 19), though adventurers can only wield weapons if they meet the level requirement (see page 19).
Market Bonus Cards
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There are 2 types of market bonus cards: market stalls, which allow players to exchange different types of resources, and market savvy cards, which give players some permanent benefit in the market.
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Purchased market bonus cards go to the left of a player's mat and remain there for the remainder of the game, providing a permanent bonus.
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Market stalls: these cards allow the player who owns them to exchange the number of one type of resource shown for the number of the other type of resource shown once each round. Exception: Trader's Savvy can allow a player to use a market stall multiple times in a round (see below). This exchange can go either way. For instance, a card showing 1 ruby on the left and 2 iron on the right means that once each round (including the round it was purchased), the player who owns the card can exchange 1 ruby for 2 iron or 2 iron for 1 ruby with the supply. This action can be performed at any time during a round, even after receiving quest rewards (see page 23) or resolving bonus tiles (see page 26), or during another player's turn. Once a player uses a specific market stall in a round, they can rotate the stall card to the side as a reminder that they cannot use it again until next round. A player can only own a single copy of any given market stall exchange.
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Market savvy: there are 4 types of savvy cards:
- Buyer's Savvy increases the number of resources the player can buy from the merchant each round by 1 (see page 17).
- Seller's Savvy increases the amount of gold the player gains from selling a resource to the merchant by 1 (see page 17).
- Trader's Savvy allows the player to use one of their market stalls 1 extra time each round.
- Adventurer's Savvy allows a player, when they move a quest tracker cube up during the Road market action (see page 15), to move that quest tracker cube up an additional step.
Unlike market stalls, players can own multiple copies of the market savvy cards.
Single-Use Cards
- Single-use cards give the player who purchases them bonus resources or other benefits that are taken immediately.
- When the card is purchased and the benefit is received, the card is then removed from the game instead of being placed on the player's mat. The symbol in the bottom right corner of the card is a reminder of this. Do not discard the purchased card into the market discard deck (see page 15). If the card gave the purchaser an overseer or worker movement, players must check for strikes after the movement is made (see page 11).
Market Actions
In the market phase, players can take a single action in the market area of the board by placing one of their colored wooden disks on an action space. This occurs in player order, starting with the 1st player. There are 2 types of action spaces:
- Closed circles: only 1 player can place a disk on this space each round. When a player places a disk here, it blocks later players.
- Open circles: any number of players can place their disk on these spaces.
A player can take one of the following actions:
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Blacksmith (closed): Purchase the face-up unique weapon design.
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Bazaar (closed): Purchase a single face-up bonus or single-use card. In the 2-player game, there is only 1 space that gives access to all 4 cards. In a 3- or 4-player game, there are 2 spaces – 1 for the 2 bonus cards and 1 for the 2 single-use cards.
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Barracks (closed): Perform one or both of the following actions: hire a new level 1 adventurer for 4 gold and level up one of the adventurers in your supply by paying the current level of the adventurer (leveling from 1 to 2 costs 1 gold, leveling from 2 to 3 costs 2 gold and so on). If both purchases are made, the adventurer leveled up cannot be the one just purchased.
In the epic game, the cost of hiring an adventurer is dependent on the current stage. The cost is 4 gold in stage 1, 5 gold in stage 2 and 6 gold in stage 3.
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Clerk (open): Claim one of the public weapon designs displayed below the board by placing a colored claim cube on the card. When a player claims a card, they must pay the price listed on the card to the supply, plus pay 1 gold to each player who has already claimed the design.
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Road (open): Rush a single quest by moving its quest tracker cube up 1 step (see page 18). This action costs nothing. If this movement would move the quest tracker cube to a new leg and thus completes the current leg, the physical rewards for the completed leg are received at this time (see page 23). The Road action cannot be used to complete a quest. Note that the Adventurer's Savvy card allows a player to move the quest forward an additional step for each of these cards they possess. For instance, if a player has 2 Adventurer's Savvy cards, they can take the road action space to rush a single quest forward 3 steps. Combined with the single step that quests progress on their own each round, this would result in the quest progressing 4 steps total in a single round.
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It is not mandatory to take an action each round. A player may choose to pass, in which case they receive 1 gold from the bank.
Once all players have taken a single action or passed, the market phase is over and any unpurchased face-up cards still in the market are moved to the market discard deck. All player disks played on the board are also returned to the players.
Market Bonus Actions
On turn 7 of the normal game, there will be no market cards left to purchase. The market phase still happens as normal except that players can now use their action disks on the blacksmith and bazaar action spaces to purchase special end-game market bonus points by paying the cost noted on the space. Once the action disk is placed, the purchase is signified by placing a colored claim cube on the empty card space. These bonuses are tallied at the end of the game:
- The blacksmith bonus gives a player 2 prestige for each unique weapon design they own and 1 prestige for each public weapon design they have claimed. Prestige is not awarded for the starting copper dagger and copper sword designs.
