Tiny Epic Kingdoms: Heroes' Call Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Heroes
  • Leveling a Hero
  • Hero Abilities
  • Retiring a Hero
  • Dead Heroes
  • Expanding
• Frozen Territories
  • Peaks / Silver
  • Tundra
• War Towers (Build)
• Retreat
• New End-of-Game Condition
• Scoring
• Solo Rules
  • Factions
  • Setup
  • Turn Structure
  • The Compass Card
  • Dummy Player Actions
  • Solo End Game and Scoring
• Additional Rules Clarifications
  • Water Regions (Arctic Elementals, Humans, Merfolk, Pirate)
  • Crags Regions (Birdfolk, Polar Kin, Imps, Shapeshifters)
  • Knocked over meeples (Frost Giants, Yeti, Ruins)
  • Knocked over towers (Minotaurs)

Components

• 5 Large Hero Meeples (1 in each player color)
• 5 Hero Level Tokens
• 5 Silver Resource Tokens
• 30 War Tower Tokens (6 in each player color)
• 13 Faction Cards
• 8 Territory Cards (double sided)
• 25 Hero Cards
• 1 Compass Card (for solo play only)
• 1 Box Sleeve for wrapping Tiny Epic Kingdoms and Heroes' Call

Setup

Setup for this expansion uses the basic rules for Tiny Epic Kingdoms. You may choose to play exclusively with the new factions and territories or you can mix them together with the factions and territories from the original.

Setup will require the following additions:

Give each player:

• 6 war tower tokens in their color
• 1 large hero meeple in their color
• 1 hero level token
• 1 silver resource token

Each player should:

1. Replace one regular meeple with their hero meeple on their starting region. (instead of starting with two regular meeples)
2. Draw two hero cards, keep one face up, and discard the other. Place their hero level token on the first level of their hero card.
3. Place their war tower tokens and their silver resource token off to the side: Silver cannot be used as a starting resource.
4. Shuffle the discarded hero cards back into the deck.

Heroes

Hero meeples move, start war, collect resources and otherwise function like regular meeples with the exception of their unique special abilities. The player's hero card tracks the level of the player's hero meeple, and details their special abilities. Heroes can progress throughout the game, and may eventually retire for victory points. If a player can retire three heroes, the end of the game will be triggered (See New End-of-Game Condition, page 8).

Leveling a Hero

Heroes have three levels and level up in different ways. Some levels require taking certain actions and paying resources and some require that your hero wins a war. The requirements to gain each level are indicated in the left-hand column on the card. The chart below explains the requirements.

Requirement	Effect
X mana	When taking a research action, instead of advancing your research level you can spend X mana to raise your hero's level by one.
X food	When taking an expand action, instead of increasing your population you can spend X food to raise your hero's level by one.
X ore	When taking a build action, instead of building a tower you can spend X ore to raise your hero's level by one.
Sword (war)	When you win a war involving your hero, you must upgrade your hero's level by one.

Hero Abilities

A hero card gives that hero meeple access to special abilities. These can be bonuses to war, resource collection, or a variety of other abilities. The hero has the ability of its current level, plus the ones previously gained on lower levels, unless stated otherwise on the card. Unlike faction abilities, hero card abilities only affect the hero meeple, unless stated otherwise on the card.

Retiring a Hero

When a hero level token reaches the top level of its hero card, that hero immediately retires. Replace the hero meeple with a regular meeple, and place the hero meeple into its player's supply. Remove the hero level token from the hero card and place the hero card under or beside your faction card. A retired hero earns you three additional victory points (VP) at the end of the game.

Dead Heroes

When you lose a war with your hero meeple, and you are unable to or choose not to retreat (See Retreat, page 8), your hero meeple is removed from play and returned to your supply. Your hero card is shuffled back into the hero deck.

Expanding

When a player expands, the first meeple brought back into play, if it is in their supply, must be their hero meeple. This does not cost extra resources. When this happens, draw two new hero cards, keep one face up, and shuffle the other back into the deck. Then place the hero level token on the first level on the new hero card.

Frozen Territories

Two new regions are introduced in Tiny Epic Kingdoms Heroes' Call:

Peaks / Silver

• When collecting resources, you can collect the new resource, silver, from your occupied peaks.
• Silver is a "wild" resource and can be substituted for any resource type when building, expanding, researching, or retreating, but has no value for war cost.
• When paying for one of these actions, you may substitute silver for the required resource at a one for one ratio. For example, if your next research level requires four mana, you may spend two mana and two silver.

