7 Moons: Heroes of Dragon Reach

7 Moons: Heroes of Dragon Reach Rulebook

Table of Contents

7 Moons: Overview

In 7 Moons you play a royal emissary, sent out into the kingdom by your monarch to organise the defence of your city against the impending Shadow Army invasion. You will travel the lands, buying and selling resources to fill your war chest, building defences, recruiting allies and completing quests. When the Shadow Army figure reaches the 7th moon on the Moonrise Track, the game enters the Shadow Phase and the Shadow Army invades Dragon Reach.

The aim of the game is to have enough strongholds and allies in your city to successfully defend against the Shadow Army when it attacks.

The Shadow Army advances one space on the Moonrise Track each time you place an ally in your city or build your third stronghold, bringing you closer to the Shadow Phase, and war.

First steps

You begin in your home city, and set out on foot to travel the lands of Dragon Reach. You may wish to head to Dragonmarch first; buying a horse there will speed your progress and allow you to carry more. Quests and wilderness encounters can yield rich rewards to aid your defence, but for the most part you will gain the gold needed to hire allies and build strongholds by buying resources - wood, stone and iron from the elves, dwarves and giants - and selling them at the market in Dragonmarch for a profit.

The person who journeyed furthest to play this game goes first.

Game set-up

Lay out the game board. Give each player a Character Card (H) plus a set of three meeples (M) and two dice (A) of the corresponding colour.
Shuffle the 12 Shadow Army Cards (B) and draw six from the top. Remove the remaining Shadow Army Cards from the game without looking at them. Give each player one secret Shadow Army Card (two each in a two-player game). Put the rest in a face-down deck near the board.
Shuffle the Wilderness Cards (C) and form a face-down deck near the board.
Place the six groups of ally tokens (F) near the board. Play with three of each ally for four players and two of each for two or three players.
Place the resource tokens (E) near the board to form a resource pool.
Place the market dice (L) on their respective spaces on the Market Prices board (K). Set each dice to '3'. These are the starting prices for selling each wood, iron and stone resource at Dragonmarch.
Place the nine wilderness (campfire) tokens (G) on each of the nine campfires on the board.
Give each player nine gold (D).
Place your 'on foot' meeple on the starting spot inside your city.
Place the Moonrise Track (I) next to the board and the Shadow Army figure (J) nearby.

Game components

A: 8 player dice
B: 12 Shadow Army Cards
C: 12 Wilderness Cards
D: Treasury: 54 coin tokens (6 x 50s, 12 x 10s, 16 x 5s and 20 x 1s)
E: 54 resource tokens (18 x wood, stone and iron)
F: 18 ally tokens (3 x dwarves, elves, giants, wizards, witches and barbarians)
G: 9 wilderness, 6 dragon crystal and 4 quest tokens
H: 4 Character Cards
I: Moonrise Track
J: Shadow Army figure
K: Market Prices board
L: 3 market dice: wood (green), iron (blue) and stone (black)
M: 12 player meeples (4 x foot, horse and dragon)
N: 12 strongholds
O: 12 Quest Cards
P: Shadow Phase tile
Q: 5 magic artefacts
R: 12-page rules booklet
S: 8 faerie tokens
T: 9 story tokens
U: Reference Card
V: 9 gem tokens (solo game)

Map terrain

Roads: safe travel.
City mountains: impassable on foot or horse.
Wilderness: roll for bandits. Dragons may flee.
Wilderness encounter: draw a Wilderness Card.
Faerie gate: jump between gates (1 movement point).
Water: can only be crossed on a dragon.
Bridge: safe travel.

Map locations

Wilderness encounters. You can visit a campfire, remove the token and draw a Wilderness Card.
Resources. You can buy resources from the elves (wood), dwarves (iron) and giants (stone) for one gold each and hire an ally (see 'Allies' below).
Dragonmarch. You can sell resources at the current market price, buy a horse and draw a Quest Card.
Faerie gates. You can spend one movement point to travel between two faerie gates (foot and horse travel only).
Allies. There are six friendly allies (elves, dwarves, giants, wizards, witches, barbarians). You can recruit them to fight in your city.
Dragon Mountain. You can lure a dragon and use it as your new steed.

Resources: wood (elves, Tarndell), iron (dwarves, Deepmine), stone (giants, Kurun). Allies: elves, dwarves, giants, wizards, witches, barbarians.

1. Playing the game

On your turn, proceed as follows:

Roll one or two dice to move, depending on your mode of travel (see 2. Movement).
When you reach a location, perform any or all of the actions permitted at that location (see map). End your turn and proceed to next player.
When the Shadow Army reaches the 7th moon space on the Moonrise Track, proceed to the Shadow Phase (see 12).

