Phase Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Area of Play
• Card Anatomy
• Phasing and Locking
• Actions and Costs
  • The First Rule
• Shuffling
• Drawing
• Enlisting
• The Training Cost
• Initial Setup
• On Your Turn
  • Preparation Step
  • Attack Step
  • The Action Round
  • Training Step
  • Training Example
• Game End
• Sample Turn
• Glossary
• The Other Side

Components

• 306 cards consisting of:
  • 100 cards for the Fengarian faction
  • 100 cards for the Keeper faction
  • 100 cards for the Sun Dominion faction
  • 6 Reference Cards
• 81 Influence tokens (double-sided)
• 150 card sleeves
• Rulebook

If your game of Phase doesn't include the above components, contact [email protected] for assistance.

Area of Play

1. The Nexus: The Nexus is a place of lore; one whose history is lost to time. The Nexus resides in the middle of the table and contains the good and evil influence. Anytime a player gains influence it is taken from here.
2. Hand: The cards that players hold in their hands. Cards may be discarded from a player's hand for special effects known as orders. To better read the order text, it is suggested that these cards be held sideways.
3. In Play: Cards in play are called warriors and are used to attack or defend.
4. Barracks: Cards in a player's barracks are called resources and are used to pay costs.
5. Player's Influence: The pool of good and evil influence tokens that a player has taken from The Nexus. Anytime a player loses influence, it is taken from here and removed from the game. Anytime a player gains influence, it is added here.
6. Discard Pile: A place for discarded and destroyed cards. It is suggested that these cards be placed sideways.
7. Deck: Cards in a player's deck are waiting to be added to their barracks or hand.

Card Anatomy

1. Training Cost: The number of other resources required to train the card, bringing it from the barracks into play as a warrior. A card may not be phased to pay its own cost.
2. Title: This is the title of the card.
3. Keywords: The card's keywords. This generally contains the card's faction (Fengarian, Keeper, Sun Dominion) and alignment (good or evil).
4. Attack Value: The amount of damage a warrior deals during combat.
5. Defense Value: The amount of damage a warrior can take before it is destroyed. A warrior is destroyed anytime its defense value is reduced to 0 or less.
6. Order Text: These are temporary effects that the card bestows. To use a card's order text, reveal the card from your hand, pay the action cost (if any), do all the effects listed, then discard the card. Only cards in a player's hand may use orders.
7. Skill Text: Some cards may have one or more skills. Only cards in play may use skills.
8. Reminder Text: Some cards will have reminder text. This is written in italics and helps explain what the card does.

Phasing and Locking

An important concept to Phase is the phasing mechanic. Phasing a card is the act of flipping it from one side to the other. Cards may only be phased when explicitly permitted (such as paying a cost or when directed by a card).

A player may always look at the back side of their cards:

• In play.
• In their hand.
• In their barracks.
• In their discard pile.

A player may not look at the back side of cards:

• In their deck.
• Belonging to their opponents.

Sometimes a player will be directed to lock a card. Locked cards are turned 90 degrees to the right. A locked card cannot phase or be chosen by its player for any actions or effects, including entering play. Locked cards unlock at the start of their player's turn.

Actions and Costs

Some effects are preceded by the word "Action." Players will often have the chance to take actions during the course of the game. All temporary effects of actions, such as damage, attack and defense modifiers, or additional skills, end when the turn ends. If the action was an order from the player's hand, discard it after its effects have resolved.

If the action is taken during a skirmish, then any cards chosen for the action's effect must be in the skirmish currently resolving.

To take an action, a player first pays any action costs. Costs are paid by phasing (and sometimes locking) a number of resources in your barracks equal to the number inside the phase or lock icon. A resource may be phased multiple times per turn to pay for costs, but may only be phased once to pay any single cost. If costs cannot be paid, the action may not be taken. After costs are paid, the player must apply all effects of the action to the best of their ability.

