BattleLore: Second Edition – Mountain Giant Reinforcement Pack
BattleLore: Second Edition – Mountain Giant Reinforcement Pack Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Expansion Overview
Mountain Giant is an expansion for BattleLore Second Edition. It introduces the Mountain Giant, a new unit that you may call upon to fight in any army. New lore cards and a unique terrain element give you even greater options on the battlefield. The components in this pack are designed to function smoothly with the core game, allowing you to begin playing immediately.
Expansion Icon: Each card in this expansion is marked with the Mountain Giant expansion icon, which makes these cards easy to tell apart from cards in other expansions and from cards in the base set.
Components
- 1 Mountain Giant (miniature)
- 3 lore cards
- 1 unit reference card
- 1 deployment card
- 1 terrain tile
- 5 damage tokens
- 1 neutral marker (double-sided, black and white)
Using This Expansion
This section describes how to incorporate the Mountain Giant Reinforcement Pack components and rules into the core game.
Neutral Units
Neutral units do not belong to any faction, and can be mustered as part of any player's army.
Included in this expansion are three lore cards, each marked with the Mountain Giant expansion icon and a unique identification number.
Before playing with neutral units, take all of their deployment cards and shuffle them together to form a single draft pool. The draft pool may contain more than one deployment card for a particular unit.
Drafting Units
At the start of the "Muster Armies" step of setup, players may spend muster points to purchase the deployment cards of neutral units to include in their armies. The first player starts by choosing one of the available neutral units to muster, or passes if he does not wish to muster any neutral units or is unable to. Then, his opponent chooses up to two neutral units from the remaining ones, or passes. After that, the first player chooses one neutral unit. Then the second player may do the same.
If a player passes immediately after his opponent passed, the choice of neutral units ends. When this step is complete, players muster their armies as normal, using their remaining muster points.
- Drafted units belong to a player's own faction until the end of the game.
- The three lore cards belonging to each drafted unit become available to the player to include in his lore deck (see below).
Lore Customization
While mustering armies, players have the option of customizing their lore decks by replacing a number of cards from their lore deck with other lore cards.
During the "Muster Armies" step of setup, each player may secretly remove up to five lore cards from his lore deck and replace them with the same number of lore cards belonging to the neutral units included in his army. After replacing cards, he reshuffles his lore deck and returns it to the play area. Then, he returns all of his unused lore cards to the game box without showing his opponent.
[Uncertain rendering: the printed text limits the replacement cards to lore cards of the neutral units in the player's army. The other rulesheets in this series (the English Great Dragon Reinforcement Pack rulesheet and the Razorwings Reinforcement Pack translation) define the pool more broadly, as available lore cards of the player's chosen faction plus lore cards of neutral units in his army. The printed text is followed here; check the wording against the physical rulesheet before relying on the narrower reading.]
- A lore deck cannot contain more than two copies of any lore card with the same name.
Golden Rules
The rules described here expand on the rules of the core game and the reference book, and take precedence over them. If there is a contradiction between the rules, the rules from this expansion are to be used.
However, if the text of a card or other game component contradicts the rules, this is always resolved in favour of the cards and components.
New Terrain
The Mountain Giant expansion adds a new terrain element to the battlefield: ruins. These are destroyed buildings, and units that occupy them take damage.
Ruins (Terrain)
When a player uses the Crushing Blow lore card [uncertain rendering of the Russian "Сокрушительный удар"], the building is replaced with ruins.
- A unit that moves into a ruins hex must immediately end its movement. During the same turn it may move again if it has an appropriate unit ability or an effect allows it, such as when it advances.
- When a unit ends its movement in a ruins hex, it suffers 1 damage.
- A unit forced to retreat into a ruins hex suffers 1 damage and cannot continue retreating during this combat. Each retreat effect that is not applied deals 1 damage to the unit. During the same turn, the unit may retreat out of the ruins hex if it is forced to retreat in a different combat.
- Ruins may be treated as a building only for the special rules of a scenario. Otherwise, ruins are not considered buildings.
- Ruins are blocking terrain.
- If a player must place more ruins hexes than there are components, he must replace the extra ones with any other components, treating them as ruins.
New Markers
This section describes the new markers included in this expansion and their effects.
Neutral Markers
If both players are using neutral units, neutral markers show which player each neutral unit belongs to.
After deploying armies and placing units, the first player places a neutral marker with the white side up on each hex occupied by his neutral units. Then, his opponent does the same for his own neutral units, placing markers with the black side up.
- When a neutral unit moves, its marker moves with it. When a neutral unit is eliminated, remove its marker from the game board.
Rules Clarifications
This section provides additional details on the new rules introduced in this expansion.
Heavy Swing (Unit Ability)
When applying the results of a combat roll of a unit with Heavy Swing, the player may use any number of [icon] results to cause an adjacent unit to retreat, one for each result applied. [Uncertain rendering: the die face is a pictogram on the sheet and is not named in the text.] If a unit retreats as a result of Heavy Swing and had not suffered damage before this combat, it suffers 1 damage.
- The player may use Heavy Swing against the attacked unit.
- The player may choose different adjacent units, applying each [icon] result to a different one.
Boulder Toss (Unit Ability)
Units with Boulder Toss can make strike attacks with strength 2 against units up to two hexes away.
- When a unit makes an attack using Boulder Toss, each [crossed swords icon] result and each [single sword icon] result of the combat roll that is not used for other effects deals 1 damage to the target. [Uncertain rendering: the two die faces are pictograms on the sheet and are not named in the text. They are described here by their shape, not by an official name.]
- The target must be in the attacking unit's line of sight.
