Iliad Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Objective
• Setup
• Play
• The Tile Effects
  • Value 1: Reposition one of the opponent's accessible tiles
  • Value 2: Reposition one of your own accessible tiles
  • Value 3: Swap one of your success tokens with any one of the five tokens displayed next to the board
  • Value 4: Turn this tile face down, then turn one of the neighboring tiles of your opponent face down also
• Scoring Lines
• Game End
• Tile Effects Reference
• Acknowledgments

Components

• 1 board
• 18 blue Hector tiles
• 18 red Achilles tiles
• 29 success tokens
• 1 success tokens bag

Objective

Take turns placing one tile at a time to earn the favor of all five gods. At the end of the game, the winner is the player who has collected success tokens representing all five gods. If both players or neither player meets this qualification, then the winner is the player who has earned the most points from success tokens.

Setup

Lay out the board. It shows six rows and six columns of six spaces each, where the tiles are placed. Half the spaces are blue Trojan spaces; the other half are red Greek spaces. At both ends of each row and column is space for the success tokens.

The success tokens show:

• Five different gods: Zeus (6), Apollo (8), Athena (5), Poseidon (2), Aphrodite (7)
• Positive values of +10: Achilles' Shield, Hector's Spear, Chariot
• Negative values of -3, -5, and -10: Weakened Morale, Plague, Firestorm
• Two marriage tokens showing wedding rings (representing a marriage to Helen)

Shuffle the success tokens in the bag.

First, create a display of five tokens: Draw one token after another and display these tokens face up next to the board until there are five non-negative tokens. If you reveal any negative tokens (-3, -5, or -10), shuffle these back in the bag with the remaining tokens. Then, surround the board with the remaining tokens: Starting on any edge and continuing clockwise, draw and place one token face up bordering each space along the edges of the board. This should use up all the remaining success tokens.

There are two sets of tiles:

• Hector of Troy (blue)
• Achilles of the Greeks (red)

Each player chooses a different color (red or blue). Take the tiles of your color. You have 18 tiles, three each of the values 1-5 and three Dolos tiles. Shuffle them and place them as a face down deck in front of you.

Draw two tiles from your deck and randomly place them face up on the two central board spaces of your color. If you happen to draw two identical tiles, return them to your deck, reshuffle the deck, and try again until you draw two different tiles. Finally, draw two tiles from your deck into your hand. Your hand of tiles should be visible to you but never to your opponent.

Play

The player who most recently opened a book (not a rulebook) starts (or randomly choose the start player). Play then alternates between the two players. On your turn, place one tile from your hand face up onto the board:

Placement Rule: You must play your tile onto an empty board space of your color so that your tile neighbors at least one side of another tile already on the board. (Due to the board coloring, all neighboring tiles will belong to your opponent. Your tiles will never neighbor your own tiles.)

• After playing a tile of values 1-4, you may carry out the tile's effect. The tiles of value 5 and the Dolos tiles do not trigger any effects. The effects are explained below.
• At the end of your turn, always check if some of the lines (rows or columns) are scored. When and how lines are scored is also explained below.
• Finally, draw a new tile from your deck to replenish your hand to two tiles.

The Tile Effects

All the effects are optional. You do not have to use the effects of your tiles, but if you want to, you must use the effect immediately after you play your tile.

Value 1: Reposition one of the opponent's accessible tiles

A tile is accessible if at least one neighboring space of the tile is empty. When you reposition a tile, you must follow the placement rule. The repositioned tile does not trigger its effect again.

Note: You may reposition the blue 1 even though it leaves the red 1 without a neighbor.

Value 2: Reposition one of your own accessible tiles

A tile is accessible if at least one neighboring space of the tile is empty. When you reposition a tile, you must follow the placement rule. The repositioned tile does not trigger its effect again.

Note: You may reposition the red 3 even though it leaves the blue 2 without a neighbor.

Value 3: Swap one of your success tokens with any one of the five tokens displayed next to the board

Note: You won't have any success tokens to swap until after you have scored one or more lines (see Scoring Lines).

Value 4: Turn this tile face down, then turn one of the neighboring tiles of your opponent face down also

Face-down tiles still occupy their spaces, but they have no value. Face-down tiles may be repositioned by a value 1 or 2 tile effect.

Scoring Lines

If there are completed lines (rows or columns where all six spaces are occupied by tiles) at the end of your turn, these lines are then scored — if they have not been scored before. If more than one line is scored, you decide on the order in which these lines are scored.

When you score a line, both players count the total value of their own tiles in the line. The total value is made up of all the tile values (1-5) plus the values of any Dolos tiles. Face-down tiles have no value.

Dolos tiles assume the value sum of both neighbor tiles in the scoring line. (These will always belong to the opponent.) If a Dolos tile lies at the end of a line, it assumes the value of the one neighbor tile in the scoring line. If Dolos tiles are neighbors, they derive no value from each other.

The player with the higher total value wins the line.

If the total values are equal, then the player who is taking the turn wins the tie. The winner of the line chooses one of the two success tokens at the ends of the line, and the other player gets the other token. Keep all your success tokens face up in front of you.

Example: Blue wins the line with 10 (3+6+1) against red with 9 (4+2+3).

Game End

When you have used up your deck of tiles, continue playing until you have played all your tiles onto the board. The game ends when all the tiles have been played, all the spaces of the board are occupied, and all the rows and columns have been scored.

• First consider the god success tokens. Do you have tokens representing all five gods? Alternatively, do you have tokens representing four gods and both marriage tokens? In these cases, you have gained the support of all the gods. Well done!

  If you have the support of all the gods, but your opponent does not, you win the game immediately.

• If you and your opponent both have the support of all gods (or neither of you do), victory is determined by the point values of your success tokens. If you have more than one token of the same god, only count your highest value token for each god. Furthermore, add all of your non-god tokens (both positive and negative values) to your score. The marriage tokens have no point value.

  The player with the higher total score wins the game. If there is a tie, compare the total of all the lower value god tokens (which have not been counted so far) to break the tie. If the tie persists, the player who has the higher value Zeus token wins; if neither player has a Zeus token, then the player who has the higher value Poseidon token wins.

Example: Both players have the support of all gods. Red has 30 points (8+8+7+7+5+10-10-5). Blue has 32 points (1+3+6+8+10+10-3-3). Blue wins the game.

Tile Effects Reference

• 1 — Reposition one of the opponent's accessible tiles.
• 2 — Reposition one of your own accessible tiles.
• 3 — Swap one of your success tokens with any one of the five tokens displayed next to the board.
• 4 — Turn this tile face down, then turn one of the neighboring tiles of your opponent face down also.

Acknowledgments

Reiner Knizia would like to thank all the playtesters who contributed to the development of this game. Special thanks go to Jens Jahnke and Britta Stöckmann for their significant contributions to the creation and testing of the game.

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