Stormvault Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Object of the Game
  • Challenge Level
  • Defeat Conditions
• Components
• Getting Ready to Play
  • The Game Board
  • Setting Up the Game
• Playing the Game
  • Sequence of Play
  • Storm Strike
  • Chaos Activation
    • New Foes
    • Movement
  • Combats
    • Combats During the Chaos Activation Step
    • Combats During the Storm Strike and Hero Activation Steps
    • Rolling the Combat Dice
  • Hero Activation
    • Quest
      • Moving Your Hero
• Hero Abilities
• Card Commentaries
  • Quest Cards
  • Chaos Cards
  • Mark of Chaos Cards
• Hints and Tips
• Alternate Ways to Play
  • Randomly Selecting Starting Heroes
  • Sigmar's Champion
  • Against All Odds
• Achievements
• Reference
  • Turn Sequence
  • Combat Sequence

Introduction

Welcome to Stormvault, a cooperative game of exploration and adventure for 2-5 players set in the Mortal Realms! As mighty Stormcast Eternals Heroes you must work together to find three Gateway Shards – mysterious artefacts scattered in ages past – and take them to the Stormvault located inside the Whispering Keep in Shyish, where they will grant you access to long-hidden treasures of the God-King Sigmar. It will be no easy task, however; fearsome champions of the Chaos Gods roam the Mortal Realms, and they will do all they can to thwart your quest and claim victory for their dark patrons.

Object of the Game

The object of the game is to open the Stormvault by placing a Gateway Shard token on each of the three Gateways of the Whispering Keep. To find these Gateway Shards, the Heroes will need to move around each of the six realms of the game board, exploring each location in turn.

Challenge Level

Stormvault can be played at three different levels of challenge, depending on how brave, skilful or foolhardy the players are feeling!

Before the game begins, decide which of the three challenge levels you will be playing at. Each one comes with defeat conditions; if any of these conditions occurs, the game immediately ends – you have lost! It is recommended that you play your first game at the Introductory challenge level, ensuring all players are familiar with the rules before attempting a higher challenge level.

At the Introductory challenge level, do not use the Mark of Chaos cards. In Standard and Heroic games, these cards detail the rules for the four different types of Chaos Champion, representing the unique powers granted to them by their deities – these rules apply for the duration of the game.

Defeat Conditions

• Introductory
  • Chaos Ascendant: The Chaos Champions and their followers have overwhelmed the realms' defenders and ravaged the Stormvault to no avail – the wider war is lost! If there are no remaining cards in the Chaos deck at the end of any turn, you lose.
• Standard
  • Chaos Ascendant: As above.
  • A Reforging Too Far: The mystical resurrection of the Stormcast Eternals comes at a price, their noble essence diminishing with each reforging until they become shells of their former selves. If the Reforgings Tracker reaches 0, you lose.
• Heroic
  • Chaos Ascendant: As above.
  • A Reforging Too Far: As above.
  • Godly Supremacy: Without their rival deities' followers to keep their ambitions in check, one of the Chaos Gods has overrun the landscape with their fearsome servants. If 6 Chaos Champion tokens of the same type (Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch or Slaanesh) are in play on the board at the same time, you lose.

Components

Stormvault contains the following components:

• 6 Stormcast Eternals Hero miniatures (unassembled and unpainted; assembly instructions are printed in the rulebook)
• 6 Stormcast Eternals Hero cards
• Game board
• 40 Quest cards
• 36 Chaos cards
• 4 Mark of Chaos cards
• 24 Chaos Champion tokens (Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh)
• 5 Gateway Shard tokens
• 25 Hero tokens
• Reforgings token
• Combat dice
• Quest dice
• Drawstring bag

Source note on the dice: the printed rulebook shows the Combat dice faces as symbols. In this transcription the Hero symbol is the sunburst-haloed Stormcast Eternals helm, and the Chaos Champion symbol is the spiked Chaos skull.

Getting Ready to Play

The Game Board

Place the game board in the centre of the table. The game board depicts locations (A) joined together by lines called pathways (B). Heroes can move along any pathway, whereas Chaos Champions can only move along the arrowed pathways (C).

