Codex: Card-Time Strategy – Deluxe Set
Codex: Card-Time Strategy – Deluxe Set Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object of the Game
Destroy the opponent's base. It is a building with 20 hit points.
Game Modes
| Game Mode | Players | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1-Hero | 1 vs 1 | Learn the rules to this mode first. Each player has 1 hero. |
| 3-Hero | 1 vs 1 | Each player has 3 heroes. This is the standard mode for competitive play. |
| Two-Headed Dragon | 2 vs 2 | Team up for 2v2 madness. |
| Free-for-all | 3-5 | Everyone gets to play the whole time (no player elimination). |
Components
Core Set — 229 cards total, consisting of: two 10-card starting decks (one red, one green); 2 worker cards (worker x4 on one side, worker x5 on the other); 6 hero cards (three red, three green); 72 red codex cards (2 copies of 36 cards); 72 green codex cards (2 copies of 36 cards); 33 token cards; and 24 mini cards for add-ons and specs. Also 2 codex binders, 2 game boards, a dial to track base hit points (assembly required), chits for tracking gold, damage, hero XP and so on, and the rulebook.
Deluxe Set — 702 cards total, consisting of: eight 10-card starting decks (two neutral, plus six other colors); 8 worker cards; 20 hero cards; 72 codex cards for each of 6 colors; 48 codex cards for the neutral faction; 72 token cards; 30 mini cards for add-ons and specs; and 12 map cards. Also 6 codex binders, 2 high quality playmats, 3 extra player boards, a dial to track base hit points (assembly required), and chits for tracking gold, damage, hero XP and so on.
Codex 1-Hero Mode
If you have already played the Codex Starter Set (featuring the Bashing and Finesse heroes), you already know how the gameplay system works and can skip ahead to the 3-hero mode.
If you haven't played Codex before, start with only 1 hero, because you will have far fewer cards to read in order to get going. The concepts to learn are card drawing and deckbuilding, gold and workers, spells and heroes, tech buildings and add-ons, combat, and the parts of the turn. Once you know the 1-hero mode, only a few extra things are needed for the 3-hero mode.
Card Drawing and Deckbuilding
Cards in hand are one of the main resources in Codex: the more cards you have, the more options you have. You start the game with a deck of just 10 cards and draw 5 of them for your opening hand.
Each draw phase you must discard your entire hand, then draw that number of cards plus two, but stop drawing once you have 5:
- Discard a hand of 0 cards → draw 2
- Discard a hand of 1 card → draw 3
- Discard a hand of 2 cards → draw 4
- Discard a hand of 3, 4 or 5 cards → draw 5
The effect of this is that if you use a lot of cards in one turn, you can't draw as many the next turn, and it may take a couple of turns to recover to drawing 5 again.
If you would draw a card while your deck is empty, shuffle your discard pile so that it becomes your deck again, then continue drawing. Your cards therefore cycle back to your hand eventually, even after you use them.
Note: you can only reshuffle this way once per main phase. If you empty your draw pile a second time during your main phase, you can't draw any more cards during that main phase.
You don't simply cycle the same cards forever, though. Each tech phase you add two cards from your codex to your discard pile, face down. In 1-hero mode your codex is a set of 24 extra cards (2 copies of 12 different cards) that you have access to during the game. In the 3-hero mode you have three times as many codex cards, and the included binders are there to store them. For 1-hero mode you can simply keep the 24 codex cards off to the side; a binder is optional at that size.
Each player has their own private codex cards. Because the two cards you tech go face down into your discard pile, opponents don't learn what you put there — they don't even learn whether you added two copies of one card or one copy of two different cards. All discard piles are face down specifically to hide deckbuilding choices, though you may look through your own discard pile at any time. Think of it as a fog of war: opponents are temporarily blind to your plan and only find out what you "teched for" when you play those cards.
Gold and Workers
Gold is the other main resource you manage. You need it to play cards, to activate abilities, and to level up heroes. The large number inside the gold coin in a card's upper left corner is its gold cost.
Gold comes from your workers. Player 1 starts with a "worker x4" card in play, representing four workers; player 2 uses the other side of the card, showing worker x5. During your upkeep each turn you get 1 gold per worker. Track it on your worker card with gold chits, dice, or whatever you prefer.
Gold stays in your gold pile until you spend it, so you may stockpile it across turns. The limit is 20 gold at a time; any overage disappears and you still have only 20.
You may hire up to one additional worker on each of your turns. To do so, pay 1 gold, then put a card from your hand face down near or underneath your worker card. That face-down card represents your new worker.
Destroyed or sacrificed workers are always trashed — they do not go to the discard pile.
Try to hire a worker every turn when you can. Sometimes you can't spare the 1 gold or the 1 card that turn.
Spells and Heroes
You can't cast spells freely: you must have a hero in play to cast a spell, since the heroes are the ones casting.