Silver has no value in war. You may not trade for or with silver and you may not collect silver from the tundra, ruins, or any "gain a resource of your choice" abilities.

Tundra

• Only one meeple can be in the tundra at a time.
• Wars cannot be started in the tundra and war towers cannot be built in the tundra.
• When collecting resources, a meeple in the tundra collects one resource of the player's choice. However, when a patrol or quest action is taken, you must move your meeple out of the tundra if you are able to, even if it's into the region with another player, starting a war. If you are unable to move your meeple out, it remains and you may take your turn as normal.

War Towers (Build)

When a player builds, they must place a war tower token in a region that they occupy, and must still raise their tower level by one on the tower card. The number of war tower tokens represents the building progress of the tower track, and can be destroyed by other players. War towers never move and will remain in the region they are built, even if you move your meeple out of the region. No more than one war tower token can be in a region at a time. Regions with only war tower tokens do not collect resources.

If a region with a war tower is invaded and the owner of the war tower loses the war, then that war tower token is removed from that region and returned to that player's supply. The owning player must then reduce their level on the tower card by one level. Levels on the tower card should always reflect the number of war towers on the board.

A war tower may be defended by its owner whether or not they have a meeple there.

War towers provide the benefit of -1 to war cost.

It is possible for a player to move into a region with only a tower and during war, form an alliance with the owner of that tower.

A tower does not count as a meeple towards the region's two meeple limit, but there can only be two player colors in a region. Meaning a third player cannot enter a region already occupied by two different player colors.

War Tower Bonus Victory Points: Gain one additional victory point at the end of the game for each territory card (not region), other than your home territory card, on which you have a war tower.

Retreat

After war costs are paid, the losing player may pay food equal to the number of meeples they currently have in play to move their meeple to an adjacent region. This cannot result in another war. If there are no regions to move to, or the player does not have enough food, retreat is not an option. Remove the meeple from play and return it to the player's supply.

New End-of-Game Condition

• A player has retired their 3rd hero.

The original end game triggers also still apply. The hero meeple counts as one of the 7 meeples that can trigger the end of the game.

Play continues until the next time the action card is cleared, at that point the game ends.

Scoring

After the game is over, each player gets victory points (VP) using the scoring method of Tiny Epic Kingdoms with the following additions:

• 3 points for each retired hero.
• 1 point for each territory card, other than your home territory card, that you have a war tower on.

Solo Rules

The following rules apply to playing Tiny Epic Kingdoms solo, with or without the Heroes' Call expansion.

Factions

When playing solo, some factions work better than others. Our recommended factions to use for the dummy player are:

Dark Elves, Pigfolk, Goblins, Lion Kin, Orcs, Draconian, Dwarves, Death Knights, Undead, Gnomes

However, feel free to explore other factions.

Setup

Select a faction and a player color for you and the dummy player, this will be your opponent in solo play.

Use two territory cards for this variant. You can select these yourself or draw them randomly. One belongs to you, and the other belongs to the dummy player. Place the compass card in the middle between the two territory cards with the day side facing up. The territory cards should be touching (or very near), the compass card.

Select any one forest and any one mountain region on the dummy player's territory card and place one of their meeples on each. The dummy player does not use heroes, but you may. The dummy player starts with three of each resource. If you wish to change the difficulty of your game, change the number of resources the dummy player starts with.

Finish setting up as you would in standard Tiny Epic Kingdoms, or as modified by Tiny Epic Kingdoms Heroes' Call.

(Setup illustration: You on the bottom, dummy player on the top.)

Turn Structure

You and the dummy player will take turns just as in a normal game.

When it is your turn to select an action, the dummy player takes the action if it can. If it cannot take the action you selected, it collects resources instead.

When it's the dummy player's turn to select an action, roll their war die. The matching number on the compass card determines what action is selected. If that action has already been taken, continue around the compass clockwise until you come to an action that hasn't been taken. The dummy player may always collect resources if they are unable to fulfill the action, even if they are the active player.

The Compass Card

The compass card is also used to help resolve actions for the dummy player.

Each time the action card is cleared, flip the compass card. This alternates the compass between day and night, which affects war costs and how regions are selected. During the day, the dummy player selects regions closer to the compass card. During the night, the dummy player selects regions further from the compass card. In addition, when the card is flipped from day to night, the dummy player gains 1 resource of each type.