Each location is contained within one of six realms that make up the game board, each with a Chaos Stronghold (D) at its centre. The six realms that your Heroes will explore are:

• Aqshy, the Realm of Fire
• Ghur, the Realm of Beasts
• Chamon, the Realm of Metal
• Shyish, the Realm of Death
• Ghyran, the Realm of Life
• Ulgu and Hysh, the twin Realms of Light and Shadow

Each realm is colour coded and has a corresponding realm symbol. Note that whilst the twin realms of Hysh and Ulgu have their own symbol and colour they are treated as a single realm for the purposes of game play. Some pathways have a Realmgate icon, denoting that the pathway connects one realm to another.

In addition, Azyr, the Celestial Realm, is located in the top right of the game board (1), and the Whispering Keep – within which lies the Stormvault the Heroes seek – is located in the bottom left of the game board (2).

Setting Up the Game

Starting with the youngest player and proceeding clockwise around the table, each player in turn selects their Hero from the six Stormcast Eternals miniatures found on the coloured plastic frames. These will need to be removed and assembled before your first game – assembly instructions can be found on pages 13-14. Each Hero has a unique ability on their Hero card, and so plays slightly differently.

1. Each player's Hero starts in Azyr, Sigmar's celestial domain (1). Once you have placed your Hero here, take their matching Hero card and place it on the table in front of you (3).
2. Each named location in a realm has a matching name along the outside of the board (4) for the placement of Quest cards. Shuffle the Quest cards deck, and, without looking at the fronts of the cards, place one card face down under each location name along the outside of the board (5).
3. Place the Gateway Shard tokens on the Undiscovered Gateway Shard space (6).
4. Shuffle the deck of Chaos cards and place it face down on the Chaos deck space (7).
5. There are spaces on the board for discarded Chaos cards (8) and discarded Quest cards (9). The space for discarded Quest cards is known as the Gifts of Sigmar space.
6. Unless you're playing an Introductory level game, place the four Mark of Chaos cards beside the board (10) where all players can reference them.
7. Place the Reforgings token at 8 on the Reforgings tracker (11), unless you're playing an Introductory level game, in which case this is not used.
8. Next, you must set up a Chaos Champion in each Chaos Stronghold. To do so, first place three of each type of Chaos Champion token (Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh) into the drawstring bag. Then, draw a single token out of the bag for each Chaos Stronghold and place that token on the corresponding location (12).
9. Once there is a Chaos Champion on every Chaos Stronghold, roll the Quest dice for each, and move the Chaos Champion a number of pathways equal to that roll, always following an arrowed pathway.
10. Finally, put all remaining Chaos Champion tokens into the drawstring bag, and place the Hero point tokens, Combat dice and Quest dice within easy reach (13). You are now ready to play the game.

Playing the Game

Sequence of Play

The youngest player goes first, and then play continues clockwise from them.

While a player is taking their turn, they are known as the active player. Each player's turn consists of the following three steps (explained in greater detail below):

1. Storm Strike – In a burst of lightning, the God-King Sigmar sends his finest warriors into the Mortal Realms.
2. Chaos Activation – The peril escalates as the champions of Chaos hunt down the Stormcast Eternals.
3. Hero Activation – The heroes quest through the realms, battling Chaos champions they encounter and exploring uncontested locations.

Once a player has completed their turn the next player has their turn and follows the same sequence. The game continues in this way until Victory is achieved or one of the Defeat conditions of the challenge level being played occurs.

Storm Strike

If your Hero is not in Azyr at the start of your turn, skip the Storm Strike step and move on to the Chaos Activation step.

If your Hero is in Azyr at the start of your turn, you must set them up on the board by selecting a Storm Strike location (as denoted by the Storm Strike location icon, a gold sunburst) that is not occupied by another Hero and placing your Hero at that location. If that location is occupied by one or more Chaos Champions, a Combat occurs (see Combats, below). Once you have set up your Hero in this way, move on to the Chaos Activation step.

Chaos Activation

Draw the top card from the Chaos deck and follow its instructions in the order they appear. The instructions on Chaos cards fall into two categories, as described below.

Once all of a Chaos card's effects – and any resulting Combats – have been resolved, the card is placed on the Chaos cards discard space, the Chaos Activation step ends and the Hero Activation step begins.

