GrimmoiR Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• In the Box
• Goal of the Game
• Setup
• The Game
• I. Team Formation Phase
• II. Character Display Phase
• Character Card
• III. The Battle Phase
  • Attack
  • Special
  • Book Counters
  • Pen Counters
  • Weakening & Strengthening Counters
  • Moving
  • Battlefield
  • End of Round
  • New Round
• End of the Game
• Rule Digest
  • 1. Team Formation Phase
  • 2. Character Display Phase
  • 3. Battle Phase

In the Box

• 45 character cards
• 1 first player card
• 12 book counters
• 12 coin counters
• 12 weakening counters
• 12 strengthening counters
• 12 pen counters
• 44 wound counters
• this rulebook

Goal of the Game

The goal of the game is to defeat all characters of your opponent. First player to succeed wins the game. Planing and attacking in the right moment is the key to victory.

Setup

Place all counters in a shared pool, to which each player can have easy access.

Players sit at the table in front of each other. They determine the starting player in a random way. Starting player gets a first player card. Player with that card has initiative.

The battlefield is an area at where the combat takes place. Battlefield consists of 4 rows and 3 columns. Each player controls two rows which are closest to them.

Diagram: the battlefield is drawn as a 4 by 3 grid of card spaces. The two rows nearest the players are labelled "1st row of your team" and "2nd row of your team"; the two rows on the far side are labelled "1st row of opponent's team" and "2nd row of opponent's team". The three columns are labelled "1st column", "2nd column" and "3rd column".

The Game

The game is divided into three phases:

I. Team formation phase.

II. Character display phase.

III. The battle phase.

I. Team Formation Phase

There are five factions in the game: Animo, Avarum, Diligit, Humilitat and Ingenium.

Your team must consist of exactly 6 characters. To create your team, first choose your faction. You must choose at least 4 characters from that faction. The other two can be recruited from the same faction or you can use the Alliance Wheel.

Diagram: the Alliance Wheel is a ring of five faction icons. Going around the ring: Humilitat (skull icon), Animo (shield icon), Avarum (knot icon), Diligit (heart icon), Ingenium (spiral icon). Each faction sits next to two others on the ring.

The other two can be recruited from one and only one allied faction. Allied factions are the factions located next to chosen faction on the Alliance Wheel. Of course you can pick 5 characters from chosen faction and the missing one from one of the allied faction.

For example. Your chosen faction is Ingenium. And your supporting faction is Humilitat. So you have 3 options for creating your team:

1: all characters are from Ingenium faction.

2: 5 characters are from Ingenium faction and 1 is from Humilitat faction.

3: 4 characters are from Ingenium faction and 2 are from Humilitat faction.

Each player chooses up to 2 factions that are next to each other on the Alliance Wheel. The first player picks his main faction, and then the other player does the exact thing. Now the first player chooses his supporting faction, and then the second player.

EXAMPLE: First player chooses Diligit faction. Second player chooses Humilitat faction. Then first player chooses his supporting faction, he can choose either Ingenium faction or Avarum faction. He decides to pick Ingenium. Now the second player can only pick Animo as his supporting faction.

II. Character Display Phase

This phase consists of 6 steps. Player with the initiative begins the first step.

Step 1: Player with the initiative chooses one of their six cards and places it face-up at any position in their first row (A).

Step 2: Second player chooses two cards from their six character cards and places one of them directly in front of opponent's card face-up (B), and the second card next to just placed card (C).

Step 3: First player chooses next two characters and places one of them directly in front of opponent's card face-up (D), and the second one in any unoccupied position in their first row (E).

Step 4: Second player chooses one card and places it face-up in front of the most recently placed character (F).

Step 5: Both players put the rest of their cards face down in 2nd row.

Step 6: Both players reveal the face down cards.

Then on each card with book icon place book counter with open book picture face-up. And on each card with pen icon place pen counter according to the number next to the pen icon.

Each player receives 5 gold coins from the pool.

Everything is ready for battle.

But before we go to the battle description, let's have a look at the character card.

Character Card

Character card holds a set of information:

(A) – attack value,

(B) – damage type (attack type),

(C) – faction icon,

(D) – character name,

(E) – strength,

(F) – character skill,

(G) – icon (book icon or pen icon or no icon).

Attack value indicates how much damage the character can deal during the attack. There are three damage types in the game: melee, ranged and magic. The characters in the game are divided into 3 groups according to the way they fight:

• Melee: They can attack only character located directly in front of them.
• Ranged: They can attack any character located in the same column.
• Magic: They can attack any character on the battlefield.

Diagram: a sample battlefield of six characters, numbered 1 to 6, with the card positions labelled A to F. Characters 1, 2 and 4 are melee, characters 3 and 5 are ranged, and character 6 is magic.

• Character (1) can attack only character (D).
• Character (2) can attack only character (E).
• Character (3) can attack character (C) or (F).
• Character (4) can not attack.
• Character (5) can attack character (B) or (E).
• Character (6) can attack character (A) or (B) or (C) or (D) or (E) or (F).

Prepared/Exhausted character

If a card is placed vertically, then the character is prepared.

If a card is placed horizontally, then the character is exhausted.

III. The Battle Phase

This phase is divided into rounds. In a single round players take turns one after another, until none of them is able to perform any action. In their turn, a player can perform one and only one of three available actions.