Pre-Built Scenarios
Included in this expansion is a pre-built scenario found on page 4 of this rulesheet. Instead of using scenario cards, players may choose to play a pre-built scenario. The rules for using pre-built scenarios are found below.
Setting Up a Pre-Built Scenario
To set up a pre-built scenario, players follow the rules of the "Complete Setup" section of the core rulebook (page 14). However, instead of choosing scenario cards, players place the units and terrain elements as shown on the scenario map below. Players also follow the rules described in the scenario's "Setup" section.
The scenario includes an image of the battlefield showing the location of terrain tiles, markers and banners, and preset units. The map also marks, in red and blue, the hexes on which units of each faction may be placed. Exceptions are described in the "Setup" section of the scenario.
Players cannot muster command tents when playing pre-built scenarios.
Playing a Pre-Built Scenario
Pre-built scenarios are played using the same phases and steps as a normal game. Some pre-built scenarios have a "Special Rules" section that contains rules information which may vary from the normal rules. If something in the "Special Rules" section contradicts the normal rules, the special rules take precedence. Unless specifically noted, special rules apply to both factions.
Winning a Pre-Built Scenario
The "Objective" section in a scenario's instructions describes how each player can achieve victory.
Alternatively, a player wins a pre-built scenario if all of his opponent's units have been eliminated. This happens immediately, regardless of the number of victory points each player has.
Scenario: The Sound of Thunder
We have taken several Uthuk fanatics prisoner. Fortune smiles on us: these look more like men than the others. We hope to squeeze something out of them that will help in tomorrow's night attack. The prisoners are held in different fortresses, and not even I know exactly where. Many Daqan considered such secrecy unnecessary, but now word has come that a Giant is marching with the enemy. It seems that instead of attacking tomorrow, we will be fighting today.
[Title note: the printed Russian heading is «Раскаты грома» (literally "Peals of Thunder"). The English title "The Sound of Thunder" is the title recorded in the sourcer's notes and is not printed on the sheet.]
Setup
The Uthuk player is the first player, but the Daqan player sets up the scenario first.
Daqan Setup: The Daqan player takes two Citadel Guard cards and three Blood Harvesters cards [uncertain rendering of the Russian "Сборщики Крови"; the same unit name is used in the Warband of Scorn rulebook]. At random, he places them face down, one on each building hex. The cards remain face down until they are revealed. Then he musters an army of 26 muster points (not counting preset units) and places it on any hex marked in blue. The Daqan player receives 1 lore token for each unspent muster point, to a maximum of 5.
The Daqan player cannot muster the Giant.
Uthuk Setup: Before he draws his lore cards, the Uthuk player takes the Crushing Blow lore card and places it on top of his lore deck. Then he places the Giant on any hex marked in red. The Uthuk player receives 1 lore token. The Uthuk player may add lore cards from the Giant to his lore deck.
Special Rules
Each time a Daqan unit destroys an Uthuk unit, the Daqan player gains 1 victory point. If the Giant is destroyed, the Daqan player gains 2 victory points instead of 1.
When a Citadel Guard card is revealed and there are 4 or fewer Citadel Guard units on the board, the Daqan player immediately places a Citadel Guard unit on an adjacent hex (or on the nearest hex if the adjacent hexes are occupied), and the deployment card is removed from the board. Otherwise, no Citadel Guard unit is placed, and the deployment card is removed from the board.
When a Blood Harvesters card is revealed, the Uthuk player immediately places a Blood Harvesters unit on an adjacent hex (or on the nearest hex if the adjacent hexes are occupied), and the deployment card is removed from the board.
When a building hex is replaced with ruins, the deployment card on that hex is revealed.
Daqan Victory Point Step
The Daqan player may spend 2 lore tokens to look at one of the face-down deployment cards.
Uthuk Victory Point Step
If at least one Uthuk unit is adjacent to a building hex occupied by another Uthuk unit, the deployment card on that building is revealed.
Objective
Daqan Victory: If the Daqan player has 8 or more victory points at the start of his turn, he immediately wins.
Uthuk Victory: If all three Blood Harvesters units have been revealed, the Uthuk player immediately wins. [Uncertain rendering: the printed text refers to "three Blood Harvesters units" having been revealed; this is read as the three face-down Blood Harvesters cards being revealed.]
Card Notes
The sheet does not print the stats or abilities of the Mountain Giant. The unit reference card, the deployment card, the three lore cards, and the Crushing Blow lore card are printed with their own rules text, which governs when it is played. The rulesheet refers to these cards but does not reproduce their text.
Translator's Notes
- Translation from the Russian rulesheet was done directly from the page images as well as the text layer. The page-3 icons (Heavy Swing and Boulder Toss) are pictograms and were not identifiable by name, so they are marked [icon] or described by shape.
- Terms rendered in English without confirmation of the official English name: "Mountain Giant" (Russian "Горный Великан"), "Ruins (Terrain)" ("развалины"), "Crushing Blow" ("Сокрушительный удар"), "Heavy Swing" ("Тяжелый взмах"), "Boulder Toss" ("Бросок валуном"), "Blood Harvesters" ("Сборщики Крови"), "Daqan Victory Point Step" and "Uthuk Victory Point Step".
- "Lore tokens" are used for the Russian "очки мудрости" (lore points), following the other BattleLore Second Edition expansions in this set.
- The Russian "карты мудрости" (wisdom cards) are rendered as "lore cards", following the other BattleLore Second Edition expansions in this set.
- The lore customization rule is marked above where the printed text and the other rulesheets in this series disagree.
- The Daqan and Uthuk names are rendered as Daqan and Uthuk, matching the sibling expansions.
- The printed text was checked against the page images; no printed typographical errors affected the meaning, so none are corrected.