No Time For Heroes Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Card Types
• Before Going to Battle
  • Gathering the Horde
  • Grouping the Heroes
  • Setting up the shops
  • Mapping the region (optional)
  • The Horde approaches
  • Choosing the Leader (starting player)
• The Fight Begins!
• In the Heat of Battle
  • 1. Attack Phase
    • The Hero decides
    • The Horde responds
  • 2. Market Phase
  • 3. Recovery Phase
• The Warlord Arrives! (The final confrontation)
• When the Battlefield Falls Silent (End of the game)
• Other Considerations About War
  • Heroes' Expertise (Pericias)
  • The Scenario (optional use)
  • The enemy's signs (Icons)
• The Language of War (Glossary)

Card Types

• Hero cards: show attack value, hit points (life), special ability (Pericia/Skill), and ability icons. Each Hero card has two sides; each player must choose which of the two heroes on the card they will use during the game.
• Ability cards: show the class icon, the attack (damage) value and the card's effect.
• Scenario cards: set special game conditions.
• Horde cards: show attack value, Fortitude (Fortaleza), special conditions and Glory (on the back, the secret reward).
• Market cards: show cost, the card's effect and restrictions, and the ability icons required for its use.

Before Going to Battle

Gathering the Horde

The enemy deck is made up of a certain number of cards. To build it, follow these steps:

1. The Warlord: Choose one of the available Warlords at random.
2. The Hosts: Shuffle all the Host cards and make a deck with them. The number of cards in the deck depends on the number of players:
   • 4 players: 27 cards.
   • 3 players: 23 cards.
   • 2 players: 19 cards.
3. The Horde: Shuffle the Hosts and place the deck on the table with the back facing down. Then place the Warlord card on top of the pile, leaving its back face up (visible). The Horde deck is ready to be used: from it come the enemies the Heroes must face. During the game, Horde cards must be drawn from the bottom of the deck, with only the front of the card visible.

Grouping the Heroes

Each player does the following:

1. Take a Hero card and choose which of the two heroes on it will be used during the game.
2. Take the Ability deck corresponding to your Hero, shuffle it and place it nearby, leaving space for the Wear (Desgaste) pile.
3. Draw 4 cards from the Ability deck; this is your starting hand.

Setting up the shops

Shuffle the Market cards and place 5 of them face up, placing the Coin and Glory reserves next to them.

Mapping the region (optional)

Shuffle the Scenario cards and place the first card of the resulting deck in view of everyone.

The Horde approaches

Draw 3 cards from the bottom of the Horde deck and place them in the center of the table face up. (Be careful! The back of the card must remain hidden; the reward that accompanies each enemy is secret until it is defeated.)

Choosing the Leader (starting player)

The Leader is decided by a bid with Ability cards. To do so, each player chooses one or two cards from their hand and places them face down in the center of the table; once all are placed, they are revealed and their Damage values are compared (adding them if two cards were played). The player who bid the highest Damage value starts to play. In case of a tie, the oldest player starts. Once the Leader is chosen, all cards used in the bid are placed at the bottom of their respective Ability decks, and each player draws cards until they have 4 in hand.

The Fight Begins!

The Heroes must face the Horde in turns, using their Ability cards. The Leader is the first to do so, fighting the first three enemies that start on the table. Using their Abilities, they will defeat them one after another, but they must measure their strength well! When they finish attacking, the enemies left standing will strike back.

The Damage suffered by Heroes is counted by Losing cards, that is, by putting the cards from the top of the Ability deck onto the Wear pile. When the Ability deck has no more cards and it is necessary to keep drawing or Losing, the player must put a Wound on their Hero card, shuffle the cards in their Wear pile and create a new Ability deck with them, Losing or drawing the cards that were pending.

When a player ends their turn, play passes to the player seated on their left. The game continues in this way until the Warlord appears, the final confrontation! When all enemies are defeated, the game is over, each player counts the Glory obtained and the one who has the most is declared the winner.

