20 Strong: Cloudspire Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Winning & Losing
• Orientation
• Card Faces
  • Hero / Boss Cards, Hero Side
  • Hero / Boss Cards, Boss Side
• Setup
  • Table Setup Diagram
• Round Structure
  • Activation
    • Cycle Enemies Phase
    • Advance Enemies Phase
  • Enemy Stacks
    • Additional Enemy Icons
    • Enemy Stacks
  • Engagement
    • Strategy Phase
      • Place Spires Step
      • Commit Dice & Roll Dice Steps
      • Apply Dice Step
• Spires
  • Gaining & Placing Spires
  • Using Spires
  • Spires and Inventory
• Blueprints
  • Ignoring Blueprints
  • Created Blueprints
• Mini-Heroes
• Mini-Bosses
• The Discard
• "Draw/Keep" Rewards
• Endgame
• Universal Heroes
• More Adversity
• Round Flow
  • Activation
  • Engagement

Components

Contents: this rulebook, 45 conflict cards (5 per faction, with enemies on one side and items or spires on the other), 9 hero/boss cards (1 per faction), and 9 mini-hero/mini-boss cards (1 per faction).

Winning & Losing

To win 20 Strong: Cloudspire, you must defeat all of the conflict cards from the enemy factions, as well as the enemy boss.

As in all games of 20 Strong, if your Health is ever reduced below 1, you lose.

Orientation

The center of the play area has 10 key spaces, arranged in three columns. See the Table Setup Diagram on pages 12–13 for a visual representation of how the game is laid out.

The left and right columns each have three spire spaces, where spire cards can be placed to defend against the march of enemies from the Deployment Stack.

The middle column has four spaces comprising the top lane, middle lane, bottom lane, and hero card. Generally speaking, enemies move out of the Deployment Stack and down this column toward your hero, increasing your peril as they do.

Card Faces

The cards you interact with in 20 Strong: Cloudspire have two different sides, depicting whether they are allied or opposing to you. Hero/boss cards are flipped to their hero side when you are playing as that hero and to their boss side when they are opposing. Conflict cards are flipped to their reward/spire side when they are allied with you and to their enemy side when they are opposing. Mini-hero/mini-boss cards are flipped to their mini-hero side when they are allied with you and to their mini-boss side when they are opposing.

Hero / Boss Cards, Hero Side

The hero side is labelled with: Name; Starting Spire Type; Starting Health; Starting Strategy; Starting Recovery; Ability; Faction; and Blueprint.

Hero / Boss Cards, Boss Side

The boss side is labelled with: Boss Icon; Name; Health; Damage; Global Effect; Faction; and Effect.

Setup

0. Dized. For a quick start, use the interactive DIZED Tutorial. It will walk you through the setup and game rules step by step while you play! Simply scan the QR on page 2.

1. Choose Your Hero. Freely select one of the nine hero/boss cards to represent you and place it as shown with its hero side face up. Set your Health, Strategy, and Recovery dice to their appropriate values and place them next to your hero. Gather the 17 unit dice and place them in your dice pool.

2. Create the Market Stack.

   • Mini-heroes. Find the mini-hero with the same faction as your hero and then freely choose two additional mini-heroes to join your team. The factions of these mini-heroes are your allied factions.
   • Allied Conflict Cards. Find the 15 conflict cards whose factions match those three mini-heroes. With these cards reward/spire side up, find the two cards among those conflict cards that match the spire name on your hero card. Set them aside for the moment.
   • Place the Market Stack. Add the three mini-heroes to the 13 remaining conflict cards and shuffle them with their mini-hero and reward/spire sides face-up to form the Market Stack. Place it as shown.

3. Who's the Boss? Set aside the bosses associated with your two allied factions. Randomly select one of the remaining six hero/boss cards. Place it as shown. Return the other bosses to the box, including the other two you set aside.

4. Create the Deployment Stack.

Table Setup Diagram

The printed diagram (pages 12–13) labels these locations: Tracker Chip (if needed); Boss Card; Market Stack; Dice Pool; Inventory; Time Vials; six Spire spaces; Deployment Stack; Top Lane, Middle Lane, and Bottom Lane; Hero Card; Discard; Banished Dice; Exhausted Dice; and "Health, Strategy, & Recovery Dice" beside the hero card.

Round Structure

Rounds in 20 Strong: Cloudspire follow the common rules of 20 Strong with the following adjustments.

Activation

Cycle Enemies Phase

In this new phase, you may exhaust a die from your dice pool to move the top card of the Deployment Stack to the bottom of the stack.

You may do this as many times as the number of dice in your dice pool.

Advance Enemies Phase

Move any enemy in the middle lane to the bottom lane and any enemy in the top lane to the middle lane. Then, activate the top enemy from the Deployment Stack and move it to the top lane.

However, if the rules above would move an enemy to a lane space where there is already an enemy, do not make that move. This means that if the top lane is full, no new enemy deploys from the Deployment Stack.

If Deployment Fails, Suffer Damage.

