Mint Knight
Mint Knight Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Objective - Winning The Game
Find and defeat all castles before the end of the 4th round.
Setup
- Place 2 gold cubes on the round and experience tracks.
- Shuffle artifact, spell, unit and skill decks.
- Create a 3-card unit and spell offering.
- Shuffle the Action deck. Make sure all cards are starting side up and on the basic side. (Action deck is played face-up.)
- Stack level cards in order with 1-2 on top.
- Place all red, white, and green cubes in the mint tin.
- Build the Terrain deck:
- Shuffle all castle cards and randomly choose 2.
- Place the other castle cards out of play.
- Shuffle the other 2 non-castle cards into your terrain deck to create a 4 card terrain deck. (basic side up)
- Add 1 Terrain card to play area. Hero starts bottom-left hex.
Turn
Each turn you will play action cards from your hand to perform different actions such as move, heal, and explore. In Mint Knight, your hand is placed on the table because the order of the cards is important. When you play or exhaust a card, slide that card up to show it's been used. At the end of the turn, all played cards are cleaned up. Then cards are drawn from the action deck to replenish your hand until you reach your hand size (right side of level card). Add cards to the left in your hand, each time a new card is drawn.
Action Cards
Cards have a starting and a waning side. At the start of each round, the cards should all be oriented so that the starting side is readable.
When cleaning up cards at the end of a turn, rotate all starting cards to their waning side and place them on the bottom of the deck. You may put them in any order. Any cards that were on the waning side are instead placed in a discard pile.
An action card is laid out as follows (illustrated on the card "Fury"):
- Name - the card's title.
- Starting/Waning - a banner showing which side is currently face-up (e.g. "STARTING").
- Basic Action - the action performed when no mana is spent (e.g. "Attack or Block 2").
- Mana in Source - the mana icon shown if this card is one of your 3 left-most cards, contributing to the source.
- Mana Cost - the mana icon that must be spent from the source to play the card's stronger action.
- Stronger Action - the action performed when the matching mana cost is paid (e.g. "Attack 4").
Action cards have basic and stronger actions. You must spend a matching mana to play the stronger action on a card, otherwise the basic action is played. Move, Block, Attack, Heal and Influence are all types of actions that can be played.
Any card can be played as either 1 Move, 1 Block, 1 Attack, or 1 Influence instead of it's printed basic action.
One action card must be played each turn, but you may exhaust any number of cards at any time and not perform their actions.
Actions cards have an advanced side showing a star icon. You will be able to flip to the advanced side during level ups.
Mana
Mana is used to play stronger action cards and spells. Gold mana can only be used during day and Black mana only at night. Any mana that is gained from cards is lost at the end of each turn. Gold mana counts as any color besides black.
Each turn you are allowed to spend one mana from the source. The source is created by the mana-in-source icons on your 3 left-most action cards in your hand.
Move Action
Moving your hero is done by playing move action cards at the start of your turn. Each terrain type has a movement cost and you must pay the required amount to move. Add all movement points from action cards, units, or skill cards used. Players may move as many hexes as their movement points will allow.
Terrain movement values are listed on the back of the mint tin case.
Example: 6 total movement points played. Grass = 2 cost, Swamp = 4 cost.
Some spaces are not full hexagons and have special rules.
Corner Hex - Terrain corners can join with other terrain corner cards to form one space. This will often make the corner hex have different terrain types (grass, hills, etc). When calculating movement cost to move onto a corner, use the terrain type that is on the terrain card your Hero is on.
Half Hex - Unlike corners, these are separate hex spaces. Diagonal movement is allowed to other half-hexes. The lines show legal moves from the half-hex keep. It costs 3 to move to corner (hill).
Terrain
Terrain cards have a basic and advanced side. Whenever a new terrain card is revealed, draw a cube from the tin and place it on the terrain card. This is the "guiding cube" used to pick which enemy to fight against the reference card. A battle is initiated when moving onto a ruins, keep, castle, or mage tower for the first time because the location is unvanquished.
You can spend 2 movement points to do an Explore Action if your Hero is at the edge of a terrain card. Corner hexes count as both edges. A new terrain card is added to the play area along the edge your Hero is on. Placing terrain cards is restricted to the step pattern (shown on the reference diagram).
Draw from the bottom of the terrain deck when exploring. If the terrain deck is empty, grab the top card in the left most column of explored basic terrain cards and flip that card to the advanced side and then follow normal explore placement rules above.
Roaming Enemies
Orcs and Dragons are roaming enemies that you can attack. If you are adjacent to a roaming enemy you may initiate combat. Roaming enemies will be provoked if you move past them on your turn which will cause you to stop and enter combat. You may never move in a way that would provoke 2 enemies. A roaming enemy is provoked if you are ever in 2 hex tiles adjacent to them including your starting space.
Combat
When combat is over, place a black cube on the space you battled. That enemy is considered vanquished and cannot be battled again. A player cannot lose in combat, instead restart your turn if combat seems impossible. Action cards are played in combat for attack, range-attack, and block values. There are three phases to combat:
Ranged Phase - Only ranged attacks can be played in this phase (physical and or magic). If an enemy is range immune, then skip this phase and continue to blocking phase. If your range attack valued cards equal or exceed the enemy's defense, you have won combat and skip the next two phases, otherwise continue to blocking phase.
