20 Strong: Tanglewoods Baba Yaga Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Heroes
• Goal
• Setup
• Completing Decks
• Campaign Difficulty
• Relics
• Campaign Endgame
• Card Notes

Heroes

The heroes in this expansion can be used in any standard game of Tanglewoods.

When playing a campaign mode game, the following heroes can be used:

• Any hero from this expansion
• Any universal hero
• From Tanglewoods: White: Peckish/Reckless and Bubbly/Ennui
• From Tanglewoods: Red: The Marquis du Carabas/Puss In Boots and Piping Piper/Pied Piper

The three Giant cards all function as one hero. The Raven cards are used with the Sister of Ravens hero.

Some of the heroes in this expansion are universal and can be used in any deck; they feature the universal hero icon.

Goal

The goal of this campaign is to survive (and hopefully, but not necessarily, win) all three Tanglewoods decks and then defeat Baba Yaga in an epic, two-part boss endgame. If you defeat Baba Yaga, you win the campaign. If your hero's Health is reduced below 1 in the campaign endgame, you lose the campaign.

Setup

Choose the order in which you will play the three Tanglewoods decks. The recommended order is Gold, then White, and lastly Red. However, if you're comfortable with the differing challenges of each deck, you can order them in any way you wish, or randomize the order, for a varied experience.

(The printed sheet places the following setup paragraph and its bullets after Setup without a heading of their own; they are placed here under Setup.)

Set each game up as normal with the following exceptions:

• Shuffle the following three minions into the Minion, Forest, or Hunt Deck depending on which deck you are playing:
  • Gold: Bannik
  • White: Dhampir
  • Red: Rusalka
• See Campaign Difficulty for details on the difficulty levels for campaign mode. If playing on the lowest campaign difficulty level, Tanglewoods Traveler (recommended for first-time players), return all remaining campaign minions to the box. If playing on a higher difficulty, add reinforcement minions as detailed in Campaign Difficulty. Note that you must still choose a difficulty level for your starting deck on top of selecting your campaign difficulty.
• Set the Chicken House and Baba Yaga boss cards to the side.
• Separate the relics by deck, shuffle each stack, and set them aside.
• Designate a set-aside area for your kindling pile.

Completing Decks

A few unique things happen when you complete each deck in campaign mode.

If you won the game:

• Randomly draw three of the five relics associated with the deck you defeated, choosing one to gain for the rest of the campaign. Relics are described in more detail below.
• Leave your hero's stats and gold at their current value going into the next game. Your hero remains on the same side it was on when the game ended.
• For difficulty scaling, increase your difficulty level by +2 from your previous level for the next game (if you are playing another deck). If you would go above a difficulty of 10, remain at 10 and lose 2 gold for each level you cannot increase.

If you lost the game:

• You must sacrifice a previously earned relic in order to continue the campaign. If you have no relics, you lose the campaign.
• Choose your hero's starting side for the next game (if relevant). Set your hero's stats to their starting stats, and reset your gold to 0.
• For difficulty scaling, decrease your difficulty level by -1 from your previous level for the next game (if you are playing another deck). If you would go below a difficulty of 0, remain at 0.

Then, regardless of whether you won or lost:

• Place all items that were in your hero's inventory at the end of the game into the kindling pile. Their order and facing does not matter. In the final campaign endgame, it is beneficial to have as many cards in the kindling pile as possible.
• Remove all campaign enemies from your Minion, Forest, or Hunt Deck that were not defeated during the game, and place them under Baba Yaga. Remove all defeated campaign enemies from the game.
• Shuffle the Minion, Forest, or Hunt Deck from the Tanglewoods game you just completed, and set it aside until the campaign endgame.

