Dice Wars: Heroes of Polyhedra Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
  • Game Contents
• Win Conditions
• Game Elements
  • Map
• Cities
  • Solamyra
  • Kordolith
  • Doratheria
  • Astramore
  • Zenpaelo
  • Pyrus
  • City Hexes
• Units
• Unit Cards
• Setting Up
• Getting Started
  • Roll Your Army
  • Grab Your Cards
  • Build the Map
  • Deploy Your Army
• Playing the Game
  • The Command Phase
  • Movement
    • Facing
  • Terrain
• Actions
  • Weapon Attacks
    • Attack Types
  • Targeting
  • Skills
  • Capturing Cities
  • Guarding
• Traits
  • Conditions
• Winning the Game
  • Regicide
  • Domination
  • Diplomacy
• Advanced Gameplay
  • Challenge I: Ancient Relics
    • Acquiring Relics
    • Using Relics
  • Challenge II: Faction Bonuses
  • Challenge III: Shuffling the Map
  • Challenge IV: The Hinterland
    • Hinterland Tiles
  • Challenge V: Alliances and Coalitions
    • Alliances
    • Coalitions
  • Challenge VI: Tournament Deployment
• Rule Clarifications

Overview

The object of Dice Wars is to secure victory for your allies and defeat for your enemies, whether through strategic wit, overwhelming might, or silver-tongued cunning. With multiple ways to win, you'll never play the same game twice.

You're the commander: roll a random army and devise your tactics on the fly. Will you capture strongholds and control vital defensive positions, cut a swath through enemy forces, or bargain your way to the top with careful intrigue?

Game Contents

• 9 Map Tiles
• 28 Unit Dice
• 12 Numerical Dice
• 5 Victory Points
• 30 HP Cubes
• 6 City Sigils
• 100 Bonus Tokens
• 100 Unit Cards
• 6 City Cards
• 1 Rulebook and Quick Reference Guide

Advanced Game

• 7 Map Tokens
• 6 Relic Cards
• 4 Army Banners

Win Conditions

There are three distinct, though not mutually exclusive, ways to achieve victory in Dice Wars. The game ends once a player, or allied players, achieves one of the following victory conditions.

• Regicide: Kill an enemy hero unit.
• Domination: Kill an enemy player's last non-hero unit.
• Diplomacy: Hold three captured cities through three of your command phases.

For a longer game... Fight to the death! If a player's hero or last non-hero unit is killed, remove their units from the board and continue play. Their cities must be recaptured, and any relics they own are discarded. The game ends when only one player is left standing.

Game Elements

Map

The landscape of Polyhedra is split into 9 modular tiles that can be shuffled, rotated, and even flipped upside-down, making it ever-shifting, as varied and unpredictable as its countless battles.

For basic games we've suggested a balanced square layout, but more advanced players looking for a fresh experience can mix-and-match the map to their heart's content.

While much of Polyhedra's landscape is grassy plains, intrepid tacticians must utilize the terrain's full breadth to emerge victorious. Rain arrows from the high ground, weave between the forest trees, or capture a walled city to gain its unique prowess.

Cities

Powerful defensive strongholds, not only are cities surrounded by walls that block movement and line of sight for unit targeting, city hexes also hinder movement for invading forces.

Don't be mistaken; cities aren't just a part of a Diplomacy victory. Once captured, your cities grant you and your allies access to an array of flavorful and powerful skills and bonuses.

Note: on the printed city cards, the ability text is partly covered by the city sigil artwork. Only the legible text is reproduced below.

Solamyra

Once grand architectural marvels, the Solamyran skyline has been reduced to rows upon rows of ravaged stone husks, grim reminders that its denizens are no strangers to strife.

Players who capture Solamyra can make use of its Secret Tunnels, which enable quick travel between other held cities as well as timely escapes or fierce guerrilla strikes from inside city walls.

Secret Tunnels (6): Teleport an ally from a hex you control to a hex within range... [remainder of this card text is covered by the sigil artwork in the printed rulebook].