In the Heat of Battle

Players take their turns clockwise, starting with the Leader. A turn consists of the following 3 phases:

1. Attack
2. Market
3. Recovery (Restablecimiento)

1. Attack Phase

The player may choose between two options: Face the Horde (after which they will receive the Horde's Attack), or perform an Evasion maneuver.

The Hero decides

Facing the Horde: The heroes will use their Abilities to defeat the Horde. During their turn, each player may use as many Ability cards from their hand as they wish. Each card used must be completely resolved and discarded onto the Wear pile before using the next one. When the player finishes playing cards, the Hero will receive the onslaught of the enemies still standing.

The procedure for facing the Horde is as follows:

1. Show an Ability card.
   • a. Apply its Damage (if it has any): The player decides which of the enemies they are facing will receive the damage indicated by the shown Ability card. The damage CANNOT be split between two or more Host cards. If the card has no damage value, skip this step and resolve the next.
     • When an enemy receives damage, as many Wound tokens as the Damage received are placed on its Host card. If the Wounds equal or exceed the enemy's Fortitude, it is defeated.
     • Each time an enemy is defeated, the player who eliminated it collects the corresponding Host card as a trophy; in addition, they receive the loot (Coins and/or Glory) indicated on the back of it.
   • b. Resolve its Effects: Apply, from top to bottom, all the effects the Ability card contains.
     • Some cards prevent the Hero from receiving a certain amount of damage. Shield tokens are used to remember this.
   • c. Discard it: Leave the shown Ability card on the Wear pile.
2. Show a new Ability card and repeat the three previous steps, or end the confrontation and resolve the Horde's Attack (see below).

If any card has an effect that contradicts any of these steps, it must be resolved according to what the card says.

Evasion maneuver: Players may choose this action. With it, the Hero tries to find an advantageous position over their enemies, taking advantage of the support of their companions. When the Hero performs this maneuver, they discard their Evasion token. Thanks to this they will NOT receive damage this turn, but will have to discard a minimum of 2 cards from their hand onto the Wear pile.

This maneuver means the Hero does not face the Horde this turn, so they cannot play any Ability card from their hand.

The Horde responds

Horde Attack: After receiving the Heroes' assault, it is time to strike back! The player must Lose as many cards as the Fortitude of all the Horde cards still on the table, subtracting the Wounds those enemies have. To do so, they discard the indicated number of cards from the top of their Ability deck onto the Wear pile.

Remember that if the Hero used their Evasion maneuver they ignore all the damage the Horde causes this turn.

Example: At the end of Valerys's turn, two orcs remain on the table. One of them has 3 points of Fortitude and is untouched. The other has 4 points of Fortitude, but has received two wounds. Valerys must discard 5 cards from his Ability deck onto his Wear pile: 3 for the Fortitude of the first + 4 for that of the second - 2 wounds the latter has.

2. Market Phase

In this phase players may buy one or more cards from the market with the Coins obtained so far.

When a player buys a Market card they put it in their hand. These cards are used as if they were a new Ability card: applying their damage, resolving their effects and discarding them onto the Wear pile, as indicated in the Attack Phase (see above).

The healing potion works slightly differently. As its symbol indicates, it must be removed from the game after being used, so it is not discarded onto the Wear pile.

Whenever a Market card is acquired it is replaced with a new one: the Market must always have 5 cards available for purchase (as long as cards remain in the Market deck).

Icons: Some market cards are specific to heroes with certain abilities and, to recognize them, they are marked with the appropriate Icons: Melee, Ranged, Expertise (Pericia), Magic.

Before acquiring the Market card, the Hero must check that it has no restrictions, or that they have the appropriate Icon, otherwise they cannot buy it. If they have the Icon, but there is a penalty associated with it, they must take into account that, when they use it, the Damage of the card (and only the Damage) will be reduced by the indicated amount, since it is not a specialty of the Hero: in this way, Rogues can use ranged weapons but must subtract 1 from the card's damage.

This penalty is not applied if Hero and Item share another ability symbol without penalty.

3. Recovery Phase

This is the moment to recover and prepare the table for the next player:

First, the player checks how many cards they have in hand and draws from their Ability deck or discards onto their Wear pile until they have 4 cards in hand.

