Teach the Game
A five-minute script: win by holding locations, draw coins from a bag, and use each coin for one action.
How you win
“You are two medieval commanders fighting over a small hex battlefield. Your army lives in a bag of coins: each round you draw three and spend them, one at a time, to bring units onto the board, move them, fight and take ground. The first side to plant all its Control Markers on locations wins. A game takes about half an hour.”
- What you need: all your Control Markers on locations. Two players have 6 each and start with 2 on the board, so you need 4 more. Teams of two have 8 and start with 3, so they need 5 more.
- How you get them: move a unit onto a location and spend one of its coins to control it. Taking an enemy location gives its marker back to them, so they have to win it again.
- There are no points: the game ends the moment the last marker goes down. Full rules: Game End and Scoring.
The board
- Discard pile area — one corner per player for spent coins
- Starting location — each side starts holding two (three with four players)
- Four-player hexes — the darker ends are used only with four players
- Neutral location — knotwork hexes nobody holds yet
The 14 locations are the knotwork hexes. A unit is a stack of coins of one type standing on a hex.
A round
- Draw: everyone draws 3 coins from their own bag, hidden. Empty bag? Refill it from your discard pile and keep drawing. Details
- Use: starting with the initiative holder, players take turns spending one coin = one action until every hand is empty. Details
- The coins you spend go to your discard pile, and the bag cycles round from there.
The nine actions in one line each (full list):
| Kind | Action | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Place the coin face up on the board | Deploy | A new unit on an empty location you control |
| Bolster | Add the coin on top of its unit on the board: harder to kill | |
| Discard face down (any coin) | Claim initiative | You go first next round |
| Recruit | Spend any coin to add a coin from your supply to your discard pile | |
| Pass | Do nothing with this coin | |
| Discard face up, its unit acts | Move | One space to an empty hex |
| Control | Put your marker on the location the unit stands on | |
| Attack | Remove one coin from an adjacent enemy unit, to the box for good | |
| Tactic | The unit’s special move from its card |
How the game ends
As soon as a player or team places its last Control Marker, that side wins. There is no final round and no tie-break.
Ways to score
| Source | How and when |
|---|---|
| Control a neutral location | Control action with a unit standing on it: put one of your markers there |
| Take an enemy location | Same action: their marker goes back to them, yours goes down |
| Losing a location | Your marker comes back to you, and you need one more location again |
What each resource is for
| Resource | Why you need it | How you get it | How you use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit coins | Every action costs one | Two of each unit start in your bag; recruit more from your supply | Place one, or discard one face up or face down |
| Royal Coin | A safe coin for face-down actions | Starts in your bag and never leaves the cycle | Initiative, recruit or pass (and the Royal Guard’s tactic) |
| Supply | More coins mean more actions with that unit, and replacements for losses | Starts with the coins of your units not in the bag | Recruit moves one coin from here to your discard pile |
| Initiative Marker | Going first lets you strike or take a location before your opponent reacts | Spend a coin face down to take it, once per round | You start the next round |
| Control Markers | They are the win condition | Start in front of you | Control actions put them on locations |
Teaching tips
- Teach with the first-game armies from Setup: they cover a plain attacker, a ranged unit, a fast unit and a defender for each side.
- Show one round with open hands, so everyone sees that a coin either acts or feeds the bag.
- Stress that killed coins leave the game: every attack thins the enemy army for good.
- Point out the face-up discards: they tell you which units your opponent can’t use until they refill.