Possible actions are:

• Attack
• Special
• Moving

In this phase players will spend their coins. Player who spends coins pays the exact amount to the shared pool. Of course, player can only spend as many coins as they have.

Attack

To attack an opponent's character, the player chooses the character he wants to attack with. Then he must pay for this attack. If the attacking character is prepared, the player pays one gold coin and exhausts the character. If the attacking character is exhausted, the player must pay two gold coins.

Now the player indicates the target of the attack and places on this character as many wound counters as it is indicated by the attack value of the attacking character.

The amount of wound counters may increase or decrease according to the character's special abilities.

If the number of wound counters is equal to or exceeds the strength of a given character, this character is defeated and its card must be removed from the battlefield.

Wound counters remain on the character's cards until the end of game or until death of that character.

Type of damage dealt is always the same as the attack type of the character performing the attack. So, melee character always deals melee damage, ranged character always deals ranged damage and magic character always deals magic damage.

Special

There are characters who can use their special abilities.

To perform that action player must do three things in the given order:

1. Pay one gold coin (put aside one coin). If player has no gold coins he can not perform that special action.

2. Player must close the book by turning the book counter on the card face down to the picture with closed book. If the book counter is already showing a closed book, player can not perform that special action.

3. Player must exhaust the character card by rotating it by 90 degree clockwise. If the character is already exhausted player can not perform that special action.

If player made all 3 steps he can perform that special action.

Book Counters

There are characters that can use book counter for some special effects. Those characters have printed book icon on their cards.

If you see that icon on the card it means you must close the book by turning the book counter to the side with closed book if you want to use special effect.

If the book is closed (the book counter is face down showing picture of closed book), you can not use that special effect.

Pen Counters

There are characters that have pen icon printed on their cards.

How they works depends of the character's ability.

Weakening & Strengthening Counters

Thanks to abilities of some characters, players are able to place weakening and strengthening counters on cards. Counters remain on the character until it is defeated or text of other card says something different.

• Strengthening counter: icon of a green counter.
• Weakening counter: icon of a red counter.

Each strengthening counter on a character raises the attack value of a character by one and weakening counter lowers it by one.

Moving

Character cards are placed in two rows, three cards each. If any character dies, it leaves a blank space. Player can move any character to this blank space, paying one coin. After the move, character retains its current status. Ready character remains ready, while exhausted character remains exhausted.

Example: Player wants to move card (E) to the right column. He pays one coin and shift card (E) to the right.

Another way of moving is swapping places of two characters. Player can swap places of two characters, paying one coin for this action. It does not matter if swapped characters are exhausted or not. After the swap characters retain their current status. Ready character remains ready, while exhausted character remains exhausted.

Character can not be moved into empty column (to the column where there are no opponent's cards).

Example: Player wants to swap card (B) and card (F). He pays one coin and swap places of that cards.

Battlefield

During the game, characters will sometimes move automatically, without player's action. This card movement is automatic and can not be prevented in any way.

This can happen in a number of cases:

1. Each time a character in the second row has blank space in front of it, it must move there immediately. It can happen in two cases:

   a. After the attack, the character in the first row dies. Then, character behind it (in the second row) must take its place.

   b. When player moves one of his characters from the first row to another place. Then, character behind it takes its place.

   Example: There is blank space in the 1st row. Card E automaticaly moves forward.

2. If during the game player has no characters in the center column, and his opponent has no characters in side column (left or right), then characters from the side column have to be moved to the center column.

   Example: There are no cards in opponent's center colum and there are no cards in player's right column. So, opponent's cards from the right column are moved to the center column.

End of Round

Battle phase ends when both players can not or do not want to perform more actions. It is possible for player to take more than one turn in a row in this case. Generaly if player has no gold coins, or if he pass, he can not perform any action.

This is the time to resolve all card's rules that call for placing or removing pen counters. And all the actions from the cards that take place at the end of the round. Then, players decide which one of them will have initiative for next round. Player with fewer character takes the first player card. If both players have the same number of characters, then player with the initiative passes first player card to his opponent. Player with the first player card will start the next round.

New Round

Before starting new round, players have to do three steps:

Step 1: Prepare all their characters that were exhausted in prevoius round.

Step 2: Turn all book counters to the side with open book.

Step 3: Take coins until each of them has five coins.

End of the Game

Game ends when one of the players loses the last character. Player with at least one character on the field wins the game.

Whenever a text on card contradicts the rules printed in this book, that card's text takes precedence.

Rule Digest

1. Team Formation Phase

Each player creates a team of exactly 6 characters (4 from the chosen faction, other 2 from the same faction or from the faction according to the Alliance Wheel)

2. Character Display Phase

Players decide who gets the initiative. That player begins placing the character cards.

3. Battle Phase

This phase is divided into rounds. Player take turns one after another. In their turn player can perform one of 3 available actions:

a) Attack - To attack with a ready character, exhaust it and pay one coin. To attack with exhausted character, pay two coins.

b) Use special ability - Pay one coin, close the book and exhaust the character.

c) Move - Move one of your characters and pay one coin. Or swap places of two characters by paying one coin.

The round ends when both players cannot or do not want to perform additional actions. At the end of round resolve all "at the end of round" effects. With the beginning of the next round players have to preapare their characters to the initial state, wound counters remain on the cards. Each player takes coins until they have 5.

Game ends when one of players loses last character. Their opponent wins the game.