Lucky First Incense Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Components
• Setup
• Game Flow
• Evening Phase (Planning)
  • Play a Card
  • Refill Your Hand to 3 Cards
• Midnight Phase (Run)
  • Settle the Results
  • Take the Reward
  • Reset the Boards
• Winning the Game
• Advanced Rules
• Rules for Junior Players
• Effect Icons
• Character Effects
• Censer Effects

Goal

The game is played over 2 rounds. In the Evening Phase, players take turns sending their family members to occupy the seats in front of the temples or offering incense to seek blessings from the Gods. In the Midnight Phase, all family members rush to the front lines, competing for the opportunity to light the first incense and get the amulets (victory points). At the end of the game, the player with the most amulets wins!

Components

• Character cards ×50 (five colours, 10 per player)
• Temple cards ×4 (each has a Temple side and a Palace side)
• Waiting boards (each has an A side and a B side)
• Amulet tokens (victory points)
• Start Player token (clockwise side and counterclockwise side)
• Character/Censer reference cards ×10
• Game Flow reference card
• Censer cards (advanced rules)
• Incense tokens (advanced rules)
• Blessing tokens (advanced rules)

Temple Card: the card shows the temple scores (1st and 2nd place amulet values), the Palace/Temple side indicator, and the waiting board setup icon (A or B).

Waiting Board: each board has waiting positions. The icons on a position show its playing restriction:

• Play a card face-up here (the Character icon).
• Play a card face-down here (the hatched icon).
• Get 1 Amulet immediately after playing a card here (the amulet icon).

Each board has an A side and a B side.

Setup

1. Based on the table below, take the Temple cards (a) corresponding to the first year of the game, and then set up the Waiting boards (b) according to the icon on the Temple card. Note that the Temple card has two sides: the Temple and the Palace; the Waiting board has two sides: A and B.

Player Number	First Year	Second Year
2	Temple ×2	Palace ×1
3	Temple ×3	Temple ×1, Palace ×1
4	Temple ×2, Palace ×1	Palace ×2
5	Temple ×3, Palace ×1	Temple ×1, Palace ×2

2. Each player takes all 10 Character cards of the same colour and shuffles them into a personal deck (c), leaving a space next to your deck as a personal discard pile (d). Draw 3 cards as your hand (e) and keep them secret from other players.
3. Each player takes 1 Character/Censer reference card (f).
4. Place the Game Flow reference card (g) in a clear spot for all players to see.
5. Set aside Amulet tokens (h) for later use.
6. Give the Start Player token (i) to the player who most recently visited the temple, with the clockwise side facing up.

Game Flow

There are two rounds in the game (First Year / Second Year), and each round consists of the following phases:

1. Evening phase (Planning):
   1. Play a card
   2. Refill your hand to 3 cards
2. Midnight phase (Run):
   1. Settle the results
   2. Get the reward
   3. Reset the boards

Evening Phase (Planning)

It's still early in the evening. However, if you want to win the first incense, you better get prepared now.

In the first round, the starting player starts the Evening phase and goes clockwise; in the second round, the player to the right of the starting player becomes the new starting player and goes counterclockwise. In the Evening phase of each round, players take turns taking action until the boards are fully occupied.

Play a Card

It's getting late, secure a good spot now to have a better chance of winning the first incense!

Play a card from your hand onto any empty waiting position on the board following the rules of the icons below:

• Play a card face-up here (Character icon).
• Play a card face-down here (hatched icon).
• Get 1 Amulet immediately after playing a card here (amulet icon).

⚠ Players cannot check the face-down cards on the board, even if the cards were played by themselves.

⚠ The rules of the playing restriction icons are only valid when cards are played from a player's hand, but not when cards are swapped or moved by other effects.

Refill Your Hand to 3 Cards

After playing a card, draw cards from your personal deck until you have 3 cards in hand. Your turn ends and the next player takes their turn.

The Evening phase ends when all waiting positions on the boards are occupied, and the Midnight phase begins.

⚠ If your deck runs out, you won't be able to refill your hand.

Midnight Phase (Run)

When the bell strikes at midnight, all you have to do is, RUN!

In this phase, players will settle the results of each temple and take the reward.

Settle the Results

First, turn over all face-down cards, and then pair up the Character cards of each temple to determine the winner according to their ability or rushing power. As in the single-elimination tournament, the advanced cards will be paired with each other to determine the winner.

The Character card that advances to the top of each temple will win the first incense. The following rules describe how to determine the winner of the pair-up cards:

1. The card with the higher rushing power moves forward.
2. Cards with equal rushing power do not move at all.
3. When pairing with an empty spot, the card advances automatically.
4. If cards of the same color are paired up, the player decides which card to advance.

⚠ If there are multiple same-color-card pairs, players decide which card to advance at the same time in secret.

