Omen: Heir to the Dunes Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set Up
• New Concepts
  • Devotion
  • Favor
  • Structures
• Game Play
• Wealth Step
• Surge Step
  • Unit Card Anatomy
  • Devotion and Favor
  • Reward Tiles
• Unit Card Types
• War Step
  • Resolving Conflicts
• Colossal Units
• Offering Step
• End of Game and Scoring
  • Ties
• Variants
  • Combining Omen Sets

Components

• 1 city board
• 40 unit cards
• 6 structure cards
• 6 reference cards
• 20 coins
• 9 reward tiles
• 3 war-torn tokens
• 1 Favor card
• 1 Omen token
• 10 COLOSSAL tokens
• 1 Rule book

(Reference cards: 2 god reference cards and 2 keyword reference cards.)

Set Up

1. Place the city board between the 2 players.
2. Shuffle the 9 reward tiles and place 3 facedown stacks on each of the 3 designated areas on the city board.
3. Place 1 war-torn token atop each of the 3 reward tiles stacks, with the peaceful side faceup.
4. Shuffle all unit cards and place them in a facedown deck in the designated area next to the city board.
5. Place the Favor card next to the deck leaving room for a discard pile.
6. Place the 20 coins in their designated area next to the city board.
7. Each player draws 4 cards from the deck and takes 4 coins from the supply.
8. Each player takes a god reference card and a set of 3 structure cards, matching their god.
9. Each player places their structure cards in their play area BUILD side up.

The game begins with the oldest player taking the first turn. Flip the Favor card to the side matching the god of the second player.

Emissary of War Variant: After the standard setup, each player selects 1 unit card from their hand and places it facedown. This is the player's Emissary. Both Emissaries are then revealed. Each player sums the cost, offering, and strength values of their Emissary. The player whose Emissary has the greatest combined value is the First Player for the game. In the event of a tie, the Emissary with the highest strength value breaks the tie. If a tie still exists, the oldest player is the First Player.

The First Player moves their Emissary card to the discard pile. The other player returns his Emissary to their hand. The game then begins with the First Player taking the first turn.

New Concepts

Devotion

All units in Omen: Heir to the Dunes are devoted to 1 god, neither, or both. The god or gods to which a unit is devoted, if any, are indicated by the icon just below the name. Units without an icon are considered to be neutral.

A unit's devotion is for the purpose of resolving abilities and determining Favor. While players can play units devoted to the opposing god, they cannot resolve the abilities of those units. Additionally, any time a unit devoted to the god not currently Favored is played, the Favor card is flipped to the opposing god's side.

Favor

During a game of Omen: Heir to the Dunes Anubis or Horus will always be Favored. This is indicated by which side of the Favor card is faceup. At the start of the game the second player's god will always begin Favored.

Each time a unit is played that is not devoted to the god that is currently Favored, flip the Favor card to its opposite side. The Favor card is always flipped to its other side after a unit devoted to both gods is played.

Structures

In Omen: Heir to the Dunes, players may build structures to honor their god. This is done by using the build option during the Offering Step or through placing units under a structure using the new keyword ability ENTOMB.

A player can only build 1 of their structures at a time. A structure with any units under it is considered being built. A structure must be completed before building another.

Game Play

In Omen: Heir to the Dunes, 2 players will take turns gathering wealth, playing units, warring over cities and making offerings to the gods or building structures. On their turn, the active player will proceed through the following steps in order.

• Wealth Step: Reveal the top card of the deck. If the revealed card is devoted to the active player's god, they add it to their hand. Draw cards and gain coins.
• Surge Step: Flip and resolve completed structures. Play units from hand. The cost of the first devoted unit played on each turn is reduced by 1. Use the power of up to 1 reward tile.
• War Step: Resolve conflicts in war-torn cities if any.
• Offering Step: Choose to discard 1 unit from hand to draw cards and/or gain coins equal to its offering value OR to build a structure. Check for game end.

Play continues until 2 or more cities have been depleted of reward tiles or 1 player has built all 3 of their structures.

Players then compare their victory point (VP) totals, and the player with the most is the victor.

Wealth Step

The Wealth Step represents the player gathering their forces and resources in preparation for the ensuing battle. During the Wealth Step, the active player gains coins and/or draws cards.

At the start of the active player's Wealth Step, they reveal the top card of the deck. If the unit is devoted to their god, they add it to their hand. If not, the unit is placed in the discard pile. The player may discard a neutral unit from their hand to repeat this process once.

The active player has 3 Wealth actions to spend during their Wealth Step. Each Wealth action may be used to draw 1 unit card or gain 1 coin. Wealth actions may be used in any combination but all Wealth actions must be chosen prior to taking any cards or coins.

If the active player uses all of their Wealth actions to draw cards, they draw 1 additional card. If the active player uses all of their Wealth actions to gain coins, they gain 1 additional coin. This is called a Wealth Action Bonus.