Spells are usually one-shot effects — they resolve and then go to your discard pile. Some are Ongoing Spells, which stay in play until something says otherwise:
- Ongoing spells with channeling are destroyed if the hero who cast them leaves play.
- Ongoing spells that attach to something are discarded if that something is destroyed.
- Ongoing spells that neither attach nor channel stay around until something specifically destroys them.
- Ongoing spells themselves can't be attacked.
Heroes wait in your command zone to be summoned — they are not in your deck, so you always have access to them. A summoned hero arrives at level 1. While a hero is in play you may level it up for 1 gold per level, and you may level it up multiple times in one turn (for example, pay 4 gold to level it up 4 times). Also, if an opposing hero dies, your hero in play levels up twice for free.
As heroes level up they get better ATK and HP and gain more abilities, and they keep the abilities from their lower levels. Whenever a hero reaches its middle level band or its max level, heal all damage on it.
Once a hero reaches max level it can't be leveled up further. To cast a hero's ultimate spell, that hero must have been under your control AND at max level at the start of your turn — so heroes can't cast ultimate spells the turn they arrive. Level a hero to max the turn before you intend to cast its ultimate.
When your hero dies it returns to your command zone and loses any levels it gained, along with all other modifiers such as +1/+1 runes. You can't re-summon it until after your next turn (turning it face down for a turn can help you remember).
Tech Buildings (and What They Produce)
Tech buildings allow you to play units, upgrades, and other buildings. You start with just your base, which counts as a tech building and lets you play tech 0 cards — the ones in your starting deck. You can also build tech I, tech II, and tech III buildings to make more powerful units, upgrades, and buildings. You need a tech I building to play tech I cards, and so on.
- Units are the meat of your forces: they can attack, and they can protect your other forces by patrolling.
- Upgrades give you some kind of bonus or ability. They can't be attacked, and they can't attack or patrol.
- Buildings can't attack or patrol. Unlike upgrades, buildings can be attacked.
| Building | Requirement | Allows |
|---|---|---|
| Your base | — | Play tech 0 cards (your starting deck) |
| Tech I building | 6 workers | Play tech I cards (bronze-bottomed) |
| Tech II building | 8 workers and a tech I building | Play tech II cards (silver-bottomed) |
| Tech III building | 10 workers and a tech II building | Play tech III cards (gold-bottomed) |
Requirements to Build Tech Buildings
You need at least 6 workers to make your tech I building, then pay 1 gold to start building it. It doesn't finish constructing until the end of your turn, so you can't play tech I units or start your tech II building until your next turn.
You need 8 workers and a tech I building to make your tech II building, and 10 workers and a tech II building to make your tech III building.
Protect your tech buildings. If one is destroyed, your base takes 2 damage. You can rebuild it without paying any gold, but you still have to wait until the end of your turn for construction to finish, and you can't construct anything from it until then.
Tech buildings have nothing to do with spells — you need a hero to cast a spell. Tech buildings are only for producing units, upgrades, and other buildings.
Add-ons
Your base can have at most one add-on at a time. In 1-hero mode you have access to the surplus and tower add-ons (in 3-hero mode you also get the tech lab and heroes' hall). Use the mini-cards, which have tower on one side and surplus on the other, to mark which add-on you built.
Add-ons are not "tech buildings," but they also take until the end of your turn to finish building, and if they are destroyed your base takes 2 damage. You may sacrifice your own add-on (dealing 2 damage to your base) to make room for a new one.
- Surplus — lets you draw a card each turn. Simple and powerful. Build a surplus when you're limited by cards rather than gold.
- Tower — can detect one stealth or invisible thing per turn, and that detection lasts until the end of that turn. Normally stealth and invisible attackers can ignore your patrollers; with a tower, the first such attacker each turn can't ignore them. On your turn the tower optionally lets you reveal one invisible thing, which lets you attack it and target it with spells and abilities. Finally, the tower deals 1 combat damage to each enemy attacker it can see, at the same time that attacker deals combat damage. It has anti-air, so it can hit fliers too. Build a tower when you need a bit more defense.
Combat
You may attack as many times as you want during your main phase. Each attack is one-on-one: one attacker and one defender. You can attack anything of your opponent's that has hit points — any unit, hero, or building. Your opponent makes no decisions during your attacks, because they already set up their defenses on their own turn.
Patrol Zone
Your patrol zone is your main line of defense against attacks. It has five slots, each of which can hold one ready unit or hero. Exhausted units and heroes can't patrol, so you usually can't both attack with something and patrol with it in the same turn.
During your main phase you may move units and heroes into and out of your patrol zone however you like and rearrange them freely, but they don't actually count as patrollers (or even count as being in those slots) until they are locked in. When you end your main phase, your patrollers are locked in until your next turn. Patrollers protect your valuable forces, because opponents can't attack your other forces until they deal with your patrollers. Your squad leader is especially important, because opponents must deal with it before they can even get to your other patrollers.