- The top left bazaar bonus gives a player 1 prestige for each quest they have fully completed.
- The top right bazaar bonus gives a player 1 prestige for each adventurer they have employed.
- The bottom left bazaar bonus gives a player 2 prestige for each permanent market bonus card they own.
- The bottom right bazaar bonus gives a player 1 prestige for each leftover resource in their supply.
These special actions are not available in the epic game.
The Merchant
Players can buy a single resource from the merchant once each round and sell a single resource to the merchant once each round for the gold prices listed. For instance, a player can sell an emerald for 2 gold and buy a mithril for 5 gold. Exceptions: each Buyer's Savvy card allows a player to buy an extra resource from the merchant each round, and each Seller's Savvy card increases the listed sell prices by 1 gold.
If a player has trouble remembering whether they have interacted with the merchant in a given round, they can place their disks on the mat to signify a buy and sell interaction.
Though interaction with the merchant is covered here in the market phase, a player can interact with the merchant at any time during a round, even after receiving quest rewards (see page 23) or resolving bonus tiles (see page 26), or during another player's turn.
Player Mat
The player mat has 2 sides, a normal game side and an epic game side.
On each mat there is space to keep coins, resources, quest tracker cubes and adventurers. The mat also contains a game summary.
Around each mat there is space to lay out quest cards, weapon design cards and market bonus cards.
The normal game mat has a detailed icon guide and a merchant card containing resources that appear in the normal game.
The epic game mat has an icon guide, a merchant card containing resources that appear in the epic game and a champion title reference.
Quest Phase
In this phase, players will go through 3 distinct actions: quest acquisition, quest management and quest rewards.
Quest Cards
A quest card consists of a title and a series of banners to represent the progression of the quest.
- A single gold diamond on the card represents a quest step. When a player first undertakes a quest (page 21), they place a quest tracker cube on the first of these diamonds (upper left). A player will advance all their active quests a single step during the quest rewards action (page 23), moving the quest tracker cube left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
- A single row of steps represents a quest leg. The difficulty and required weapon types of a leg are listed to the left of the leg's steps and the rewards for completing the leg are listed to the right.
- The number in front of a quest leg is the leg difficulty. A player must match the difficulty of the quest's current leg during the quest management action (page 22), or the quest will fail.
- Some quest legs also contain a symbol beside the difficulty. This is the required weapon type for the leg. If the player does not have at least 1 equipped adventurer weapon of the same type applied to the quest during any step of that leg, the quest difficulty is increased by 3 for that step. If the symbol includes multiple weapon types, the difficulty is increased by 3 for each weapon type not matched. (Weapon type icons: Axe, Mace, Spear, Axe & Mace, Axe & Spear, Mace & Spear, Axe, Mace & Spear.)
- Any rewards given for completing a quest leg are listed in the area to the right of the last step diamond. These rewards are received during the quest rewards action when the quest tracker cube moves off the current leg (page 23).
Adventurer Tiles
Adventurer tiles represent the hired adventurers you have at your disposal to send out on quests. There are many different variations in the adventurer tile art. This difference is purely aesthetic and a player can select art according to their preference.
Adventurer levels are denoted by a marker placed into the slot at the bottom of the tile. Every adventurer a player acquires, either through single-use market card purchases, barracks purchases, quest rewards or starting wealth cards, always starts at level 1. Adventurers can gain levels by completing the final leg of a quest (see page 23), through the purchase of the Training single-use market card, using the barracks action space or claiming specific starting wealth cards. When an adventurer levels up, remove the current level marker and replace it with a new one. The maximum level an adventurer can have is 4.
Players apply adventurers to a quest during the quest management action (see page 22) by forging a weapon for them and then placing the adventurer tile to the right of the active quest. A weapon is forged and then equipped by an adventurer by transferring the necessary resources from a player's pool onto the adventurer tile. For instance, if a player were forging a copper sword, they would place 2 copper from their pool onto the adventurer tile.
Once a weapon is forged it cannot be transferred to another adventurer or converted back into raw resources. If there is confusion about which weapon type an adventurer has equipped when a player has multiple weapon designs that require the same resources, the weapon type tokens (Axe, Mace, Spear) can be placed on the adventurer to denote their equipped weapon type(s).
Adventurers are restricted in their weapon use based on their level. These restrictions are noted on the weapon design cards:
- Level 1 adventurers can only use swords and daggers.
- Level 2 adventurers can use any public or starting weapon (sword, dagger, axe, mace or spear).
