Royal Defense

Royal Defense Rulebook

Table of Contents

Goal of the Game

In the board game Royal Defense ("Защитник Короны") you must defend your castle alone or in alliance with a friend against an invading enemy army, and win in one of two ways: by sabotage, or by defeating the enemy through crushing (see Victory Conditions).

Components

Spell deck (40 cards), 1 — 12 different magic spells that you can buy in the Market with magical energy, mana. These spells will help in many situations, sometimes nearly hopeless ones.
Double-sided board sections, Castle, 2 — elements of the battlefield.
Double-sided board section, Centre, 1 — elements of the battlefield where the most interesting action takes place.
Dungeon deck — descent (30 cards), 1 — while descending into the Dungeon Lair you may encounter 8 different event cards from the Descent deck. Do not worry: almost all of them are harmless.
Mercenary decks (40 cards each), 4 — your mercenary decks: "Forest Folk", "Order of Light", "Greenskins" and "Living Dead". Each deck contains 10 kinds of creatures with their own play style.
Dungeon deck — lair (20 cards), 1 — in the Dungeon Lair you can find one of 8 ancient treasures or one of 2 curses. Treasure is much more likely than a curse, so boldly send one of your mercenaries to explore the Dungeon.
Race boards, 4 — these boards show, for your convenience, the turn order and the abilities of your mercenaries. The board's right side also lets you track victory points from 1 to 20.
Building deck (40 cards), 1 — 13 different buildings in this deck will help you defend your castle from enemy troops and strengthen your position on the board.
Mana tokens, 12.
Coin tokens, 30.
Wound tokens, 30.
Order tokens, 14.
Status tokens, 10 (Condemnation, Freeze, Paralysis, Attack +1, +3, +5).
Victory token, 1.
Rulebook, 1.

Notes on the Board and Cards

Board:

Castle Territory — here you may place your buildings (no more than 1 per space).
Hiring line — on this line you place creature cards when you hire them.
Space — a single space may hold no more than 2 creatures, or 1 building and 1 creature. Adjacent space — all spaces bordering another space (including diagonally) are adjacent to it. Attack line — all creatures move only in a straight line toward the enemy's castle. This line is called the Attack Line. Neutral territory — the central part of the map. Buildings cannot be placed on neutral territory, but it contains many interesting Key Locations. Key Locations — special places on the map that affect the whole space and give you special bonuses or penalties if you control them with your creature (see Key Locations).

Attention! Text on the board, a unit card, a spell, or a Dungeon card always takes precedence over the rules.

Card:

Cost — the price to hire this unit.
Name of the mercenary / name of the building.
Death reward — the number of coins from the bank and victory points that the opponent receives after this unit dies.
Attack — the damage this unit deals.
Speed — the maximum distance the unit may move in its turn.
Life — how much damage must be dealt to kill or destroy this unit.
Abilities — the unit's special properties (see Using Abilities).

Attention! Unit is the general name for both mercenary creatures and buildings. When the rules or a card's text mention a Unit, they mean any card on the board.

Two-Player Start

My Lord, to begin your first battle, follow my advice; then you will have a chance to hold your ancestral castle and worthily answer your opponents.

First, you need to prepare for the battle:

Determine the first player by lot.
In the centre of the table lay out the board: one Castle Territory board to yourself and the other to your opponent, with Neutral Territory placed in the middle.
The first player chooses the mercenary race they want to play and takes the matching race board and deck. The player shuffles the deck and places it face down on their side of the castle. This is their reserve. Next to it the player places the race board. The race board must be placed face up so that everyone can see the abilities of the mercenaries and the number of victory points (VP) gained.
The second player then chooses a mercenary deck, shuffles it, and lays it out, along with their race board, on their side of the castle.
The second player chooses which side to lay Neutral Territory (the middle part of the board) on, between the two castle territories.
On one side of the board lay out the Market for buildings and spells. Shuffle the building deck and place it face down. Turn up the top 5 cards of the building deck and place them face up along the edge of the playing area. Next to the building cards, in the same way, lay out the top 5 cards of the spell deck, slightly above the building cards (further from the table edge).
Sort the wound tokens, order tokens, effect tokens, mana and coins into separate piles. This is the token bank.
On the side of the board opposite the Market, lay the Dungeon face down in a row: 5 Descent cards along the board and 1 Lair card at the end.
Each player receives 2 Palisade building cards (which were taken from the building deck in advance) and places them on any spaces of their Castle Territory.
Each player receives 5 orders.
Each player draws 5 cards from their reserve into their hand. If a player does not like some of the cards, they may shuffle them back into the deck and draw up to 5 cards in hand. Important! This can be done only once, at the start of the game!

