Cthulhu Crusades Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Aim of the Game
• Components
• Set Up
• Game Turn
• Actions
  • Buy Gold Cards
  • Offer a Sacrifice to the Deep Ones
  • Attack
  • Night Attack
  • Defense
  • Building and Using a Siege Weapon
  • Playing the Idol
  • Summon Monsters
  • Ambush
• Actions Besides the Game Turn
  • Playing the Thief
  • Repealing an Attack
  • Loot
• General Rules

Aim of the Game

Assaulting rival castles to steal the Necronomicon.

Components

Main decks:

• Fortress deck
• Village deck
• Siege deck
• Dagon deck
• Cthulhu deck

The Fortress deck consists of Castle and Walls cards that make up your fortification. They are played at the beginning, and if you run out of Castle you lose the game.

The Village deck generates the resources of the game: Soldiers, Bowmen, Gold, Builders, Explorers, the King, the Thief, Duke, Night. At the beginning of each turn, everyone draws one.

The Siege deck consists of siege weapons that will allow you to improve your attack strength; in some cases, they allow assaulting a walled castle. They are earned with builders and gold.

The Dagon deck allows you to make sacrifices for the Deep Ones. If you satisfy them, they will give you additional Village cards.

The Cthulhu deck lets you summon monsters to weaken your enemy in the battle. They are reaction cards that can only be used when you are attacked and only once. They are earned with the Cultist (1) and the Sacrifice (1), or paying gold to the Cultist (1 Cultist + 2 Gold cards).

Set Up

Each player starts with a fortress composed of 1 Castle and 3 Walls, which he will place face-up in front of him following the diagram in Figure 1. The Siege, Dagon and Cthulhu decks are shuffled and placed on the table. The Village cards are shuffled and 5 cards are dealt to each player.

[Figure 1: Initial placement of each player's fortress in a 2 player game. Figure not reproduced as text.]

Game Turn

The player who has read Lovecraft more recently (or the youngest one) will start the game.

Each element of the fortress has a defense value indicated by shields. The goal is to assault the enemy castle to control his Necronomicon, but they cannot be attacked while preserved by walls, so first they will have to be destroyed (unless a Cthulhu trap of the siege deck is used).

Each turn begins by drawing a card from the Village deck and then an action will be performed (with one or several cards at once, see Actions). It is required to perform an action; even if the card used has no effect (you cannot "pass turn").

After performing an action (or actions allowed by your cards, i.e using the King) the turn ends. The only castle that manages to survive will be the one who wins the game.

Actions

These are the actions you can perform in one turn after drawing a Village card:

Buy Gold Cards

Gold can be used to buy village's resources. You can play 1 gold card and earn 2 Village cards with it (you can only use 1 gold in this action). It can also be combined with builders or be used to pay the Duke.

Offer a Sacrifice to the Deep Ones

You can offer sacrifices to get more resources in form of Village cards. When you offer a sacrifice, the Deep Ones will come, but they will give you something only when they get satisfied, so you need at least to offer 1 victim for each Deep Ones that appears on the card. This way they will be satisfied so they will give you as many Village cards as indicated by the bottom number of the card.

Attack

To launch an attack you should gather army formations, represented by soldiers, bowmen and / or siege weapons cards (you can attack with one or several cards at once). Choose your attack cards and show them on the table, indicating the card you want to attack. You can choose to attack any wall, no matter their position.

An attack is successful if the total number of swords (attack) is greater than the shields of the attacked card (defense).

However, after launching an attack, the player attacked can use, if available, reaction cards (Cthulhu deck) to try to repel the attack with the help of monsters (see Figure 2). These cards are discarded after use, whether they repel the attack or not.

• If your attack defeats the opponent, the card attacked is defeated and it will be flipped on the table; attack cards will be placed into the discard deck (if there were soldiers or archers attacked in the cards, they will also be placed into the discard deck). The victorious player gets an extra card, as loot, from the village deck.
• If you are defeated, the attack cards remain in the discard deck and passes the turn.

When all the Wall cards from one player are removed (or when a special weapon is used, like the Cthulhu trap or the Battering ram) his castle may be directly attacked, and in case of defeat, you will get the Necronomicon so he is eliminated.