- Level 3 and 4 adventurers are the only adventurers that can use unique weapons purchased from the blacksmith.
Other rules for applying adventurers to quests:
- Adventurers have no inherent power. An adventurer must be equipped with a weapon to be applied to a quest.
- Adventurers can only equip 1 weapon at a time (shields count as weapons).
- A player can change the weapon of an adventurer applied to a quest, but any resources used to create the adventurer's initial weapon are lost and returned to the supply.
- Adventurers can be removed from one quest to be applied to another quest, but the adventurer will lose any weapon they were equipped with (resources returned to the supply) and must be given a new weapon.
A forged weapon is bound to both the adventurer and the quest. It cannot be transferred to another adventurer or quest for any reason and cannot be turned back into raw resources.
Champions
In the epic game, when an adventurer advances from level 3 to level 4, they become a champion and gain a champion title. Remove the normal level marker from the adventurer tile and insert a champion title marker. Titles offer various perks to the player when the player uses that champion for a quest. There are 20 titles, and each player can only have 1 champion with each title. Extra weapon power from champion titles can be denoted by adding attack tokens to the champion.
Titles
- Opportunistic: The player immediately receives an extra 2 prestige points every time they complete a leg of the quest this champion is applied to.
- Ambitious: The player immediately receives 1 gold every time they complete a leg of the quest this champion is applied to.
- Unrelenting: This champion applies an extra +1 weapon power to his equipped weapon every time the player completes a leg of a quest that this champion is applied to. This bonus is denoted by adding "+1" attack tokens to the adventurer. Note: This advantage is applied to his weapon, so when he loses that weapon – because it is switched or he is moved to another quest – the attack power bonus is lost, as well.
- Valorous: The player receives an extra 4 prestige points when the champion fully completes a quest. Full completion of a quest necessitates that the champion is applied to the quest from the 1st step to the last. Players can use "Started Quest" tokens to remember this.
- Fortuitous: The player receives an extra 3 gold when the champion fully completes a quest (see above).
- Scavenging: The player can purchase a market card from the market discard pile for the listed price when this champion fully completes a quest (see above).
- Inspiring: One of the other adventurers on the quest this champion is applied to can level up an additional time when this champion fully completes the quest (see above).
- Bravura: The player immediately receives an additional prestige point for every point of weapon power applied to the quest in excess of the difficulty of the final quest leg when this champion fully completes a quest (see above).
- Expeditious: When a player starts a quest and applies this champion to it, the quest can be started on the 2nd or 3rd step instead of the 1st. Any physical rewards or champion/weapon bonuses given for skipping a leg in this manner (i.e. Unrelenting) are not received. This champion's ability can only be used a subsequent time once the quest on which it was last used is completed or failed. If the quest is failed on the round it is taken, no prestige points are awarded.
- Charming: When a player starts a quest and applies this champion to it, the player receives 1 gold from the supply instead of paying the acquisition cost (see page 21). This champion's ability can only be used a subsequent time once the quest on which it was last used is completed or failed.
- Rending: This champion applies axe type to any weapon he equips.
- Brutish: This champion applies mace type to any weapon he equips.
- Impaling: This champion applies spear type to any weapon he equips.
- Viridian: This champion applies an extra +2 weapon power to any weapon containing an emerald that he equips.
- Sanguine: This champion applies an extra +2 weapon power to any weapon containing a ruby that he equips.
- Purified: This champion applies an extra +3 weapon power to any weapon containing a diamond that he equips.
- Barbaric: This champion can equip an additional weapon with a level 1 or 2 requirement. If the champion does so, he also applies an additional +1 weapon power to the 2nd equipped weapon.
- Stoic: This champion can be applied to a quest without equipping a weapon. In this case, the champion is considered to have a weapon of power 2.
- Commanding: After this champion is applied to a quest, whenever an additional adventurer is applied to the same quest, this champion applies +1 weapon power to his equipped weapon.
- Helpful: When this champion is applied to a quest, all other adventurers applied to the same quest are temporarily considered to be 1 level higher for the purpose of equipping weapons.
Quest Actions
Quest Acquisition
During quest acquisition, players have the opportunity to pay gold to acquire a single new quest, putting it to the right of their mat and placing a quest tracker cube on the 1st step of the quest. The acquisition cost of the quest is dependent on what section of the quest offer it is in – either 0 gold (1st 2 quests), 1 gold (next 3 quests) or 2 gold (next 3 quests). Once a quest is acquired, it becomes active, and remains so until it is completed or failed.
It is not mandatory to take a quest each round. Players can pass on acquiring new quests and simply manage any active quests they are currently undertaking (if any).