Sometimes there will be both phase and lock costs on an action. Pay the costs in the order they are listed. So, for example, if an action has a lock cost of 2 and a phase cost of 1, the player first locks two of their resources, then they phase one more of their resources. Locked resources may not phase, so this action would require three resources in total.

The First Rule

Card effects always overrule basic rules. If a card ever contradicts the rulebook, the card's text takes precedence.

Shuffling

Each player is responsible for sufficiently randomizing their own deck. In addition to normal shuffling, players may take any number of cards from the top of the deck, flip them over, and then place them back on top.

Drawing

Drawing cards in Phase may seem a bit tricky, but actually they are drawn in the same manner as most other games. Whenever a player draws a card, the side that was face up on the top of the deck should now be facing their opponents.

Since the order text is written sideways on the cards, it is suggested that a player holds their hand sideways so they may read the order text better.

Enlisting

Enlisting is the process of putting a card into the barracks. Cards are enlisted from the top of the deck unless indicated otherwise. Never phase cards when enlisting them. When enlisting, the side of the card that is visible to the player is the side that will be face up in the barracks.

The Training Cost

To bring a card from the barracks into play as a warrior, a player must first phase a number of other resources in their barracks equal to the number in its training cost icon (listed in the upper left corner). A warrior's cost is always phasing, never locking. A card may not be phased to pay its own training cost.

Initial Setup

For each player in the game, place 10 good influence and 10 evil influence in The Nexus. All players then shuffle their decks. Next, the players pass their decks to the player to their left and repeat the shuffling process, handing their decks back to each other when they are done.

Once this is done, each player draws three cards. Then, they choose one card in their hand and place it into their barracks. The player whose top card of their deck now shows a lower training cost goes first. In the event of a tie, players cut to random cards in their decks and compare again, continuing until a tie does not occur.

On Your Turn

Turns have three steps, taken in the following order:

• Preparation Step
• Attack Step
• Training Step

Preparation Step

1. Unlock: The player whose turn it is, also known as the active player, starts by unlocking all of their locked cards (players won't usually have locked cards early in the game).
2. Draw and Enlist: During this segment, the active player first draws a card into their hand, then enlists a card from their deck into their barracks (see the "Enlisting" sidebar on page 6). If a player's deck is ever empty and they need to draw and/or enlist, they first shuffle their discard pile to form a new deck, and then proceed.

Attack Step

This is where much of the excitement of Phase takes place. If the active player does not have any warriors in play, they should skip this step. Otherwise, they may now declare they are attacking. The Attack Step proceeds as follows:

1. Defender of The Nexus: Only one opponent may defend The Nexus each turn. The active player now randomly determines which other player it will be this turn.

2. Maneuvering: During this segment, players may take actions. Usually, the order in which actions are played does not matter, but if players elect to, they may enter a structured Action Round where they take turns playing actions (See the Action Round sidebar).

3. Declaration Segment

   • a) Declare Attackers: The active player sends one or more of their warriors to either attack The Nexus or another player of their choice. Players should attack The Nexus if they wish to gain influence for themselves. They should attack a player if they wish to reduce that player's influence. It is suggested that players attack The Nexus early in the game to acquire influence before The Nexus influence pool depletes.
   • b) Declare Defenders: The player being attacked (or the player selected to defend The Nexus this turn) may send warriors to defend the attack. For each attacking warrior, the player may select one or more of their warriors to oppose. Warriors may not be sent to oppose warriors of the same alignment (though they may phase to be the same alignment during the skirmish). A warrior may not defend against more than one attacker, but multiple warriors may defend against a single attacker.

   The selected defenders and the attacker are now in a skirmish. Each attacking warrior will resolve a skirmish, even if there are no defending warriors opposing it.

4. Skirmish Segment

   • a) Action Round: The active player now selects a skirmish to resolve. This begins a structured action round. In this action round, skills may only be used from warriors in the skirmish currently being resolved, and only these warriors may be chosen for actions being resolved.

