The White Castle: Matcha Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
  • Expansion Setup
• Playing the Game
  • New Dice and Play Areas
  • Tea Room
  • Himeji Principality
  • Clan Boards
  • Geishas and Whisks
  • Seals
  • Geisha Action
  • Round Structure
    • End of the Round
    • Viewing Platform Action
• Ceremony Tokens
• Symbols
• End of the Game
  • Scoring
• SOLO GAME: TOKUGAWA CLAN
  • Setup Changes
  • Playing the Solo Game
  • Solo Card Symbols

Components

Common components

• 1 expansion board
• 1 green Bridge
• 5 green dice
• 12 coin tokens of value 1
• 4 coin tokens of value 5
• 8 lily pad tokens
• 10 ceremony tokens
• 4 Training Yard tokens
• 4 +120/+160 Clan Point tokens

Cards

• 5 starting cards: 2 Starting Action cards and 3 Starting Resource cards
• 9 Castle Action cards: 3 Stewards' floor cards, 3 Diplomats' floor cards, 3 Daimyo's room cards
• 6 Garden cards: 3 Flower Garden cards and 3 Stone Garden cards

For each player

• 4 clan boards (one per clan)
• 20 Geisha pieces (5 for each of the 4 clans)
• 4 whisk marker cubes

Expansion cards

• 39 expansion cards, as printed, with this breakdown:
  • 16 Matcha cards
  • 8 Calligraphy cards
  • 8 Ikebana cards
  • 3 solo game cards

The printed breakdown itemises 35 of the 39 expansion cards. The printed book does not itemise the remaining 4.

Setup

Before setting up by the normal rules, shuffle all the expansion cards into their corresponding decks.

Shuffle the Training Yard tokens from the base game together with the 4 new tokens from the expansion.

All of these cards and tokens are marked with the expansion symbol, so you can easily separate them from the base game components if you want to play without the expansion.

If this is your first game with The White Castle: Matcha, place the tile shown in the printed rulebook into the space of the lower Training Yard (the cost to place there is 1 Iron).

Set up for the game by the normal rules, but use the clan boards from this expansion instead of the clan boards from the base game. Do not choose the Starting Resource and Starting Action cards yet.

Expansion Setup

1. Place the expansion board below the main board so that it continues it, and set up everything needed on it:
   • A. Place the green Bridge in its designated spot. Then take 1 green die more than the number of players. Roll them and place them on the Bridge in ascending order, starting from the left side (with the lantern symbol). The leftmost and rightmost dice are always placed on the ends of the Bridge, and the rest go in its centre. (The printed book shows an example for a 3-player game.)
   • B. Place 3 random lily pad tokens in the spaces of the pond.
   • C. Shuffle the Ikebana and Calligraphy cards separately and place each resulting deck face up in its designated spot on the expansion board. If you are playing with 2 players, first remove the cards marked with ♦.
   • D. Shuffle the ceremony tokens and place them in random order:
     • D1. 3 tokens in the Tea House with the yellow side face up.
     • D2. 1 token by the Viewing Platform with the blue side face up.
2. Shuffle the remaining ceremony tokens and place 1 under each pair of Starting cards, blue side face up. (The printed book shows an example for a 3-player game.)
3. Place your clan's Geisha pieces on your clan board. Then place your whisk marker cube on the 0 space of the corresponding track.
4. Now, as in the base game, in reverse turn order each player takes a pair of Starting cards and the ceremony token beneath them. Play and place the Starting cards by the normal rules. Then attach the ceremony token to your clan board as shown in the printed book.

Ready! You can start the game with The White Castle: Matcha.

Playing the Game

As in the base game, The White Castle: Matcha lasts 3 rounds, but now each player takes 4 turns in each round. A round ends when every player has taken 4 turns and only 4 unused dice remain on the Bridges in total.

New Dice and Play Areas

This expansion adds a green Bridge and green dice to the game, 2 new locations on the expansion board, and an additional die space on the clan boards.

The green Bridge and its dice follow the same rules as the Bridges and dice of the other colours. If a player takes the leftmost die from the green Bridge, they gain the Lantern Reward by the normal rules.

Dice of any colour, including green, may be placed in the spaces of the 2 new locations on the expansion board: the Tea Room and the Himeji Principality.

Green dice cannot be placed in the spaces of the Castle's rooms, because there are no die tiles for them there. They can be placed in the Well spaces, the Outside the Walls spaces, and the corresponding space on your clan board.

Tea Room

This clay house with paper curtains is not only a cosy place to rest, but also a secret cradle of political intrigue.

Any colour of die may be placed in this area. With 3 or 4 players, you may place 1 die on top of each space where a die is already present (but no more than that).

With 2 players (the printed book marks this with a crossed-out die icon): dice cannot be stacked on top of other dice in this area.