Quest acquisition occurs in player order, starting with the 1st player, but once a player acquires a quest or passes, they can continue with the other actions of the quest phase independent of the other players. This also means that the next player does not need to wait for the previous player to complete their entire quest phase before taking their own turn, but instead can immediately start quest acquisition once the previous player is done with quest acquisition.
Quest Management
As soon as an individual player is finished with quest acquisition, they can begin quest management. It is during quest management that players must match the difficulty of the current step (the step denoted by the quest tracker cube) of all their active quests with equipped adventurer weapons. If the difficulty of a quest leg is not matched or exceeded by the end of quest management, the quest is failed (see below).
In order to match the difficulty of the quest leg, adventurers applied to the quest must be equipped with weapons whose total power is equal to or greater than the quest leg. If the quest leg has a required weapon type, that must be matched by at least one of the weapons equipped by the adventurers as well or the quest difficulty is increased by 3. Adventurers can be applied to any active quest the player has, not just the quest the player acquired that round, and an adventurer applied to a quest remains on the quest with his equipped weapon until the player removes him or the quest is failed or completed.
Quest Failure
If a quest leg's difficulty is not matched by the end of quest management, that quest is failed, and the following happens:
- All forged weapons equipped by adventurers on the quest are lost, and the resources are returned to the supply.
- Adventurers on the quest are returned to the player's pool (without receiving any levels, see page 24).
- The quest is discarded. Any physical rewards from previously completed legs are kept, and the player receives a number of prestige points equal to the prestige value listed in parentheses from the last successfully completed quest leg (if any). Exception: If a quest has been rushed by the Road action (see page 15) on the same round it is failed, a player would only receive prestige points based on where their quest tracker cube was before rushing the quest.
- If the quest is failed on the same round it was taken, the player suffers a -3 prestige penalty for severely disappointing the king.
Quest Actions Example: The blue player acquired "Trouble in the Weird Woods" 3 rounds ago. At the time, he placed a level 1 adventurer on the quest with an iron sword (signified by 2 iron from his pool) to match the 1st leg's difficulty of 3. Three rounds later, the quest has progressed to the final step, which has a difficulty of 8 and an axe requirement. During quest management blue puts another level 1 adventurer with an iron sword and a level 2 adventurer with a copper axe on the quest, since he owns both of these weapon designs and the necessary resources. This satisfies the quest difficulty (3+3+2=8) and the required weapon type.
Quest Rewards
Once all quest management is complete, players can begin the quest rewards action. After all quests are checked for failure, all quests are advanced 1 step.
- If the quest tracker cube is on the last step of a quest leg before advancing, the quest tracker cube is advanced by moving down to the 1st step of the next leg.
- If the quest tracker cube is on the last step of the last quest leg before advancing, then the quest is completed during advancement (see page 24).
- Otherwise, the quest tracker cube is advanced by moving to the next step of the current quest leg.
Quest rewards are acquired whenever a player completes a leg of a quest, as long as there are awards listed. A quest leg is considered completed once a player moves the quest tracker cube off of the leg and onto a new leg (or move it off the quest if it is the last leg). At this time, the player may collect the rewards for that completed quest leg (if any). Note: All quest rewards are received after all quest management is finished, such that a player cannot use the rewards from one quest to immediately help manage another quest in the same round, and they cannot use adventurers to complete a leg on one quest and then move those adventurers to satisfy the requirements of another quest.
Advancing the quests during this action only activates quest rewards. Players won't have to worry about managing the new difficulty until next round.
Quest rewards fall into 2 categories: physical rewards and prestige points.
Physical Rewards
- Copper, iron, mithril, emerald, ruby and diamond resources – players receive these resources from the supply in the amount indicated.
- Gold tokens – players receive these tokens from the supply in the amount indicated.
- Adventurers – players take an adventurer tile from the supply and put it in their adventurer pool. Adventurers always start at level 1.
- Overseer movement – players may immediately move an overseer of their color, obeying the normal mine phase rules for doing so and distributing workers and resources as usual for a mine phase movement. Check for strikes after this movement.
- Worker movement – players may immediately pick up a worker of any color in the mine and remove it from the board or place it on any empty mine hex, keeping the same color of the worker. Players receive no resources for this movement. Check for strikes after this movement.
- Market cards – players can look through the market discard deck and acquire a single card at no cost. Note: Players cannot take from the previously purchased single-use market cards which have been removed from the game.
Normally, after quest acquisition, all players can simultaneously manage their quests and collect rewards to save time. However, if 2 or more players receive an overseer movement, worker movement or market card reward on the same round, those rewards are resolved in the current player order.