Each of the five patrol slots gives a different bonus on opponents' turns:
- Squad Leader — gets 1 armor while patrolling, and must be dealt with first.
- Elite — gets +1 ATK.
- Scavenger — finds 1 gold for you if it dies while patrolling.
- Technician — you draw a card if it dies while patrolling.
- Lookout — gets resist 1 (opponents must pay 1 gold to target it with spells or abilities).
The armor your squad leader gets means the first damage it takes each turn it patrols is absorbed rather than damaging its HP, which makes it a sturdy protector.
Attacking
You can attack with any unit or hero that you controlled at the beginning of your turn — your forces have arrival fatigue the turn they arrive, which wears off the following turn.
To attack, exhaust your attacker (turn it sideways) and declare what it attacks. Your attacker can attack anything of your opponent's that has hit points: any unit, hero, or building. However:
- If it can attack the opponent's squad leader, then it can't attack anything else.
- Otherwise, if it can attack any other patroller, then it can't attack a non-patroller (you choose which patroller to attack).
- If your attacker can't attack a certain patroller, it may simply ignore that patroller. For example, a ground unit without anti-air can't attack a flying unit, so a flying patroller doesn't have to be attacked by your ground unit — but your ground unit still has to attack any other patrollers it can, if it attacks at all.
Attackers deal their ATK to the HP of the thing they attack, and the thing being attacked simultaneously deals its ATK to the HP of the attacker. Units that die — by taking damage equal to or greater than their HP, or by having 0 HP from debuffs — go into their owner's discard pile face down. Damage persists across turns, so track how much damage is on each unit, hero, and building.
Parts of a Turn
Ready
Ready (straighten) any exhausted (sideways) cards you have in play.
Upkeep
Get 1 gold for each of your workers. Also do anything that any card tells you to do during your upkeep.
Main Phase
This is the bulk of your turn. You may do these things in any order:
- Hire a worker (maximum of once per turn).
- Build a tech building or add-on.
- Summon your hero from your command zone.
- Level up your hero if it's in play.
- Play cards from your hand, or use abilities on cards already in play.
- Perform any number of combats (one at a time).
- Lock in your patrol zone — this ends your main phase.
Discard/Draw (the "Draw Phase")
Discard your entire hand face down. Then draw the same number of cards from your draw pile that you just discarded, plus two more, capped at 5 cards.
Tech
Pick two cards from your codex to set aside. They go face down into your discard pile just before your next turn starts.
You may choose two copies of the same card or two different cards. Your opponent doesn't have to wait for you to decide — they can start their turn as soon as you end your main phase. You don't have to commit to your teching decision until the start of your following turn, but the game goes faster if you plan while the opponent takes their turn.
Teching two cards per turn is mandatory until you have 10 workers. At that point you may tech 0, 1, or 2 cards. (Usually 0 is a good idea, so you don't bloat your deck.)
Game Setup
Each player chooses one hero to play. Recommended choices for a first game:
- Deluxe set — the neutral Bashing hero for one player and the neutral Finesse hero for the other.
- Core set — any of the three red heroes for one player and any of the three green heroes for the other.
Put your hero card in the command zone of your board or playmat, where it waits to be summoned.
Put your worker card in the worker area at the bottom of your mat. It reminds you that you start with 4 workers (or 5 for player 2) and gives you a place to track your gold.
Find your 10 starting cards: take the 10-card starting deck matching your hero's color. Starting deck cards all have a dot in the upper left corner so you can tell them apart from your other cards. Each player shuffles their own 10-card starting deck, then draws 5 cards for their opening hand.
Each player takes the 24 codex cards that go with their hero. For example, if you chose the red Blood hero, find the 24 cards (2 copies of 12 different cards) that say Blood at the bottom — some say Blood Magic, others say Blood Tech. None of them have a red dot in the upper left corner, since those are starting deck cards rather than codex cards.
You can keep these 24 cards in a stack next to you, or put them into your codex binder. In 1-hero mode there aren't many cards, so a binder isn't necessary. (In the 3-hero mode you have three times as many, and using the binders is strongly urged.) If you do use a binder, arrange the cards however you like; each pocket is designed to hold 2 cards, so both copies of a card can share a slot.
Map Cards (Deluxe Set Only)
Map cards are optional. Each map changes some rule of the game. To use them, randomly choose one before the game starts (or choose one by any method you like). The map's rule change affects all players for the duration of the game.
Tracking Materials
The included chits help you track various quantities. Keep them nearby so you can grab them whenever needed.
- Gold — track how much gold you have at any given time.
- Damage — track damage on units, heroes, and buildings.
- XP — track the levels of your heroes (they start at level 1 when they arrive).
- +1/+1 and -1/-1 runes — some spells put these on units or heroes; plus runes and minus runes cancel each other out.
- Constructed buildings — mark your tech I, II, and III with these when you build them.
- Other runes — whenever a card says to mark something with a rune that isn't +1/+1 or -1/-1, use these.
