Pixel Tactics 5
Pixel Tactics 5 Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Credits
Game by D. Brad Talton Jr.
Illustrated by Fábio Fontes
Presented by Level 99 Games
Card Layout
Each card can be used in three different ways:
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The Leader is played at the very start of the match. Its ability is active for the entire match. The Leader always stands at the center of the Unit, in the Flank row. The red sword and blue shield show its Attack Strength and Life total, respectively.
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Heroes are played during the match using the Recruit a Hero action. They have different abilities depending on which row of the Unit they occupy.
2a. Vanguard Heroes stand in the row in front of the Leader. They usually have offensive or defensive abilities. These Heroes can use their Vanguard power (the first/red line of text).
2b. Flank Heroes stand in the same row as the Leader, to the left and right of them. They are often gifted with tactical abilities, or strengthen their allies. These Heroes can use their Flank power (the second/green line of text).
2c. Rear Heroes stand in the row behind the Leader. As a rule, they have supporting abilities or a Ranged Attack. These Heroes can use their Rear power (the third/blue line of text).
Important! Heroes are not Leaders! Any effects that apply only to Leaders do not apply to Heroes, and vice versa.
- An Order is played from your Hand as a one-time effect. Orders have powerful effects, but are discarded immediately after use. Orders are marked with a hand icon and have a purple back.
3a. Some cards have Operations instead of Orders. They are played into the Reserve row behind the Unit and remain in effect for several turns. Operations are marked with a scroll icon and have a gray back. Operations appear in Pixel Tactics 2 and later installments.
3b. Some cards have Traps instead of Orders. They are played face-down into the Reserve row behind the Unit, and are activated when a special condition is met, interrupting your rival's turn. Traps are marked with a trap icon and have an orange back. Traps appear in Pixel Tactics 4 and later installments.
Setup
You receive a Deck of 25 cards with a blue or red back. Take the top 5 cards of your Deck. Then secretly choose one Leader each and reveal them at the same time. The remaining 4 cards become your starting Hand.
The Leader is placed at the center of the Unit. There are 8 empty Slots around the Leader. This is where you will recruit Heroes.
Each player has their own Deck, a Hand (with 4 starting cards), and a Discard pile (currently empty).
Two opposing Units line up facing each other. The Leader always stands at the center of each Unit. Colored borders mark the rows that correspond to each Wave: red is the Vanguard row, green is the Flank row, and blue is the Rear row. From back to front, a Unit's rows read: Reserve, Rear, Flank, Vanguard, Flank, Rear, Reserve — with the Leader sitting at the center of the Vanguard, Flank, and Rear rows on each side.
Objective
You must defeat your rival's Leader by dealing damage to its card equal to or greater than its Life total.
Game Flow
A match consists of Rounds, made up of three Waves: the Vanguard Wave, the Flank Wave, and the Rear Wave. You take one turn during each Wave.
Randomly determine who goes first. Place the First and Second Player cards or tokens beside the Vanguard row of the corresponding players. The Vanguard Wave begins: the first player goes first, taking two actions, then the second player takes two actions.
When you and your opponent have both finished your turns, the Flank Wave begins. After you finish your turns during the Flank Wave, the Rear Wave begins.
The First and Second Player cards or tokens move to the row corresponding to the Wave that is starting. At the end of each Wave, you count casualties: any Hero with damage equal to or exceeding its Life total is defeated.
When the Rear Wave ends, the Round comes to an end. Swap the First and Second Player cards or tokens, switching sides. A new Round begins again with the Vanguard Wave, and so on, until one of the Leaders is defeated.
Ceasefire
During the first Round, a Ceasefire is in effect. While it is in effect:
- You cannot attack another player or cast Spells against them.
- You cannot use Orders or Operations against another player.
- You cannot interact in any way with another player's cards or Unit.
- Traps cannot be activated (you may still place them).
Actions
On your turn you may take two actions. You may perform the same action twice.
Draw a Card
Draw a card from your Deck. You draw cards from the top of your Deck. Hand limit is 5 cards. If your Deck is empty, or your Hand limit has been reached, this action is unavailable.
If you end up with more cards in Hand than the limit, you are not required to discard them.
Recruit a Hero*
Play a Hero from your Hand into any empty Slot of the current Wave (for example, during the Vanguard Wave, you may only recruit Heroes into empty Slots of the Vanguard row — the first row).
Attack with a Hero/Leader*
Attacks are described in detail in the Attacking section below.