Relic: Kill a ba... [card text covered by the sigil artwork].

Kordolith

Kings of industry call Kordolith the Clockwork Capital. With precious few natural resources to sustain them, magic practitioners fled the city long ago, but in their absence technology bloomed.

Alchemists and technicians wield the powerful advances of modern technology to craft curious, transformative chemicals and efficient, tireless machinery.

Players who capture Kordolith are granted its Clockwork Rhythm, which causes movement within and nearby all held cities to speed up.

Clockwork Rhythm: Grant *1 to ally units that begin their turn in Kordolith and within two hexes of its walls. Grant this trait to cities you or an ally... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].

Relic: Capt... [card text covered by the sigil artwork].

Doratheria

Following a string of costly thefts, the mercantile port city of Doratheria invested in a curious new invention conceived by the brilliant minds of Kordolith. It was a weapon which resembled the bow a giant might use.

Its arrows took several men to nock, but when the ballista sunk a fleeing caravel with a single shot, the Dorians felt their expenditure was justified.

Players who capture Doratheria flood their enemies in a downpour of Arrow Rain. Doratheria and all held cities can deluge invaders outside city walls with volley upon volley of projectiles.

Arrow Rain: Grant all cities you or an ally control Arrow Rain. It cannot attack... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].

• 3+ Attack all units adjacent to Doratheria at 1... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].
• 8+ Attack all units in hexes of Dora... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].

Relic: Dama... [card text covered by the sigil artwork].

Astramore

Astramore, birthplace of religion and magic, is a city steeped in tradition and faith. Each year the red stone thoroughfares are flooded with countless migrants, all of whom make pilgrimage to the city center, that they might revel in awe and kiss the massive marble toes on the statues of their gods.

Players who capture Astramore can cloister units within its walls in Sacred Benediction to supplicate and petition the gods for protection. Your forces might find their blades a bit lighter, and the odds a bit more favorable.

Sacred Benediction: If one ally occupies Astramore, reduce all ally skill check requirements by one; if two or more allies occupy... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].

Relic: A... [card text covered by the sigil artwork].

Zenpaelo

Nestled between tall mountains and dense forest, the city of Zenpaelo was once a well-kept secret.

Founded as a wooded refuge by tribes of wildfolk, the city is protected from would-be invaders by impressive natural boundaries as well as an active and ever-vigilant overwatch.

Players who capture Zenpaelo enjoy its Secluded Refuge, which grants units within and nearby held cities improved defenses. As the saying goes, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Secluded Refuge: Grant *1 to ally units... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].

Relic: Delea... [card text covered by the sigil artwork].

Pyrus

The citizens of the walled fortress of Pyrus hold above all else the importance of a strong, disciplined body, mind, and republic. Compulsory military enlistment begins at twelve years of age and is considered the ultimate demonstration of patriotism. Pyrusian troops are currently engaged in aggressive diplomacy with Solamyra.

Players who capture Pyrus are granted access to their world-class Military Academies, which grant melee units within and nearby held cities improved attack.

Military Academies: Grant *1 to ally melee units in Pyrus and within two hexes of its walls. Grant this trait to cities you or an ally... [remainder covered by the sigil artwork].

Relic: Kill a... [card text covered by the sigil artwork].

City Hexes

Walled off on all sides, cities block most movement and targeting. Only their entrances are exposed.

Before a city is captured, all unit movement on city hexes is hindered (see Terrain, page 10), which makes movement difficult. However, after you capture a city, only enemy movement is hindered.

The most important hex, the capital, is marked with a scarlet insignia. When a unit reaches the capital of a city, it can be captured, either for the first time, or from another player.

Units

There are three types of units.