Prestige Points
When the player completes a quest leg that is not the final quest leg, they will see a prestige point value listed in parentheses. This value is not awarded to the player. This prestige value is only received when failing a quest (see page 22) as a consolation for not receiving the full point value of the quest. The only time a player receives a prestige point reward for completing a quest leg (barring champion or weapon bonuses) is when they complete the final leg of a quest. The prestige point value listed in the final quest leg is the full prestige value of the quest. If, by receiving prestige points, a player makes a full journey around the score track, they should claim a "100 prestige" token (or flip a "100 prestige" token to the 200 side) and continue moving around the track.
When a player completes the final leg of a quest, the entire quest is considered complete and a number of things happen:
- Players receive the full prestige value for the quest, as well as any other listed physical quest rewards for the last leg.
- Adventurers that were present for the completion of the quest have an opportunity to level up. Each adventurer can only gain 1 level per completed quest, and a player can distribute a number of levels to their adventurers equal to the number of legs (rows) of the quest.
- Adventurers are returned to a player's pool to be used in subsequent rounds. All weapons they were using, however, are lost, and all resources are returned to the supply.
- The completed quest is tucked under the player mat, and the quest tracker cube is returned to the player mat.
End of Round
Once all players have finished collecting quest rewards, move the round marker up a single step to begin the next round. In addition, quests should be removed from the front-most quest slots on the board based on the following:
- 4-player game: the 1st slot is removed.
- 3-player game: the 1st 2 slots are removed.
- 2-player game: the 1st 3 slots are removed.
If these slots are already empty, no extra quest is taken to compensate.
In addition, at the end of the 6th round in the normal game, remove all green stage 1 quests from the quest offer, leaving only the purple quests.
In the epic game, at the end of the 5th round of the 3rd stage, remove all red stage 3 quests from the quest offer, leaving only purple quests.
End of Game
The normal game ends after the 7th round. The epic game ends after the 6th round of 3rd stage.
If any player still has active quests, these quests are immediately failed and points are awarded as per a normal failure of a quest (the point value in parentheses from the last complete quest leg).
Once all prestige points from quests have been awarded, players also receive extra prestige points based on the following:
- +1 prestige point per level for each of the player's adventurers, plus an extra point for each level 4 adventurer (making them worth 5 points instead of 4).
- The sum of the prestige point values of every market card owned by the player (this includes unique weapon designs, market bonus cards and claimed public weapon designs.)
- Any bonus prestige from claimed blacksmith or bazaar bonus spaces (see page 16, not in epic game).
- Players also take any gold they have leftover and add the sell value (not including Seller's Savvy bonuses) of all their leftover resources (unless those resources were already considered for the bottom right bazaar bonus). For every 4 gold, 1 bonus prestige is awarded.
The player with the most prestige at the end of the game is the winner. If there is a tie, the player who is earlier in the current player order is the winner.
End of Stage
The epic game spans over 3 stages of 6 rounds each instead of just 7 stage 1 rounds. At the end of every 6th round the stage changes, and these actions need to be taken at the start of the following round:
- Remove all workers and overseers from the mine, then replace the hex grid assembly with hex tiles from the new stage and assemble them as described on page 8.
- Remove any quest cards in the quest offer still remaining from the previous stage (green quests at the start of stage 2 and grey quests at the start of stage 3). This happens after normal end of round quest removal. Active quests in front of players from previous stages remain in play.
- If there are any remaining face-down public weapon designs still in the weapon deck, place them face-up in the public weapon design area below the board. In addition, at the start of stage 2, place the mithril sword weapon design in the public area.
- Take the deck of market cards for the upcoming stage, separate it by type and place the cards in their corresponding spaces just as in the initial setup. Exception: There are more than 6 cards in the stage 2 and 3 weapon decks, so randomly remove 3 unique weapon designs from the stage 2 weapon deck and 2 designs from the stage 3 weapon deck before placing them on the board.
- Perform the normal start of round actions, revealing market cards and replenishing quest cards.
- Going in the current player order, players take turns placing one of their overseers on any open hex of the new mine until all 3 overseers for each player are placed, just as in the beginning of the game. Then the start of the next round begins following normal rules.
Bonus Tiles (Optional)
In the epic game, bonus tiles can also be added to increase game complexity. At the end of every 3rd round (3, 6, etc.), after the quest phase but before any change of stage, a bonus tile will be encountered on the round track and should be resolved. After its resolution, remove the tile from the board and continue on with the next round.
Tiles provide bonuses as follows:
- Industrious bonus: If a player has the exact number of workers in the mine that are depicted on the tile (2, 3 or 4), they can immediately make an extra overseer movement. All players check qualification for the bonus before the overseer movements are actually made, and the movements occur in player order.
- Adventurous bonus: If a player has the exact number of active quests (not counting those completed on the preceding round) depicted on the tile (1, 2 or 3), they immediately gain an extra level 1 adventurer tile.