New Foes

Many Chaos cards cause new Chaos Champions to be placed on the board. Chaos Champions are always placed in the Chaos Stronghold location of the realm specified on the card. To place a Chaos Champion, randomly draw a Chaos Champion token from the drawstring bag, and place it on the Stronghold in the realm stated on the Chaos Card. You may be instructed to do so in more than one realm – where this is the case, the player who drew the Chaos card can choose the order in which this takes place.

If a Chaos card instructs you to place a new Chaos Champion in a realm, and there are already one or more Chaos Champions on that realm's Stronghold, do not place a new Chaos Champion in that realm.

Movement

When instructed to move a Chaos Champion, move that Champion along the arrowed pathway pointing away from their current location, stopping when they reach the next location. Note that it is possible for multiple Chaos Champions to be on the same location.

If a Chaos card causes more than one Chaos Champion to move, the active player decides the order in which this takes place. If a Chaos Champion moves onto a location occupied by a Hero, that Champion immediately stops in that location and a Combat occurs (see Combats, below).

Note that if, when you come to move a Chaos Champion, it is on the same location as a Hero, it does not move; instead, a Combat occurs between the Chaos Champion and that Hero. In this situation, the player who controls that Hero rolls the Combat dice.

Combats

Combats are resolved using the Combat dice. They can occur at any time during the turn.

Combats During the Chaos Activation Step

Whenever a Chaos Champion moves onto a location occupied by a Hero, their move ends and a Combat occurs.

Combats During the Storm Strike and Hero Activation Steps

Whenever a Hero moves onto a location occupied by one or more Chaos Champions, a Combat occurs between that Hero and each of those Chaos Champions. In this situation, the active player rolls the Combat dice once for each Chaos Champion on their Hero's location, in an order of their choice.

Rolling the Combat Dice

When the Combat dice is rolled, the following results apply:

• If the Hero symbol is rolled, the player's Hero is defeated and is moved to Azyr. If a defeated Hero was carrying one or more Gateway Shard tokens, place these on the board at the location where that Hero was defeated. In addition, a defeated Hero with any Quest cards must choose one and discard it. Finally, move the Reforgings token 1 space along the Reforgings tracker (unless this is an Introductory level game).
• If a blank face is rolled, nothing happens.
• If the Chaos Champion symbol is rolled, the Chaos Champion being rolled for is defeated – remove that Champion's token from the board and return it to the drawstring bag. In addition, when a Chaos Champion is defeated, the player who rolled that Combat dice receives a value 1 Hero token, which they place face up in front of them. You can trade five value 1 tokens for a value 5 token at any time.

Hero Activation

The Hero Activation step is split into three stages, each named for the action you can take with your Hero in that stage. These stages are completed in the following order:

1. Quest
2. Explore
3. Receive a Gift of Sigmar

Quest

The Quest action consists of moving your Hero and battling against Chaos Champions.

At the start of your Quest action, roll the Quest dice. The result of this roll determines how many Quest points you have available to spend during this action. You can spend Quest points to move your Hero and initiate Combats with Chaos Champions.

Moving Your Hero

During the Quest action you can spend Quest points to move your Hero to other locations along the pathways that connect them. Moving your Hero along a single pathway costs 1 Quest point. You can move your Hero onto any adjacent location connected by a pathway, in any direction along a pathway – the arrows on pathways only dictate the direction of movement for Chaos Champions. To move onto the Whispering Keep location, however, your Hero must be carrying one or more Gateway Shards.

You can move your Hero onto a location occupied by another Hero (unless that location is also occupied by one or more Chaos Champions), but your Hero can never end a Quest action on a location occupied by another Hero.

If your Hero moves onto a location with one or more Gateway Shard tokens on it (due to being dropped there by a defeated Hero), you can claim any number of these; take the tokens and place them on your Hero card.

If your Hero moves onto a location occupied by one or more Chaos Champions, you must resolve a Combat against every Chaos Champion in that location (see Combats, above). As opposed to those Combats initiated by a player (as described below), Combats that occur as a result of moving into a location do not cost any Quest points.

Once you have resolved a Combat against each Chaos Champion, you can spend Quest points to move onwards from that location.

Initiating Combats

During your Quest action you can also spend Quest points to initiate Combats. This represents seizing the initiative and attacking your foes more relentlessly.

There are two situations in which you can initiate a Combat during your Quest action:

• At the start of your Quest action, before moving your Hero for the first time, there is one or more Chaos Champions on your Hero's current location.
• You have resolved all Combats that occurred as a result of moving your Hero onto the same location as a Chaos Champion (as described above).

