D. Afonso Henriques Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Material
• Game Setup
• How to Play
• Villages Phase: Obtaining Portuguese Cards
  • Zero Cubes Village
  • 1 Cube Village
  • 2 Cubes Village
  • 3 Cubes Village
  • Villages Phase Notes
• Battle Phase
  • Battle Examples
  • Special Moors Cards
• End of Battle
• End of Game
• Rules for 2 and 3 Player Games
• Advanced Rules
  • Character Cards
  • Battle Bonus Cards
  • Strategy Suggestions

Material

• This rules book
• 1 board
• 4 cylinders to choose village
• 4 discs to score VP
• 25 white cubes
• 4 dice
• 30 Portuguese cards: peasant card, soldier card, Noble card, King card
• 30 Moors cards
• 8 battle bonus cards
• 4 Character cards (one per player)
• 1 1st player card

Game Setup

1. Place D. Afonso Henriques in "Guimarães" in the circle marked with the blue meeple.
2. Shuffle the Moors cards and place 4 of them face up in the battle field.
3. Place the remaining Moors cards in the deck of new Moors cards, face up.
4. Shuffle the Portuguese cards and place them face down in the upper part of the game board.
5. Place the remaining white cubes in the game board.
6. Place the 4 dice in the game board.
7. Place the 4 cylinders in the villages area, at the top of the game board (the order is indifferent).
8. Place the 4 discs / VP markers in the zero value of the VP table.

Each player chooses a character / colour (green, red, yellow or black). Each player receives the respective character card. Decide who is the 1st to play and give him the 1st player card. Give 2 white cubes to the 1st player and 3 to the other players.

Board key: Place here new Moors cards (Moors deck). Road that connects the several places, and where D. Afonso Henriques has to move. Place here new Portuguese cards (Portuguese deck). Villages area. VP table. Place here the Portuguese cards that were rejected in villages. Battle field, with 4 spots to place the Portuguese cards. Place here the Portuguese cards that were used in battle. Place here the Moors cards that were defeated in battle. Battle field, with the 4 spots to place the Moors cards.

How to Play

• At the beginning of the game D. Afonso Henriques is in Guimarães, in the circle marked with the blue meeple. During the game, it moves along the road in the Portugal map, from circle to circle, hence signaling each phase of the game and determining what players can do; in some circles they can obtain Portuguese cards, in others they can fight a battle.
• When finishing a phase, the D. Afonso Henriques meeple moves to the next circle marked on the Portugal map and starts a new phase.
• In each phase of the game, order of play is clockwise, always starting with the player that has the 1st player card.

On the Portugal map, places where players can obtain Portuguese cards are marked with a small village. Places where battles occur are marked with a rectangle and the illustration of a battle. Texts in yellow are merely historical information and do not have any function in game play.

Villages Phase: Obtaining Portuguese Cards

• Between each battle there are always 2 phases where players can obtain Portuguese cards. In each 2nd phase, as soon as the D. Afonso Henriques meeple arrives, each player gets 2 white cubes.
• Players can obtain Portuguese cards when the D. Afonso Henriques meeple is in a circle over a small village on the Portugal map.
• Respecting order of play, each player chooses the village he wants to go to, in the villages area on the board, and places his cylinder in the available symbol.
• There cannot be more than 1 cylinder per symbol.

Zero Cubes Village

• The player who chooses this village does not have to pay any cubes and gets the 1st player card, taking it from the player that has it. If he has it already, he gets to keep it.

1 Cube Village

• The player who chooses this village pays 1 cube to the bank and draws ONE Portuguese card from the deck of new Portuguese cards.

2 Cubes Village

In this village players pay 2 cubes to the bank and have two options:

1. If he chooses the upper symbol, he draws 2 Portuguese cards from the deck of new Portuguese cards, chooses one and places the other (face up) in the rejected cards area. Important: this rejected cards area is not the "used cards area" of the battle.
2. If he chooses the down symbol, he can choose one of the cards that is in this pile.