• Basic: Bread and butter units that can be dispatched with a single strike. Don't be fooled, they're deadly in the right hands. 1 HP, 4 per army.
• Advanced: Strong, specialized units that can take a hit. Set up brutal combos or execute punishing area of effect attacks. 2 HP, 2 per army.
• Hero: Leaders whose wily skills can quickly turn the tides of battle. Excellent frontliners that can take three hits, but when one falls the game ends. 3 HP, 1 per army.

Unit Cards

Consult your unit cards for vital info at a glance. Identical basic units share a single card, but advanced and hero units each get their own.

After rolling your forces, you'll grab unit cards out of the deck by matching the die faces and colors to your chosen army. Hero units are colorless, as only one can be present per game.

The unit card contains the following:

• Die Face: Match the icon on each of your dice with the icon at the top of its corresponding card.
• Health Points: Grab a handful of health cubes to help keep track of hits to your forces. Advanced units have 2 HP, and heroes have 3 HP.
• Attack Power: Add the unit's attack power to all physical attack rolls it makes. The small red icon indicates a unit's weapon type, which influences targeting, traits, and skills.
• Defense: Add the unit's defense when defending against physical attacks. Remember that magic attacks ignore defense.
• Attack Range: Indicates the distance a unit's attack can travel during its turn, measured in hexes.
• Movement Range: The distance a unit can travel during its turn, measured in hexes. If you only have 1 unit of movement left, you cannot enter hindered terrain.
• Trait: A unit's passive ability that is always in effect.
• Skill: A unit's special ability that can be used by spending an action.
• Skill Range: The distance a unit's skill can target, measured in hexes. Skills without a range can target anywhere on the map, but often have special conditions.
• Skill Check: Before you use a skill, you'll roll a "check" to determine its efficacy. Low check values have standard power, high checks earn bonuses, but rolling a 2 means the skill fails.

Setting Up

1. Roll Your Army: Pick an army color and give your 7 unit dice a roll.
2. Grab Your Cards: Match your die faces to the card icons.
3. Build the Map: Piece together the modular game board.
4. Deploy Your Army: Place all 7 units in the corner tile nearest to you.

Getting Started

Roll Your Army

First, each player chooses their desired Faction (denoted by color). For a 3- or 4-player game, each player controls one faction. For a 2-player game, each player controls 2 factions deployed into opposite corners.

Once you have your faction, roll your unit dice! This is your army; use them well. If two of your Advanced (d8) units match, reroll one of your choice. If any two players' Heroes (d12) match, reroll both.

Grab Your Cards

To find your unit cards, match your die faces to the corresponding icons on the unit cards color coded to your faction. If you need them, we've provided health tracking tokens for Advanced and Hero units, as well as tokens to remember buffs and debuffs.

Build the Map

Piece together the modular game board. If it's your first time, try our recommended setup on page 7. It's a balanced map that grants no clear advantages to a player in any of the 4 corners.

For reference, we've labeled the bottom-right corner of each tile 1-9. The standard map counts sequentially from 1 (top-left corner) to 9 (bottom-right corner).

Deploy Your Army

1. Each player rolls a d20. Highest roll has the first Command Phase, and play will continue to the left.
2. With this knowledge in hand, each player places their units, one per hex, within the corner tile closest to them. Units cannot deploy into impassable terrain like water and mountains (see Terrain, page 10) unless otherwise stated.
3. You may adjust your piece placement in response to opponent placement until all players have agreed upon their deployment.

Playing the Game

Dice Wars is broken up into a series of Command Phases (or simply "phases"), during which two of your units take a turn. A unit's turn consists of Movement and an Action, so your entire phase will consist of 2 movements and 2 actions, taken in any order.

The Command Phase

At the beginning of your phase, all Conditions (see Conditions, page 13) that you grant or inflict dispel. This includes stat increases and decreases as well as status effects.

You must activate and take a turn with 2 units during your phase. A unit's turn consists of movement and a single action, taken in any order. Importantly, you may interrupt your first unit's turn with your second unit's turn.