[Figure 2: An attack sequence where (1) the attacked card has 3 shields, (2) an attack that contains 4 swords is made and therefore you can defeat it but (3) the player attacked responds with a reaction card, the trap, eliminating 2 enemy swords so that (4) the attack stays in 2 swords, finally below the defense and thus is defeated. Figure not reproduced as text.]

Night Attack

You can make a night attack using the Night card. In this case, the opponent will not see the attack and his defense will blind. All attack cards are placed underneath the night card (remaining hidden) and attacked card is announced. If other players join the attack, they will also place their cards underneath the Night Card. The attacked player can choose to react with an Cthulhu card or not, without knowing which cards are involved in the attack (if any). Once he decides it, all the cards are displayed and the attack is resolved.

Defense

In your turn you can also choose to enhance the defense. A Bowmen card can be placed to enhance the defense of a wall or a Soldiers card in the castle. Only one can be put just in each turn, it is placed under the card of Fortress, sticking out by the sides to display the total shields; the color always needs to match. The limit of the added cards equals the original shields (one wall has 2 shields, therefore 2 cards more can be added).

It also can be done inversely, that is to say, to recover a card previously placed in a defensive berth as action in your turn.

[Figure 3: In this case the wall from above has the maximum of defense allowed (one card for each shield), the other wall has one defense and the castle has another that adds 1/2 shield. The third wall has been demolished. Figure not reproduced as text.]

Building and Using a Siege Weapon

In order for building a siege weapon it is mandatory to gather 4 constructor cards (they can be mixed with gold, having at least 1 constructor and always 4 cards in total). Siege weapons are used for stronger attacks.

Siege weapons remain on the table after the first use. You can use them again paying the gold cost indicated in the card. Once the siege weapon is on the table, your enemy can destroy it in his turn with an attack higher than the weapon defense.

In the siege deck there are also special weapons: use the Battering Ram to pass through the last enemy wall and to attack directly the enemy castle; or use the Cthulhu trap to pass all the enemy walls to attack directly the enemy castle. This action can be done only when you play the special cards.

Playing the Idol

When you play the action of the Cthulhu Idol, you can perform 2 consecutive actions (apart from having played this card). These can be what you want, in this case including to draw cards of village (for example you can draw a card and then play with gold, that gets two more cards; or to play one gold and then to make an attack; or to make two consecutive attacks; etc.).

Summon Monsters

The Cultist can read the Necronomicon to summon monsters and interfere in the battle. Using 1 Cultist and 1 Sacrifice (or paying 2 Golds to 1 Cultist) you can get 1 Cthulhu card. This card can be used as a reaction to an enemy attack, summoning this monster when you are under attack. The effect of the monster is indicated in the card. Cultists will be removed from the deck after one use (you won't include the used Cultists if you create a new deck from the discard pile when the Village cards are over).

Ambush

You can use the Ambush card after any other action (or use it as your turn action if you don't want to perform any other action). Your enemy can't draw Village cards under the Ambush during 2 turns (this player can play his actions but without drawing the Village card). Turn the Ambush card after the 1st turn and remove it after the second one.

Actions Besides the Game Turn

Playing the Thief

Always when playing gold on the table, the player that holds the thief can play it and earn the gold of such move (for example, if a player plays one gold to draw 2 cards, then another one can play the thief and take that gold; if a player played 3 golds to complete a constructor and building a siege weapon, the thief can take the 3 golds).

Repealing an Attack

When a player attacks you, you can use Academy Cards, if you have them, to try to repeal their attack. You can use as much as you want all of a sudden.

Loot

You can get 1 Loot card for each eliminated fortress card. Such loot card proceeds from the Village deck and is placed directly to the hand.

General Rules

• There is no limit of cards on hand.
• Always it has to make an action, even if with it you lose a card without effect (that can't be passed).
• Only one Fortress card can be attacked in one turn (except with the Idol, which allows more actions).
• Cthulhu cards can be used at once only.
• If the village deck is used, it is set again with the discard deck, removing not relevant cards (siege, academy...) and shuffling.
• Cards placed as additional defense must match in color.
• It is possible to make an attack only to cards betted in defense.
• The Battering Ram can pass only 1 wall (the last one).
• The Cthulhu trap can pass all the walls to assault a Castle.