Gate
Gate Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setup
When first receiving your copy of Gate you will have to organize the cards as they come mixed up. You have Starting Cards (marked with a "S" in the top right corner), Recruit Cards (like starting cards, but with a value in the top right corner), and Enemy Cards (marked with a star in the top right corner). In addition you will have larger cards including your Gate, Tower, Farm, Fearamid, and a reference card in addition to these rules.
Component Layout
Arrange your play area with the following spaces: Active Enemies, Enemy Draw Deck, Hero Draw Deck, and Citizen Draw Deck. All citizen cards are placed face-up, including the top card of the draw deck.
Also place the Farm Card, Gate Card, Tower Card, and Fearamid in a row, along with a Draw Pile and a Discard Pile.
Setup Steps
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Locate the 3 starting cards (marked with a "S" in the top right corner). These will form your starting hand.
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Locate the citizen cards (they look like your starting cards, but have a value in the top right corner). Shuffle them and create a draw pile. To the right of this pile draw and place 3 cards face-up, and then flip the top card in the draw pile face-up, to create a market of 4 cards that you will later be able to recruit.
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Locate the hero cards (they look like the citizen deck, but the characters are golden and have a sun icon in the top right corner). Shuffle them and place them face down in the location shown in the layout image on page 2.
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Locate and place the Farm, Gate, Tower, and Fearamid cards in a row in front of you. Place all 4 dice on the empty spaces on the farm, tower, and gate cards, with the side with a 6 facing up. You will use these dice to track the health of these locations. Continued...
Place the silver cube on the fearamid in the lower left space marked with the ">" icon.
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Locate the enemy cards (marked with a star icon in the top right corner). On the back of these cards you will see there are 3 separate waves as indicated below the large skull. Shuffle each of these waves separately and then stack them face-down in numeric order with the 3rd wave on the bottom. In this way you will encounter wave 1 first, followed by the 2nd and then the 3rd last, but you will not know the exact order of the cards within each wave. Place this deck face-down to form the enemy draw deck in the location shown on the layout image on page 2.
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Lastly take the card marked with "Turn Sequence" on one side and "Commands" on the other and place it nearby to use as a quick reference.
Now you are ready to learn more about how these cards work!
The Card Types
Before moving on to how exactly the game plays, we should learn about the different decks and card types.
The Gate, Tower, & Farm: These are the 3 locations you are trying to defend against the enemy attack. Each has their own health to track using dice. The tower and farm start with 6 health (1 die) and the gate starts with 12 health. Both the tower and farm gain you a power while they still stand. The gate has a bunch of health, but if it ever falls, the game ends immediately.
While the tower stands you may add a total of 1 damage to the sum of all your attacks during your turn.
While the farm stands you gain an extra gold per turn to either use to recruit a new citizen or to use for a command.
If either the tower or farm are reduced to zero health, they are destroyed and may not be repaired. The game does not end, rather you simply lose the bonuses they garnered before.
Draw Pile - This is your personal deck of citizens that you will use to navigate the obstacles during the game. You will draw from this deck during the "Draw Up" phase.
Discard Pile - This is where you place your citizen cards once you have used them. These cards will be used again later on once your draw pile is emptied.
Citizen Deck - These are citizens that you may persuade to join your cause to defend the town with a few gold coins. Each citizens offer unique stats that allow them to tackle different problems. Some even offer special powers as indicated in text.
Hero Deck - Much like citizens, heroes are stronger one-time-use cards gained when your fear level increases.
Enemy Deck - The 3 waves of foes that march towards your town are what make up this deck. Each round a new enemy will emerge presenting a new challenge.
Citizen/Hero Card
A citizen or hero card is laid out as follows:
- Title - This is the name of the citizen or their profession.
- Card Type/Value/Cost - This tells you if the card is a starting card, citizen, or a hero card.
- Income - Some characters gain you an income when drawn during your turn. If you choose to spend it, do so wisely.
- Repair - Use the repair action to fix a damaged gate, tower, or farm.
- Calm - These stressful times can use a little bit of peace. Use this action to reduce the fear level on the fearamid.
- Attack - Sometimes you just need to meet your foe on the road. Use this action to attack your enemy.
- Special Power - Some characters have a unique ability that you may use as a free action when you play the card.
Starting cards are marked with a "S", citizens have a numeric value, and heroes have a sun icon.
Example card - Mason (Card Type/Value/Cost: 3): Income 1 (coin icon), Repair 2 (hammer icon), Calm (peace icon, no listed value), Attack 1 (axe icon). Special Power: "+1 when repairing the tower."
Enemy Card
An enemy card is laid out as follows:
- Title - This is the name of the monster.
- Victory Points - This indicates the number of points you will gain at the end of the game if you survive.
- Health - Each enemy in the game has their own health value. You must lower this value to zero in order to defeat them by using your attack action.
- Attack Location - Each enemy will attempt to attack a particular location based on the symbol here. If their desired location is already destroyed they will attack the gate instead. They will deal damage to the location equal to the value shown here.
The three attack location icons are: The Gate, The Tower, and The Farm.
- Fear - Some of the monsters you will face will increase the fear level of your people. Move your fear level up on the fearamid equal to the value indicated here.
- Special Power - The monster's unique ability, if any.
Example card - Plague Rat (Victory Points: 3): Health 4 (heart icon), Attack Location 1 (farm icon), Fear 1 (clock icon).
Turn Sequence
Gate is broken down into a number of turns. During each turn you will be preforming the same set of actions in the following order.