- +2/+2 dancer bonus — the Finesse spell Two Step gives this bonus to pairs of units; use the same color chits for each pair of dancers (deluxe set only).
- Hit points for bases — these dials track the damage on both players' bases.
Sample Turns
Get a friend to play with and randomly determine who goes first.
Player 1's First Turn
Skip your ready step, since you have nothing in play yet to ready. Get 4 gold during your upkeep.
Play a unit from your hand, but save 1 gold for a worker. The gold cost of each card is in its upper left corner, so pay those as you play your units. If you want, you can summon your hero from your command zone for 2 gold. Put the unit or hero you just played into your squad leader position in the patrol zone. If you have another unit or hero, put it in the elite or technician position.
Hire a worker: pay 1 gold, then put any card from your hand face down next to (or partly under) your worker x4 card. Even though it costs gold, that new worker gives gold on every future turn — a great investment.
End your main phase. Any leftover gold carries over to next turn. Discard your hand face down, then draw that many cards plus two, capped at five (you should be drawing five here).
Your opponent can start their turn while you look through your codex cards to choose which two to tech. Take either 2 copies of a spell or 2 copies of a tech I unit; you decide.
Player 2's First Turn
Do much the same as player 1, but remember you start with 5 workers rather than 4.
Put a unit or hero in your squad leader slot, and if you have another unit, put it in your elite slot. Discard your hand, draw (probably five cards), then start teching two cards from your codex to your discard pile while player 1 starts their next turn.
Player 1's Second Turn
Get your gold during upkeep; you should have 5 workers now, so you get 5 gold. Hire a sixth worker this turn — once you have six workers, you're allowed to make your tech I building.
Spend another 1 gold to start construction of your tech I building. It won't finish until next turn, but it will be ready if you draw tech I units.
You have 3 gold left (plus anything saved from your first turn). Use it however you like: on a spell if your hero is in play, on leveling up your hero, or on another unit.
Attack if you can set up favorable trades — use your own judgment. Remember that you have to attack the opponent's squad leader first, and that the first point of damage you deal to it is absorbed by armor; damage beyond that persists across turns. If you can kill the squad leader, you can attack another patroller, and once there aren't any patrollers you can attack anything you want. Attacking heroes and tech buildings can cripple your opponent, but you eventually have to attack their base to win.
After your attacks, put one of your units or heroes into your squad leader slot. Only ready units and heroes can patrol; anything you attacked with had to be exhausted and can't patrol this turn. If you have no patrollers, your opponent can attack whatever they want.
Discard your hand, draw that many cards plus two capped at five, then tech 2 cards from your codex to your discard pile, face down.
Player 2's Second Turn
Ready your units and heroes, then during upkeep get 1 gold per worker, which should be 6 gold. Otherwise follow the same instructions as player 1's second turn.
Decide whether to lean more on your spells (which require your hero in play) or on tech I units (which require your tech I building to be fully constructed). Also, if your hero is damaged, consider leveling it up to the next level band so it heals all its damage.
Finish the Game
Keep going until someone destroys the other's base.
Codex 3-Hero Game
The 3-hero format is deeper and more balanced for tournament play than the 1-hero format. Try it once you know the rules for playing 1 hero.
Start by picking any 3 different heroes you want. To begin with, have one player pick the three red heroes and the other the three green heroes. The player with the red heroes gets the red 10-card starting deck, and the other player gets the green one. Whenever you have more than one color of hero on your team, designate one hero as your "main" — that just means you get the starting deck matching that hero's color.
Building Your Codex
You get all the cards that go with each of your 3 heroes. For example, if you chose the Balance, Feral, and Growth heroes, your codex contains 24 cards from each of those specs (2 copies of each of 12 different cards per spec). Store these in one of the included card binders — that's your codex, after all. Put 2 copies of each card in the same pocket, so you use 36 pockets in all.
You can arrange them however you want, but you might want each spec on a different row of your codex — for example top row Anarchy, middle row Blood, bottom row Fire. A suggested layout:
Codex pages 1 & 2 — each of the three rows: Spell, Spell, Spell, Ultimate Spell, Tech I, Tech I.
Codex pages 3 & 4 — each of the three rows: Tech II, Tech II, Tech II, Tech II, Tech II, Tech III.
Summoning Heroes
Put all three of your heroes in your command zone at the start of the game. Which heroes are there is public knowledge, so your opponent may look at them.
You can summon any of your heroes, but not all of them at once. You start with a hero limit of 1. It increases to 2 while you have a fully built tech II building, and to 3 while you have a tech III building. So at the start of the game you can summon any one hero, but while that hero is still in play you can't summon a second one without a tech II building.
| Hero limit | You need |
|---|---|
| 1 hero | Just your base |
| 2 heroes | Tech II building |
| 3 heroes | Tech III building |
The hero limit is only checked at the moment you would summon a new hero. That means if your tech buildings get destroyed you don't have to sacrifice your heroes. You can even summon one hero, let it die, then summon a different one to stay under the 1 hero limit before you have a tech II building.
