Hidden Leaders Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Summary
  • Number of face-up heroes to trigger the game end (p. 10)
  • Resolve ties for winning leaders
• Goal of the Game
• Game Components
• Setting up a Game
• A Player's Turn
  • 1. Play 1 Hero card from your hand and perform its ability
  • 2. Draw from the Tavern and/or Harbor until you have 4 hero cards in your hand
  • 3. Discard into the Wilderness
  • 4. Fill up all empty Tavern slots
  • Board areas at a glance
• Hidden (face-down) Heroes
• Game End
• Determining the Winner
  • Resolving ties
• Examples for Final Scoring and Determining the Winner
• Glossary & FAQ
  • Clarification on some Terms

Summary

Game Setup: (p. 4)

1. Deal 1 leader to every player
2. Place the 2 power makers on the board. 3 Hero cards in the tavern and the „Deceased Emperor" in the graveyard
3. Every player draws 5 cards, discards 1 and puts 1 face-down into their party.

A players turn: (p. 6)

1. Play 1 card from your hand OR discard up to 3 cards
2. Draw from Tavern and/or Harbor until you have 4 hand cards
3. Discard down to 3 cards into the Wilderness
4. Fill-up the Tavern

Number of face-up heroes to trigger the game end (p. 10)

# of players	Full Game	Basic Game
2	8 heroes	7 heroes
3	7 heroes	6 heroes
4	7 heroes	6 heroes
5	6 heroes	5 heroes
6	5 heroes	4 heroes

Undead win: Red and green are both on the dark war spaces

Water Folk win: Red and green are next to each other or on the same space

Empire win: Red marker is at least 2 steps ahead of the Green

Tribes win: Green marker is at least 2 steps ahead of the Red

Resolve ties for winning leaders

1. Player with larger number of heroes of the winning color
2. Player with lower total number of heroes
3. Player with the higher number on their leader card

Goal of the Game

• In Hidden Leaders, each player takes on the role of 1 of 6 secret Leaders. Every Leader is allied with 2 of the 4 factions: the Hill Tribes, the Imperial Army, the Water Folk, and the Undead.
• During the game, the players play hero cards to influence the power of the Hill Tribes (green marker) and the Imperial Army (red marker).
• After a certain number of heroes have been played, the game ends. The position of the 2 markers results in a victory for 1 of the 4 factions.
• Each player who is aligned with the winning faction can claim the victory. However, they must have more heroes of this faction than any other competitor.

Game Components

• 6x Leader cards
• 73x Hero cards
• 1x Board
• 2x Markers
• 8x Summary and Support cards

Setting up a Game

We recommend to start with the basic game. This shorter, 52-card tutorial version of the game makes it easier to get started. It follows the same rules as the full version. Follow the instructions under (4.) on page 5 to set up the basic game.

1. Shuffle the 6 Leader cards and deal 1 to each player in secret. Your Leader card defines which of the 2 factions you are aligned with. You must keep this card secret, but may look at it any time.
2. Place the 2 power markers (red and green) on the starting position of the power track.
3. Place the Deceased Emperor hero card face-up into the Graveyard.
4. Shuffle the remaining 72 Hero cards and place the pile next to the Harbor slot on the board to form the draw pile. For the basic (tutorial) game: Remove all advanced cards, indicated by a (+) in their left corners. 52 hero cards should remain.
5. Place 1 hero card face-up on each of the 3 slots in the Tavern.
6. Every player draws 5 hero cards.
7. After looking at their 5 cards each player must:
   1. put 1 card face-down in front of them (into their party of heroes)
   2. put 1 face-down into the Wilderness (discard pile)
   3. keep 3 cards as their starting hand

A Player's Turn

Players take turns in clockwise order, starting with a randomly chosen player.

During your turn, follow steps 1-4 in order:

1. Play 1 hand card & perform its ability OR Discard up to 3 cards into the Wilderness
2. Draw from Tavern and/or Harbor until you have 4 hero cards
3. Discard down to 3 cards into the Wilderness
4. Fill up empty Tavern slots

1. Play 1 Hero card from your hand and perform its ability

Play the chosen card face-up in front of you. Move the green and/or red markers left (-) and/or right (+) on the power track as indicated on the card. Also, any additional instructions are performed.

Note: Heroes in front of you form your party.

1.1 Instead of playing 1 hero card you may discard up to 3 cards from you hand into the Wilderness. Then continue with step 2.

2. Draw from the Tavern and/or Harbor until you have 4 hero cards in your hand

You may draw these cards in any order from the 3 Tavern cards or Harbor deck.

Note: Do not fill up the tavern slots after drawing a card. This is done in step 4.

3. Discard into the Wilderness

Discard into the Wilderness until you have 3 hero cards in your hand. Discard all cards face-down.

4. Fill up all empty Tavern slots

Fill up all empty Tavern slots by drawing cards from the Harbor. Place them face-up.

Note: If the Harbor runs out of cards, and you are supposed to draw a card, then shuffle all cards of the Wilderness pile and use them to form a new Harbor pile.

Board areas at a glance

• Wilderness: You discard down to 3 hand cards every turn.
• Harbor: You may draw cards from this deck in step 2 of your turn.
• Tavern: You may draw cards from this open display in step 2 of your turn.
• Graveyard: Some heroes can kill other heroes. Killed heroes are put in the Graveyard face-up.
• Power track: The position of the green and red marker determine the winning faction.