Cast a Spell with a Hero/Leader*
Some Heroes and Leaders have Spells. This is a special action that is not an Attack. Spells are not Attacks.
Leader-Specific Actions
Some Leaders have special actions. The effect of these actions is described in detail on their cards.
Play an Order
Reveal the Order card from your Hand, follow its text, then discard it.
While an Order is resolving, it is considered to be neither in your Hand nor in your Discard pile.
Clear a Corpse
When a Hero dies in battle, its body still occupies a Slot in the Unit. If you have no plans to revive it or otherwise use it, take the Clear a Corpse action.
Move the corpse from any Slot in the Unit into your Discard pile.
Important! Heroes can only be recruited into empty Slots in the Unit. In a long battle, you will sooner or later need to clear corpses.
Move*
Move a Hero from any Slot in your Unit to any empty Slot in your Unit.
Switch (Long Action)*
Swap the positions of two Heroes, two corpses, or a corpse and a Hero within your Unit.
Play an Operation
Place an Operation card into one of your Reserve Slots. Then place 4 Time tokens on top of it. At the end of each of your turns, remove 1 token from each of your Operations in play. If a Time token cannot be removed, discard that Operation instead. While an Operation is in play, its effect is active.
If you have no free Reserve Slots, you cannot play an Operation.
Important! Operations only enter play through the Play an Operation action, or through cards that specifically instruct it. If a card with an Operation is affected by an effect that references an Order, its Order line is treated as blank.
Place a Trap
Place a Trap card face-down into one of your Reserve Slots. If you have no free Reserve Slots, you cannot place Traps.
Important! Traps only enter play through the Place a Trap action. If a card with a Trap is affected by an effect that references an Order, its Order line is simply treated as blank.
Clear an Operation or Trap
Remove an Operation or Trap from your Reserve Slot to free up the space.
Anytime: Activate a Trap
Even outside your turn, whenever the conditions are met, you may activate a Trap you placed on a previous turn (not the turn you placed it).
Activating a Trap is a Free Action. Your rival may respond to your Trap with another Trap, and so on, until no player wishes to activate any more. After activation, the Trap is discarded.
Pass
You may end your turn.
* Actions marked with an asterisk are performed by your Heroes. The Leader cannot perform the Recruit a Hero, Move, or Switch actions. Remember that the same Hero can perform only one starred action per turn.
Long Actions cost 2 of your actions.
Free Actions do not cost any actions. You may perform them as many times as you like. However, restrictions on Hero/Leader actions still apply — for example, "Attacking is a Free Action for you" does not allow you to attack more than once with the same Hero/Leader.
Limited Actions can only be used once per turn.
Attacking
Choose your Hero or Leader in the row corresponding to the current Wave, and a target in your opponent's Unit. A Hero recruited during the current Wave cannot attack. When an attack is made, the attacker deals damage to the target equal to its Attack Strength.
Melee Attack
All Heroes and Leaders can make a Melee Attack, but the attacker and the target must both be "in melee" to do so. Only the foremost Hero or Leader in each column is available for melee.
Ranged Attack
Only Heroes and Leaders with the Ranged Attack ability can make one. This type of attack can target any Hero or Leader.
Intercept
Some Heroes have the Intercept ability. Your rival cannot make a Ranged Attack through Heroes with this ability. An Intercepting Hero protects the one or two Heroes behind it in the same column — it becomes the target of the attack instead of them.
A Hero with Intercept can still be targeted by Ranged and Melee Attacks as normal.
Hero Powers
Spells
Some Heroes have special abilities that can be used instead of an attack. For example, a Hero might have "Spell: Rival discards a card."
This is an optional action taken instead of attacking. Spells are not Attacks.
Passive Powers
Unlike Spells (which are labeled "Spell: …"), these powers are always active and begin working as soon as they become available.
Reactions
Some Hero abilities let you do something after a specific event occurs. Reactions always resolve after the conditions that trigger them have been fully resolved.
Status Effects
Status effects are ongoing effects that change a Hero's stats and abilities. They are noted with square brackets: []. Some increase or decrease a card's stats. Others may add or remove a card's abilities. Status effects apply regardless of which row the Hero is in.
If two opposite Status Effects apply to the same Hero at the same time, they cancel each other out. For example, if a Hero has [+1 attack] and [-1 attack], both effects are immediately removed.
Some effects cause a Status Effect to stack. For example, "[+1 attack] x2" means you place two separate [+1 attack] Status Effects on the Hero, which are removed independently of each other.