Whenever a hero dies, one in-play opposing hero levels up twice for free. The active player chooses which hero if there are multiple opposing heroes, and they can only choose a hero that actually can level up at least once.
Casting Spells
Your starting deck spells are called minor spells. They are tied to a specific color rather than a specific spec — for example, the red minor spells say "Red Magic" at the bottom rather than "Anarchy Magic," which means any red hero can cast them. If you only have a non-red hero in play, you can still cast a red minor spell, but you must pay 1 extra gold.
If you're using the neutral faction's starting deck from the Bashing vs. Finesse starter set, you don't pay an extra gold, because any hero can cast neutral spells without penalty.
The rest of the spells — the ones from your codex — are tied to a spec, such as "Blood Magic." Those aren't lenient, and you can't pay extra gold to cast them with the wrong hero. You must have the Blood hero in play to cast a Blood spell, and if you don't have him, you simply can't cast it. Likewise, only the Anarchy hero can cast Anarchy Magic, and so on.
Tech
Your tech buildings allow you to make units, and sometimes upgrades and buildings too. As usual, your base itself lets you play tech 0 units, upgrades, and buildings. Your tech I building is very lenient: it lets you play tech I units, upgrades, and buildings of any spec. The catch is that if your heroes are more than one color, the first tech building or add-on you build costs 1 extra gold. (Neutral heroes from the starter set don't count as being a color, so you wouldn't pay the extra gold with a team of red / red / neutral, but you would with red / red / green.)
At the tech II level you have to specialize. When you start building your tech II building, declare which spec it's going to be. You have a mini-card for each spec; place the mini-card of the spec you want on your base. Your tech II building — and later your tech III building — are tied to that spec and can only produce units, upgrades, and buildings matching it. Once you make this choice, it's locked in for the rest of the game.
Add-ons (3-Hero)
In 3-hero mode you get two additional add-on choices beyond surplus and tower: the tech lab and the heroes' hall. As usual, you can only have one add-on at any given time.
- Tech lab — when you build it, you unlock a spec (place that spec mini-card on your base as well). This is in addition to the spec you choose when you build your tech II building. So you might build your tech II building and declare Anarchy spec, then build a tech lab and declare Fire spec, letting you build things from either spec. You could build the tech lab first and get the same effect, but it wouldn't help until you had a finished tech II building. If your tech lab is destroyed, you can't make things from its spec until you rebuild it — and when you rebuild it, you may choose another spec. When your tech II building is destroyed you can't make any tech II things even if you have a tech lab. You can never change the spec choice of your tech II, even when you rebuild it.
- Heroes' hall — allows you to have one more hero in play than usual. You can try two-hero spell combos without even having a tech II building. If your heroes' hall is destroyed, you don't have to sacrifice any heroes already in play.
Two-Headed Dragon (2v2)
This mode is for 4 players playing a 2v2 team game.
Setup
Sit next to your teammate — you may show each other your cards and discuss strategy at any time. Your team has a single shared base with 30 hit points. If your team's base is destroyed, your team loses the game.
Besides your base (and information), you don't share any other resources with your teammate. You each have your own hand of cards, codex, draw pile, discard pile, tech buildings, patrol zone, and so on. You have your own workers and your own gold, which can't be shared. You each have one add-on slot on your base, so it's possible to have a total of two add-ons, but you can't have two of the same add-on.
Each player on the team that goes first starts with 4 workers. Each player on the team that goes second starts with 5 workers.
Your Team's Turn
You and your teammate take your turn simultaneously. During your team's upkeep you each get gold from your own workers. You can each play cards from your hand, do attacks, and so forth during this shared turn.
The other team has two patrol zones, and the patrol zones protect both players. So even if one opponent's patrol zone is empty, you still can't attack that player's buildings if you could have attacked patrollers in their partner's patrol zone. You might also be facing two squad leaders — if your attacker can attack one of the squad leaders, it must (you choose which one). At the end of your turn's main phase you lock in your patrollers, but you can't put your patrollers in your teammate's patrol zone.
The most important rule to remember is that "you means you." If an effect gives "your units +1/+1," it does not give your teammate's units the bonus — only yours. If an effect counts how many green units "you have," that doesn't count green units your teammate has. This applies even where "you" is only implied, such as "Take an extra turn after this one" — you take an extra turn, but your teammate does not get to act during that extra turn.
Effects that refer to "friendly" units or heroes do work with your teammate. For example, "give +1/+1 to a friendly unit" could target one of your own units or one of your teammate's. Friendly forces means all forces you and your teammate control.
Free-for-all (3-5 Players)
This mode is for 3-5 players. There can be only one winner, and while there are no teams, you'll find yourself needing to create temporary alliances at some points during the game.