After placing a die in a Tea Room space, perform the Geisha action (see Geisha Action).

Example: You take a black die showing 1 from the left edge of the Bridge and place it in the Tea Room space showing 1, on top of a white die showing 4. You then pay the difference of 3 coins, gain the Lantern Reward, and perform the Geisha action.

Himeji Principality

Beyond the castle walls lies the domain of the daimyo, where two schools of Japanese arts are located: ikebana and calligraphy.

Any colour of die may be placed in this area. With 3 or 4 players, you may place 1 die on top of each space where a die is already present (but no more than that).

With 2 players (the printed book marks this with a crossed-out die icon): dice cannot be stacked on top of other dice in this area.

After placing a die in one of the spaces, you may perform, in any order, the actions on the 2 curtains opposite that space.

Example: You place a coral die showing 2 in the lower space showing 5. You then pay the difference of 3 coins, spend 1 seal to perform the Gardener action, and at the end gain 2 Iron.

Clan Boards

The clan boards now have spaces not only for the coral, black and white dice, but also for green. Dice on clan boards are placed by the base game rules. When you place a green die opposite the row of Geishas, you gain that row's visible rewards, and you may also spend 1 seal to perform the action of the ceremony token you received at the start of the game.

Example: You place a green die showing 3 in its space and pay the difference of 3 coins, for which you gain 3 whisks, 2 coins and 1 resource of your choice (except whisks). You then spend 1 seal to perform the Gardener action and gain 1 Clan Point.

The symbol for a die without a green face cannot be used to activate the green die row on a clan board. This is easy to remember: the depicted die has no green face.

Geishas and Whisks

This expansion introduces a new clan member (the Geisha) and a new type of resource: a special whisk for brewing matcha, which in Japan is called a chasen.

Geishas leave your clan board and head either to the Viewing Platform by the pond or along the garden path to the Tea House. Whisks are needed to advance them.

Seals

At any moment during your turn you may spend 2 seals to gain 1 resource of your choice or 1 whisk. A reminder of this is printed on the new clan boards.

The seal symbol cannot be used to gain a whisk (only Food, Iron or Mother-of-Pearl). Whisks can be gained only with the whisk symbol.

Geisha Action

The Geisha action has 2 parts. You may perform both (in any order) or only one of them. For the different parts of this action you may use different Geishas or the same one.

Part A: Entrance to the Tea Garden. Take the leftmost Geisha piece from your clan board and place it at the entrance to the Tea Garden. You must pay 2 coins. Any number of Geishas belonging to any players may be at the Tea Garden entrance.

Part B: Path of Tea. Take your Geisha that is in the Tea Garden or at its entrance, and spend 2 or 5 whisks to advance it 1 or 2 steps through the Tea Garden, respectively. Advancing 2 steps may be done only by one Geisha; you cannot split it into two separate advances.

From the entrance, a Geisha can be advanced toward the Tea House or toward the Viewing Platform. Once you have chosen the direction for a Geisha, you cannot change it.

• The path to the Tea House has two spaces for Geishas. Any number of Geishas of each clan may be in each of these path spaces.
• The Viewing Platform can hold only 1 Geisha of each clan.
• Each of the 3 rooms of the Tea House can hold no more than 2 Geishas of one clan.

After advancing a Geisha, perform the action of the space where it stopped.

Viewing Platform. If you advanced a Geisha to the left of the Tea Garden entrance, its path ends on the Viewing Platform. Having advanced a Geisha onto the Viewing Platform, you may perform the Pond action: gain the rewards of 3 lily pads, or spend 3 coins to perform the action of the ceremony token placed there.

First path space. Take the top card of the Ikebana or Calligraphy deck lying in the Himeji Principality. Perform the action on the yellow curtain of the chosen card, then turn the card over and immediately add it to your Lantern Reward.

• Ikebana and Calligraphy cards are never placed in an action-card space on your clan board.
• If you chose a deck in which only one card remains, you do not add that card to your Lantern Reward. Instead, you only perform the action on the yellow curtain of that card, and the card stays in the Himeji Principality.

Second path space. Perform the action on the blue curtain of the top card of the Ikebana or Calligraphy deck in the Himeji Principality.

Tea House. When your Geisha advances into the Tea House, place it in any of the 3 rooms, then perform the action of that room's ceremony token. No more than 2 Geishas of one clan may be in one room. Each room has its own conditions for scoring Clan Points at the end of the game (see Scoring).

Example: You perform the Geisha action. You take the leftmost Geisha piece from your clan board and spend 2 coins to send it to the Tea Garden entrance, where another of your Geisha pieces is already standing. You then decide to spend 2 whisks to advance the Geisha to the Viewing Platform. You do not have 3 coins to perform the action of the ceremony token, so you decide to gain 2 coins, 1 whisk and 1 Iron.