To initiate a Combat at either of these times, first declare which Chaos Champion on your Hero's current location will be targeted, and then resolve a Combat against that Champion using the Combat dice (as described above). Initiating a Combat costs 1 Quest point for each Chaos Champion you choose to target. You may continue to spend Quest points to initiate Combat in this way until there are no more Chaos Champions on your Hero's location, or until you run out of Quest points to spend, or if your Hero is defeated. You can target the same Chaos Champion more than once during your Quest action.

Each time you spend a Quest point, you may find it useful to turn the Quest dice to display the number of Quest points that remain unspent. You do not have to spend all of your Quest points. Your Quest action ends when you either run out of Quest points to spend or decide that you do not wish to spend any more Quest points – any unspent Quest points are lost.

Explore

You can perform an Explore action if there are no Chaos Champions on your Hero's location and there is a Quest card waiting to be claimed at that location's corresponding point along the board edge. If you choose to do so, pick up that location's Quest card and add it to your hand. You may keep your hand of Quest cards secret if you wish, or you can show them to the other players at any time.

If you pick up a Gateway Shard card, take a Gateway Shard token and place it on your Hero card, and then place the Gateway Shard card to one side or back into the game box – it is no longer needed in this game.

After you have resolved an Explore action, or if you were unable to or chose not to, you may then choose to spend Hero points to receive a Gift of Sigmar (see below).

Receive a Gift of Sigmar

A Receive a Gift of Sigmar action allows you to spend Hero points to add one randomly determined discarded Quest card to your hand. To perform the action, discard 3 points' worth of Hero tokens you have collected during the game, shuffle the cards on the Gifts of Sigmar space, draw the top card and add it to your hand.

If you have fewer than 3 points' worth of Hero tokens, or if there are no discarded cards on the Gifts of Sigmar space, then you cannot receive a Gift of Sigmar in this way.

Once you are done your turn ends and play passes to the next player in a clockwise direction around the table.

Placing Gateway Shards

If your Hero is in the Whispering Keep location when you reach the Explore action of your turn, and there is one or more Gateway Shards on their Hero card, you must immediately place each Gateway Shard token they have onto an empty Gateway space, one at a time, until either they run out of Gateway Shard tokens or all three spaces are filled. Each time you place a Gateway Shard token in this way, you receive a value 5 Hero token.

After placing all of your Hero's Gateway Shard tokens, if any Gateway spaces are unoccupied, your Hero is moved back to Azyr and the Explore stage ends.

Winning the Game

When all three Gateway spaces are occupied by Gateway Shard tokens, the game ends and you are victorious!

Victory Point Score

To evaluate your success and add a target for future attempts at the game, calculate your group's Victory Point Score. The higher this score, the more glorious your achievements and the harder they will be to live up to.

If the game ends in victory, follow the steps below to calculate your Victory point score:

• Add together the value of all the Hero tokens each player ended the game with;
• Add to this total the number of cards left in the Chaos deck at the end of the game;
• Add to this total the number of remaining Reforgings on the tracker (unless you are playing at Introductory challenge level);
• Finally, halve the score if you were playing at Introductory challenge level, or double it if you were playing at Heroic level.

Using Quest Cards

Quest cards feature a variety of effects and can be used at various different times during the game. Each card will tell you when it can be used. Unless a Quest card specifies otherwise, you can only use a Quest card from your hand while it is your turn.

Many Quest cards have effects that cause part of the game to work in a different way to the normal rules. Whenever this is the case, the Quest card takes precedence.

There is no limit to how many Quest cards you can use during your turn, except that you cannot use more than one card with the same name in one turn.

Once you have used a Quest card, place it face down on the Gifts of Sigmar space.

Hero Abilities

Each Hero card carries a unique ability. Alya, Uran, Thurnos and Oswin are the four specialists who each defeat one type of Chaos Champion without rolling the Combat dice, which they can do once per turn.

