Unicorn Overlord: Official Card Game

Unicorn Overlord: Official Card Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Game Overview

The Unicorn Overlord Card Game is a 2-to-4 player deck-building game in which players assemble powerful decks to earn Renown. The player with the most Renown at the end of five battle rounds is crowned the winner.

Components

1 Rulebook
239 Cards
4 Might Markers
4 Choice Markers
1 Starting Player Marker
Game Setup Guide

Game Setup

Sort the cards into the piles seen below, based on the type shown at the bottom of each card: Unit, Item, Territory, Critical, Burning, Curse, Renown, Reference. Might cards are also included.

Keep the cards labeled (Starter) separate from the other Unit, Item, and Territory cards.

Next, prepare each pile as described below and arrange them in the layout shown on the Game Setup Guide.

Renown Pile: Arrange the Renown cards face-up in ascending order, starting with Round 1 on the top, and ending with the Final Round Bonus cards on the bottom.
Burning Pile: Place the pile face-up.
Curse Pile: Place the pile face-up.
Unit Pile: Shuffle the cards and place them face-down.
Item Pile: Shuffle the cards and place them face-down.
Territory Pile: Shuffle the cards and place them face-down.
Critical Pile: Shuffle the cards and place them face-down, then draw the top card and place it face-up below the pile to determine the starting critical conditions.
Marketplace: Draw the top three cards from the Unit, Item, and Territory piles and place them face-up in a row to the right of each pile to form the Marketplace. The further from each pile a card is, the "older" it becomes.

Next, each player will prepare their play area.

Might Card: Take a Might card and place it face-up, then place a Might Marker nearby. You will use this to track your Might throughout the game. If your Might exceeds 25, proceed to the back side of the Might card.

If your Might exceeds 50, turn your Might Marker to the side marked 50, then use the front or back of the Might card to continue tracking. Do the same if your Might exceeds 100.

Example: This player has 62 Might, so their Might Marker has been turned to the side marked 50, then placed on the Might space marked 12.

Town Cards: Each player receives one town card from the starter pile and places it in their Province in Column 1.

Each player receives the seven starter cards shown below.

One Player's Starting Cards

1 Fighter
1 Soldier
1 Housecarl
3 Coin Purse
1 Hallowed Corne Ash

Building a Starting Deck

Each player draws three cards from the top of the Unit Pile and reveals them to the other players. Combine these with the seven starter cards, shuffle them, and place face-down in the Deck position (11).

(Advanced setup available, see page 16)

Gameplay

The game is played across five rounds in which players draw cards to gain Might. The player with the highest Might at the end of a round will earn Renown, and the player with the most Renown at the end of the game is crowned the winner.

The player with the highest Might takes the top card from the Renown Pile.

(Illustration: a player's Coin Purse, Coin Purse, Fighter, Soldier and Housecarl cards each show 2 Might, totalling 6.)

Choosing the Starting Player

Use a fair method to pick the first starting player, and give them the Starting Player Marker. The starting player will be Player 1, followed clockwise by Player 2, Player 3, and Player 4 (if present). After each round, the starting player passes the marker to the player on their left, who becomes the new starting player. Player numbers also shift accordingly.

Round Overview

Each round consists of the following phases, in order:

Draw Phase (page 6)
Territory Phase (page 7)
Battle Phase (page 8)
Results Phase (page 11)
End Phase (page 12)

Play Rounds 1 through 4 in this way, then Round 5, which is the end of the game.

Draw Phase

All players draw five cards from their deck and add them to their hand. (During Round 5, draw six cards instead of five.)

What If My Deck Runs Out?

If there are no cards in your deck during the Draw Phase or when receiving a "Draw" effect, shuffle your discard pile and place it face-down in the Deck position. For example, if you have three cards remaining in your deck and must draw five, draw the three cards from your deck, shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck, then draw the remaining two cards.

Territory Phase

Beginning with the starting player, resolve the Phase effects of all Territory cards in your Province in the order of your choosing. Proceed clockwise until all players have done the same.

There are two types of Territory card effects: Phase effects and Continuous effects.

Phase effects may be used once during each Territory Phase.
Continuous effects persist for the duration of the game.

Some Territory cards have both types of effects.

Example Territory Phase

The player has Town, Fortress, Forest and Desert in their Province.

Player 1 uses their Forest's Phase effect to discard 2 cards and Draw 2 cards.
Next, they use their Town's Phase effect to use three Gold actions. (See page 14.)
They opt to not use their Desert's Phase effect.

Play passes to the player on their left.

* The Fortress card has a Continuous effect, and thus is not used during this phase.

Some card effects include: Gold, Draw, Destroy, Curse, Burning, Critical. These icons are explained in detail on page 13.

Battle Phase

During this phase, players will place down cards and compete to gain the most Might.