2. Movement

To move on foot, roll two dice and choose either result. To travel by horse or dragon, roll two dice for movement. You do not have to use all your movement points, but they cannot be carried over to your next turn.

Lucky find. If you roll a 1 (on foot, and choose to use it) or doubles, you find one gold.

Wilderness spaces. For each wilderness space you enter (on foot or horse), roll a dice. On a 1 or 2, you have been robbed by bandits: lose one gold or resource. Do not roll for bandits if you have no gold or resources, or when crossing wilderness spaces on a dragon. If you end your turn in the wilderness when on a dragon, roll a dice. On a 1, the dragon flees (return to foot).

Make haste (pay for extra moves). When on foot or horse, you may move one extra space for each gold you pay to the treasury. There is no limit to the number of extra spaces you can pay to move.

Faerie gates. You may spend one movement point to travel between two faerie gates. You cannot use faerie gates when on a dragon.

3. Using horses and dragons

You may buy a horse at Dragonmarch for five gold (upgrade to your horse meeple).

To buy a dragon, you must already own a horse. Travel to Dragon Mountain and pay 10 gold to the treasury. You must also lure the dragon by feeding it your horse (upgrade to your dragon meeple).

Dragons can fly across all terrain. They are not affected by bandits when flying over wilderness spaces, but may flee if you end your turn on a wilderness space (see 2. Movement: Wilderness spaces).

Dragons add +2 to all quest combat rolls.

4. Wilderness encounters

When you enter a wilderness encounter space, remove the campfire token, draw a Wilderness Card and resolve it. Your turn ends.

5. Resources

Buying resources. You can buy resources by visiting Tarndell (wood elves), Deepmine (iron dwarves) and Kurun (stone giants). One resource costs one gold. Pay the gold to the treasury and place the resource(s) in your inventory.

Carrying resources. You may carry as many resources as you have space, according to your current mode of travel (see your Character Card). One resource takes up one space in your inventory.

Resource availability. When the resource pool runs out of a particular resource, you can no longer buy that resource until some are sold and placed back in the pool.

Selling resources. You sell your resources at Dragonmarch. You can sell as many or as few resources in your inventory for the current prices shown on the Market Prices board. Once you have finished selling resources for that turn, roll all three market dice. The results are the new selling prices for each resource.

6. Building strongholds

Strongholds help defend your city against the Shadow Army attacks.

To build strongholds, send one of each resource back to your city instead of selling them.

You must be in Dragonmarch to place resources in your city space (you don't need to travel to your city).

You can combine selling resources and sending them to your city in the same turn.

Once you have one each of wood, stone and iron in your city, discard them and place a stronghold there. You may build a maximum of three strongholds in your city.

Stronghold bonus. While you have three strongholds in your city, add a +1 to your dice results during the Shadow Phase.

7. Recruiting allies

Allies can be hired for gold and placed in your city to help defend against the Shadow Army. Elves, dwarves and giants from the resource domains can be hired as allies, as can the barbarians, wizards and witches from their domains.

To recruit an ally, visit its domain and pay 10 gold, then place one of its ally tokens in your city. You may only hire one ally from each domain. When there are no more tokens of a particular ally, that ally is no longer available to hire.

8. The Moonrise Track

The Moonrise Track marks the progress of the Shadow Army towards Dragon Reach.

When the Shadow Army reaches the 7th moon space, the Shadow Phase begins, the Shadow Army attacks and your defences are put to the test.

Shadow Army movement. The Shadow Army advances on the Moonrise Track whenever:

an ally is placed in a city
a city builds its third stronghold

9. Quests

You may draw one free Quest Card when in Dragonmarch. Follow the instructions on the card to undertake the quest. You must complete your quest before drawing another Quest Card. Quest tokens, if required by the quest, use one inventory space. If you succeed, claim the reward, keep the card (for victory points). End your turn.

10. Trading with other players

You may sell, give or exchange resources, quests and items with other players on your turn when you are each in the same location.

11. No gold or resources?

If you run out of both gold and resources, you may visit your home city and draw five gold from the treasury.

12. Shadow Phase: the 7th moon has risen. The Shadow Army attacks!

The Shadow Phase begins when the Shadow Army reaches the 7th moon on the Moonrise Track. All trading and movement ends immediately. See 17 for an example of Shadow Phase play.

Take each player's Shadow Army Card(s), without revealing them, and shuffle them with the Shadow Army Cards drawn during set-up. Lay the six cards in a row, face down.

You must now attempt to defend both the realm and your city from the attackers.