Setup
| Player # | Starting Workers | Starting 1/1s |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | — |
| 2 | 5 | — |
| 3 | 5 | 1 |
| 4 | 5 | 2 |
| 5 | 5 | 3 |
Player 1 starts with 4 workers as usual, and players 2, 3, 4, and 5 each start with 5 workers. In addition, player 3 gets a 1/1 neutral mercenary tech 0 unit during their first upkeep (it doesn't have haste, so it can't attack on their first turn). Players 4 and 5 get two and three 1/1 mercenaries on their first upkeeps, respectively.
Objective
The game ends when any player's base is destroyed. At that moment, whoever's base has the most hit points wins the game. If there's a tie for highest base hit points, the tied players each take one more turn to see if the tie is broken. Repeat this process if there's still a tie at the end of those turns.
Repairing Your Base
All bases have a new ability in this mode: pay 3 gold to repair 1 damage from your base. You can use this ability any number of times per turn, as long as you can pay for it. If your base gets low on health, you're not necessarily out of the game.
Free Gold
Whenever you kill an enemy unit on your turn, you get 1 free gold in this mode, up to a maximum of 3 gold per turn this way.
Lending Patrollers
Because there is no player elimination in this mode, ganging up to destroy a heavily damaged player's base just ends the game — and you lose immediately unless you have the least damaged base. So sometimes you need to think about how to protect a weak player rather than finish them off.
Each turn you lock in your patrollers at the end of your main phase as usual. During this time (after your main phase is over) you may also lend your units and heroes as patrollers to other players: place your unit or hero in any open slot in any other player's patrol zone. This lets you help protect a weak player to buy more time before the game ends.
Whenever you lend a unit or hero to someone, you get it back during that player's upkeep (so you can't protect the opponent immediately after you in turn order this way). You really do lose control of the lent patroller while it's away, and they really do gain control of it while it's helping them. If it dies, it goes back to your discard pile, and you get the Scavenger / Technician patrol zone bonuses. Exchanging control of units and heroes doesn't trigger any "Arrives" abilities and doesn't change their state — for example, a lent unit with a +1/+1 rune still has the rune when you get it back. When you get back a lent unit or hero, it doesn't go to your patrol zone.
Factions and Colors
There are six main factions in Codex, each with their own color. Within each color are three specializations, or specs. There is also a neutral faction with two specs, which is a simple introduction to Codex. The core set includes the red and green factions; the deluxe set contains all of that plus four expansion factions.
- Renegades (Neutral) — unaffiliated with any faction. River Montoya leads a group of agile, dancing fencers and thespians, while Troq Bashar is part of an eclectic entourage of beasts and rugged individuals.
- Blood Anarchs (Red) — a shaky federation of pirates, robbers, brigands, and trouble-makers with sometimes shoddy or stolen equipment, employing captured monsters and mercenaries. They rush down their enemies and don't bother with defense. They have no single leader, though Captain Zeno Zane ("Zane the Insane") is perhaps the most feared.
- Moss Sentinels (Green) — defenders of nature against those who would corrupt it, aided by critters, large beasts, and even living trees. Their creatures — squirrel legions, shapeshifters, dinosaurs — are wild and overpowering. Their leader is Calamandra Moss, the tiger magus.
- Flagstone Dominion (Blue) — the realm's capital city, strict about law, due process, and family values, with a watchful government and an army that keeps the peace. Their leader is Sirus Quince.
- Blackhand Scourge (Black) — a shadowy presence from the north that spreads plague and death and raises the bones of the dead. Their leader Vandy Anadrose, the Queen of Demons, made a pact with otherworldly beings whose terrifying power comes at a price.
- Whitestar Order (White) — disciplined warriors based at Morningstar and led by the stone golem Garus Rook, including enlightened monks, mighty barbarians, and agile ninjas with animal companions. Their strength comes from teamwork and skill in combat. They hold the Fantasy Strike fighting tournaments.
- Vortoss Conclave (Purple) — an ancient, largely mythical race said to have advanced technology and to have been historians and mystics. Their magic and technology center on time and the control of its ebb and flow. Their race became unstuck in time, and the present-day scientist Max Geiger made contact with them and now serves as their emissary.
Other Odds and Ends
Exhaust
Exhausting a card means turning it sideways to show it has been used that turn. You can't exhaust it again until you ready it, and you ready (straighten) all your cards at the beginning of each of your turns.
Attacking exhausts your units and heroes, which prevents them from attacking again or patrolling that turn (only ready units and heroes can be in a patrol zone). If you can ready them somehow with an ability, they can attack again or patrol.
Arrival Fatigue
All card types have arrival fatigue: the turn they come under your control, they can't use abilities that require exhausting as part of the cost. For units and heroes it also means they can't attack the turn they come under your control. A card with haste can attack and use exhaust abilities the turn it comes under your control.
Cost → Effect
You must pay all of a cost (the text before the arrow) to get an effect (the text after the arrow). When resolving an effect, do as much as you can — if it tells you to do two things but one is impossible for you, you still do the other.