3 Cubes Village

In this village players pay 3 cubes to the bank and have three options:

1. If he chooses the upper symbol, he draws 3 Portuguese cards from the deck of new Portuguese cards, chooses one and places the other 2 (face up) in each of the rejected cards areas (one in the left area, the other in the right area).
2. or 3. If he chooses one of the down symbols, he places his cylinder in the chosen symbol (the left or the right one) and chooses one of the cards that is in the respective rejected cards area, below the symbol chosen.

Villages Phase Notes

• Players do not have to choose a village. They can pass their turn and leave their cylinders above the villages. But in this phase they cannot do anything else.
• When a player draws cards in order to choose one, only he can see those cards.
• Whenever there are no new Portuguese cards to draw from, shuffle the used ones in battles (next to the battle field) and place them face down in the place for new Portuguese cards.
• When all players have made their choice, cylinders go back to their place above the villages and the D. Afonso Henriques meeple advances to the next circle.

Battle Phase

• Players can enter a battle when the D. Afonso Henriques meeple is in the circles marked as battle.
• On its turn, each player can fight only ONE Moors card. When that fight is over (whatever the result is), it is the next player's turn to play, and this player will initiate a new fight. When the order comes back to the 1st player, he can do a new fight, and so on.
• When a player enters a fight, he can choose only ONE Moors card to fight. If he wishes to fight again, he will have to wait for his turn to come up again.
• On its turn, the player chooses one or more Portuguese cards from his hand to enter the fight. He places his chosen card(s) face up in the battle field, in one of the 4 spots available, in front of the Moors card that he wants to fight with (see example of a fight on page 6).
• Each Portuguese card indicates on its lower side the number of dice that the player is allowed to roll. If a player uses 2 cards, he can roll the total dice resulting from the 2 cards.
• The Portuguese card with the Noble allows a player in a fight to roll 3 dice simultaneously, thus enhancing his chances to get the value needed to defeat a Moors card.
• Each Moors card has in its upper right corner a die with a value. If the highest result of any dice rolled by a player matches or is superior to this value, the player wins the fight and the Moors card is defeated.
• In the Moors card lower right corner it is indicated the number of VP and cubes that the player wins if he defeats that card. (Example card: in order to defeat this Moors card, players have to roll a die with 2 or more. In case of victory, players win 3 VP and 1 white cube.)
• If the player does not roll the necessary value to defeat a Moors card, he can pay to the bank any amount of cubes to increase its die result. The result increases by 1 for each cube paid. Cubes won in previous fights in the same battle can be used immediately.
• In case of victory, players score immediately in the VP table the number of points won and receive from the bank the cubes they are entitled to (if any). If someone passes over 49 VP, he continues to score from 0 and simply adds up 50 more VP.
• After the fight (win or lose), the player will discard his used cards to the deck of used Portuguese cards and pass the turn to the next player.

Battle Examples

Fight – example 1. The red player is entering a fight. He has chosen a soldier card that allows him to roll 2 dice. From the 4 available Moors cards, he chooses the one with level 4. He rolls the 2 dice and gets the result of a 2 and a 3. Bad roll. But he has white cubes, and he pays 1 to the bank, thus increasing his die result of 3 to a 4. He wins the fight with the Moors card. The red player scores in the VP table the 4 VP that he won and receives a white cube. His used Portuguese card is discarded to the deck of used Portuguese cards. The defeated Moors card is discarded to the deck of used Moors cards (right side) and immediately replaced with a new card, taken from the deck of new Moors cards (left side).

Fight – example 2. The yellow player wants to fight a Moors card of level 5. He uses 2 Portuguese peasant cards, which allows him to roll 2 dice. He gets a 1 and a 4. It is not enough to defeat the Moors card. He needed at least a 5. As he does not possess any cubes, he cannot add anything to his result. He loses the fight. The 2 peasant Portuguese cards are discarded to the deck of used Portuguese cards. The Moors card remains in place. It will only be replaced when defeated.

Please note that, in case the sum of the cards' dice number is more than the dice available in the game (4), the player will have to roll the dice as many times as necessary to achieve the total number of dice he is allowed to roll.