- Enemies Advance
- Draw Up
- Use Commands
- Recruit
- Use Cards
- Enemies Attack
1) Enemies Advance
At the beginning of the turn you must deploy a new enemy, but first you must advance any already deployed enemies one space to the left to make room for the new enemy. You may only ever have 2 enemies out at one time, so if you are placing a third foe, you must remove the enemy to the far left from play. This enemy will get to make one final attack at the Gate for 1 damage, and then should be removed from play and not be scored at the end of the game. Now you can place the newly deployed enemy in the open space just to the left of the enemy draw deck.
2) Draw Up
On your first turn you will skip this action and simply use the 3 starting cards. During future turns you will draw 3 cards from your draw pile. If your draw pile is ever emptied, simply shuffle your discard pile and form a new draw pile and draw new cards until you have 3 in hand.
3) Use Commands
You may spend income shown on your cards (coin icon) to perform any number of commands you wish, but never the same command twice in one turn. Any cards whose income was used should be placed in discard pile.
The cost of a command is indicated on the left of the command card. The reward is shown on the right.
Example: Hosting a Festival will cost you 2 gold and you will be able to reduce your fear by 1 on the fearamid.
4) Recruit
During this phase of your turn your will be able to inlist the help of your citizens by paying them to join your cause. Each citizen has a cost to recruit which is shown in the upper right corner. You may use the income of the cards in your hand to buy a citizen's service from the row of 4 cards in play. Again, when you use a card for its income, you must place it in the discard pile. Also remember that while your farm still stands, you gain 1 extra income to make a purchase.
Newly gained citizens are to be placed into your discard pile. Later they will find their way into your draw pile, and then into your hand. You may purchase more than 1 card if you have the income to spare. Whenever you buy a card, you must replace it immediately from the citizen draw deck, so that 4 cards are always ready to be bought.
5) Use Cards
In this phase you get to use the cards in your hand. Each card has 4 traits: Income, Repair, Calm, and Attack. Continued...
You may only use one of the traits on each of the cards in your hand, but you may combine multiple cards with the same traits. So you must examine your cards and pick only one of the traits to use.
Example: If you use a card for its calm trait, you get to lower your fear level on the fearamid by the value shown by the calm icon, ignoring all the other traits. You may however always use any special power.
On your turn you may potentially use two cards for their income and the last card to attack an enemy. It is up to you. Let's look at each of the traits and how they can be used.
Income - Income is used to buy recruits or to activate commands as discribed previously.
Repair - You may repair your Gate, Tower, or Farm by the amount indicated on the card(s) being used. You may split your repair on two or more separate structures if you so choose.
Calm - You may calm your townfolks by using the calm trait. Lower the silver cube down on the fearamid spaces equal to the sum of the calm trait being spent.
When gaining fear you start on the spot with the ">" symbol and always move to the right, one spot at a time, until you reach the end of the row, and then you move up to the next row, all the way to the left. When reducing fear, do the same in reverse.
You do not activate any of the symbols in the fearamid when you land on them while reducing your fear level.
Attack - The key to victory in Gate is to know when to attack. To attack simply add up the sum of all the attack values on the cards you are using to attack and apply that damage to a single enemy. If you kill the enemy, collect that card and form a score pile. If you do not kill it, place damage tokens on the card equal to the damage dealt. You can later finish that enemy off on a future turn. Continued...
If you kill an enemy and have leftover damage to deal, you may apply it to another face-up enemy by placing damage tokens on that card. In some rare cases you may get really lucky and kill both enemies.
6) Enemies Attack
Now is the moment of the turn we fear the most. Each face-up enemy (even if damaged) attacks the town. Each card will deal damage equal to their attack value and to the location indicated. If that location is already destroyed, that damage is applied to the gate. If the tower or farm are destroyed they cannot be repaired and are gone for the rest of the game. If the gate falls, then the game ends immediately.
Enemies may also increase the fear level of your town equal to the value shown next to the fear icon. Move your silver cube spaces equal to this number. Any symbol on the fearamid that is passed or landed on during this action is activated. You must take damage to your farm, tower, or gate as indicated. Continued...
You always move the silver cube from left to right and from bottom to top. If you pass or land on a sun icon, you draw a hero card and place it into your discard pile. These hero cards may only be played once, but are fairly powerful.
If you ever reach the top of the fearamid with the silver cube, your town is overtaken with fear and you lose the game.
The Final Stand
Once you have depleated the enemy deck and no more cards can be drawn at the beginning of your turn, you have triggered the final stand. No longer will enemies advance and you will have to defeat the remaining two enemies or die trying...
Winning
You only can win Gate by surviving all the enemies in the enemy deck and by killing off the final two foes. Add up the victory points on all the cards in your score pile for your final score.
Losing
If at any moment your gate loses all of its health or you reach the top of the fearamid with the silver cube, you lose. Learn from your failure and try again!
Example of Using Cards
Sue draws an Engineer, a Warden, and a Blacksmith. She spends the Engineer to repair her gate and then removes the Engineer from the game, as it is a hero card and can only be used once. She then uses the Blacksmith's income, along with the income from her farm, to perform the Festival command, lowering her fear level by 1 on the fearamid. Lastly, she attacks an enemy with her Warden, but she gets to double his damage to 4 because of the special power of the Blacksmith. A pretty solid turn for Sue.
Cards used in this example: Engineer (Repair 4, Calm 1, Attack 2 — one time use), Warden (Card Type/Value/Cost: 3; Income 1, Attack 2), Blacksmith (Card Type/Value/Cost: 5; Income 1, Repair 2, Attack 1; Special Power: "You may double the attack of another card.").