Target
Spells with a target icon in their type line "target" something; units and heroes with that icon have an ability that targets something. This matters because anything in the lookout slot of the patrol zone has resist 1, meaning opponents must pay 1 gold to target it with a spell or ability. Also, some units are completely untargetable by spells or abilities.
Tokens
Some cards put a token into play — for example, the Growth hero can put a Water Elemental token into play when he reaches max level. Token units have all the properties of normal units, but they don't have standard card backs, so they can never be shuffled into your deck or go to your hand. If a token ever leaves play, it's destroyed. All tokens count as tech 0 units.
+1/+1 and -1/-1 Runes
These adjust the ATK / HP of the unit or hero they're on. Units or heroes with 0 or less HP die immediately. A +1/+1 rune and a -1/-1 rune destroy each other if they would be on the same object.
Legendary Cards
If a unit (or any other card type) is marked as legendary, you can't have more than one copy of it under your control. If a second copy would come under your control, that second copy is discarded instead. You can never have two copies of a given legendary card at the same time, even if some other rule implies you can — this supersedes all other rules about legendaries.
This only applies to legendary cards with the same name, for a given player. You can have two legendary units with different names, and you can have a legendary unit with the same name as one an opponent controls.
Do As Much As You Can
If a card says to do X and Y, but it's impossible to do X, you still do Y. Do as much as you can whenever resolving an effect.
Nothing Is an "Instant"
In some card games you can activate abilities and then, "before they resolve," play so-called instant abilities. Codex has no instants, so in general you must finish resolving something before you do something else. For example, if an effect said "Sacrifice a unit. If you do, give another unit +2/+2 this turn," you couldn't sacrifice a unit and then activate some other ability, hire a worker, or summon a hero before giving the other unit +2/+2 — you would have to completely finish the first ability first.
You also can't interrupt combat to hire a worker, summon a hero, play a card, build a building, or activate an ability unless a card specifically says you can. A triggered ability (such as "Whenever you attack, your units get +1/+1") might kick in during another action, but you can't use activated abilities or start other actions before resolving any effects or combats in progress.
Owner vs. Controller
Cards you own are the cards you started the game with. Usually the cards you own and the cards you control are the same, but some effects let you take control of an opponent's card — in that case you now control the card but the opponent still owns it. Effects that return a card to someone's hand say to return it to the owner's hand, because otherwise you might end up with a card in someone else's sleeves in your hand.
Whenever an effect doesn't specify owner or controller, it means controller. Owner is rare enough that it is spelled out specifically when needed. Something like "Your units get +1/+1" means units you control, not units you own.
Active Player Decides
Any effect requiring a decision always refers to the active player. On your turn you make the decisions, and other players can never make decisions on your turn. This allows the game to be played fully asynchronously — you can take your turn and mail it to a friend, then they take their turn and mail you their set of decisions, and so on. In the unusual event that an effect specifically asks an opponent to make a decision on your turn, instead nothing happens.
Further Reading
An extensive list of rulings for Codex is at www.sirlin.net/rules. The forums are at www.fantasystrike.com.
Keywords and Glossary
- Armor — absorbs damage before HP, and is then destroyed. (The squad leader's armor refreshes each turn.)
- Armor Piercing — ignores armor.
- Arrives: Do X — when this arrives in play, do X.
- Anti-air — can attack fliers, but can ignore patrolling fliers. Deals combat damage to fliers it fights, or that fly over this while it patrols.
- Attacks: Do X — whenever this attacks, do X. This triggers after you declare your combat target and after you exhaust your attacker, but before combat damage is dealt.
- Boost X — you may pay an additional X when you play this to get the boost effect.
- Channeling — stays in play; sacrifice it when you lose the hero that cast it.
- Deathtouch — combat damage this deals to units or heroes, even to their armor, kills them.
- Detector — opposing stealth and invisible forces are visible to you. (The Tower add-on can detect once per turn.)
- Dies: Do X — when this is put into your discard pile from play, do X.
- Disable a unit or hero — exhaust it, and it doesn't ready during its next ready step. Sideline it if it was patrolling.
- Ephemeral — dies at end of turn.
- Fading — arrives with X time runes. Remove one during each of your upkeeps; when you remove the last, sacrifice this.
- Flying — can fly over ground patrollers. Ground forces without anti-air can't attack this or deal combat damage to it when attacked. ("Fly over" means "used flying in order to ignore a patroller.")
- Forecast — starts off in the future, not in play. Put X time runes on this and remove one each upkeep; when you remove the last, it arrives.
- Frenzy X — gets +X ATK on your turn.
- Haste — can attack and exhaust the turn it arrives.
- Healing X — during your upkeep, heal X damage from all friendly units and heroes.
- Illusion — illusions die when targeted by spells or abilities.
- Indestructible — if this would die, instead exhaust it and remove all damage and attachments from it. You can't sacrifice it.