My Lord, now we are ready to defend our castle. Let us take the first turn!

Turn Order

Your turn is divided into specific phases, which always repeat in the same order:

Income and bonuses. Take 5 coins and 2 mana from the bank.
Key Location bonuses — only if your creatures occupy them (see Key Locations).
Dungeon descent. Your creature on a Dungeon space may descend into the Dungeon (see Dungeon).
Hiring and purchasing. Hire creatures (see Hiring) and buy buildings (see Market).
Orders. Give ALL available orders to units (see Orders).
Unit activation. Remove orders from units, activating them in any order (see Unit Activation). First move the activated creature the maximum possible number of spaces equal to its speed (see Movement), then activate its abilities (see Unit Abilities) and attack possible targets (see Attack). Attacking and using abilities may be done in any order.
Discard and refill. After all units that received orders have been activated, you may discard one mercenary card from your hand face up to the graveyard. Then draw cards until you have 5 cards in hand.

Victory Conditions

There are 2 ways to win.

The first way is sabotage. If any of your mercenaries passes the enemy's hiring line (in other words, ends up past the edge of the opponent's board), you immediately win, having committed sabotage and stopped the enemy's aggression with smaller losses.

Example of sabotage: On its turn the Order of Light sent out a Drunken Brute and dealt only 1 damage to the Flying Goblin, because the Flying Goblin has the Flight ability (creatures with Flight take only 1 damage from melee attacks).

Also, if during the opponent's turn they reach 20 victory points, and you also gain victory points (for example, after the opponent uses the spell "Sacrifice"), the game ends in a draw.

On its turn the Greenskins, activating the Flying Goblin with its Flight ability, may fly over an enemy creature, which they successfully do; and with speed 2 the Flying Goblin flies past the edge of the playing field.

Greenskins win!

The second way is crushing. If you have failed to commit sabotage and penetrate the heart of the opponent's castle, you must defeat the opponent's mercenaries and destroy their buildings. As soon as you reach 20 victory points, you win at once. Be careful, however, and watch the opponent's victory points. They may reach victory before you if you allow it.

You may have noticed that the race board has only numbers from 1 to 10. Victory points above 10 are marked very simply: turn the victory point token over to its other side, which reads +10, and start marking again from the top.

Destroying enemy creatures, especially on Key Locations, is a good tactic, because it deprives the enemy of important advantages on the battlefield.

Fortify your castle with buildings, use the power of spells, and place your mercenaries wisely, and, My Lord, victory will be on our side!

Key Locations

On the neutral part of the map, My Lord, you see various buildings and places of power. These are Key Locations, which it would be good for us to hold, in order to gain more resources, help our units, or weaken the enemy's units.

To hold a Key Location on the battlefield, one of your mercenaries must be standing on it during the Income and Bonuses phase. At the very start of your turn, right after you have taken your gold and mana, check whether your mercenaries stand on spaces with Key Locations. Use the power of Key Locations on spaces with your mercenaries before hiring and purchasing.

If you control several Key Locations, you decide the order in which you use them.

If two of your mercenaries are on a space with a Key Location, you receive the Key Location's effect only once. In other words, you receive the effect of the space itself, not of the creatures on it.

If, besides your creature, another ally or enemy creature is on a space with a Key Location, they receive the effect from that space only on their own turn, in the Income and Bonuses phase.

Key Location list:

Gold mine — gain 2 coins.
Library — gain 1 mana.
Workshop — restore 2 life to any building.
Healing fountain — restore 2 life to any creature.
Altar of curses — deal 2 magic damage to an enemy creature.
Military camp — add 3 to the attack of a creature on the space.
Rift — deal 2 damage to the creature on this space.

Dungeon

Rumours say, My Lord, that not far from your castle lie ancient ruins with a passage into an abandoned Dungeon.

I suggest, My Lord, that you send one of our mercenaries into the Dungeon. Although I am sure that many unpleasant traps may be found in these ancient ruins, it is said that they hide treasures of gold, which we need so badly now, and artefacts of long-forgotten races. But we must hurry, so that the enemy's mercenaries do not reach the treasure before us.

The Dungeon is a separate deck of cards with pleasant bonuses for strengthening your position on the battlefield.

To enter the Dungeon, your mercenary must be on the Dungeon space at the start of your turn. In the Income and Bonuses phase you may send this creature to explore the Dungeon.