Damage & Casualties
When a Hero or Leader is attacked, place damage tokens on its card to mark the amount of damage dealt. These tokens remain until the Hero or Leader dies, leaves the game, or the damage is removed by an effect.
At the end of each Wave, casualties are counted. Any Hero with damage on its card equal to or greater than its Life total is considered defeated.
When a Hero is defeated, remove all damage tokens from it and flip it face-down. It is now a corpse. It cannot attack, does not block Melee attacks, and new Heroes cannot be played on top of it. Only by clearing the corpse can you play a new Hero into that Slot. Some effects allow you to revive corpses, and some Leaders can even use them directly, so it is not always necessary to clear a defeated Hero's corpse right away — sometimes it is advantageous to leave it in your Unit.
Ending the Game
Rout (Leader Defeated)
If, at the end of a Wave, the Leader's card has damage equal to or greater than its Life total, that Leader's Unit routs and the match ends. The player whose Leader remains standing is declared the winner. They take their own Leader and their rival's Leader and set them aside as a face-down trophy stack. This is now their trophy. Trophy cards are not returned to the Deck and do not take part in future matches.
Tie
If both Units rout at the same time, the Unit with more living Heroes is declared the winner. If that is also equal, the match is a tie. In a tie, each player takes the other's Leader as a trophy.
The final match of the game cannot end in a tie. If you would win the game due to a tie, you do not receive a trophy.
Next Match
A standard game is usually played to two or three trophies — the number depends on what the players agree on. The first to collect the required number of trophies is declared the winner of the game.
If neither player has reached the required number of trophies, begin the next match. Both players' Decks will now be one card smaller. In addition, for each trophy your rival holds, draw one extra card at the start of the match (before choosing your Leader). This small advantage gives you more choice and a head start when building your Unit.
The player who won the previous match always goes first in the next match.
Tips & Tricks
Using Heroes with Intercept to protect your Leader is a good idea.
You don't have to recruit all your Heroes in the first Round. Instead, you can spend a couple of actions drawing cards to form a more cohesive and structured Unit. Its abilities will then work closely together, and you will easily crush your rival's hastily assembled band.
Don't underestimate the effectiveness of the Move and Switch actions. If you have the opportunity, restructure your Unit instead of drawing new cards.
Each card has its own specialization: some Heroes let you draw more cards from your Deck, some can disrupt your rival's plans, and some help with casting Spells. By discarding a few times, you'll quickly learn to judge how strong a card is in a given situation.
It's usually advantageous to go second, since it makes it easier to respond to your rival's attacks and plays. Save your healing Orders for Rounds when you can use them to save Heroes that would otherwise die.
If you go first, favor abilities aimed at immediately removing Heroes. Such abilities take effect right away, rather than waiting for the end-of-Wave casualty count.
Some Leaders can be extremely effective in melee, but leaving them unprotected is still risky. Assess your rival's Unit, possible threats, and countermeasures before sending your Leader into the melee fray.
Terms & Effects
- Vanguard/Flank/Rear Hero — a Hero in a specific Wave (row).
- Unit — all Heroes and Leaders belonging to one player, collectively.
- Forerunner — the Hero or Leader standing directly in front of this Hero.
- Supporter — the Hero or Leader standing directly behind this Hero.
- Attack Strength — the amount of damage dealt by a Hero's or Leader's attack.
- Defeat a Hero — the Hero is immediately flipped face-down and becomes a corpse.
- Deal Damage — the stated amount of damage is placed on the target. This is not considered an attack.
- Discard Cards — remove the stated number of cards from a Hand into the Discard pile. Unless stated otherwise, the owner of the cards chooses which cards to discard.
- Draw Cards — draw the stated number of cards from the top of your Deck.
- Revive a Corpse — flip the corpse face-up. It becomes a Hero again. A revived Hero may act on the same turn under the normal rules.
- Rival/Any Rival — the player or players you are fighting against.
- Heal Damage — remove the stated amount of damage. If this cannot be fully done, remove as much as you can.
- Hero/Any Hero — if no specific Unit is stated, you may choose a Hero from either your own Unit or your rival's.
Components
- 25 Red Player cards
- 25 Blue Player cards
- First Player card
- Second Player card
- 9 small Damage tokens
- 3 large Damage tokens
- 4 Status Effect tokens
- 5 double-sided small Damage/Virus tokens
- 5 double-sided small Damage/Zeal tokens
- 8 double-sided small Damage/Time tokens