The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Deck-Building Game
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Deck-Building Game Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
215 Game Cards
- 36 Courage Starting Cards
- 16 Despair Starting Cards
- 112 Main Deck Cards
- 16 Valor Cards
- 3 Archenemy Cards
- 8 Loot Cards
- 20 Corruption Cards
- 3 "Impossible Mode" Archenemy Cards (For advanced players only!)
- 1 The One Ring™
7 Oversized Hero Cards
1 Rulebook
Setup for Your First Game
1. Heroes and Starting Decks
Each player is dealt a random Hero. Alternatively, each player may choose a favorite. Set aside the other Heroes for future games. Each Hero begins with a starting deck of seven Courage cards, and three Despair cards. Shuffling these cards together gives each player a starting deck of exactly 10 cards. You will use your Courage cards to buy more powerful cards to add to your deck, improving it as the game goes on. Despair cards represent the things that cause the members of The Company to falter. They do nothing for you when drawn or played. It's best to get rid of them as soon as possible (more on how to do that later).
2. The Main Deck
As the game progresses, most of the cards you will add to your deck come from the main deck. Shuffle the main deck and place it in the middle of the table. None of the following cards should ever be placed into the main deck: Archenemy, Courage, Despair, Valor, Corruption, The One Ring™, Loot, or the oversized Hero cards. The main deck is made up of every other card in the game (112 cards total).
3. The Archenemy Stack
Three different Archenemy cards will be used each game. The Trolls are the first Archenemy you will encounter, followed by the Great Goblin, and then Azog™.
Place Azog face up as the bottom card of the stack. Shuffle the four Level 2 Loot cards and place them face down on top of Azog. Now place the Level 2 Great Goblin on top of that five card stack. Place The One Ring face up on top of Great Goblin.
Next, shuffle the four Level 1 Loot cards and place them face down on top of The One Ring.
Finally, place The Trolls face up on top of the Archenemy stack. The Archenemy stack contains 12 cards at the start of each game.
4. The Path
After shuffling the main deck, place the top five cards from the main deck into the Path face up. The Path is where the members of The Company will have dangerous and fantastical encounters. No board is necessary to play this game; just reserve space for each card.
NOTE: The player taking the first turn is unaffected by Ambush cards that entered the Path during Setup.
Next, place the Valor, Archenemy, and Corruption stacks perpendicular to the board so that everyone can reach them. The Valor stack always starts with 16 cards and the Corruption stack starts with 20, no matter how many players are in the game. Valor and Archenemy cards are always available to be bought or defeated during your turn (while cards remain in their stacks). Corruptions are never bought; they are gained only through unfriendly card effects. The main deck and the three stacks of cards on the end are not part of the Path.
Once you have arranged the main deck, the Path, and the other stacks, it will look something like the above. Your opening five cards in the Path will vary.
Types of Cards
The different card types that you can play are: Starter, Enemy, Location, Ally, Maneuver, and Artifact. Corruption cards have no card type.
Hero — Each Hero has a unique ability shown in its text box.
Starter Cards — Courage and Despair cards, marked "Starter." Courage gives +1 Power. Despair does nothing.
Corruption — Corruption cards reduce your score at the end of the game.
Archenemy — Shows an Archenemy Level, a Cost, and Special Rules Text. When you defeat this Archenemy, draw a Loot card from underneath it and resolve the Group Ambush after the end of your turn.
Enemy — A main-deck card of the Enemy card type, showing its Cost and Victory Points.
Location — Shows Special Rules Text. Location cards remain in front of you once played, and their Ongoing text keeps working turn after turn.
Enemy with Attack — An Enemy card whose Abilities include an Attack that other players may need to defend against.
Ally — Shows Victory Points and a Cost. Allies commonly have abilities such as drawing cards.
Maneuver — Shows a Card Type and Cost. Maneuvers commonly grant bonus Power.
Artifact — Shows a Card Name, and often an Ongoing and/or Defense ability.
The One Ring — A unique Artifact-type card with Ongoing and Defense abilities; see "The One Ring" below for how it enters play.
Gameplay
Randomly determine a player to go first. Each player begins by shuffling his or her deck and drawing five cards. Players take turns in clockwise order.