If you decide to descend into the Dungeon, move the mercenary card onto the first unrevealed Descent card (the one farthest from the Lair card), and reveal that card. Carry out what is written on it, place the mercenary that entered the Dungeon in its place, and put the card into the Dungeon discard.

Image caption: "Dungeon — enter the Dungeon."

In the Orders phase you may give your mercenary in the Dungeon any number of orders (even all 5). For each order, your creature advances 1 card closer to the Lair. Reveal the cards in sequence and resolve their effects.

If fortune is not on your side and the creature dies in the Dungeon, all remaining orders on that creature "burn" and cannot be reassigned to other units.

On reaching the Lair card, you receive all rewards as written on the Lair card, and return your mercenary to a space to the left or right of the Dungeon, if they are free. If there is no room on those spaces, the creature comes out onto the Dungeon space. If that space is also occupied, it is placed on any other nearby free space of the opponent's choice. After this, create a new Dungeon again (5 Descent cards along the board and 1 Lair card at the end).

Only 1 creature may be in the Dungeon at one time. If you want to send another creature to explore, you may give 2 orders to your creature in the Dungeon to return it to the battlefield under the rules described above; only then may your other creature enter the Dungeon in the Income and Bonuses phase.

A creature that comes out of the Dungeon in this way may move at its speed, attack, and use its abilities.

If you want to enter a Dungeon in which an opponent's mercenary is located, then when entering the Dungeon you attack the creature in the Dungeon by the usual rules (including the use of abilities). If your attack kills the opponent's creature, you immediately move your mercenary on the Dungeon space onto the first free Descent card. If no Descent cards remain, move it at once to the Lair card.

All effects of Key Locations, magic, and the abilities of other creatures do not affect a creature in the Dungeon.

A creature in the Dungeon may use its abilities only once per player turn (even if it received more than 1 order).

Example: Your creature, the Gardener Dryad, is in the Dungeon and receives 3 orders in the Orders phase. In the Unit Activation phase, when you remove the orders from the Gardener Dryad, it may use its ability "Healing-2" only once this turn, not 3 times, one per order.

If there are 2 or more entrances to the Dungeon on the map, they all lead to the same Dungeon. When leaving the Dungeon, you may choose from which exit the creature appears on the battlefield.

Hiring

Note, My Lord, that without mercenaries you cannot defend your castle or repel your opponent. Mercenaries are the foundation of our defence!

At the start of your turn, once you have replenished your coins and mana, you may hire creatures to defend your interests on the battlefield and buy buildings. In the Hiring and Purchasing phase you may hire no one, thus accumulating resources to hire stronger (or more numerous) mercenaries during the next turn.

In the Hiring and Purchasing phase there is no limit on how many mercenaries you may hire in a turn. As long as you have resources, you may hire every mercenary in your reserve (in your hand).

To hire a creature, pay its cost to the bank and place its card on any free space of the hiring line of your castle, face up and with the picture facing you. In this way, even if your opponent plays the same race as you, there is no doubt whose mercenaries are whose.

Important! If a space on the hiring line already has 2 cards, you cannot hire into that space. If, by an unlucky coincidence (and war is full of such things), all spaces on the hiring line are occupied by two cards, the hiring phase is skipped.

Important! You may hire your creatures into a space with an enemy mercenary, but you may not place buildings there.

Market

And here we are at the market, My Lord. Here you can buy contracts for building useful structures for our defence, and scrolls with powerful magic spells.

The Market is available to both players, but only on your own turn.

Buildings

You may buy buildings in the Hiring and Purchasing phase. Buildings are bought with coins. A purchased building is placed at once on a space in your Castle Territory. Only 1 building may be placed on a space.

If you want to demolish a previously built building in order to build a new one in its place, you may do so for free, but your opponent receives the victory points and coins for that unit.

Spells

Scrolls with spells are bought with magical energy, mana.

The spell scroll shows whether it affects one creature/unit of your choice or all units.

Spells affect only units on the battlefield.

If the scroll does not specifically state the owner of the unit, the spell may be used both on your own unit and on an ally's or opponent's unit.

Important! You may buy and use magic scrolls at any moment of your turn. To buy a magic scroll, pay the amount of mana shown on the scroll.

Important! You cannot keep a scroll for the next turn. So if you have not used a scroll with a spell by the end of your turn, you simply place it in the discard.

Important! A player casts spells, not creatures or buildings on the battlefield. That is, you may use spells even if you have no units on the battlefield.