All players must choose five cards from their hand and place them face-down on the Battlefield in Columns 1 through 5. (You must also place a card in Column 6 during the final round.)
After placing your cards on the Battlefield, discard any cards left in your hand face-up.
The starting player then deploys the card in Column 1 of their Battlefield, flipping it and resolving its effect. Proceed clockwise until all players have done the same. Once all players have deployed their Column 1 cards and resolved their effects, repeat this step for all remaining columns.

Details on deploying cards can be found on page 9.

Deploying Unit Cards

When deploying a Unit card, perform the following steps in order:

Card Effect: Resolve the effect described on the card. (If you have several effects, resolve all effects in order.)
Power: "Gain Might equal to the Power of the card, plus or minus any applicable modifiers."
Combatant Bonus: There are 10 Combatant types, represented by icons: Sword, Spear, Axe, Bow, Staff, Shield, Cavalry, Elf, Bestial, Angel. When deploying a Unit card, gain Might equal to the number of matching Combatant icons already deployed in your Battlefield and Province.

* Combatant Bonus is unrelated to the Power of your Unit card. The two associated Might increases should be calculated separately.

Deploying Item Cards

When deploying an Item card, simply resolve its effects. Item cards do not have Power values or Combatant icons.

Example Battle Phase

The player's Battlefield holds, in Columns 1 to 5: Steel Sword, Housecarl, Fighter, Coin Purse, Sellsword. Their Province holds Town and Fortress (the Fortress is in the Housecarl's column).

The Steel Sword increases the Power of all Sword Units deployed during the round by 3.
The Housecarl has a base Power of 2, but gains a bonus of 3 from the Fortress in its column. The player gains 5 Might.
The Fighter has a base Power of 2, but gains a bonus of 3 from the Steel Sword's effect. The player gains 5 Might.
The player can use a Gold action.
The Sellsword has a base Power of 3, but gains a bonus of 5 from its own card effect combined with the Steel Sword's effect. The player gains 8 Might.
The Sellsword earns a Combatant Bonus of 1 as there is one other Sword icon on the Battlefield. The player gains 1 Might.

The player's total Might for the round is 19.

Results Phase

1. Critical Card Resolution

Confirm the current Critical Conditions for the round. If you meet one of the conditions, draw one card from the Critical Pile. If you meet both conditions, draw two.

Drawing Critical Cards: Any time you draw a Critical card from the pile, place it face-down next to your Might tracker. (This also applies to Critical cards drawn from another card's Critical effect.)

Once all players have drawn their respective Critical cards, flip them face-up and add their values to your total Might. (Example: Critical cards worth 2, 1 and 3 add 6 Might.)

What If the Critical Pile Runs Out? If the Critical Pile is empty when you go to draw a Critical card, shuffle all cards under the top Critical Condition card and place them face-down in the Critical Pile position.

2. Ending a Round

At the end of a round, the player with the highest Might is declared the winner of that round and takes the top card from the Renown Pile.

Winning a round will earn you 1 Renown in rounds 1 and 2, and 2 Renown in rounds 3 through 5.

What If There's a Tie for Highest Might? If two or more players are tied for the highest Might, whichever player took their turn later in the round is declared the winner. (For example, if Player 2 and Player 4 are tied, Player 4 would win the round.)

End Phase

In this phase, players will prepare for the next round.

Critical cards are reset during each End Phase. Discard all players' Critical cards by placing them on top of the most recent Critical Condition card. Then draw a card from the Critical Pile to become the next round's Critical Conditions.
Move all cards from the Battlefield to the discard pile.
Remove the Might Marker from all Might cards.
Pass the Starting Player Marker to the left and begin the next round, starting with the new starting player.

Final Round Rules

The following rules apply exclusively during Round 5.

Draw six cards at the start of the round. You may deploy six cards to the Battlefield instead of five.
After the winner of Round 5 takes the respective Renown card, they also take additional Renown cards based on the difference between their Might and that of the second-place player. These Final Round Bonus cards are awarded for every 10 points in the gap between the first-placed and second-placed player.

Example: Might: 50 (Highest), 30 (Second Highest), 7, 22. The gap is 20, so the winner takes the Round 5 Renown card (worth 2) plus two Final Round Bonus cards (worth 1 each).

Winning the Game

At the end of Round 5, the player with the highest Renown is crowned the ultimate winner.

What If There's a Tie for Highest Renown? If two or more players are tied for the highest Renown at the end of the game, whichever player earned more Might in Round 5 is crowned the winner. If there is still a tie after this, whichever player took their turn later in the round is crowned the winner. (See Might tiebreak rules on page 11.)

Icon Effects

Some card effects are abbreviated using the following icons.