Gameplay Example: This phase, Grant decides to activate his Assassin as well as his hero Thistlecrown. First, he moves the Assassin adjacent to Thistlecrown. Next, after succeeding his check, he uses Thistlecrown's Hurl to catapult the Assassin over the tall walls of a defending city. She alights gracefully behind an enemy Knight with an exposed back. Her successful attack does two damage thanks to her Cloak & Dagger trait, killing the Knight in a single strike. Finally, Grant moves Thistlecrown toward his next target and ends his phase.

Movement

Every unit has a movement stat, indicated by a green arrow, which indicates how many hexes a unit may move on its turn. Standard movement is 5 hexes, while particularly agile units like the Cavalier can travel even further. At the end of your movement, you must determine your unit's Facing.

Facing

Relative to the arrow in the corner of its die face, a unit has 3 front hexes, two side, and one back. Some abilities, like the Paladin's Vanguard, take advantage of facing, but always protect your back! Attacks to a unit's back are granted +1 to their rolls.

If you end a unit's turn by moving, you may choose to face your unit in any direction.

If you end a unit's turn with an action, that unit must face in the direction of the action it took. For example, if you ended a unit's turn attacking an enemy, your unit faces that enemy.

It is important to note that you may split your movement. That is, you may choose to move two hexes, take an action, then finish your movement and determine facing. This strategy is useful for attacking from cover or controlling a unit's facing when enemies are near.

Your units may move through ally units, but are blocked by enemy units. Movement can also be slowed or blocked by special map Terrain (right). While harder to move through, many kinds of terrain confer bonuses.

A few rare skills, like Solamyra's Secret Tunnels grant access to unhindered movement called teleporting. While teleporting, a unit can pass through any obstacle, is not affected by terrain penalties, and does not trigger guarding units.

Terrain

• Plains: Basic, unmodified terrain. 1 movement is required to enter a plains hex.

Rough: Rough terrain is Hindered, and requires 2 movement to enter. Movement between the same type of rough terrain is not hindered, only your first entry into it.

• Plateau: Grants arc attacks +1 to lower ground.
• Badlands: Grants +1 to melee units.
• City: If you control a city, its hexes are only hindered for your enemies.
• Ley Lines: Grants +3 to magic rolls.
• Forest: Cannot be targeted by shot or arc attacks, and blocks unit targeting.

Impassable

• Water: Blocks movement.
• City Walls: Blocks movement and unit targeting.
• Mountains: Blocks movement and unit targeting.

Actions

There are four major actions your units can undertake:

1. Weapon Attacks
2. Using Skills
3. Capturing Cities
4. Guarding

Weapon Attacks

Physical weapon attacks are rolled with 2d6 and are modified by the attacker's Attack and Range stats, as well as the defender's Defense stat. The defender must be within the attacker's range, and must be able to be Targeted (see Targeting below).

The attacker rolls 2d6, then adds their attack stat and other bonuses. The defender rolls 2d6, then adds their defense stat and other bonuses.

• If the attacker rolls higher, the defender takes 1 HP damage.
• If the defender rolls higher, no damage is dealt.
• If the rolls tie, reroll until the tie is broken.

Magic weapon attacks (denoted by an M in the attack stat) are rolled with a d20 and ignore the target's Defense stat. Magic rolls can still be affected by bonuses, like those from Ley Lines or from the Acolyte's Studious trait.

The attacker and defender both roll a d20, adding only their applicable bonuses.

Attack Types

A unit's attack type is determined by the small icon under its attack stat, and this distinction heavily affects targeting.

• Melee: Targets units; attacks with 2 pierce through units. (The printed pierce value is shown with a small ring icon; the rulebook text does not spell out that icon in words.)
• Shot: Targets units; can't target through obstacles and units.
• Arc: Targets hexes; can target over obstacles and units.

Targeting

A weapon attack or skill that targets units can be obstructed by a mountain, wall, forest, or another unit. The projectile or path must be able to travel a most direct line of hexes without interruption. Think a gunshot, or an action that requires aim.