Example: Later you perform the Geisha action again, but this time only its second part, so you do not spend 2 coins. You decide to advance your Geisha 1 step along the Path of Tea and spend 2 whisks for it. (You could not advance it toward the Viewing Platform, because your own Geisha is already there.) After advancing 1 step, you choose to take an Ikebana card, which immediately gives you 4 coins. After this you turn the card over and add it to your Lantern Reward.

Example: The yellow player spends 5 whisks to advance a Geisha 2 steps along the Path of Tea. They place the Geisha in a room that allows them to immediately perform one light-background action on each of 2 different action cards lying in the castle, and at the end of the game they score Clan Points for Gardeners. This player could not place the Geisha in the room that scores Clan Points for Courtiers, because there are already 2 of their Geishas in that room.

Round Structure

End of the Round

The round ends after any player's turn if only 4 dice remain on the Bridges (including the green Bridge) in total.

1. New turn order: Determine the new turn order by the normal rules.
2. Gardens: Garden actions are performed by the normal rules, taking into account the appearance of the green Bridge.
3. Preparing the next round: Preparation for the next round proceeds by the normal rules, taking into account the appearance of green dice.

Viewing Platform Action

If at least 1 die remains on the green Bridge, all players whose Geishas are on the Viewing Platform may gain the rewards of 3 lily pads, or spend 3 coins to perform the action of the ceremony token placed there. You may perform the Garden actions and the Viewing Platform action in any order. You may consider the Viewing Platform to be one more garden.

Example: The red and green players may gain the rewards of 3 lily pads, or spend 3 coins to perform the ceremony token action: advance their Geisha along the Path of Tea without spending whisks. Thanks to their Gardener under the black Bridge, the red player may also perform any light-background action from an action card in any room of the castle. The yellow player gains only 3 coins for the garden under the white Bridge.

Ceremony Tokens

The expansion includes 10 ceremony tokens. The printed book lists the actions printed on their faces as 20 images, shown in rows of two: the left image and the right image of each row. The actions are listed below in the order printed.

Actions 1-10 (printed book, p. 14)

Left side	Right side
In any order, perform the Geisha action and gain 1 resource of your choice (except a whisk).	Gain the rewards from 2 different Stone Garden cards, even if your Gardener is not on them.
In any order, perform the Courtier action and advance your marker 1 space on the Influence track.	In any order, gain the Lantern Reward and 1 Daimyo Seal.
In any order, perform any dark-background action from an action card in any room of the castle, and gain 1 coin.	Perform one light-background action on each of 2 different action cards lying in any rooms of the castle.
Perform the action of 1 of the 2 Training Yard tokens with a blue background.	Gain both visible rewards from the Training Yard tokens with a yellow background.
In any order, perform the Gardener action and gain 1 Clan Point.	Gain 4 Clan Points.

Actions 11-20 (printed book, p. 15)

Left side	Right side
In any order, perform the Warrior action and gain 2 coins.	Gain 7 coins.
Advance your Geisha, located in the Tea Garden or at its entrance, 1 step forward, without spending whisks.	Perform the Well action twice, as if placing a die showing 1 there.
Advance your Courtier, located in the castle or at the Gates, 1 floor up, without spending Mother-of-Pearl.	Gain 4 Daimyo Seals.
Perform any action located opposite a die token of any colour lying in any room of the castle.	Gain the rewards from 3 lily pads in the pond, twice.
Perform the action on the blue curtain of a card lying in the Himeji Principality, without spending seals.	Gain both visible rewards from the yellow curtains of the cards lying in the Himeji Principality.

Symbols

The printed book's symbol key is transcribed below.

• Geisha action symbol: Perform the Geisha action (see Geisha Action).
• Lily pad symbol: Gain the rewards from 3 lily pads in the pond. You cannot perform the ceremony token action there instead.
• Whisk symbol: Gain the indicated number of whisks.
• Dark-background symbol: Perform the action on a dark background of any action card lying in any room of the castle.
• Two-card symbol: In any order, perform both actions from one of the two cards lying in the Himeji Principality.
• Yellow curtain symbol: Perform the action on the yellow curtain of one of the cards lying in the Himeji Principality.
• Blue curtain symbol: Perform the action on the blue curtain of one of the cards lying in the Himeji Principality, without spending seals.
• Slash symbol (three icons): Perform the indicated action or the Geisha action.

End of the Game

When the first snow touches the ground, the clans gather once again to discuss their plans for the coming year over a cup of tea, and to pay their respects to the daimyo.

At the end of the 3rd round, after determining the new turn order, the game ends and the final scoring takes place. When playing with the expansion, some rules change and new rules are added. For convenience, the scoring rules of the base game and of this expansion are combined here. Expansion rules are labelled "(expansion)".