Blocking Phase - If the total block is equal or exceeds the enemy's attack the player moves to the attack phase, otherwise suffer wounds and then proceed to attack phase.
Attack Phase - Both Ranged and Attack can be played in this phase. You must play enough attack valued cards to equal or exceed the enemy's defense, to defeat it.
Immunity - Enemies that have an immunity next to their defense value cause attacks to be inefficient if they match that immunity type (physical or magic). Enemies can also have physical or elemental attacks. Block cards that do not match the attack type are also inefficient.
Inefficient attacks and blocks are summed separately from efficient attacks and blocks and then halved (round down).
Example: Enemy has physical immune defense of 8. Enemy would be defeated if the player played: 10 physical attack and 3 magic attack. (10/2) + 3 = 8
Wounds
To take a wound you must exhaust a card in your hand. The number of wounds is calculated by: Taking a wound and then subtracting your defense value (left icon on level card) from the total attack. If the new total is not equal or less than zero, keep repeating until it is. If you decide to have a unit become wounded, use its defense value when subtracting.
Wounded units are rotated upside down and cannot be activated. A wounded unit may not become wounded again. If a unit has immunity that matches the enemy's attack type, ignore the first wound it would take (still subtracting defense).
Heals
You may perform any heal actions by spending 1 heal point per action below. Actions can be in any order and repeated.
- Move a waning card from the discard deck to bottom of deck.
- Rotate any non-exhausted card to starting in hand or deck.
- Heal and ready a wounded unit. (Takes 2 heal points)
Units
Spend influence points to recruit a unit in the offering at its recruitable location. Replace card to replenish the unit offering. Unit tokens are gained as level rewards and represent available spots for units to join. If there are no available spots a unit may replace another unit. Exhaust a ready unit by rotating to activate one ability (can only activate once per combat).
A unit card shows:
- Name - the unit's title (e.g. "Bard").
- Influence Cost - the influence points required to recruit this unit.
- Recruitable Locations - the location icons (Town, Keep, Mage Tower, Castle) where this unit can be recruited.
- Defense Value - the unit's defense.
- Abilities - the unit's listed abilities (e.g. "Move 4", "Heal and ready a unit", "Gain 2 green mana").
Attacking Enemies
When combat is triggered, use the enemy reference card to find which enemy you will face. The reference cube placed during the explore action and hex image will show which enemy to fight. Some enemies have special abilities described below:
- Double attack power when calculating wounds.
- Double attack power when blocking in blocking phase only.
- Must block successfully in blocking phase.
After you win in combat, gain experience (listed as the bottom red number on the enemy) by moving your experience tracker cube that many experience points. If you cross over a skill icon, then you gain the top skill card and can flip one basic action card to its advanced side. Look at the three left most basic action cards in your hand (exhausted cards are ok) and choose one. If your tracker crosses over a unit icon, flip the top card from the level deck and use that as a new unit token. Your new level will display your defense (left) and hand size (right).
Locations
Gain rewards after combat:
- Town - a recruitable location.
- Ruins - Draw 2 and keep 1 artifact card.
- Keep - a recruitable location.
- Mage Tower - Pick 1 spell from offering and replenish.
- Castle - a recruitable location.
Spells & Artifacts
These reward cards can be played one time per round. Exhaust an action card and flip the spell or artifact card to play them. Spells require spending mana to play the basic or stronger effect. Remove an artifact card from the game if you trigger the stronger effect on the bottom of its card.
End of Round
Refresh all used spells, artifacts, skill cards, non-wounded units. Move last card in spell/unit offering under deck and draw new card to replenish offerings. Gather and rotate all action cards to "starting" and shuffle to make new action deck. Increase the round tracker by 1 changing day and night. Lose game, if you reach the end of the 4th round.
Co-op Rules (Expansion)
Setup - Use 3 castles not 2, when building the terrain deck. Player 2 gets action deck, experience tracker, and silver cubes. Both players place a cube on starting level 1-2 card.
Changes from solo game - The level deck is shared and should be expanded into a row. Player cubes on the level cards track current level, hand size, and available spots for unit recruitment. Players take alternating turns and can share the same terrain location. Skill cards earned by levels are shared. Each player earns skill cards for the group when they level. Max 4 in co-op. After exploring and revealing the 3rd castle, draw 1 cube from a pool consisting of 1 red, 1 green, and 1 white. Place that drawn cube onto the castle.
Joint Assault - The first 2 castles are fought the same way as the solo game. The 3rd castle requires a joint assault from both players which is done by having both players play cards together in a shared turn to move their heroes into the castle. Each player will choose an enemy from the cube on the castle and guiding terrain cube. Each player faces a level 2 enemy. Players win the game if successful.
Solo Variant - Hard Mode
Setup - Create Terrain deck using 3 random castles and 1 random non-castle. Use level 2 enemy for 3rd castle.