Campaign Difficulty

In addition to adjusting your deck difficulty, you must also set your overall campaign difficulty at the start of your campaign. For each deck, the campaign comes with a set of three reinforcement enemies:

• Gold: Cornflower Witch
• White: Balachko
• Red: Drekavac

During setup of each game of your campaign, shuffle a number of reinforcement enemies in with the other minion cards based on the campaign's difficulty level:

• Tanglewoods Traveler: 0 reinforcements
• Tanglewoods Troubadour: 1 reinforcement
• Tanglewoods Tussler: 2 reinforcements
• Tanglewoods Terror: 3 reinforcements

Relics

Relics offer ongoing benefits. They are earned at the end of each successful game and are cumulative, so you may have as many as three relics by the endgame of a campaign. Relics are not items and therefore do not count against your inventory limit.

Relics are gained on their ordinary (pink) side and can be flipped to their upgraded (purple) side at any time by reducing your hero's stats. Each relic has an upgrade cost in the bottom right corner of its ordinary side. This is the value by which you must reduce your stats for the upgrade. This may be split between different stats. Once a relic is upgraded, it remains so for the remainder of the campaign.

Campaign Endgame

After completing the third Tanglewoods deck, immediately move into the campaign endgame. To set up:

• Place all unit dice in your dice pool.
• Ensure you have the Chicken House and Baba Yaga boss cards nearby, as well as all undefeated campaign enemies that were placed with them.
• Ensure the Forest, Hunt, and Minion Decks from Gold, White, and Red are nearby.

The campaign endgame consists of two conflicts – first against the Chicken House, then a final conflict against Baba Yaga.

Each endgame conflict uses the standard endgame rules, with the following exceptions:

• All active enemies must be defeated in order to win.
• During the Exhaust Dice step, if the boss is not defeated, dice applied to the boss are not exhausted.

Activate the boss as normal. On the back of each boss card is art for the other boss, so you can use both cards to have your boss details and full art visible during each conflict. Each boss has instructions for activating additional enemies. You may bribe active enemies during each endgame conflict's Activation as normal (though it is worth keeping in mind that each boss provides a use for your remaining gold).

When the last enemy in the Chicken House conflict is defeated, finish the Engagement. Then, flip the Boss Cards to Baba Yaga and start the second conflict. When the last enemy in the Baba Yaga conflict is defeated, you win!

There are a few important notes regarding enemies during the campaign endgame:

• Bannik (a Tanglewoods: Gold campaign enemy) is activated on its nighttime side. All other Gold enemies are activated on their daytime sides.
• When drawing for White enemies, if you draw a fable, redraw until you get an enemy.
• During both endgame conflicts, ignore all effects and other icons on all non-boss enemies. Only their stats are used.

Card Notes

Deck icons and IDs. Minions and relics are marked with an icon in their top right corner to indicate which deck they are associated with. Gold, White, and Red each have their own deck icon. Cards belonging to the Baba Yaga expansion have "BY" in their ID numbers and should be removed from their associated decks when not playing this expansion.

Giant Hero Card. Card anatomy labels: Starting Health, Starting Strategy, Starting Recovery. The Giant's Legs card is the Wounded Side.

Raven Hero Card. The Sister of Ravens card is the hero and setup card. The Raven card is used with the Sister of Ravens hero.

Minion Cards. Deck ID icons appear in the top right corner (Gold, White, Red).

Relic Card. Card anatomy labels: Name, Effect, Cost. The card shown in front is the Ordinary Side; the Upgraded Side is shown behind it.

Boss Cards. Card anatomy labels: Boss Health, Damage, Effect, Name.

Baba Yaga boss card (printed effect text, as shown on the sheet):

• When activated, add two random enemies from each deck to the Engagement. You may discard a relic to add one fewer enemy from the deck that matches that relic.
• Dice cannot be applied to Baba Yaga while there are any other undefeated enemies.
• The limit to the number of committed dice you can have at once is equal to your current gold. If your committed dice ever exceed your gold, you must immediately exhaust dice until they do not.

The sheet shows only sample cards; the full card text for the Chicken House boss, the other relics, minions and heroes is printed on the cards themselves and is not reproduced on the rule sheet.