The Action Round

An important part of Phase is the ability to take actions from the skills on your warriors in play or from your orders in hand. Most of the time who plays their actions first will not matter. The active player will ask all players "Would anyone like to take an action?" Players then have the opportunity to take any number of actions.

Sometimes the order in which players take actions does matter, such as when one player attempts to destroy another player's warrior, or during a skirmish. In these cases, the players enter the action round. During an action round, the active player has the first opportunity to take one action. Once they have done so (or they pass), the player to their left has this opportunity. This continues clockwise around the table until all players pass consecutively. Then the action round ends.

This means that if you pass your opportunity and another player plays an action, you will have another opportunity to play an action later.

Training Step

After all skirmishes have resolved, the active player now has the option to take actions and train warriors, transforming resources in their barracks into warriors in play. In order to do this, a player must choose one of their cards in their barracks to train. Then, they must phase a number of other resources in their barracks equal to the training cost of the card they are training.

After the active player is done training warriors, players may elect to enter another action round. When this action round ends, the turn is passed to the next player to the left.

Training Example

1. Example: No-Ne Chim 3 is selected to come into play from the Barracks.
2. Chained Horror, Necromancer, and Fire Spirit each flip over to pay No-Ne Chim 3's Phasing cost of entering play (3).
3. No-Ne Chim 3 now comes into play.

Remember: A card may not be phased to pay for its own training cost.

Game End

When either the good or evil influence pools in The Nexus is empty, players may no longer gain influence of that type from The Nexus. After this happens, play continues until the last player finishes their turn.

Then, whoever has the most influence of a single category wins the game. If there is a tie, then whoever has the most total influence (combining good and evil) wins. If it is still a tie, whichever of the tied players has the most total attack value of all of their warriors in play wins. If somehow it is still a tie, then all tied players win!

Sample Turn

The sample turn below is the printed example. Its diagram captions and numbered art callouts are not reproduced here; the narrative describes the same actions.

Adam, Ashley, and Melissa are several turns into a game of Phase. It is Ashley's turn and she has 11 evil influence and 8 good influence. With only 12 evil influence and 8 good influence left in The Nexus, the game is almost complete. She begins her turn by first unlocking all of her cards, then drawing a card, and finally enlisting a card. She has Chained Horror, The Flying Death, Gladiator, and Scout in play. She randomly determines who may defend The Nexus this turn (Adam is selected). She sees Adam has Berserker, Sister Alexis, and Pennaggolan in play which is good for her because he only has one good warrior to defend against her three evil warriors.

But before she can attack, first players have an opportunity to prepare for battle by playing actions in the Maneuvering Segment. Ashley doesn't see a need to play any actions, so she passes. Adam, worried about what might come, decides he needs some more good warriors to defend. He plays his The Cognet from his hand for its order text. First he pays the cost of phasing one resource in his barracks, and then he chooses to phase his Berserker over to its good side. Berserker has a skill called Phaseling which gives Adam 1 good influence from The Nexus when it phases. On the other side of the Berserker is a Nighthawk. No one has any more actions they wish to play so Ashley moves on to the Attack Step.

She decides she wants to attack The Nexus with all four of her warriors. Adam now has to decide how he wants to defend. He decides to send his Nighthawk to defend against Ashley's The Flying Death, he sends his Sister Alexis to defend against her Gladiator, and he sends his Pennaggolan to defend against her Scout. As the attacker, she chooses to resolve the Scout skirmish first. Currently she is losing, so she plays an order from her hand, Fire Spirit, giving Scout +2/+1. Adam sees that the two warriors are destroying each other, so he passes. Ashley also passes. They now proceed to the skirmish resolution. Scout does its 3 damage to the Pennaggolan's defense value, destroying it. At the same time, the Pennaggolan does its 5 damage to Scout's defense value, destroying it. Scout has the Relentless skill, so when it leaves play, Ashley gets to enlist a card from the top of her deck, locked.