Each turn, to improve your deck, you may buy Valor cards, cards from the Path, and/or attack the face-up Archenemy. Cards you buy or gain are always immediately placed into your discard pile unless you are instructed otherwise. Discard piles are always face up. Soon they'll be shuffled into your deck, and then you'll be drawing these newer, more powerful cards into your hand so you can play them. Buying powerful cards builds up the effectiveness of your deck. That's why it's called a "deck-building game."
You can buy any number of available cards with combined cost less than or equal to the amount of Power you have for the turn. For example, each Courage card gives you +1 Power. If you draw four of them and no other cards with any Power bonuses, then your total Power for the turn is 4. You can buy a single card with cost 2, 3, or 4, or even two cards each with cost 2, assuming these options are available. Valor cards are (usually) available if the cards in the Path are too expensive, and you may buy more than one during your turn if you wish. You may pass if you can't buy or do not wish to buy any cards.
Despair and Corruption cards provide no Power. You may play them if you wish, but they have no effect when played, unless another card says otherwise. They are not discarded until the end of your turn when you discard all cards you have played and any cards that you have kept in your hand.
Order of Playing Your Cards
On your turn, you choose the order in which to play the cards in your hand. When playing a card, its game text resolves immediately. After playing all the cards you wish to play at that time, total up the Power you have accumulated and buy what you wish to buy from the Path or the face-up stacks. You do not have to play all of the cards in your hand before you start making purchases if you don't wish to. You may play additional cards even after making purchases.
Most cards you play have simple effects, like +Power, card drawing, or an Attack. The order in which you play these cards typically does not matter.
Ending Your Turn
- Resolve any "at the end of your turn" effects.
- Place all the cards you played and any cards remaining in your hand into your discard pile. Any unspent Power from cards played during the turn is lost. Draw a new hand of five cards and pass the turn to the player on your left.
- If any of the slots in the Path are empty, draw cards off the main deck and add them to the Path. Do not replace empty slots as soon as you buy or gain a card from the Path.
- Resolve the group ambush of the current archenemy if applicable. (More on that in a moment.)
- If four Loot cards have been removed from under the current Archenemy, remove that Archenemy from the game. It has now been defeated once and for all, and the adventure moves to a new segment of the journey.
Sample Turn Sequence
After shuffling up your starting cards, you draw a hand of four Courages and one Despair for your first turn. You may play the four Courages for a total of 4 Power, which is enough to buy Riddle Game from the Path. After buying it, you put it into your discard pile. The Despair provides you with no additional Power. Once you have played and bought all the cards you want, discard the cards you have played and any remaining in your hand and then draw a new hand of five cards. Play then proceeds to the player on your left.
End of Game
The game ends immediately when either of the following two conditions is met:
- The final Archenemy, Azog, is defeated.
- You are unable to refill all five slots of the Path.
Once the game has ended, players total up the Victory Points on cards in their deck. Corruption cards in your deck at the end of the game will subtract Victory Points (VP) from your total. The player with the highest VP total is crowned the winner! In case of a tie, the player with more Archenemy cards wins.
After a winner has been determined, all players will need to take apart their decks, placing all of the cards back into their proper stacks.
Additional Rules
Attacks and Defenses
Some cards allow you to make an Attack against the other players in the game. When you play a card with an Attack ability, each other player has an opportunity to avoid the Attack with a card that has a Defense ability. A player using a Defense card's ability negates the Attack only for that defending player. A player may only play one Defense card per Attack. Any players who don't avoid the Attack are then affected by the Attack card's ability. Avoiding an Attack does not negate any other abilities (like +2 Power) of a card, unless an ability specifically counts the players successfully hit by the Attack.
Ambush
An Ambush is a type of Attack found on Enemy cards in the main deck. The word "Ambush:" appears in its text box. If the card enters the Path between turns and you are the next player to take a turn, you are Ambushed at the start of your turn. If a card played during a turn adds new cards to the Path, any Ambushes do not happen.
Example: The person playing Bilbo to your right buys two cards from the Path. He ends his turn, and you flip the top two cards of the main deck into the Path. One of them has an Ambush. You resolve the Ambush, and then continue your turn.