Special Moors Cards

There are 2 kinds of Moors card that have special rules:

• The King Moors card "King". It is the card that gives the most VP – 8 VP. To enter a fight with the King Moors card, players have to use 2 Portuguese cards, or the King Portuguese card.
• The Catapult card or the Siege Tower card. These cards do not give any VP, only cubes. If a player defeats them, he will keep them, instead of placing them in the deck of used Moors cards. He can use it in a future fight as if it were a Portuguese peasant card. After being used as Portuguese peasant cards, these cards are discarded to the deck of used Moors cards. In the same battle, a player can win it in a fight and use it immediately in the following fight.

End of Battle

• The battle ends when all players have no cards to fight with or all players have passed their turn.
• Give a white cube to the player with less VP (in case of tie, no one receives cubes).
• Move the D. Afonso Henriques meeple to the next circle. If the phase just ended was the battle of Ourique, the game ends immediately (see "End of Game").

End of Game

• After the battle of Ourique, the player with more VP wins the game.
• Each 2 cubes that players might have are worth 1 VP.
• In case of tie, the 1st player in play order wins the game.

Editor's note: the source prints "= 1 PV" for the cube conversion; "VP" is used here to match the rest of the rulebook.

Rules for 2 and 3 Player Games

• With 3 players, the rules are the same.
• With 2 players, do not use the ONE cube village.

Advanced Rules

• After one or two games, we advise players to play with advanced rules. The game has more strategic options.
• Players agree amongst themselves which rules to use in the game. They can use only the character cards or the battle bonus cards or both simultaneously.

Character Cards

At the beginning of the game, when choosing the colour / character, players place the card face up (with rules visible). This means their character advantage is available. When using the advantage, players turn the card face down. At the end of each phase players turn their character card face up again and their advantage becomes available once more.

• The Scout. When choosing the 3 cubes village, the player pays only 2 cubes.
• The Master of Arms. Once per battle, when using the Peasant or Soldier cards, the player can roll one more die.
• The Warrior. Once per battle, the player can pay 1 cube to use its character card as a Peasant card. After usage, instead of discarding to the pile of used Portuguese cards, the character card returns to the player. By paying only 1 cube, the character card becomes one more card available for battle.
• The Strategist. Once per battle, when choosing the Moors card to fight, the player can choose either from the available Moors cards or the top card of the new Moors cards or the pile of used Moors cards. Hence, the player has 2 more Moors cards to choose from. If the player wins the battle, the Moors card is removed to the pile of used Moors cards. Instead of the usual 4 options, the player has 6 options for battle.

Battle Bonus Cards

• Shuffle the battle bonus cards.
• Place 1 card in each of the 5 battles on the board (face up).
• Return the 3 cards left to the game box. They won't be used again in this game.

The battle bonus cards are:

• Card 1. During this battle, each time a player defeats a Moors card of level 3, he receives 2 additional VP.
• Card 2. During this battle, the 1st player to defeat a Moors card (of any level) wins 5 additional VP. The 2nd player to defeat a Moors card (of any level) receives 2 additional VP.
• Card 3. During this battle, all players fighting a 2nd combat can roll an additional die.
• Card 4. During this battle, each defeated Moors card gives 1 additional VP. The Warrior character card cannot benefit from this bonus.
• Card 5. During this battle, each time using a Peasant card, roll 2 dice. The Catapult or the Siege Tower cards used as Peasant also benefit from this bonus. The Warrior character card cannot benefit from this bonus.
• Card 6. The player who has won more VP during this battle alone receives 2 cubes. In case of tie, no one receives cubes. Use cylinders to score the VPs won by each player in this battle.
• Card 7. At the end of this battle, players can recover to their hand one of the Portuguese cards that they have used in this battle. If this bonus card is drawn for the Ourique battle (the last one), return it to the game box and replace it with a new battle bonus card that wasn't used yet.
• Card 8. In this battle, players that use 2 Portuguese cards simultaneously in a combat receive automatically 3 VP, even in case they lose that combat. The Warrior character card cannot benefit from this bonus.

Strategy Suggestions

During the game players will need to get Portuguese cards in order to use in battles and win VP. They can only get them if they invest cubes in the villages phase. On the other hand, if players have cubes during a combat, they can use them to improve their chances to defeat the Moors and hence win VP.

The ideal strategy will always be a balanced mix of investing cubes in the villages phase and using the Portuguese cards in the best battles. Check the bonus cards in each battle and use a strategy that ensures the best result from each battle.