Note that if any card was bought in the Market, it goes directly to the hand.

Second, check how many enemies remain on the table:

• If none remain, draw 3 new enemies from the bottom of the Horde deck.
  • If scenarios are being used, discard the current scenario and reveal a new one, which will be active from now on.
• If 3 enemies remain on the table, no new cards are drawn.
• If 1 or 2 enemies remain, draw one card from the Horde deck.

The Warlord Arrives! (The final confrontation)

During the Recovery phase new enemies appear on the battlefield. As the game advances, the Horde deck gets smaller until it is time to draw the last card: the Warlord!

When the Warlord enters the battlefield, the game continues as normal. The Warlord card is similar to the rest of the enemies, except that it has an Expertise (Pericia) and does not grant fixed Victory Points. Each Ability card used by a player that causes one or more Damage to the Warlord grants 1 point of Glory to that player.

When the Battlefield Falls Silent (End of the game)

When no enemy remains standing, the battle is over. At the end of the game each player counts the Glory they have accumulated during the game. To do so, add the following:

• Glory tokens.
• Glory value of the fallen enemies: Each Host card has an associated Glory value.
• Coins: For every 3 Coins, 1 point of Glory is obtained.
• Tenacious (Tenaz): Each Hero who manages to reach the end of the game without wounds gets 1 additional point of Glory.

The player with the most Glory is the winner, rising to the favor of The Seven!

In case of a tie, the player with the most defeated enemy cards wins.

Other Considerations About War

Heroes' Expertise (Pericias)

Each Hero card has an ability exclusive to that character, which will have one or two uses per game. The only limitations on its use are those established in the text that defines them. If it is an Expertise with two uses, we put the card horizontally when we spend the first. When we have exhausted the last (or only) use, we place the hero card upside down to remember that we no longer have its Expertise.

The Scenario (optional use)

Although these cards are not necessary to play No Time for Heroes, they introduce a thematic component that makes the game even more fun with each new game played. Feel free to add them to your games whenever you see fit.

As soon as the game begins there will be an active Scenario card. Its effects and conditions apply throughout the turns until it is replaced by a new Scenario card, which will be drawn from its deck. This happens every time that, during the Recovery phase, the battlefield is empty and it is necessary to draw 3 new cards from the Horde deck. When the Warlord enters the battlefield, the Scenario card is discarded and is not replaced by any other.

The enemy's signs (Icons)

• The enemy marked with the Magic-resistance icon causes less Damage to characters with the "Magic" ability: subtract the value indicated in the icon from the enemy's Fortitude when calculating the damage it produces.
• At the end of the Recovery phase, discard all the Wounds remaining on enemies with the regeneration icon.
• Enemies with the loot icon are more likely to have a succulent loot.
• Ability and Market cards marked with the single-use icon must be removed from the game once used, so they can only be used once per game.

(The icons themselves are shown only graphically in the original; the assignment of each description to its icon is inferred from the text order, as the PDF text does not name the icons.)

The Language of War (Glossary)

• Damage: Heroes suffer damage by discarding that same number of cards from their Ability deck onto the Wear pile.
• Ends the attack: When this effect is resolved, the Confrontation with the Horde ends, no more Ability cards may be played, and play passes directly to the Horde's Attack.
• Wounds: Wounds are counted by placing Wound tokens on the affected character. Enemies receive wounds due to the Heroes' attacks. Heroes receive 1 wound each time they have to shuffle their Wear pile to form a new Ability deck.
• Lose (cards): When a card speaks of the loss of one or more cards, the player who plays it must discard that number of cards from their Hero Ability deck onto the Wear pile. Cards are NEVER "lost" from the hand.
• Recover (cards): The action of recovering cards is carried out by placing the indicated number of cards from the bottom of the Wear pile at the bottom of the Ability deck. In some cases a specific card will be asked to be "Recovered" (from the hand, for example), in which case that card is the one placed at the bottom of the Ability deck.
• Once per turn: When a card indicates that its effect is performed "once per turn", it means that even if several identical cards are used, the effect will only be executed with the first of them.