As this phase ends, if no new enemy was deployed from the Deployment Stack to the top lane, your hero loses 1 Health.

Activation Effects Trigger Now. Some enemy cards have activation effects, which trigger immediately when the enemy is activated for the first time and often allow enemies to bypass normal restrictions.

Enemy Stacks

Additional Enemy Icons

In 20 Strong: Cloudspire, additional enemy icons (a plus sign followed by an enemy symbol) are only resolved when an enemy card is deployed from the Deployment Stack. For example, they do not resolve when an enemy moves from the top lane to the middle lane.

To resolve an additional enemy effect, deploy the next enemy from the top of the Deployment Stack by placing this additional enemy under the card of the enemy that activated it, creating an Enemy Stack. Continue adding cards to the enemy stack as long as the deployed card has an additional enemy effect. Enemy stacks may contain any number of cards. Ignore all other effects on enemies added under other enemies. Enemies are not active unless they are the top unit in an enemy stack.

If the Deployment Stack is empty when an enemy with an additional enemy icon is deployed, ignore that effect. If an additional enemy icon would deploy a mini-boss, ignore that effect.

Enemy Stacks

Only the top card in an enemy stack is relevant to play at any given time. All of the cards in an enemy stack advance as a group, but only the top card in the stack can deal damage, have dice applied to it, and so on.

When the top enemy of an enemy stack is defeated, the next enemy in the stack is revealed and activates on the same space.

When a new enemy activates in this way, any additional enemy icons on it are ignored. They were observed when that enemy card was deployed.

You may freely examine the cards in an enemy stack at any time.

Engagement

Strategy Phase

Place Spires Step

As the first step in the Strategy phase, you may activate one or more spires from your inventory and place them in any open spire spaces in the play area. Each space can only accommodate a single card.

Commit Dice & Roll Dice Steps

These steps are resolved as normal.

Apply Dice Step

Before they can be applied to enemies, the dice in your dice pool must first be loaded into the blueprints on spires or heroes, following these two rules:

• Colors Must Match. A die being loaded must match the blueprint color shown.
• Only Spires Accept Misses. Misses can only be loaded onto spires, never heroes. These can protect you against damage during the Resolve phase.

Blueprints limit how many dice, and which kinds, you can load from your dice pool. End this step when all blueprints are full or you no longer wish to load dice.

For more information about blueprints, see page 32.

Spires Fire Phase

Loaded dice showing hits may now be applied to enemies. These dice deal damage as normal, and enemies are defeated by this damage as normal.

However, the layout of cards restricts which hits can be applied to which enemies: unless otherwise stated, you can only apply a hit to an enemy that is orthogonally adjacent to the card with the loaded die. This means that hits loaded onto your hero can only be applied to enemies in the bottom lane, and hits loaded onto spires can only be applied to enemies in the same row as the spire.

Misses loaded during the Apply Dice step are not applied during this phase.

Resolve Phase

Suffer Damage Step

Every enemy that has an eligible target attacks. You may choose freely the order and targets of these attacks. However, once a particular enemy begins attacking, it must apply all the damage it can — whether it reaches the maximum defined by its Damage stat or runs out of targets — before you move on to the next enemy.

As in the Spires Fire phase, the layout of cards restricts which cards an enemy can target: An enemy's target must be orthogonally adjacent to it.

Within this restriction, there are three possible targets:

• Misses Loaded onto Spires. 1 point of damage removes one miss from a spire's blueprint. Exhaust any dice removed in this way. You may switch an enemy's target after a loaded miss is exhausted.
• Spires. A spire is defeated if it suffers 1 point of damage, but a spire can only suffer damage after all loaded misses have been removed. When a spire is defeated, rotate it sideways to mark it as such, but do not discard it until the Cleanup step.
• Your Hero. Each point of damage dealt to your hero reduces their Health by 1.

After Effects Step

After effects are resolved as normal.

Exhaust Dice Step

• Exhaust all dice applied to defeated enemies, as well as all dice that were committed but not loaded or applied.
• Do not exhaust any dice applied to undefeated enemies. These dice and their damage carry over to the next round.
• You may choose whether to exhaust dice loaded onto your spires and hero on a die-by-die basis. Any such dice that you do not exhaust are simply left loaded for the next round.

Recover Dice & Gain Item Rewards Steps

These steps are resolved as normal.

Cleanup Step

Undefeated enemies do not move to the discard, but instead remain in place for the next round.

Defeated spires are moved to the discard along with defeated enemies; remaining loaded dice on them are exhausted.

Spires

Gaining & Placing Spires

Spires are a class of item identified by the word "spire" beneath their name. They can be gained as rewards from the Market Stack. However, you can also banish a die from your dice pool at any time to search the discard and/or Market Stack and choose a spire to gain. If you search the Market Stack, shuffle it afterwards.

Anytime you gain a spire, you have the option to activate it immediately. To activate a spire, place it in an unoccupied spire space in the active area. If you choose not to place a newly acquired spire — or if you cannot, such as when all spire spaces are occupied — add it to your inventory instead.