Draw: Add the top card from your deck to your hand.
Destroy: Place the card face-up in the corresponding Cemetery. Units, Items, and Territories all have separate Cemeteries.
Curse: Draw a card from the Curse Pile and place it face-down on top of your deck. When a Curse card is destroyed, return it to the Curse Pile.
Burning: Draw a card from the Burning Pile and place it on top of a Territory card to cancel its effects and its Combatant icons. Burning cards are returned to the Burning Pile at the end of the Territory Phase. If several Burning cards are stacked on top of a Territory card, only the topmost Burning card is returned to the Burning Pile at the end of the Territory Phase.
Critical: Draw a Critical card from the top of the Critical Pile and place it face-down next to your Might card. (You cannot look at the front of your Critical cards until the Results Phase.)
Gold: Perform one of the following actions (you may also choose to not perform any of these actions):
1. Purchase a card (page 14)
2. Destroy a discarded card (page 15)
3. Refresh the marketplace (page 15)

1. Purchase a Card (Gold)

Take one card from the Marketplace. If you take a Territory card, place it in your Province to the right of any other Territory cards already present. Otherwise, add the purchased card to your hand.

Next, slide the remaining cards in the row you took from to the right, so that the space to the right of the corresponding pile is empty. Finally, draw a new card from the pile and place it face-up in the empty space.

Note: You may only purchase one Territory card per round. There are no purchase limits on Unit or Item cards.

2. Destroy a Discarded Card (Gold)

Destroy one card from your discard pile and move it to its corresponding Cemetery (Unit Cemetery, Item Cemetery, Territory Cemetery).

3. Refresh the Marketplace (Gold)

First, Destroy the two "oldest" cards from each Marketplace row. Next, slide the remaining card in each row all the way to the right of the Marketplace. Finally, draw two cards from each pile and place them face-up to replace the destroyed cards.

Advanced Setup

This ruleset is meant for players familiar with the game, and will enable greater freedom in constructing the starting deck (see page 4 for standard setup).

Draw a card from the top of the Unit Pile and reveal it to the other players.
In the order of highest to lowest player number (ie, with 4 players, in the order of 4, 3, 2, 1) each player chooses a Unit or Item from the Marketplace, then draws a new card from the respective pile to replace the card they took. Repeat this a total of two times.
Add the cards from steps 1 and 2 to your seven starter cards, shuffle, and place them face-down in the Deck position (11).

Detailed Rules

The following section explains some detailed rules to help resolve the effects found on certain cards within the game. We recommend reviewing this section to settle any disputes.

Choice Markers

When using an effect that allows you to choose a Combatant icon, you may wish to place a Choice Marker atop the chosen icon to help you remember which Combatant icon you've picked. If you run out of Choice Markers during the game, you may use any similarly-sized objects as a substitute.

Idealist's Handmirror

You can use an Idealist's Handmirror to copy the effects of a Military Treatise. In that event, you may place additional Choice Markers on the Military Treatise card itself in order to indicate your chosen Combatant icons.

Forest of Thorns and Desert

Effects that let you look at or discard cards from your deck are not the same as drawing those cards. You may not shuffle your discard pile to remake your deck, even if your deck does not have enough remaining cards.

After the effect of looking at the card is resolved, cards are returned to the deck in the original order.

Village

Under normal circumstances, there are three Gold actions possible:

Purchase a Card
Destroy a Discarded Card
Refresh the Marketplace

The Village's effect adds a fourth action to this list. You may use this action instead of a standard Gold action, if you wish.

Curse and Burning

If the Curse or Burning piles run out of cards, further Curse or Burning cards cannot be drawn. If an effect requires two players to draw a Curse card, but there is only one left in the pile, the user of the effect chooses which player will draw the Curse.

Critical Card, Sellsword and Hallowed Corne Ash

When referencing the number of Gold actions as an effect for Critical cards and Sellsword's cards, only Gold actions that have been activated are counted. If a player deployed a Hallowed Corne Ash, but didn't use its Gold action, that would not count toward the Critical card of the Sellsword's effect.

Feathershield, Black-Iron Shield, Daemon's Shackles, Mirage Greatshield, Thief's Mantle

For effects that last "until you deploy the card in the column to the right of this card", you may activate the effect at the very last row, to allow the effect to remain until the end of the Battle phase.

Farsight Crystal, Camping Set, Ruins and Burning

When using a Farsight Crystal to reorder your Territories, you may swap as many cards and as many positions as you like. If a Territory being reordered has a Burning card on it, the Burning card will remain in that column's Province after the swap.

Confirming Deck Contents

Confirming the Deck should follow the following rules, for the entire duration of the game for you and all players.

For any face-down decks or piles, you may only count the number of cards. You may not look at the front of any face-down cards while counting.
You may look through the cards in any face-up piles at any time during the game.