NOTE: A player must decide how all of their Wealth actions will be spent prior to taking any coins or cards. This means they must decide to draw 4 cards or gain 4 coins before taking any of their Wealth actions if they wish to take advantage of the Wealth Action Bonus.

If a player would draw a card but the deck has no cards, shuffle the discard pile and place it facedown in the designated space by the city board and draw from the newly shuffled deck. It is important to remember that the deck is shared between players, while units in their hand and on their side of a city belong to them respectively.

NOTE: On the first turn of the game, the First Player receives 2 Wealth actions instead of 3. The player still receives a Wealth Action Bonus if all Wealth actions are used for the same action.

Surge Step

After the Wealth Step, the active player proceeds to the Surge Step. The majority of the game takes place in this step.

During this step, the active player spends coins to play unit cards from their hand. Additionally, reward tiles may be used for their godlike powers and completed structures are resolved.

Unit Card Anatomy

• Devotion: This icon indicates the god or gods to which this unit is devoted.
• Unit Cost: Amount of coins required to play the unit to a city.
• Offering Value: Amount of cards and/or coins gained when discarded during the Offering Step.
• Strength Value: Amount of strength contributed during conflict resolution in the War Step.

At the beginning of the Surge Step, the active player checks to see if any of their structures have cards equal to or greater than the indicated build cost tucked underneath. If so, the player flips the structure to its completed side and resolves its ability.

The most common way cards are played in Omen is to pay a unit's cost and add it to a city. To do so, return coins to the supply equal to the unit's cost. Next, add the unit to a city in front of the active player. The active player may play as many units as they wish from their hand, into any city of their choice as long as all costs can be paid.

However, a player can never have more than 5 units on their side of a given city. This is referred to as the city capacity. For the purpose of city capacity, all units count as one unless they have COLOSSAL keyword. A player cannot play, move, or use any ability that would add a unit to their side of a city that is at city capacity.

Devotion and Favor

When a player plays a unit to a city, check the unit's devotion prior to resolving any abilities. If the unit is devoted to the god not currently Favored, flip the Favor card to its other side. Thus, a player will always flip the Favor card when they play a unit devoted to both gods into a city. A player is considered to be Favored when their god is faceup on the Favor card.

NOTE: The first time during a player's turn that they play a unit devoted to their god, the cost of that unit is reduced by 1 to a minimum of zero.

Reward Tiles

In addition to playing cards from hand, once per Surge Step, the active player may use 1 of their reward tiles. To do this, they flip the reward tile in their play area faceup and resolve the ability. While reward tiles grant players godlike powers, using their abilities reduces the value of the tile from 2VP to 1VP. This is noted on the bottom right corner of all reward tiles.

• Reward Name: This does not have any functional impact upon the game.
• VP Value: Amount of points scored during end of game scoring. A tile that has been used is worth 1VP.
• Reward Ability: The effect described on the tile is resolved at the time the tile is flipped. Once a tile has been used it can not be used again.

Unit Card Types

In Omen: Heir to the Dunes, there are 4 different types of unit cards: Embalmed, Follower, Initiate, and Vizier. Each unit has abilities unique to their type. Below is a summary of each unit type:

• Embalmed: These units are devoted to both gods. They also have the keywords TREASURED and LABOR. After a unit with the LABOR keyword ability is revealed during the Offering Step to build a structure, the player resolves its LABOR ability before placing it in the discard pile.
• Follower: These units are devoted to one god only. Followers have a wide array of abilities, but they all have a REINFORCE ability. After a player plays a unit devoted to their god into a city, that player can resolve the REINFORCE ability of a single unit devoted to their god in that city, including the unit just played.
• Initiate: These units are not devoted to either god. Initiates all have the keyword ability INVOCATION, which has two effects. First, after a unit with an INVOCATION ability is played to a city, the player resolves its ability if their god is currently Favored. Next, all of a player's units with INVOCATION are +1 strength if their god is Favored.
• Vizier: These units are not devoted to either god. All Vizier units are COLOSSAL and have the keyword ability MANEUVER. After a unit with MANEUVER is played into a city, the player may move units equal to the indicated number without MANEUVER into or out of the city into which it was played.

NOTE: All unit abilities are considered to be mandatory unless their text explanation contains the word 'may.'

War Step

During the War Step, the active player resolves conflicts in any war-torn cities. First, the active player checks to see if any of the cities with reward tiles are war-torn. A city is war-torn if an opponent has at least 3 units in the city and/or the sum of both players units total 5 or more. When a city becomes war-torn, flip the war-torn token to its war-torn side to indicate so.

NOTE: A city can become or cease to be war-torn in any step, but conflicts are only ever resolved during the War Step.

Resolving Conflicts

If there are multiple war-torn cities, the active player chooses the order in which the war-torn cities are resolved.