A weapon attack or skill that targets hexes can freely pass over or through obstacles and units. Think a catapult shot, a miasmic fog, or a similar action that doesn't require aim.

A unit cannot target itself unless its skill explicitly states otherwise.

Friendly fire is always on, so be careful which hexes you target!

Unit Targeting: Here, the Barbarian's Taunt cannot target the Archer through the mountain, but can target the Paladin.

Skills

Marked with red card text, skills are present on unit cards, city cards, and for advanced players, ancient relics. In order to use a skill, you must spend a unit's action, your target must be within the skill's range, and you must make and succeed a skill check using 2d6.

Many skills have a greater result if you roll high enough on your check. Unfortunately, if you fail a check by not meeting the minimum requirement, nothing happens and your action is still consumed.

Gameplay Example: Naomi has maneuvered her blue Wizard between 3 enemy units. She casts the Wizard's skill, Frost Nova, and rolls a 9 on her skill check, granting her Greater Frost Nova. Her Wizard gains +2 (ring icon) until the beginning of her next phase (see Conditions, page 13).

Capturing Cities

A conditional action a unit can take is capturing a city when standing on its center hex (called the Capital).

When capturing an unclaimed city, move onto its capital hex, marked by a scarlet insignia, and use an action to draw a random wooden city sigil. Place the sigil into the city's capital and find its matching card.

If an opponent controls a city, you may capture it directly from them by spending an action while on the capital hex. Remove the corresponding city card from their possession.

Most cities have a trait that confers a bonus, like to attack or defense. These traits are shared between any and all cities you and your allies hold. That means if you capture Zenpaelo, Kordolith, and Pyrus, then inside and nearby all three of your cities your units are granted +1 attack, +1 defense, and +1 movement. For this reason cities with potent bonuses make great bargaining chips when forging alliances (see Alliances, page 17).

In rarer cases cities have a skill. Just like with passive city traits, city skills are transferred to all cities you and allies control. To use a city skill, you simply spend the action of one of your units during your command phase.

Guarding

Finally, you may put a unit on guard. Guarding units are granted +1 defense and cannot be safely approached from their three front hexes, which is useful for area denial and defensive perimeters.

If an opposing unit enters a guarding unit's front hexes, the unit must immediately attack the guarding unit, either with a weapon attack or skill, or it will suffer a counterstrike equal to the guarding unit's attack stat. If it survives, the opposing unit may continue its turn.

Gameplay Example: At the end of his phase, Mason put his Witch on guard. During her phase, Madison approaches the Witch with her Barbarian, intending to circle around to her back to launch a back-attack. The Barbarian steps into the Witch's front hex, and chooses to continue moving. This triggers the Witch's counterstrike! Both players roll a 7. Mason's Witch has an attack stat of 2, and thanks to her Miasma trait, Madison's Barbarian's defense is reduced to 1, which results in his untimely demise.

Traits

Unlike skills, which require an action and can only be used during your phase, traits are marked with blue text and are always in effect, even during opponent phases. This makes certain traits, like Vorn & Jorn's Demolition or Ad'ee & El'ee's Kablooey! particularly dangerous.

Traits marked with a range icon only affect units within that range, but the effects are instant. For example, units entering the range of the Witch's Miasma immediately lose defense.

Conditions

Colloquially known as buffs and debuffs, conditions are temporary changes made to a unit's stats or abilities.

All conditions inflicted by a specific player are removed at the beginning of the player's next command phase.

To help players remember which units have been affected by which player, we've included color-coded condition markers. It's easy to remember that when it's the purple player's turn, all purple markers are removed.

• Stat Increases: It's helpful to place these on or near the buffed stat, or near the character's die.
• Stat Decreases: It's helpful to place these on or near the debuffed stat, or near the character's die.
• Status Effects: Skills like the Barbarian's Taunt, which prevents a unit from using its skills, fall under status effects. If a unit has been affected in a way you can't classify with simple numbers, place a status effect token by the character's die.