If you are Ambushed by multiple cards, you may choose the order in which they resolve. After resolving each Ambush card, your turn continues as normal. Defense cards may be used to avoid Ambushes, but it takes a separate Defense card to avoid each Ambush. A player may only play one Defense card per Ambush.
Corruption
Some Attack and Ambush cards force the affected players to gain a Corruption. When this happens, the affected players place the Corruption cards into their discard piles (unless a card tells them otherwise), effectively adding them to their decks. Corruption cards have no ability and can be played or kept in your hand and discarded at the end of your turn. At the end of the game, each Corruption in your deck subtracts 1 Victory Point from your VP total, so plan on destroying them at some point! If the Corruption deck runs out, effects that would cause a player to gain a Corruption do not do so, but any other effects those cards have still resolve as usual. A player may still play a Defense to avoid an Attack or Ambush, even when there are no Corruptions available to be gained.
In Impossible Mode, place destroyed Corruptions back onto the Corruption stack instead of removing them from the game.
Locations
Location cards go straight to your discard pile when bought or gained, just like any other card. However, when you later draw and play a Location, that card will remain face up and in play in front of you for the rest of the game. Each Location has an effect that will happen based on the game text of the card. The word Ongoing is a reminder that this card keeps working for you turn after turn. You can have any number of Locations in play at once. Once a Location is in play, it no longer counts as a card in your hand.
The One Ring
The One Ring doesn't begin the game in any player's deck. Instead, it is placed into the Archenemy stack at the start of the game. After all four Level 1 Loot cards have been taken from the stack, The Company has moved from the Troll camp to the Misty Mountains and the Great Goblin. The One Ring is now available to be found.
After resolving the Group Ambush from the fourth defeat of The Trolls, place The One Ring next to the Path, but not in the Path. It cannot be bought. The only way to acquire it is by way of the Bilbo or Gollum™ cards from the main deck. The One Ring has an Ongoing ability just like Locations do and it will work for you on each of your turns. However, it may be used as a Defense, in which case you return it to next to the Path, or another player can steal it away by playing their own Bilbo or Gollum. The One Ring can never be in any player's hand, deck, or discard pile. At the end of the game, if a player has The One Ring in front of them, they score its 2 VPs.
Destroying Cards
Some cards have an ability that allows you to destroy a card from your hand, your deck, your graveyard, or even the Path. When you destroy a card, place it into a face-up pile of destroyed cards anywhere away from the play area, removing it from your deck and the game. You will often get to choose which of your cards to destroy. Destroying Despair and Corruption cards will improve your deck greatly! If Valor and Corruption cards are destroyed, they do not go back to their respective stacks.
Shuffling Your Deck
You don't reshuffle your discard pile into your deck as soon as you run out of cards. However, if at any point during the game if there are no cards in your deck and you need to draw, discard, or reveal a card from your deck, immediately reshuffle your discard pile, and it becomes your new deck.
Gaining Cards
When a card tells you to gain a particular card or a card of your choice, that card is taken and immediately placed in your discard pile, at no additional cost, unless otherwise directed by the card. If a card tells to you gain a card with a specific name, card type, or cost and there are none available, you simply don't gain the card.
Resolving Card Abilities
If a card's ability affects multiple players, and the order matters (for example, an Attack that has each of three opponents gain a Corruption, with only two Corruptions remaining in the stack), resolve that ability for each affected player in clockwise order, starting from the player who played the ability. When you play a card that triggers another effect, like on your Hero, fully resolve the card you are playing before resolving any secondary effects triggered by your card play.
Example: You are playing as Glóin and play two Allies. The second Ally is Galadriel, who tells you to put up to two cards from your discard pile on top of your deck. You will put those two cards on top before resolving Glóin's ability that allows you to draw a card.
The Archenemies
When you have accumulated enough Power in a turn, you can choose to defeat an Archenemy. If you do, take the topmost face-down Loot card from the stack and place it face up into your discard pile, unless instructed otherwise. The Archenemy you defeat is not itself removed from the stack at this time. You must defeat the Level 1 and Level 2 Archenemies four times each to fully dispatch them. A player may only defeat an Archenemy once per turn. The cost shown on the Loot cards is not something you pay. It's just an indication of the ability level of the card.