5. When encountering conflicts in rules, the following priority applies:
   1. Ancestor's Possession effect
   2. Card pair of the same color: Decide which card to advance by yourself
   3. Dog's Tie effect
   4. Little Sister's Defeat effect
   5. The value of the rushing power

Take the Reward

Award players a number of Amulets based on their ranking:

• Temple: 3 Amulets for the 1st place, 1 Amulet for the 2nd place.
• Palace: 5 Amulets for the 1st place, 2 Amulets for the 2nd, 1 Amulet each for the 3rd and 4th.

⚠ If there is a tie for the 1st place, both of them get the reward for the 2nd place.

Reset the Boards

For the first round, follow the steps below:

1. Remove all of the cards that have been played to players' personal discard pile.

⚠ You can inspect your own discard pile, but not other players'.

2. Shuffle all the Temple cards and Waiting boards, and reset them for the second round referring to the Game Flow reference card.
3. Pass the Start Player token to the player on the right and flip it over to the counterclockwise side. The second round is ready to begin.

For the second round, skip the Reset the Boards step.

Winning the Game

The player with the most Amulets (VP) wins, in case of a tie, they share the victory.

Advanced Rules

The gameplay of the advanced rules remains mostly the same with the following modifications:

1. Add the following steps to "Setup":

   • Next to the Temple cards: Draw 1 Censer card for each temple; draw 2 Censer cards for each palace.
   • Each player takes 1 Incense token.
   • Set the Censer cards, Incense tokens, and Blessing tokens aside for later use.

2. In the Evening phase, there are 3 options for the player action:

   1. Play a card.

   2. Pray with incense: Place an Incense token on an untriggered Censer card on the field or in front of you, and trigger its effect.

      ⚠ Each censer's effect can be triggered only once per round.

   3. Faith upgrade: Place an Incense token on a Character card on the board to increase its rushing power by 2.

3. Add the following rules to the Point 5 of "Settle the Results" in the Midnight phase:

   • The priority of "Emperor Jade: Instant win effect" is between (2) and (3).
   • The priority of "Yue Lao: Defeat effect" is the same as (4).
   • If there is a conflict between Little Sister's and Yue Lao's effects, it is considered a tie.

4. Add the following rules to "Take the Reward" in the Midnight phase:

Rules for Junior Players

The game can be simplified by the following changes:

1. Play with only 5 Character cards: Little Sister, Little Cousin, Brother, Dad, and Mom.
2. The game will be played for only 1 round and will end directly after the Midnight phase of the first round. The player with the most Amulets wins.

Effect Icons

1. Immediate effect (lightning icon): The effect will be triggered and fully resolved immediately.

   ⚠ Card effects with the immediate-effect icon are triggered only when they are played face-up from players' hand, but not when they are flipped over in any other cases.

2. Passive effect in the Evening phase (gate icon): The effect takes place whenever the condition is met during the Evening phase.

3. Passive effect in the Midnight phase (running icon): The effect takes place whenever the condition is met during the Midnight phase.

Character Effects

You can choose a face-up or face-down card whenever you trigger an effect, unless it is specified.

• Little Sister (rushing power 1), Passive effect in the Midnight phase: Defeat an enemy card with a rushing power of 6 or higher.

• Little Cousin (rushing power 2), Immediate effect: Swap 2 cards on the board. You can swap the Little Cousin card itself.

• Brother (rushing power 3), Passive effect in the Midnight phase: Get 2 more Amulets if Brother gets any Amulet in the "Take the Reward" step.

• Dog (rushing power 0), Passive effect in the Midnight phase: Tie with any enemy card.

• Big Sister (rushing power 4):

  • Passive effect in the Evening phase: Ignore the Cat's effect.
  • Passive effect in the Midnight phase: Ignore the Dog's effect.

  When you use the Cat's effect to remove a face-down card, you must turn the card over to check if it is Big Sister. If yes, the effect is ignored and the Big Sister is placed face-down again.

• Cat (rushing power 0):

  • Immediate effect: Remove 1 card from the board.
  • Passive effect in the Evening phase: When this card is face-up, it cannot be swapped, moved, or retrieved.

Censer Effects

You can pray with incense to activate the censer effect only if you can fully execute its effect. Otherwise, you can't choose that censer.

• Mazu (immediate effect): Perform up to 3 times: Move 1 card on the board to any empty position.

• Emperor Guan (Passive effect in the Midnight phase): Place the Emperor Guan token in front of yourself. All your cards gain the blessing effect of "Rushing power + 1."

• Land Lord (immediate effect): Secretly peek at up to 2 face-down cards on the board, and then play a card.

• Town God (immediate effect): Choose any one card from your deck or discard pile and play it.

• Wang Ye (immediate effect): Move 1 card on the board to any empty position, and then play a card.

• Guan Yin (immediate effect): Retrieve 1 friendly card from the board and return it to your hand, and then play 2 cards.

• Wen Chang (Passive effect in the Midnight phase): Place the Wen Chang token in front of yourself. All your cards gain the blessing effect of "Get 2 more Amulets if getting any Amulet in the Take the Reward step."

  This effect can be stacked with the Brother's effect.

• God of Wealth (immediate effect): Declare the name of a face-down card on the board and turn it over. If it is correct, get 2 Amulets and repeat the effect. If it is incorrect, the effect ends.