Winning the Game

Players continue taking turns until one of the three victory conditions is fulfilled: Regicide, Domination, or Diplomacy.

For longer games, if a player is defeated via Regicide or Domination, simply remove their pieces from the board and continue until one player is left standing. Defeated player cities must be recaptured, and any relics they had are discarded.

Regicide

Kill an enemy hero unit. Whether through a coordinated surgical strike or sustained pressure and tactical might, the player or alliance of players that lands the killing blow on an enemy hero wins the game.

Regicide is a great option against aggressive heroes, those with poor defense, or those with strong defensive army compositions.

Domination

Kill an enemy player's last non-hero unit. A general cannot fight without his forces. The player or alliance of players that lands the killing blow on the last non-hero unit wins the game.

Domination is a great option against defensive heroes, those placed in well-defended positions, or those with vulnerable army compositions.

Diplomacy

Hold three captured cities through three of your command phases. Sun Tzu once wrote, "Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting," and that kind of dominance is exactly what a Diplomacy victory aims to achieve. Grab up cities, assert map control, and manifest destiny.

Once you or your alliance have captured 3 cities, you begin accruing victory points in the form of golden crown tokens at the beginning of your next phase. Continue to hold those cities until you've accrued 3 crowns to win. But be wary of retaliation. If you lose control of a city, your victory points reset!

Diplomacy is a great option against strong, centralized army compositions. It rewards tactical maneuvering and, when negotiating an alliance, a silver tongue.

Advanced Gameplay

For players who have mastered Dice Wars' casual base game, read on to find new challenges that add new layers of tactical depth. Choose to implement one, a handful, or all of the included challenges, and customize the game to your heart's content.

Challenge I: Ancient Relics

Antiquities and curios of bygone eras and fargone reaches, powerful relics are buried deep in the forgotten vaults of Polyhedra's cities. If you are playing a game with relics, shuffle them and place them face down beside the board.

Acquiring Relics

At the bottom of every city card is a stone slab with a condition. Once you capture a city, if you can fulfill its condition, you may draw a relic from the top of the pile. Each city contains only one relic; if you fulfill the condition again, you may not draw another relic.

Example relic condition (Relic: Capture a city from another player).

Using Relics

Like units, relics have blue passive traits as well as red skills that can be used as actions. Each relic also has a purple Spell, which can be cast instantly at the expense of destroying the relic.

To use a relic's skill, you must spend one of your unit's actions during your phase. The relic's skill takes the place of that unit's action, and targeting range acts as if that unit is using the relic.

To use a relic's spell, you may, at any time, even as an interrupt during another player's phase, discard the relic. Discarded relics are removed from the game, and the spell's effects trigger instantly. Use them wisely.

Example relics shown in the rulebook: Dryad's Tear, Ritual Dagger, and Voidforged Sledge (Gravity Well and Time Dilation). The card text for these relics is partly obscured in the printed rulebook image and is not reproduced here.

Challenge II: Faction Bonuses

Each dice color represents one of Polyhedra's four powerful factions: the Bloodblades, ruthless warriors; the Mercurio, cunning privateers; the Valegaard, woodland recluses; and the Octarine, wily spellcasters. Each faction is granted a unique strategic bonus that should inform your playstyle.

• Bloodblades: Assault. Your units are granted +1 attack when adjacent to mountains.
• Mercurio: Armada. Your units are granted +1 attack when adjacent to water.
• Valegaard: Sylvania. Your units are granted +1 attack when attacking from a forest.
• Octarine: Chirality. Your units are granted the faction bonus of the units they target.

In a two-player game, low roller chooses the first and fourth faction and controls both.

In a three or four-player game, low roller chooses the first faction, and then picking continues to the left.

Challenge III: Shuffling the Map

Sure, the suggested square map is a good time, what with its balanced city distribution and precisely placed terrain features, cut right down the middle by a coursing river... but it doesn't have to stay that way. It doesn't even have to remain 3x3.