• Alya the Stalwart: The printed rulebook names Alya as one of the four specialists (see the Hints and Tips), but does not reproduce her Hero card, so her ability text is not transcribed here.
• Uran Trueblade – Bane of Khorne: Once per turn, during either your Storm Strike step or Hero Activation step, you can defeat a single Khorne Champion on the same location as your Hero without rolling the Combat dice.
• Thurnos Brightsoul – Bane of Tzeentch: Once per turn, during either your Storm Strike step or Hero Activation step, you can defeat a single Tzeentch Champion on the same location as your Hero without rolling the Combat dice.
• Oswin the Swift – Bane of Nurgle: Once per turn, during either your Storm Strike step or Hero Activation step, you can defeat a single Nurgle Champion on the same location as your Hero without rolling the Combat dice.
• Quain Hawksight – Great Foresight: In the Chaos Activation step of your turn, you can draw the top two Chaos cards and choose which card will be resolved. Place the other card face down at the bottom of the Chaos deck. This ability cannot be used if there is only one card remaining in the Chaos deck.
• Bran Surebolt: The printed rulebook does not reproduce his Hero card, so his ability text is not transcribed here.

Source note: the printed rulebook shows Hero cards for Oswin, Thurnos, Uran and Quain only. Alya's and Bran's ability text is absent from this rulebook and is left out rather than reconstructed.

Card Commentaries

Quest Cards

Misdirection – Play at the start of your Hero Activation step. Choose a Chaos Champion in the same realm as your Hero and move that Champion along any pathway to an adjacent location. If that Chaos Champion moves onto a location occupied by a Hero, a Combat occurs.

This Quest card allows you to move a Chaos Champion along a pathway of your choice, which is a powerful ability – you don't have to move them along an arrowed pathway, and you can move them out of a location you or one of your fellow Heroes wishes to explore or pass through, avoiding the risk of not defeating them in combat. You can even move the Chaos Champion into a different realm if they are in a location with an adjacent pathway which passes through a Realmgate. This card is used before your Hero's Quest action, so you can immediately take advantage of the Chaos Champion's new location. Note that you can only move the Champion along one pathway, even if they are a Slaanesh Champion.

Gateway to Azyr – Play at the start of your turn, before the Storm Strike step. Move your Hero to Azyr, keeping any Gateway Shard tokens on your Hero card.

This card is used at the start of your turn, before the Storm Strike step. This means that after you play it and move to Azyr, you can immediately Storm Strike, so it's a great way to get across the board quickly. Unlike when you return to Azyr after being defeated, your Hero is not forced to lose any Gifts of Sigmar or drop any Gateway Shards they're carrying (as they've not been defeated), so this card can be incredibly useful if you have a Gateway Shard and there are Chaos Champions barring your route to the Whispering Keep. The closest Storm Strike location is in Aqshy, though, so unless you combine this with the Focused Strike Quest card (which lets you Storm Strike anywhere apart from the Whispering Keep itself) you may still need to risk combat with a Chaos Champion or two.

Mighty Bulwark – Play during your Quest action. Treat ✳ results as blank results on the Combat dice until the end of this Quest action.

(✳ denotes the Hero symbol on the Combat dice.)

Wrath of the Storm – The printed rulebook describes this card only in the Merciless Invasion commentary below: it lets you treat blank results on the Combat dice as Chaos Champion results until the end of the Quest action.

Focused Strike – Referred to in the Gateway to Azyr commentary as a Quest card that lets you Storm Strike anywhere apart from the Whispering Keep itself. Its full card text is not reproduced in the printed rulebook.

Chaos Cards

Fresh Hunting Grounds – New Foes: Place a new Chaos Champion on the Chaos Stronghold in your Hero's current realm. Movement: Move all Chaos Champions on a location adjacent to a Realmgate, in a realm in which there are no Heroes, through the Realmgate to the connecting location.

When you draw this card, you first place a Chaos Champion as instructed. Then you need to check which realms contain Chaos Champions but no Heroes. After that, look whether any of those Chaos Champions are in locations which are connected to a different realm by an adjacent pathway with a Realmgate. If any Chaos Champions are, move those Champions along the pathway so they move into the connected realm. Note that while the Champions won't move from realms which contain one or more Heroes, they can move into a Realm – or even a location – which contains a Hero, potentially triggering an unexpected combat.

Merciless Invasion – Movement: Move all Chaos Champions in your Hero's current realm. When resolving any Combats during this Chaos Activation, treat all rolls of blank faces as ✳ instead.