Scoring

1. Points for coins, seals and resources

• A. Count your total coins and seals. For every 5, score 1 point (rounded down).
• B. (expansion) For each resource (Food, Iron, Mother-of-Pearl and whisks) remaining in an amount of 3 to 6, score 1 point. For each resource remaining in an amount of 7, score 2 points.

2. Points for influence

Score points according to the position of your Influence marker on the Passage of Time track.

• If your marker is on any space of the second section of the track: 3 points.
• If it is on any space of the third section: 6 points.
• If it is on a space of the fourth section: the number of points shown beneath your marker's space, from 10 to 15 points.

3. Points for clan members

• A. Courtiers: Score points for each of your Courtiers, according to its location.
  • At the Gates: 1 point.
  • In a room on the Stewards' floor: 3 points.
  • In a room on the Diplomats' floor: 6 points.
  • In the Daimyo's room: 10 points.
• B. Warriors: Score points for each of your Warriors on a Training Yard. The number of points a Warrior is worth equals the number of your Courtiers located in the castle rooms (on the Stewards' floor, the Diplomats' floor or in the Daimyo's room, but not at the Gates). In addition, points from Warriors on a Training Yard with two tokens are multiplied by 2.
• C. Gardeners: Score points for each of your Gardeners in the garden. The number of points a Gardener is worth is shown on the Garden card where it is located.
• D. (expansion) Geishas: Score points for each of your Geishas, according to its location.
  • On the Viewing Platform: 2 points.
  • At the entrance to the Tea Garden: 1 point.
  • In the first path space: 2 points.
  • In the second path space: 3 points.
  • In the Tea House: each Geisha scores 2 points for each Gardener, Warrior or Courtier you have placed on the board (including Courtiers at the Gates), depending on the room in which the Geisha is located. Points for your other clan members therefore come only from Geishas placed in the Tea House.

Example of final scoring: You score 2 points for a Geisha on the Viewing Platform, 2 points for a Geisha in the first path space, 12 points for 2 Geishas in the upper room of the Tea House (for 3 Gardeners), and 8 points for a Geisha in the lower room (for 3 Courtiers in the castle and 1 at the Gates). The total is 24 Clan Points.

If a player scores more than 120 points, they take the +120/+160 Clan Point token instead of the +40/+80 token.

The player who has scored the most Clan Points wins! Ties are resolved in favour of the player higher on the turn order track.

SOLO GAME: TOKUGAWA CLAN

Setup Changes

Set up by the normal solo game rules, with the following changes.

1. Take 2 random Starting Resource cards and 2 random Starting Action cards, and place 2 ceremony tokens blue side face up. From these, choose 1 card of each kind and 1 ceremony token.
2. Add 3 new cards from this expansion to the solo game cards and shuffle them thoroughly.

Playing the Solo Game

The solo game rules in the expansion have hardly changed. However, the game now uses Geishas and the green Bridge with its dice.

The expansion's new solo cards force your opponent to lose coins, Clan Points and/or to move back on the Influence track. If the opponent cannot do this in full, it does as much as it can. If it has nothing to lose, it loses nothing.

Tea House: If the opponent's Geisha advances into the Tea House, place it in the room that, at the moment of placement, scores the most Clan Points. If several rooms score an equal number of points, choose any one of them.

Path of Tea: If the opponent's Geisha stops on a path space, choose an Ikebana or Calligraphy deck that has at least 2 cards, and discard the top card of that deck.

If the opponent cannot perform the Geisha action, it gains Clan Points instead, in an amount equal to the number of the current round.

Solo Card Symbols

Symbol 1: Place a die in the left Tea Room space. Only if that space is occupied may you place a die in the right space. If both spaces are occupied, place the die in the Well space as usual.

Symbol 2: The opponent sends a Geisha from its supply to the entrance of the Tea Garden. Follow this order:

1. The opponent loses 3 Clan Points.
2. You choose 1 of the opponent's Geishas (other than the one sent to the Tea Garden entrance by this card's top action) and advance it 1 step along the Path of Tea. You may advance it to the Viewing Platform if this does not break the rules.

Symbol 3: The opponent sends a Geisha from its supply directly to the first path space, bypassing the entrance to the Tea Garden. By the expansion's rules, discard the top card of an Ikebana or Calligraphy deck of your choice. Then follow this order:

1. The opponent loses all coins it has accumulated up to this point.
2. You choose 1 of the opponent's Geishas (other than the one sent to the first path space by this card's top action) and advance it 1 step along the Path of Tea. You may advance it to the Viewing Platform if this does not break the rules.

Symbol 4: The opponent sends a Geisha from its supply directly to the second path space, bypassing the entrance to the Tea Garden and the first path space. The opponent loses 2 points of influence: move its Influence marker 2 spaces to the left. If after this the opponent's marker is on the same space as yours, place its marker on top of yours.