Next, Ashley resolves the Gladiator skirmish. Ashley sees she is in big trouble. The Sister Alexis has the Swift skill, which means it will do its damage first and destroy the Gladiator before it does its damage. So she decides that Sister Alexis needs to go before the skirmish resolves. For her first action, she discards The Undying from her hand, dealing 1 damage to the Sister Alexis. Adam, still winning, decides to pass. Ashley then discards a Trivet from her hand, giving the Sister Alexis –1/–2. This reduces the Sister Alexis' defense value to 0, destroying it before it has a chance to deal its damage during skirmish resolution. At this point Adam passes. Ashley uses Gladiator's skill, phasing three of her resources, to give it +3/+0. Then both Adam and Ashley pass. Because there are no more defenders, Gladiator deals its damage directly to The Nexus, giving Ashley 4 evil influence. Gladiator is no longer in combat and as the attacker, phases when it goes home.

Next Ashley resolves The Flying Death skirmish. For her first action, she uses her The Flying Death's skill to lose 1 good influence and gain +2/+1, making it a 4/5. Adam is fine with this since he is stopping the attack and not losing his warrior, so he passes. Ashley plays Anonymous from her hand, giving her The Flying Death +2/+1. Adam is in trouble, but has no action to help, so he passes. It is looking good for Ashley but remember, all players may play actions during the skirmish, not just players with warriors in the fight. Melissa, seeing that Ashley is getting too close to victory, decides to take her opportunity to take an action to play Caelistra. She can lock any number of her resources and phase that many warriors. She decides to lock one resource to phase Ashley's The Flying Death to its other side, Squeezle. Ashley and Adam both pass, as does Melissa. Squeezle is Swift, and so it deals its 4 damage to Nighthawk first, but fails to destroy it. Nighthawk then deals its 4 damage to Squeezle, which destroys Squeezle. The skirmish is now resolved.

Lastly, Ashley resolves her Chained Horror's skirmish. Adam has no actions so he passes, as does Melissa. Ashley plays a The Flying Death from her hand, giving her Chained Horror +2/+0, but not +4/+0 because Chained Horror is not opposing a warrior. Because Chained Horror has the Elite skill, it gets an additional +2/+0, bringing it to a whopping 7/4. Adam and Melissa can't do anything about that so they pass, and the Chained Horror does its damage, giving Ashley 7 evil influence. There is now only 1 evil influence left in The Nexus! Chained Horror phases when it goes home.

With all skirmishes resolved, Ashley moves on to her Training Step where players again may take actions and Ashley may train her resources in her barracks, bringing them into play as warriors. Ashley has four resources and No-Ne Chim 3 in her barracks with a training cost of 3. So she phases her three resources that are not No-Ne Chim 3 to bring it into play as a warrior. Because it has the Trained skill, Ashley gains 2 good influence, taking it from The Nexus and adding it to her own pile of influence. Ashley has now revealed a Ted in her barracks. With a training cost of 2, she phases her other two resources to bring Ted into play. This has now revealed a Necromancer in her barracks. Phasing her other resource, she brings it into play as a warrior. Lastly, this reveals a Fire Spirit in her barracks. With a cost of 0, it comes into play for free.

Nobody else wants to take an action so Ashley's turn ends and the turn passes to the next player in clockwise order, Adam. He and Melissa may have to temporarily not fight each other if they want to have any chance of stopping Ashley!

Card note (The Flying Death): When played from hand, The Flying Death can give +2 Attack to an attacking warrior.

Glossary

Action: To use a card's action you must first pay all costs (if any). Then, resolve the action's effects. You must always do as much of the effects as you can. For example, if an action requires you to discard two cards and you only have one in your hand, you still have to discard that card. Actions from skills may only be used from warriors in the skirmish currently being resolved, and only they may be chosen for actions being resolved. Any player may take actions during a skirmish, even if they don't have any warriors there. All temporary effects of actions, such as damage, attack and defense modifiers, or additional skills, end when the turn ends.