Each player may play no more than 1 spell per turn. Also, each player may not have more than 10 mana. There is no limit on coins.

General Market Rules

Destroyed buildings go into the building discard next to the building deck, and used spell scrolls go next to the spell deck.

If you are not satisfied with what can be bought at the market now, you may refresh the spell and building markets.

To refresh the building market, on your turn pay 2 coins to the bank, collect all 5 building cards and place them in the discard, then turn up 5 new cards from the building deck.

To refresh the spell market, you must also pay 2 mana, collect and discard all spell cards to the discard, then turn up 5 new cards from the spell deck.

Important! If you run out of cards in your mercenary deck (you have drawn the last card into your hand), you can no longer use the market.

Orders

My Lord, the battle is about to begin! As soon as the first mercenaries come out onto the battlefield under your banners, you must give them orders, or they simply will not know what to do, and will start to drink and idle about, and that is not at all what we need.

To give an order, take an order token and place it on the chosen building or creature.

After you have hired creatures and placed buildings, the Orders phase begins.

You have only 5 orders, all of which you must distribute as fully as possible among your units (mercenaries and buildings), 1 per unit. By orders you indicate which of them will be activated during this turn.

Units on the battlefield receive only 1 order, unless their effects require more orders, such as "Paralysis".

Important! Not all buildings need to be activated by orders. Only buildings that have active abilities (marked in red) may receive orders.

During the Orders phase you may redistribute your orders, weighing your tactics; but once you finish the Orders phase, you cannot change your mind! So decide wisely.

Unit Activation

Now that you have given all your orders, My Lord, you may activate your units so that they can attack, use their abilities, and help you defend the castle in every way.

After all orders have been distributed, you activate your units.

To activate a unit, remove its order token from it. Units may be activated in any sequence.

If you remove an order token from a creature, you must immediately advance that creature by its maximum speed (see Movement), and then attack enemy units (see Attack), using the abilities of your mercenaries (see Using Abilities).

When you remove an order from a building, you use its abilities and attack with it, if this is possible.

Remember! The order in which you activate your units may strongly affect your tactics and, ultimately, your victory or defeat.

Movement

Our mercenaries are eager for battle, My Lord, and nothing can hold them back! Well, except perhaps that fireball…

All your creatures, if they can, must move immediately after you remove their order and activate them.

All your creatures move only forward. A creature moves at the speed shown on its card. It may not move less than that speed.

A creature may pass through its own buildings and creatures (even if there are 2 on a space). But if a creature cannot stop on the space where it should end its move, it must stop on the spaces before it where it may remain under the rules (that is, with no more than 2 units on a space). If there are no free spaces at all where your creature may stop, it does not move.

When your creature comes right up to an enemy unit, it stops on the adjacent space directly in front of the enemy unit.

A space counts as occupied by an enemy unit even if only one unit is on it and half the space is free.

However, some creatures (for example, those with the abilities "Flight" and "Mobility") may occupy the same space as an opponent's creature.

Creatures may not leave the edge of the playing field. The only exception is the edge of the playing field on the opponent's side.

The Forest Fairy ends its movement after the space with the Ballista.

Example of movement: The Elves still have two unactivated creatures: the Elf Agile One and the Forest Fairy. These creatures still have order tokens on them, so they have not yet been activated.

Elf Agile One. The Elf Agile One has speed 2, but it cannot make its full movement, because the space where it must stop already contains two units. Therefore the Elf Agile One must move as far as possible — one space forward. If the player wishes, they may use the Elves' Mobility ability and move one more space to the left.

Forest Fairy. The Forest Fairy has speed 3, and its movement range lets it advance the full maximum.

Attack

When your unit has completed its movement, My Lord, it is time to attack the enemy!

Unlike movement, which is mandatory, attacking is your choice, My Lord.

There are 3 kinds of attack: Melee (physical damage), Ranged (ranged damage), and Magic (magic damage). This matters when dealing damage, because some units have immunity or protection from a certain kind of attack.

Usually all units use only Melee attacks, unless their card states otherwise.

Units with the Archer ability may use a Ranged attack if they are not right up against an enemy unit (in that case their attack becomes a Melee attack).

Units with the Mage ability may make a Magic attack (both Ranged and Melee). A Magic attack is no different from an ordinary one; but some creatures have immunity or weakness to magic, so think carefully about whom to attack with what.

Example: The creature Creeping Horror is immune to both Melee and Ranged attacks. However, any spell or creature with a Magic attack will easily kill this spawn.