Using Spires

Spires are the primary vehicle for dealing damage to enemies. As previously described, your dice are loaded onto spires (as well as onto your hero) according to their blueprints. From there, they are applied to enemies and deal damage.

Spires can also protect your hero from damage. They are especially useful for preventing damage from enemies that have reached the bottom lane since you can direct attacks from those enemies to any adjacent spires instead of to your hero.

For effects that refer to adjacent spires, spires are considered adjacent to each other only if they are next to each other (with no empty spire spaces in between) and in the same column.

Spires and Inventory

A spire in your inventory is inert unless otherwise stated: Its effects are unavailable, and its blueprints cannot be used.

Blueprints

Most spires and heroes have blueprints. Each blueprint can have a single die loaded onto it to enable attacks or absorb enemy damage. When a die is loaded onto a blueprint, it is simply placed on the matching image.

A blueprint restricts which color of die can be placed on it, but not what face is showing. For example, the Water Tower spire's blueprints accommodate a blue die and a yellow die. Even though the symbols shown depict the "miss" faces of those dice, dice showing hits can also be loaded onto these blueprints. Remember, however, that misses can be loaded onto spires only, but hits can be loaded onto both spires and heroes.

Some blueprints are wild blueprints, which can accept a die of any color.

Ignoring Blueprints

Some effects (such as those on Refractor and Monolant) allow you to load dice onto a spire but ignore its blueprint. In this case, the die in question does not correspond to a printed blueprint and is simply placed somewhere else on that card. Such dice can be activated and used as if they were on a blueprint.

Created Blueprints

Some item effects (such as the one on Drilling Outpost) create new blueprints on spires where they are not printed. You will need to remember which of these created blueprints can accept dice of which color(s).

Drilling Outpost (spire), as printed: At the start of each round, if this spire is in your inventory, choose one active spire to gain a red blueprint for the round. At the end of the round, any die loaded onto this blueprint is exhausted.

Mini-Heroes

Mini-heroes are placed in your inventory when you gain them. However, they do not count against your inventory limit.

The abilities of mini-heroes in your inventory can be used at the times described in their text. Many can be used at any time, but some can only be used during specific steps of a round.

Mini-Bosses

Mini-bosses are considered bosses for the purposes of effects and rules that apply to bosses.

The Discard

20 Strong: Cloudspire has a single discard for all cards. When you discard cards, be careful to discard them with the proper side face-up. Discarded items from your three allied factions are discarded item-side up. Discarded enemies from the enemy factions are discarded enemy-side up (even when discarded after serving as items).

When allowed to retrieve cards from the discard, you may only choose among the face-up sides of cards. For example, Aegis is an enemy that is back-to-back with the Lance Launcher spire. If you defeat an Aegis and it goes to the discard, you must keep the Aegis side face-up. If you are later instructed to gain a spire from the discard, you cannot choose Lance Launcher because that side of that card is face-down.

"Draw/Keep" Rewards

Some enemy rewards instruct you to draw a number of cards, keeping a (smaller) quantity of them. After you have decided which card(s) to keep, the rest of the drawn cards are cycled to the bottom of the Market Stack in any order you choose. These unkept cards are not discarded.

Endgame

20 Strong: Cloudspire does not have a standard endgame.

Instead, after the last enemy has activated from the Deployment Stack, add the boss to the Deployment Stack. Then, continue turns as normal.

If all active enemies — including the boss — are defeated and the Deployment Stack is empty, you win!

Universal Heroes

When playing 20 Strong: Cloudspire with a universal hero, adhere to the following modifiers to your game:

• Mini-heroes: Freely choose any three mini-heroes during setup.
• Starting Spires: Freely choose any two spire cards with the same name for your starting inventory. These spires should match the faction of one of the three selected mini-heroes.
• No Blueprints: Universal heroes from other decks do not have blueprints.
• Added Enemies: Some universal heroes add enemies to your Engagement. Treat them as if they were added by the additional enemy icon on the non-boss enemy closest to your hero.

More Adversity

Once you master the regular rules of 20 Strong: Cloudspire, you can increase the difficulty of victory by striving for renown. The more renown you strive for, the more mini-bosses you add to your game during setup.

• 1 Renown: Earn 1 renown by winning using the normal setup rules.
• 2 Renown: Earn 2 renown by winning after shuffling one additional random mini-boss (but not its corresponding conflict cards) into the Deployment Stack during setup.
• 3 Renown: As above, but shuffle in a total of two additional mini-bosses.
• 4 Renown: As above, but shuffle in a total of three additional mini-bosses.

Round Flow

Activation

• Cycle Enemies Phase (optional)
• Advance Enemies Phase

Engagement

• Strategy Phase
  • Place Spires
  • Commit Dice
  • Roll Dice
  • Apply Dice
• Spires Fire Phase
• Resolve Phase
  • Suffer Damage
  • After Effects
  • Exhaust Dice
  • Recover Dice
  • Gain Item Rewards
  • Cleanup