Action Round: When players play actions in a structured manner. See the "Action Round" sidebar on page 7.

Active Player: The player whose turn it is. The active player always has the first opportunity to take an action or pass during an action round. Only the active player is able to attack or bring warriors into play.

Active Side: The side of the card that all players are able to see. If the card is in a player's hand, then the active side is the side facing the player.

Alignment: All cards are either good or evil, as determined in their keyword section.

Ally: Warriors with the Ally skill may defend The Nexus even if their controlling player was not selected to defend The Nexus this turn.

Attack Value: The amount of damage a warrior deals in combat. Attack values can be reduced below 0 into the negatives. A warrior with a negative attack value deals no damage at skirmish resolution.

Barracks: The area on the table that holds your resources.

Cost (training, action): The number of resources required to be phased (and sometimes locked) to play the card. Training costs for warriors are always phasing, never locking. Training costs for warriors are in the upper left corner in the yellow orb. Action costs for actions and orders are found before the colon.

Cost Difference: Sometimes cards will refer to the cost difference. This is referring to the cost difference between the good and evil sides of a card.

Destroy: A destroyed warrior is discarded from play into its owner's discard pile.

Defending Player: This is the player being attacked during a combat, or the player defending The Nexus.

Defense Value: The amount of damage a warrior can take before being destroyed. If a warrior ever takes damage equal to or greater than its defense value, it is destroyed and placed in the player's discard pile. In addition, if a warrior's defense value is reduced to 0 or less by other means, it is also destroyed.

Discard: When a player discards a card, they take it from their hand and place it in their discard pile.

Elite: Elite skills trigger every time that warrior is chosen for an order. Elite skills only work while in play.

Enlist: A player putting a card into their barracks. This card comes from the top card of the player's deck unless indicated otherwise.

Lock: Locked cards are turned 90 degrees to the right. A locked card cannot phase or be chosen by its player for any actions or effects, including entering play. Locked cards unlock at the start of their player's turn.

Opposed, Opposing: Warriors are opposed if they are facing enemy warriors in a skirmish.

Order: The text on the left-hand side of the card. To use a card's order, a player selects it from their hand, pays its costs, and resolves its effects. Afterwards, discard the card. A player may only use orders from cards in their hand.

Phase: The act of flipping a card to its other side. Any damage on a card is removed when the card phases. Cards may only be phased when explicitly permitted (such as paying a cost or when directed by a card).

Phaseling: Phaselings have skills that trigger every time they are phased to their other side. Phaseling skills only work while in play.

Relentless: Relentless skills trigger when the card leaves play.

Resource: Any card in your barracks. Only resources may be used to pay costs.

Skill: The text on the lower parts of cards that may be used while the card is in play. Some cards have special skills such as Elite, Phaseling, Relentless, Swift, or Trained. These skills trigger at specific times (as specified on the card) and then resolve their effects.

Skirmish: Individual fights that are usually between one attacker and one defender, though somtimes there may be more than one defender. During a skirmish, players may play actions and warriors will deal their damage.

Swift: Warriors with the Swift skill deal their combat damage before warriors without the Swift skill.

Trained: Trained skills trigger after the card enters play.

Train, Training: The act of phasing resources to move a card from your barracks into play.

The Nexus: The mysterious area (in the middle of the table) that is rumored to be the source of all influence and the power of phasing itself. Anytime a player gains influence, it is taken from here.

Warrior: Any card in play. Warriors may attack, defend, and use skills.

The Other Side

There is always more to Phase than the first glance... Now that you know the rules and how to play, phase this rulebook to the other side and reveal:

• More about the original fantasy setting of Phase.
• Deck construction guidelines for building your own original Phase deck!

Source note: the printed rulebook's back-side content (the fantasy setting and deck construction guidelines) is not part of the file this transcription was made from, so it is not reproduced. The designers' history essay and the credits page are omitted as attribution and background, not rules.