- Stockpile bonus: For every 3 unused resources a player has stored in their pool (rounded down), they collect 1 free resource from the supply (copper, iron or mithril).
- Decorated bonus: For every level 4 champion a player has, they immediately gain 2 gold, 2 prestige points or 3 gold to immediately spend on resources from the merchant. This spending on resources uses the normal buy prices and is independent of the number of buys players normally have for the round. Example: The blue player has 4 champions and so gains 12 gold to spend with the merchant. He buys a mithril, a ruby and an iron. Any money not spent with these buys is lost.
- Knowledge bonus: For every unique weapon design a player owns, they immediately gain 2 gold, 2 prestige points or 3 gold to immediately spend on resources from the merchant. This spending on resources uses the normal buy prices and is independent of the number of buys players normally have for the round. Any money not spent with these buys is lost.
Normal & Epic Game Differences
The following is a comprehensive list of differences between the normal and epic games. Please note it is highly recommended that first-time players should start with the normal game:
| Normal | Epic |
|---|---|
| The game consists of 1 stage with 7 rounds. In the 7th round, special end-game bonuses are available in the market. (p.25) | The game consists of 3 stages with 6 rounds each. End-game bonuses are not available. (p.16) |
| "The Cursed Keep" and "Investigate the Kidnappings" quest cards are removed from the stage 1 quest deck and the purple stage 1 quests are included at the bottom of the quest deck. (p.7) | All green stage 1 quests are included, and the quest deck consists of green stage 1 quests, grey stage 2 quests, red stage 3 quests and the purple stage 3 deck at the bottom. (p.7) |
| The costs of some market cards are reduced as denoted by a smaller green circle below the gold circle on the market cards. (p.12) | The cost of market cards is always the number in the gold circle. (p.12) |
| The champion titles are not used, and the only benefit of advancing an adventurer to level 4 is gaining more prestige. (p.25) | Champion titles are used and are awarded to adventurers when they attain level 4. (pp.20–21) |
| Players start with 3 adventurers (plus any from starting wealth cards). (p.6) | Players start with 4 adventurers (plus any from starting wealth cards). (p.6) |
| Bonus tiles cannot be used. (p.26) | Bonus tiles can optionally be used to add complexity, though, if they are used, reduce the number of starting adventurers to 3. (p.26) |
Card Clarifications
- Bardic Blade: The player gains 2 extra prestige points every time the player completes a leg of a quest that this weapon is applied to.
- Demon Fists: An adventurer using this weapon cannot gain a level when the quest he is applied to is finished. A level 4 champion using this weapon is considered to have no title and has no special abilities.
- Elfwood Bow: For every uncompleted leg of a quest that this weapon is applied to, including the current leg, this weapon gains an extra +1 weapon power. This bonus is denoted by adding attack tokens to the adventurer, and a token is removed whenever a leg is completed.
- Leaf Shield: This weapon gains an extra +1 weapon power every time the player completes a leg of a quest that this weapon is applied to. This bonus is denoted by adding attack tokens to the adventurer.
- Reaping Scythe: The player gains an extra gold coin every time the player completes a leg of a quest that this weapon is applied to.
- Showing off for the Crowd: This quest can be completed with any amount of weapon power applied. The number of prestige points awarded for finishing the quest is equal to the weapon power applied to it.
- Spiked Wall: This weapon gains an extra +2 weapon power every time the player completes a leg of a quest that this weapon is applied to. This bonus is denoted by adding attack tokens to the adventurer.
- Ward of the Gods: The listed quest difficulty (not including weapon type penalties) is halved (rounded down) for every one of these weapons applied to the quest. This weapon has no inherent power, but can gain power through champion bonuses.
Fast-Forward Variant
Players with limited time can use the following variant to fast-forward through the 1st stage of the game. This allows 2 new modes of play: players can play an advanced normal game by playing only the 2nd stage of the game, or players can play through stage 2 and 3 together for a shorter epic game.
Setup
Players will set up their play area as described on page 6, collecting adventurers (4 for both advanced normal and short epic), colored bits, quest tracker cubes, champion titles and 4 stage 1 starting wealth cards.
The board is set up as described on pages 6-8, except using stage 2 mine tiles and market cards (with 3 unique weapon designs removed, see page 25). The top card of each market deck, however, is not revealed at this time. The public weapon offer should be populated with the normal 4 starting designs (copper axe, copper mace, copper spear and iron sword) as well as all the public weapons from the stage 1 market deck (iron axe, iron mace, iron spear and iron greatsword) and the stage 2 mithril sword design.
In the advanced normal game, the quest deck will be built with 18 grey stage 2 cards ("The Endless Dungeon" and "A Tower to the Stars" – denoted by a special symbol – are removed) on top and then 9 purple stage 2 cards (denoted by the Roman numeral II on the front and back) on bottom. The short epic game's quest deck will consist of the 20 grey stage 2 cards, then the 12 red stage 3 cards and then the 12 purple stage 3 cards.