When you defeat an Archenemy, that Archenemy makes a Group Ambush against each player for such insolence! On each Archenemy, you will find that Archenemy's Group Ambush. This Ambush resolves after the current player's turn is over and before the next player begins their turn. Any player with a Defense card may defend against the Group Ambush, unless the card says otherwise. The Ambush will resolve against any players who do not defend themselves. Group Ambushes do not happen during any player's turn and therefore take place before any regular Ambushes occur. Keep track of the regular Ambushes that will happen after the Archenemy's Group Ambush (if any) by moving the Ambushing cards slightly out of the Path. After the Ambushes, line them back up with the rest of the cards.
The Level 1 and Level 2 Archenemy cards will never enter your deck. Only their Loot cards will. After the fourth Group Ambush of The Trolls, remove the Troll card from the game and place The One Ring next to the Path, but not in the Path. This will also reveal the Level 2 Archenemy, Great Goblin.
After Great Goblin makes his fourth Group Ambush against the players, remove him from the game to reveal the Level 3 Archenemy. Azog has no Loot under him. The first player to defeat Azog will place his card into their discard pile and end the game when their turn is over. His card has a Victory Point value on it, so defeating him will help your score immensely!
Impossible Mode
When you've mastered the game, take on a true challenge! Test your mettle by breaking out the three Impossible Mode Archenemies. When using the Impossible Mode Archenemies, the regular three Archenemies will not be used.
Note that the Loot costs won't match the amount of Power needed to defeat the Archenemies in this mode. You pay the amount on the Archenemy, never the Loot card.
One rule change: In Impossible Mode, when a Corruption is destroyed, return it to its stack instead of removing it from the game. Good luck . . . you'll need it!
Specific Card Clarifications
Azog: No matter how many multiples of 7 Power you generate, you will gain only one Corruption. Spending Power before reaching 7 Power does not erase your total Power generated for the turn.
Impossible Azog: His start of turn effect resolves before any Ambush effects in the Path.
Balin, Óin Heroes: To use these Hero abilities simply announce to the other players when you wish to use it during your turn.
Bag End, etc: Drawing an additional card into your hand at the end of your turn means that instead of drawing the usual five cards to refill your hand at the end of your turn, you will draw six cards. If you have multiple Locations in play, you are not limited to just one extra card at the end of your turn.
Balin, Dwalin: No matter how many Artifacts you have in your discard pile, you only get +3 Power.
Bilbo Baggins & Gollum: Note that until the Great Goblin is the top Archenemy of the stack, there is no Ring for Bilbo or Gollum to gain. If another player has The One Ring in front of them, you steal it from them and it goes in front of you. This stealing is not an Attack.
Óin, Glóin: You may destroy a maximum of two cards this way. They can both be in your hand, both in your discard pile, or one from each.
Reinforcements: Placing this card into play means that it will be there to give you +2 Power during your next turn (or your current turn if you used to do avoid an Ambush at the start of your turn). You do not discard it until the end of your turn, as if you had played it from your hand as usual.
Stick to the Path: You count all Locations in play (controlled by the players), not just your own.
Stone Giants: When this card enters the Path, it makes a Group Ambush against all players in the game, not just the current player.
The Oaken Shield: After drawing and discarding a card, you may choose to use this or another card to avoid the Attack or Ambush.
FAQ
Q: What does the term "defeat" or "defeated" mean? A: That term is only used referring to Archenemies. You "defeat" an Archenemy when you buy it from the top of the Archenemy stack. That Archenemy has then been "defeated." However, in An Unexpected Journey you acquire Loot cards when you defeat Level 1 or 2 Archenemies.
Credits
Game Design: Erik Larsen Game Engine Design: Matt Hyra & Ben Stoll
Game Design and Development: Matt Hyra, Phil Cape, Dan Clark, Matt Dunn, Kevin Jordan, Erik Larsen, Ben Stoll, Drew Walker, Chris Woods
Graphic Design: Glen Llorin (Lead), Larry Renac (Lead), Nancy Valdez, John Vineyard
Editing: Scott Thomas