Hidden (face-down) Heroes

• During game setup, you added 1 of your 5 initial hand cards face-down to your party. This is a Hidden Hero.
• During the game, some Hero abilities allow you to add new Hidden Heroes to your party, turn around hidden heroes, or look at them.
• When a Hidden Hero is revealed (turned face-up), their ability will not be performed unless explicitly stated by a card.
• Hidden Heroes do not count toward the total number of heroes needed to trigger the end of the game. However, they do count when determining the winner.
• Hidden Heroes have to be grouped as an overlapping stack in your party. Other players should be able to see in which order they were played. You may not shuffle your hidden heroes unless stated by an ability.
• You may look at your own hidden heroes at any time. Put them back in the same order.

Open heroes are the face-up heroes; hidden heroes are the face-down heroes.

Game End

The game ends at the end of any player's turn if at least 1 player controls a minimum of the following number of face-up heroes. Hidden Heroes do not count:

# of players	Full Game	Basic Game
2	8 heroes	7 heroes
3	7 heroes	6 heroes
4	7 heroes	6 heroes
5	6 heroes	5 heroes
6	5 heroes	4 heroes

Note: It is possible that a player other than the currently active player will reach the hero limit (because of the ability of a hero). In this case, the game end is also triggered.

Example: To end, a 4-player game requires 7 open hero cards. Andreas has 5 heroes, Lisa has 6, Markus has 4, and Raphael has 5. On Raphael's turn, he plays the "Underestimated Squire" and turns 1 face-down hero from Lisa's party around. At the end of Raphael's turn, Lisa has 7 face-up heroes, so the game ends. Alternatively, Raphael could have ended the game by playing the "Doubtful Priest," which allows him to play another hero. Thus, he would have had 7 heroes at the end of his turn.

Determining the Winner

Only 1 of the 4 factions can be victorious. When the game ends, determine which faction won the conflict by checking the following winning conditions in this order:

• Undead win... if the red and green power markers are both on the dark war spaces on the tracker. Note: Undead victory trumps the winning conditions of the other 3 factions.
• Water Folk win... if the red and green power markers are on spaces next to each other or on the same space.
• Empire wins... if the red marker is at least 2 steps ahead of the green marker.
• Tribes win... if the green marker is at least 2 steps ahead of the red marker.

Next, each player reveals their secret Leader card. All players whose Leader is aligned with the color of the winning faction can claim victory. If two or more players are aligned with the winning faction, continue with "resolving ties".

Resolving ties

1. If more than 1 player is aligned with the winning faction, then the properly aligned player with the most heroes of the winning faction in their party wins. All heroes are counted (open + hidden).
2. If (2) results in a tie, then the tied player with the lower total number of heroes in their party wins (open + hidden, regardless of faction).
3. If (3) still results in a tie, compare the number in the bottom-right corner of the Leader cards. The Leader with the higher number wins.

Note: If no player is aligned with the winning faction, no player wins the game.

You are ready to play!

Examples for Final Scoring and Determining the Winner

• Undead win: Both markers are in the black, war area.
• Water Folk win: The markers are next to each other and not both in the black, war area.
• Tribes win: Green is in the lead and not next to Red.
• Empire win: Red is in the lead and not both markers in the black, war area.

Glossary & FAQ

What happens when the marker reaches an end of the power track? The marker's movement is limited by the beginning and end of the power track.

Clarification on some Terms

• Leader: Each player has 1 Leader card. Your Leader defines the 2 factions with which you are aligned and can win the game.
• Hero: Each hero belongs to 1 of the 4 factions. Every player may play a hero card on each of their turns. All heroes have an ability.
• Ability: Performed when playing a hero card. This includes moving the red or green marker as well as any printed text. If a hero's ability can't be performed, you ignore this part of the ability, but you can still put the hero into your party. e.g. "Kill an undead hero." You can play this card even if no undead hero is in the game that you can kill. If an undead hero is in the game, you have to kill one.
• Party: When a hero is played, they are put in front of the player. All played heroes, both hidden and open, form the player's party.
• Power Markers: There are 2 markers (red & green). They are moved left (-) and right (+) on the power track on the board to determine the winning faction. The marker that is farther to the right on the track is the leading marker, while the one that is farther to the left is the marker behind (if both are on the same space, then neither is leading or behind).
• Factions: There are 4 factions, each represented by a color, symbol, different heroes, and a unique way to become victorious.
• Harbor: The draw pile containing Hero cards.
• Tavern: The Tavern consists of 3 slots with face-up heroes. Players can draw from these cards.
• Graveyard: If a hero is killed, this hero is put on top of the Graveyard face-up. Only the top card of the graveyard is visible.
• Wilderness: The face-down discard pile.
• Deceased Emperor: Is the only hero in the graveyard at the beginning of the game. Some hero's abilities allow you to bring him into your party or hand. Then he acts as a multi-color joker, but has no further effects.
• "Exchange" means swapping 2 cards without executing their abilities except if explicitly stated on the card.
• "Discard" always refers to discarding a card to the Wilderness.
• "At random" means you shuffle the targeted cards and draw a random card from them.
• "Put" means putting a hero somewhere (in your party, in the tavern…) without executing their abilities except if explicitly stated on the card.
• "Turn around" means changing a hero card from face-up to face-down or the other way around.
• "Draw" always refers to taking the top card from the pile mentioned.