When the dummy player selects an action, use the same number on their war die to determine any region selection, meeple selection, or movement required by that action. If the dummy player is taking the action you selected, roll their die once and use that number for their resolution.

(Example illustration: In this example, an 11 is rolled. For daytime (top), the forest would be selected because it's closer to the compass. For nighttime (bottom), the mountain is selected because it's further away.)

Consider the compass like a clock and the number rolled on the die determines the direction of a virtual 'hand'. This hand will point to the selection. If the hand does not intersect a region, imagine that it rotates one position clockwise and then continues to do so until a valid region is found.

To move a meeple, imagine the compass being superimposed on the meeple to determine the direction. If it cannot move in the selected direction, continue clockwise until you find a region it can move into.

(Example illustration: Since an 8 would not hit a territory, the hand would rotate until it selects the forest.)

Use this same method to select a meeple, but always choose the first/closest one that is touched by the hand.

(Example illustration: In this example, a roll of 7-11 or Flag would select the square, a 1 would select the circle, a 2-5 would select the triangle, and a 6 would select the hexagon.)

Dummy Player Actions

Patrol: Use the compass to select a meeple and to determine which region it will move to. A dummy meeple will not move into a region that already has one of its own meeples, but will move into a region with an enemy.

Quest: Use the compass to find the first meeple that can quest. Then, use the compass again to find a region for the meeple to move into. Ignore any invalid regions. A dummy meeple will not move into a region that already has one of its own meeples, but will move into a region with an enemy.

War: When war starts, a war cost will need to be determined for the dummy player. To win the war, you will need to pay a war cost equal to or higher than what is determined for the dummy player. If you cannot pay this cost or you choose not to, you lose the war.

The dummy player's war cost is determined based on whether the compass card is showing day or night. During the day, the dummy player's war cost is twice the number of meeples they have. At night, the dummy player's war cost is equal to the number of meeples they have. The dummy player never pays for war. If it can retreat it will. Use the compass to determine the direction the meeple retreats.

Build: If the dummy player is able, they will discard the number of ore necessary to reach the next level of the tower. If using war towers, their war tower is placed in a region with a meeple selected using the compass.

Research: If the dummy player is able, they will discard the number of mana necessary to research the next magic level. The dummy player benefits from the abilities of its faction.

Expand: If the dummy player is able, they will discard the number of food necessary to create a new meeple. This meeple is not placed with an existing meeple, but rather in an open region adjacent to one of their meeples. Use the compass to select a region where the new dummy meeple is placed.

Trade: The dummy player gains one of each resource type.

Collect Resources: The dummy player collects resources as normal as per its occupied regions.

Solo End Game and Scoring

Use the standard end game triggers and scoring methods.

Additional Rules Clarifications

Water Regions (Arctic Elementals, Humans, Merfolk, Pirate)

• A water region is any definable area of water on a territory card. There may be multiple water regions on a territory card. Water regions are considered impassable and do not provide resources.
• Water regions may or may not include one or more rivers. Rivers connected to larger bodies of water are considered part of that larger region. Rivers not connected to larger bodies of water are considered their own regions.
• Any region touching any part of a water region is considered to be adjacent to that water region.

Crags Regions (Birdfolk, Polar Kin, Imps, Shapeshifters)

• A crags region is any definable area of crags on a territory card. There may be multiple crags regions on a territory card. Crags regions are considered impassable and do not provide resources.
• Any region touching any part of a crags region is considered to be adjacent to that crags region.

Knocked over meeples (Frost Giants, Yeti, Ruins)

• Knocked over meeples cannot move and cannot collect resources.
• A knocked over meeple can defend a region.
• You may expand in a region occupied by a single knocked over meeple.
• A knocked over meeple in the tundra can and must be moved if able. It remains knocked over in the region it moves to.
• Hero meeples can be knocked over; they still benefit from their special abilities.
• Knocked over meeples are still worth VP at the end of the game, unless in the ruins.
• A patrol action (not a quest action), can be used to stand up a knocked over meeple.

Knocked over towers (Minotaurs)

• Knocked over towers cannot defend a region and do not contribute a -1 war cost in their region.
• If a knocked over tower is alone in a region and any other player enters that region, a war is not started, instead the tower is immediately removed from play and returned to the player's supply.
• A knocked over tower is still tracked on the tower card and can still be worth VP at the end of the game.
• A build action can be used, at no cost, to stand up a knocked over tower.