Turn over the first Shadow Army Card to reveal the first wave of enemies you will face. Follow steps i and ii below as you reveal each Shadow Army Card. Continue defending until the last Shadow Army Card has been resolved or all players have lost all their allies and strongholds (see 'Fallen cities').

i. Realm defence

First, players must join together to defend the realm from the Shadow Army attacker. Each player rolls one or two dice (see 'Ally defence bonus') and places the dice in front of them. Combine all the dice results to get a single realm defence total. If that total equals or exceeds the Realm Attack strength shown on the Shadow Army Card, you have jointly defended the realm from this attack. If the total is lower than the card's Realm Attack strength, you have failed and each player must lose either a stronghold or an ally from their city.

ii. City defence

Players now check whether the attack has breached their city walls. Each player compares their individual dice result (from the same dice roll they made for realm defence) with the City Attack strength shown on the attacking Shadow Army Card.

If a player's dice result equals or exceeds the Shadow Army Card's City Attack strength, their city has withstood the attack. If a player's result is less than the card's City Attack strength, they lose a stronghold or ally from their city.

Defence bonuses

Ally defence bonus. Each Shadow Army Card shows an ally shield. You roll an extra dice in defence if you have an ally in your city matching the ally shield on the card. The ally dice result is used for both realm and city defence.

Eye of the dragon. If you own a dragon when the Shadow Phase begins it will use its keen eyesight to aid you. You may re-roll one of your dice on each attack wave. If you choose to re-roll, you must use the second result for both defences.

Stronghold bonus. While you have three strongholds in your city, add +1 to your dice results.

Fallen cities

Your city has fallen to the invaders when it has no strongholds or allies remaining. You have failed to defend against the Shadow Army and are out of the game. Any remaining players continue to defend.

If every player's city falls, the Shadow Army has succeeded in defeating the kingdom and its shadow descends permanently on Dragon Reach. All is lost. The game is over.

Victory

Dragon Reach is saved if at least one stronghold or ally remains in any city once all six Shadow Army Cards have been resolved. The winner is the surviving player with the most victory points:

Each remaining stronghold: 15 VPs
Each ally remaining in your city: 5 VPs
Each completed quest: 5 VPs
You hold an incomplete quest: -5 VPs

13. Optional rules

Faerie folk. Place the faerie tokens in a cup or bag. Whenever you enter a faerie gate, you may roll a dice. On a 5 or 6, randomly draw a faerie token. The faerie is now your companion for the rest of the game. You may use its special power once per turn (see the Reference Card). You may only have one faerie companion per game.

14. Co-op play

For a non-competitive version of 7 Moons, amend the standard rules as follows:

Ignore victory points. Everyone wins if at least one city survives the Shadow Phase.
During set-up, do not deal a Shadow Army Card to each player, but place all six* cards into a single draw pile, unseen.

Wilderness encounter changes:

Aid a traveller: If the spell backfires, return to your city.

Goblin Camp: When you draw this encounter, advance the Shadow Army one space on the Moonrise Track.

*Co-op difficulty setting. Monster Frenzy (hard): use seven Shadow Army Cards; Darkest Night (harder): use eight Shadow Army Cards.

15. Solo rules

Use the separate Solo Rules to set up and play a one-player game.

16. Chronicles of the Reach story tokens

Check our website for free-to-play in-game adventures using the Story Tokens, or use them to tell your own story.

17. Shadow Phase example of play (2 players)

The Shadow Army has reached the 7th moon and the game moves to the Shadow Phase...

The six Shadow Army Cards are shuffled and the first card is turned over.
The Werewolves of the Forever Moon have a Realm Attack of 14, and a City Attack of 5, plus a witches ally shield.
Normally both players would roll one dice to defend, but George has a witch ally in his city, so gets an extra dice roll.
Both players roll their dice. Emma rolls a 6 and George rolls 4 (3 + 1) giving a realm defence total of 10. This is lower than the Realm Attack of the werewolves, so both players lose an ally or stronghold from their cities. Emma chooses to lose her elf ally, and George chooses to lose a stronghold.
Now each player compares their individual rolls with the werewolves' City Attack strength. Emma's score of 6 beats the werewolves' City Attack strength, so she defends successfully, with no further losses. Unfortunately, George's score of 4 is not enough to repel the attack, so he loses another defence from his city. George chooses to lose his witch ally.
The next Shadow Army Card is drawn and the attacks continue.

Remember: If a player owns a dragon they can re-roll one dice, once per Shadow Army Card attack.

Each player must try to survive all six Shadow Army attacks. As soon as any player loses their last ally or stronghold, their city has fallen and they are out of the game.