- Invisible — to opponents without a detector, this is untargetable, unattackable, and can sneak past patrollers. While patrolling, this is attackable.
- Leaves: Do X — when this goes from in play to not in play, do X.
- Legendary — you can't have more than one copy of a legendary thing with the same name in play. If a second copy would be under your control, instead the second copy is discarded. This supersedes all other rules, even those that would seem to allow two copies.
- Long-range — defenders without long-range deal no damage to this when it attacks.
- Max level: Do X — when this hero reaches its max level, do X. (You can't level it up further once it's already max level.)
- Obliterate X — whenever this attacks, destroy the defender's X lowest tech units first. If the thing you attacked is now gone, you may select a new thing to attack.
- Overpower — excess combat damage this would deal to a patroller hits something else this could attack. (It will not cascade to a third thing.)
- Readiness — doesn't exhaust to attack, but can only attack once per turn.
- Resist X — opponents must pay X gold each time they would target this with a spell or ability.
- Sacrifice a thing — destroy a thing you control. This does not target, so you can sacrifice untargetable things. It goes to the discard pile unless it was a hero or a worker: heroes go to the command zone, and workers are trashed when sacrificed.
- Sideline a unit or hero — move it out of the patrol zone.
- Sparkshot — when attacking a patroller, deals 1 damage to an adjacent patroller. (Adjacent means right next to; if there are empty spaces between patrollers, they aren't adjacent.)
- Stealth — can sneak past patrollers if that opponent has no detector.
- Swift strike — deals its combat damage before units and heroes without swift strike.
- Trash — trashing a card means removing it from the game, not putting it in the discard pile. Even indestructible cards can be trashed.
- Unattackable — you can't attack this. (If it's patrolling, you can ignore it.)
- Unstoppable — can ignore patrollers when attacking.
- Untargetable — can't be the target of spells or abilities.
- Upkeep: Do X — during your upkeep, do X.
Quick Reference
Each Turn
- Ready — ready (straighten) all your cards.
- Upkeep — get 1 gold for each of your workers.
- Main phase — do most of your stuff.
- Discard/Draw Phase — discard your hand, draw that many cards + 2, capped at 5.
- Tech Phase — put 2 cards from your codex into your discard pile, face down. You don't have to finish this until the start of your next turn.
During your main phase, you can:
- Hire at most one worker.
- Build a tech building or add-on (or both).
- Play any cards from your hand.
- Summon your hero from your command zone.
- Level up your hero as many times as you want.
- Attack as many times as you want (one at a time).
- Lock in your patrol zone by ending your main phase.
Workers
- Player 1 starts with 4 workers; player 2 with 5.
- To hire more workers: pay 1 gold, then put any card from your hand face down near your worker card.
- Hire at most one worker per turn.
- Destroyed or sacrificed workers are always trashed; they don't go to the discard pile.
Heroes
- Are not "units."
- Start at level 1.
- Each level up costs 1 gold, and you can do multiple per turn.
- They heal all their damage when they level up to mid rank or max level.
- You need a hero to cast a spell.
- You need a hero that was max level at the start of the turn to cast an Ultimate Spell.
- When a hero dies, return it to the command zone (it loses all runes, levels it gained, etc.) and you can't re-summon it until after your next turn.
- Whenever a hero dies, one in-play opposing hero levels up twice for free. The active player chooses which hero if there are multiple opposing heroes, and they can only choose a hero that actually can level up.
Tech Buildings
- They don't finish constructing until the end of your turn.
- When a tech building is destroyed, your base takes 2 damage. You can rebuild it for 0 gold (still takes a turn to build).
- Tech I building — you need 6 workers to build it. It allows you to play tech I (bronze-bottomed) cards.
- Tech II building — you need 8 workers and a tech I building to build it. It allows you to play tech II (silver-bottomed) cards.
- Tech III building — you need 10 workers and a tech II building to build it. It allows you to play tech III (gold-bottomed) cards.
Add-on
- Add-ons are "buildings" but not "tech buildings."
- They finish building at the end of your turn, and your base takes 2 damage if your add-on is destroyed.
- You can only have one add-on at a time. You can sacrifice your own add-on to make room for a new one; your base takes 2 damage if you do.
Attacking
- Attack as many times as you want per turn, one attacker at a time.
- To attack, exhaust your attacker and say what it attacks. It must attack the opposing squad leader if it can. Otherwise, it must attack a patroller (of your choice) if it can. If there are no patrollers it can attack, then you can attack any opposing unit, hero, or building.
- You don't have to attack.
Patrolling
- Your patrol zone has five slots, each with a different bonus.
- Only ready units and heroes can patrol.
- You can rearrange your patrollers however you like each turn. They are locked in when you finish your main phase. They don't actually count as patrolling during your turn, only on opponents' turns.
Damage
- Damage is persistent, so track it across turns. Units, heroes, and buildings do not automatically heal each turn.
- Heroes do heal all their damage whenever they reach their middle band of levels and whenever they reach their max level.