To resolve a war-torn city, each player adds the strength values of all their units in that city. The player with the highest total strength is the victor. The victor then gains the top reward tile from that city and places it in their play area with the 2VP side faceup.

In the event of a tie, the player with the highest total unit cost in that city is the victor. If players are still tied, neither player is the victor, and both players must destroy all but 2 of their units in that city. Repeat the above steps until no war-torn cities remain.

After this, the victor destroys all but 1 of their units in that city. Repeat the above steps until no war-torn cities remain. The loser of the conflict then destroys all but 2 of their units in the same way.

Lastly, flip the war-torn token to its peaceful side.

NOTE: A player may play units into a city with no reward tiles, but such a city will never become war-torn again.

Colossal Units

All Vizier units and some Follower units have the keyword ability COLOSSAL. A COLOSSAL unit counts as 2 units instead of 1 when determining if a city is war-torn or not.

When destroying units at the end of a conflict, players must remember that COLOSSAL units count as 2 units. As such, the victor can never keep a COLOSSAL unit, while the loser of the conflict could choose to keep a COLOSSAL unit or 2 other units without COLOSSAL.

EXAMPLE: At the start of the active player's War Step the leftmost city is war-torn because there are 5 units in the city. While there are only 4 actual unit cards present in the city, the Rabid Usurper has the keyword ability COLOSSAL, which means it counts as 2 units.

The players then compare the strength of their units in the city. The opposing player's units have a total of 3 strength, but the Temple Servant has the keyword ability INVOCATION and their god Anubis is Favored. This increases the strength by 1 for a total of 4.

The active player's units have a total strength of 5. The active player's unit, the Sunset Marauder has the keyword ability INVOCATION, it does not provide any additional strength because their god Horus is not Favored. The active player has total strength of 5 and the opposing player has a total strength of 4, meaning the active player wins the conflict.

For winning the conflict, the active player takes the top reward tile in the city and must discard units until they only have 1 remaining. The active player can only choose to keep the Sunset Marauder, as the Rabid Usurper is a COLOSSAL unit.

The opposing player now must discard down to 2 units for losing the conflict. However, the opposing player only has 2 units neither of which are COLOSSAL, so keeps both units.

Lastly, the war-torn token is flipped to its peaceful side. No other cities are war-torn, so the active player's War Step ends.

Offering Step

During the Offering Step, a player may offer 1 of the unit cards from their hand as a sacrifice to the gods. In return, they are granted additional cards and/or coins.

To make an offering, the active player selects a card from their hand and discards it. They then draw a number of cards and/or gain a number of coins equal to that card's offering value.

In Omen: Heir to the Dunes, players have another option available during their Offering Step. Instead of discarding a card as an offering, a player can reveal a unit from hand to build 1 of their incomplete structures. The unit is revealed and cards equal to the unit's strength are placed under the structure the player wishes to build. The player then resolves any LABOR ability on the revealed unit and places it on top of the discard pile.

Keep in mind the following rules when building during the Offering Step:

• A player can only build 1 structure at a time. A structure with any cards under it considered being built.
• A player can never have cards under more than 1 of their structures at any time.
• A player can place more cards under a structure than what is required to build it.
• A structure is not considered complete until it has been flipped to its completed side at the start of the player's Surge Step.

For example, Moonlight Channeler has an offering value of 3 and a strength value of 2. If a player were to discard Moonlight Channeler they could:

• Draw 3 cards
• Gain 3 coins
• Draw 2 cards and gain 1 coin
• Draw 1 card and gain 2 coins
• Build for 2

At the end of this step, the active player discards cards from their hand until they have a maximum of 5 cards in hand. They then return coins to the supply until they have a maximum of 10 coins.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends at the end of the active player's Offering Step if 2 or more cities have no remaining reward tiles or if the active player has built all of their structures.

After the game end is triggered, each player calculates their VP. The player with the most VP wins, proving to be worthy of the gods.

Each player will score VP in the following ways:

A. Gain 2VP for each unused (facedown) reward tiles in their play area. B. Gain 1VP for each used (faceup) reward tile in their play area. C. Gain 1VP for each TREASURED unit in hand. D. Gain VP as indicated on each of a player's completed structures.

Ties

In the event of a tie, the player with the most unused reward tiles is the winner. If the players are still tied, the player with the most TREASURED units in their hand is the winner. If the players are still tied, the player whose god is Favored is the winner.

Variants

Combining Omen Sets

When combining Omen: Heir to the Dunes with other sets from the Omen Saga, follow all rules for the included components.

For example, if using Oracle units and the Feat cards from Omen: A Reign of War with Omen: Heir to the Dunes, players would need to add the Portent Step and Feat Step into the structure of a turn. Additionally, be sure to follow any alternate game end conditions from the content used in each game.

NOTE: While Omen: Heir to the Dunes can be combined with any existing units, it is recommended that players add no more than 10 units from other games in the Omen Saga.