Go ahead, give the tiles a shuffle. Create a huge lake, chain together a mountain range, link up cities into a bustling metropolis. We've tested every combo, and they all work.

For a competitive shuffle game, give each player a roughly equal number of tiles, then place tile 5, the "Dark Tower," in the center. Low roller places the first tile, and placement continues to the left. The shape does not have to be square, but should have at least one corner per player, or agreed-upon deployment zones. Alternatively, arrange tiles cooperatively, and agree on the final map.

Challenge IV: The Hinterland

For those who wish to visit a less friendly Polyhedra. The Hinterland is a map only those who've mastered all of Polyhedra's special terrain types should attempt to navigate, else you risk being humbled by mother nature herself.

Arrange the tiles 1-9 to use our balanced suggested layout, or combine Challenges III and IV and give the Hinterland tiles a shuffle.

Because the Hinterland has no cities, Challenge IV now introduces a new third win condition: Dominion. Simply "control" a majority of the map tiles for three consecutive turns. A map tile is under your control when you have at least one unit on it, and there are no enemy units. Just like with the Diplomacy victory, if you lose control of a tile, your 3-turn count is reset.

The amount of controlled tiles required for Dominion are: 5 in a 2-player game, 4 in a 3-player game, 3 in a 4-player game.

Hinterland Tiles

For further customization and gameplay options, included in your punch sheet are single City Tiles and Ruins Tiles. When playing on the Hinterland map, which is normally absent of cities (and thus relics), you may choose during map creation to add cities, which replace the Dominion win condition with Diplomacy, or you may choose to add ruins. If a unit spends an action to search a ruin, it produces a single relic!

Challenge V: Alliances and Coalitions

Oftentimes a victory is achieved not by the battles that are fought, but by those that are not fought.

Alliances

For those with silver tongues. Alliances are nonbinding verbal pledges between any number of players to work together toward a common goal or against a common enemy. You may propose, or break, an alliance at the beginning of your command phase before you activate a unit.

When players enter into an alliance all instances of the word "Ally" in rule text now apply to all allied player units. For example, if a skill reads to "Target an ally", you may target a unit of your own, or that of an allied player. Players can also activate allied city and relic skills.

If a victory condition is achieved by allied players, those players win together.

There are no negative effects for breaking an alliance, if you don't count burnt bridges.

Coalitions

For those who crave true 2v2 or 1v3 team play. At the very beginning of a game, before choosing factions, you may enter into a Coalition with other players. Coalitions are permanent teams that cannot be broken, but otherwise function identically to alliances.

Challenge VI: Tournament Deployment

For those seeking a more tactical deployment stage. When you're ready to deploy, all players roll d20s. The lowest roller deploys first, and their choices are binding once made. Deployment then continues to the right. The last player to deploy has the first command phase, and then play continues left.

Challenge VII: Veteran Units

When you think you've mastered just about every aspect of Dice Wars, try adding Veterans to your armies. These wily, combat-tested units receive stat tweaks and skill boosts that make them more fearsome than ever.

But, you must earn it: the only way to gain a veteran unit is to kill an enemy unit with an advanced unit. That unit is then replaced with a veteran version of the same class. Think of it as a prestige class, or leveling up.

If a veteran's class is changed by an effect, its veteran status remains.

Rule Clarifications

• Sacrificing a Unit: When instructed to sacrifice a unit, it must be a unit from your own forces.
• Knockback: Move an affected unit into their back hex. If a unit's back hex is occupied, or is impassable terrain, the unit remains in place.
• Vorn & Jorn: Units using Demolition to move through mountains may not end their turn on a mountain hex.
• Xulinor: Movement between Ley Lines does not cost any move, but they do count as hindered terrain to enter.
• Barbarian: Rage does fulfill Pyrus's relic condition.
• Thistlecrown: You may not use Hurl to place a unit on impassable terrain. If the target of Hurl cannot be knocked back, place the hurled unit in an available adjacent hex.