To make a Ranged attack, your unit must first determine its target. This is always the enemy unit closest to the attacking creature along that attack line. If there are 2 targets on one space, the attacker chooses the suitable target. Your units and your allies' units do not prevent your Ranged attack.

For a Melee attack, you must be right next to a space with an enemy unit, or on the same space.

If your unit is on a space BEHIND an enemy unit, it may not attack the unit that remains behind it.

After the target is chosen, your unit deals damage to the target equal to its attack number on its card.

Example of attack: In front of the Large Orc and the Goblin Archer stands a palisade. When the Goblin Archer is activated, it may move forward one space and make a Ranged attack on the first unit along the attack line. Since the Palisade is immune to Ranged attacks, the Goblin Archer's attack does no harm to the Palisade or to any units behind it.

To mark damage, place the required number of damage tokens on the damaged unit. If the unit is killed by the damage, it no longer needs the tokens :).

The Large Orc can move right up to the palisade and deal Melee damage, which will knock it down in one blow.

Note that at speed 2 the orc can move only one space, because the enemy palisade blocks its further movement.

Place a killed creature in the graveyard of the owning player, and a destroyed building in the Market discard, and receive the reward (victory points and coins) shown on the defeated unit's card as coins at the bottom.

Example: the Mountain Troll has 5 coins at the bottom of its card. Accordingly, the player who kills it gains 5 victory points and 5 coins from the bank.

Be sure to mark the victory points on your race board, so that you do not miss this glorious moment of victory achieved by crushing!

Killed creatures go to their graveyard next to the deck from which they were taken. It may happen that your mercenary switches sides (for example, under the effect of the spell "Hypnosis"), but when it dies, it must still go to the graveyard of its original owner.

Using Abilities

As you have already noticed, My Lord, almost all mercenaries and buildings have special abilities that make them unique. Use the abilities of your units wisely, and take the abilities of enemy units into account, and you will be able to defeat any opponent who challenges your ancestral castle!

There are 2 kinds of abilities: Passive and Active. Abilities are written on the card and explained in the rules (at the end) and on the race board itself.

Passive abilities of units do not require an order in order to be used (for example, the Palisade's ability "Ranged immunity"), and they work at all times, even during the opponent's turn.

Active abilities work only when a unit is activated. Such abilities are set in italics and red.

Active abilities may be used only after the unit has moved. However, the ability's effect may be applied either before or after the attack.

If you have already begun activating another unit, you can no longer return to the active abilities of a unit that has finished its activation (so the excuse "Oh, I forgot…" will not work :).

Strategic Tips

I do not claim to know all the knowledge and experience of the world, My Lord, but allow me to give you a few tips before the battle.

Hold as many Key Locations on the battlefield as you can. Gold mines, the library, the altar of curses and so on will help you better control the course of battle.
Hire more than 5 creatures, so that you always have a choice of whom to activate and whom to leave in place for now. This is especially important so that the creatures controlling Key Locations stay there longer.
Discard expensive or repeated mercenary cards from your hand to the graveyard at the end of the turn, so that you receive more new cards when you refill your hand.
Use the Dungeon. Many useful finds are there.
Send a mid-cost mercenary into the Dungeon. An expensive one is a pity to send :), while a weak one has a better chance of dying to a simple trap.
Place Palisades at the start of the game so that enemy creatures stopping in front of the palisade do not receive bonuses from Key Locations.
When developing a strategy, consider the synergy (combinations of abilities and how they interact with one another) of mercenaries, buildings, and available spells. Sometimes you can find very useful combinations that lead you to victory.

Often Forgotten Rules

At the start of the game you may once discard any number of cards from your drawn hand to the deck, shuffle it, and draw up to 5 cards, thus choosing more suitable mercenary cards for the start of the game.
The text on a unit card, a spell, or a Dungeon card always takes precedence over the rules.
Remember that active creatures move first (they must, if they can), and only then attack and use their abilities.
Creatures with the "Flight" ability may pass through enemy creatures.
Creatures on the same space as an enemy unit may attack that unit.
You may enter the Dungeon only in the Income and Bonuses phase.
At the end of your turn you may (but are not required to) discard 1 mercenary card to the graveyard.
When you lose your building or creature (even on your own initiative), the opponent still receives the reward for it — victory points + coins.
Spells may be used at any moment of your turn, but cannot be kept for the next turn.
The markets for buildings and spells are refilled immediately after a card is bought. Thus, for example, you can buy a building, then lay out a new building card and buy another new card during the same turn in the Hiring and Purchasing phase.