Bonus tiles (see page 26) can be used in both the advanced normal and short epic games, though in both cases, players should start with 1 fewer adventurer (3 total). In both cases, a total of 3 random bonus tiles will be used. In the advanced normal game, they should be placed on the beginning of rounds 3, 5 and 7. In the short epic game, they should be placed on the beginning of rounds 4 (stage 2), 1 (stage 3) and 4 (stage 3).
Fast-Forward
Once setup is complete, players can begin the fast-forward process by first choosing 2 of their 4 starting wealth cards. After receiving the bonuses on these wealth cards, players can sell any resources they want to the merchant at the normal sell prices, but only at this specific time.
After this wealth has been collected, players are dealt 5 stage 1 market cards – 1 random unique weapon design, 2 random bonus cards and 2 random single-use cards. The remainder of the cards which were not dealt are placed in the normal market discard space on the board.
Players will then draft these dealt cards by purchasing one and passing the remaining 4 to the player on their left. For the new 4 cards they are handed from the player on their right, they may again purchase one and pass the remainder to the left. This continues until there are no cards left to pass. Note: Players should use the green purchase price on any cards that have them. If a player cannot or chooses not to purchase any of the cards available to them, they can discard one of their available cards face-up to the discard space and collect 1 gold from the supply.
Once all cards have either been purchased or discarded, 8 cards are dealt to the quest offer as normal and the top card of each market deck is revealed (see page 9). Then players are dealt 4 new fast-forward starting wealth cards, and they again pick 2 and collect the bonuses listed on the card. Note: Unlike in the normal game, adventurers in these variants can reach level 4 with these new starting wealth cards. When an adventurer reaches level 4 due to the wealth cards, the player will immediately apply a title to that adventurer (see pages 20–21).
The special fast-forward reward: The player immediately takes one of the leftover stage 1 market cards from the discard pile. If more than 1 player gains this bonus, the cards are claimed in reverse player order.
Start of Game
Once the 2nd round of wealth cards has been resolved, normal play can begin with placement of overseers and the 1st mine phase. The flow of play for the advanced normal game continues exactly as in the normal game, culminating in the 7th round where all grey quests in the quest offer are removed and the end game market bonus actions are available for purchase (see page 16). The flow of play for the short epic game continues exactly as in the epic game.
Solo Variant
Both normal and epic versions of Forge War can be played by a single player with some small variations.
Goal
The goal of the solo variant is to undertake a quest every round and complete all of them by the end of the game (no quest failure). If a player accomplishes this task, they can total their points and compare that to previous scores. A score of 125 is great for the normal game and a score of 600 is great for the epic game.
Setup
With 1 player, setup occurs as described on pages 6-8 with the following exceptions:
The mine is set up as in a 3-player game with 3 sets of different colored overseers (the player gets to choose all of the placements for these overseers) and 3 different colored player markers are placed on the player order track with the player's actual color in the last position.
The player also receives 1 extra adventurer (4 total in the normal game, 5 total in the epic game [or 4 if using bonus tiles]).
In addition, players must build the quest decks to match their desired difficulty, then randomize these decks and stack them in order as described on page 7; however, instead of dealing out quest cards to all 8 slots, the player only deals out 2 to the 0 cost slots.
Normal game:
12 of the 18 green stage 1 quest cards will be used in the solo variant. For a very easy game, remove the 6 hardest quests from the deck. For a medium game, remove the 2 hardest and 4 easiest quests. For a difficult game, remove the 6 easiest quests. For a random game, remove 6 random quests.
The 6 hardest quests, from hardest to easiest are: The Fish King Blockades the Dock, Subdue the Restless Graveyard, Temple of the Serpent God, Trouble in the Weird Woods, Explore the Mystic Cave and Delivery to the Mad King.
The 6 easiest quests, from hardest to easiest are: Arena Games, Spiders of the Hollow Glen, Quell the Tavern Brawl (2) and Rats in the Cellar (2).
The purple stage 1 quest deck will only contain the following 4 cards: Sentient Crystal Invasion, The Grumblesaur Wants to Play, In Pursuit of the Vampire and Break the Mummy's Curse.
Epic game:
Build the stage 1 and 2 decks in the same way as in the normal game by removing 8 of the 20 available to arrive at a deck of 12. For the stage 1 deck, you can include The Cursed Keep and Investigate the Kidnappings if you want the hardest deck possible, or these would be the 1st to be removed to make an easier deck. The next easiest quests to be removed to make room for these 2 hardest quests would be Cleanse the Thieves' Den and Vampire Bats in the Belfry.