Formats of Play

My Lord, to gain more battle experience and rewards, you may try playing the various formats of "Defender of the Crown".

Blitz

If you have little time to play, you may choose this format.

In the Blitz format you play by the normal rules with two exceptions:

the game is played to 10 victory points;
creatures may be hired not only on the hiring line, but also on any space of Castle Territory, following all the other hiring rules.

Tyrant (1 vs 2)

This format is for 3 players. One of the players plays the Tyrant, and the other two players play as defenders in an alliance.

Turn order goes as follows: ally 1 — Tyrant — ally 2 — Tyrant, and so on.

In this way the Tyrant gets the opportunity to play as if for two players, but with a single mercenary deck. This gives the Tyrant an advantage in activating creatures and makes the game a real challenge for the allied side!

Allies (2 vs 2)

In the "Allies" format 4 players may play. Players play with their own separate mercenary decks (who plays which race is decided by lot or by agreement).

Two players play in an alliance against the other two.

Allies may look at each other's cards in hand and consult about strategy, so this format requires somewhat more time, but it is more interesting.

Both players in an alliance (on one side) play simultaneously on their own turn. Each player has only 3 orders, so on your side you have 6 orders in total.

Each ally on its turn may give orders only to its own creatures, but any of the allies may give orders to buildings.

In the Income and Bonuses phase each player in the alliance separately receives 5 coins and 2 mana.

Allies may share coins and mana with each other, but each transfer of coins or mana is subject to a tax of 1 coin or 1 mana, respectively. The transferring player pays the tax to the bank.

Example: one player wants to transfer 5 coins and 2 mana to an ally in the alliance. Paying the tax of 1 coin and 1 mana to the bank, the player passes the remaining resources to their ally (4 coins and 1 mana). Or a player wants to transfer 3 mana: then they simply pay 1 mana to the bank and transfer 2 mana.

During your turn each player may play no more than 1 spell. Also, each player may not have more than 10 mana. There is no limit on coins.

All effects of spell cards, buildings and mercenaries that say "player" apply to both allies.

Example: the spell "Helplessness" leaves not one of the players with two orders for the next turn, but the entire allied side; so after this spell the allied side may use only 2 orders across both players (or 1 each, or 2 for one of the allies).

Overall the game proceeds as in the 1 vs 1 format. The allies play all phases simultaneously and pursue the same goal: to penetrate behind the hiring line (sabotage), or to gain 20 victory points in total on the allied side (crushing).

For convenience, mark the victory points on the race board of only one of the allies.

20 Heroes

You may play the "20 Heroes" format. Then each player plays with an incomplete deck of creatures, and chooses 20 of the best mercenaries from the deck to make up their unique deck.

This format suits both a 1 vs 1 game and the "Allies" 2 vs 2 format.

Playing "20 Heroes", you can always assemble your own unique deck and control your reserve better; however, there is a risk that your mercenaries may run out before victory is reached.

Remember that if you run out of cards in your mercenary deck, you cannot buy buildings and spells on the market.

Unusual Alliance

This format suits 1 vs 1 best, although with enough mercenary decks it may also be played 2 vs 2.

The game proceeds by the normal rules of the chosen format, except that each player lays out 2 different mercenary decks in front of themselves (not shuffled together).

At the start of the game a player may draw up to 5 cards into their hand from any of their decks in any combination, and in the Discard and Refill phase may draw cards from any deck.

The graveyard of mercenaries is formed separately for each deck.

And now, to battle, My Lord! May wisdom and luck be with you!

Unit Abilities

Incorporeal — Takes only 1 damage from any source. May pass through buildings.
Battle spirit (x) — Gains (+x) attack when it kills an enemy creature.
Armour (x) — Takes (x) less damage from Ranged attacks, but never less than 1.
Vampirism (x) — When it deals damage to a creature, restores (x) life.
Together — strength (x) — Gains (+x) attack if on the same space as an allied creature.
Rebirth — When it dies, it is sent not to the graveyard but to the hiring line of its owner.
Stench — The creature that kills this creature loses all its abilities.
Inspire (x) — All allied creatures on this attack line gain (x) attack bonus until the end of the turn.
Arm (x) — A creature without an attack bonus gains (x) attack bonus.
Thievery — When this creature enters the opponent's castle territory, take all of the opponent's coins.
Resurrection (x) — When this creature is hired, return your creature of cost no more than (x) from the graveyard to your hiring line.
Rot — When it dies, deals 1 damage to all enemy creatures on its space and adjacent spaces.