For the stage 2 deck, the 8 hardest quests, from hardest to easiest are: The Endless Dungeon, A Tower to the Stars, The Grumblesaur Wants to Play, The Fissure of Doom, Break the Mummy's Curse, Enraged Forest Spirit, Nobleman's Bodyguard and In Pursuit of the Vampire.
The 8 easiest quests, from hardest to easiest are: Fairy Mischief, Sentient Crystal Invasion, Disperse the Dark Coven, Infiltrate the Secret Cabal, The Ogre Berserker, Royal Tournament and Trolls under the Bridge (2).
For the stage 3 red quest deck, 4 cards will be removed so that 8 cards remain.
The 4 hardest quests, from hardest to easiest are: The Multi-Headed Hydra, Placate the Fires of Mount Horn, The Dwarves Dug too Deep and The Archmage's Golem Army.
The 4 easiest quests, from hardest to easiest are: The Mountain Comes Alive, Otherworldly Visitors, The Princess and the Lonely Colossus and The Swamp of Suffering.
The stage 3 purple quest deck will contain the following 5 cards: Stitching the Scar of Time, The Storm Knight's Challenge, Return of the Vampire, Close the Nether Gate and Rise of the Skeletal Beast.
As a general rule of thumb, the more prestige points a quest is worth, the harder it is.
Mine Phase
The mine will consist of 2 automated players in addition to the actual player. In player order, the player will make movements for each automated player in addition to their own movements.
When making movements for the automated players, the player must obey the following rules.
- An automated player will always prioritize jumping over as many workers that are not of his color as possible.
- If an automated player has a choice between 2 or more moves that jump over the same number of workers not of his color, he will take the move that jumps over the fewest number of workers of his own color.
- If an automated player has a choice between 2 or more moves that jump over the same number of workers not of their color and the same number of workers of his own color, the player can choose which of the moves to make.
- The player can move his own overseers however they wish.
- If any player, automated or not, jumps over their own workers, those workers are removed from the board instead of being switched to another color.
- Automated players don't actually collect resources, they just generate workers. Only the player's own overseer movements generate resources.
- Automated players don't get a 2nd movement for being 1st in turn order, but the actual player does.
At the end of every mine phase, instead of resolving turn order based on workers, move the marker that is 1st in turn order to the end of the turn order and move the rest up. This turn order only affects the next round's mine phase.
Market Phase
The market phase is exactly the same as the 2-player game (only a single available bazaar action) except that the player gets to take 2 actions instead of 1. The player can pass as their 1st action to gain 1 gold and still use their 2nd action.
Quest Phase
The quest phase is exactly as described on pages 18-24 with the caveat that the player must take a quest every round. If the player fails to do so or fails a quest they are currently undertaking, they lose and the game is over.
In addition, quests replenish differently. Quests are never removed from the quest offer (unless transitioning between stages in an epic game, see below). At the end of a round, all quests are pushed to the right until the 2 0-cost spots are clear. Then at the beginning of the round, 2 new quests from the top of the quest deck are dealt into these 2 spots.
End of Stage
When transitioning between stages, remove all workers from the mine and upgrade it as described on page 25. Then the player can place all of their overseers and the automated overseers however they wish in the new mine.
In addition, as described on page 25, all quests in the quest offer from the previous stage are removed, leaving the quest offer completely empty before 2 new quests from the new stage are dealt into the 2 0-cost spots.
End of Game
The game ends as described on page 25 (the 7th round in the normal game, the 6th round of the 3rd stage in the epic game). The player must have all their quests finished at this time, or the quests fail, and the player loses the game.
Greater Challenge
If a challenge even greater than that provided by building the quest deck is desired, players can start out with fewer adventurers or even fewer starting wealth cards.
Credits
Game Design: Isaac Childres
Art: Jeff Ward, Josh McDowell
Graphic Design: Michael Fairchild, Josh McDowell, JC Trombley
Special Thanks
Travis Chance, Joseph Childres, Kristyn Childres, Adrian Francies, Chad Garlinghouse, Brian Hunter, Kevin Manning, Steven Murray, Justin Sheek, Lafayette Game Night Group, Indianapolis Tabletop Game Design and Test Group
Kickstarter Contributors
I would like to thank all the backers of the Kickstarter project for making this process so wonderful. I would also like emphasize the following people for contributing creative ideas during the project.
- Champion titles and mechanics: Juan Crespo, Martin Cubberley, Matt Gayetsky, Mike McCollum, Brian Pierce, Jonathan Ramundi
- Quest titles: Travis Chance, Mark Erhardt, Jared Gillespie, Ken Lo, Atnier Rodriguez, Ray Smith, Stefan Zappe