This card makes the Chaos Champions far more dangerous than normal, increasing the likelihood of the Heroes being defeated in a combat. Two of the Quest cards also ask you to treat the results of the roll of the Combat dice differently to normal – Mighty Bulwark and Wrath of the Storm. The first makes you treat ✳ results as blank results. If this is used in the same turn as Merciless Invasion is drawn, blank results will be treated as ✳ results, and ✳ results will be treated as blank results, negating the Chaos Champions' advantage. Wrath of the Storm instead allows you to treat blank results as Chaos Champion results until the end of the Quest action. If this is used in the same turn in which the Merciless Invasion Chaos card is drawn, blank results will be treated as Chaos Champion results instead of ✳ results, as Quest cards take precedence over the normal rules – in this case, Wrath of the Storm is even more useful than normal!

Shyish Assaulted – New Foes: Place a new Chaos Champion on the Chaos Stronghold in Shyish. Movement: Move all Chaos Champions in Shyish. (Example card shown in the Components section.)

Mark of Chaos Cards

Not used at the Introductory challenge level. Each Mark of Chaos card sets a rule for the Chaos Champions of one type for the rest of the game.

• Mark of Khorne: When resolving a Combat against a Khorne Champion, Heroes are defeated on a roll of ✳ or a blank face.
• Mark of Nurgle: When resolving a Combat against a Nurgle Champion, if you roll a Chaos Champion symbol on the first roll of the Combat dice, roll the dice a second time. If the roll is a Chaos Champion symbol, that Nurgle Champion is defeated. Otherwise, nothing happens and that Combat is considered resolved.
• Mark of Tzeentch: You cannot use the abilities printed on Quest cards when at the same location as a Tzeentch Champion. In addition, when resolving a Combat against a Tzeentch Champion, if you roll a blank face with the Combat Dice, select one Quest Card from your hand and discard it.
• Mark of Slaanesh: Whenever you move a Slaanesh Champion as a result of a Movement instruction, that Champion moves two pathways instead of one. In addition, a Hero cannot move off of a location occupied by a Slaanesh Champion during their Quest action – they must spend Quest points to initiate Combat until either the Slaanesh Champion is defeated or they run out of Quest points.

Source note: the Mark of Nurgle card's symbol is too small to read reliably at print resolution; it is transcribed as the Chaos Champion symbol, matching the card's use of the same icon elsewhere in the rulebook.

Hints and Tips

The advice below includes some handy tips to help you open the elusive Stormvault in your games, and to increase your Victory Points Score as you play on. Once you've played a few games, you'll find your own favoured tactics and approaches. Good luck!

• The reference page on the back of this booklet is an easy way to make sure you don't miss out any steps when you take your turn – keep it in sight while you play.
• When you play in Heroic challenge level, there are three ways you can lose the game – you'll need to think about how you stop each of these from occurring. The game ends if:
  1. There are no remaining cards in the Chaos deck at the end of a turn. To avoid this, you need to pick up as many Quest cards as you can, as quickly as possible. You'll need to spread your Heroes across the realms, and use your Quest cards to help each other reach distant locations.
  2. The Reforgings Tracker reaches 0. To avoid this, you need to pick your battles – only fight Chaos Champions that you're confident of beating, or if there's no other way to your objective.
  3. There are 6 Chaos Champions of the same type on the board at once. To avoid this, you'll need to keep an eye on which Champions are in play, and make the best use of your Heroes' unique abilities (see below) if a particular type is patrolling the realms in force.
• Each of the different Heroes has a unique ability, but four of them – Alya, Uran, Thurnos and Oswin – grant similar benefits. These four are specialists at fighting a particular type of Chaos Champion, allowing you to defeat a single Champion of that type in a combat without needing to roll the Combat dice. This ability can only be used once per turn, so you'll need to think about where it gives you the greatest benefit if there's more than one Champion within range of your Hero.
• When a Chaos card causes more than one Chaos Champion to move, the active player decides the order in which they move. Make sure to move them in an order that serves the Heroes' cause; sometimes, this can make all the difference.
• Making the most of the Quest cards you pick up is crucial – they can allow you to move your Hero around more quickly, make them more powerful in combat or more resilient, or help you explore the realms. It's best to let your fellow Heroes know what you're planning – you'll need to work in concert to achieve victory.
• It can be tempting to spend all of your Hero tokens on receiving Gifts of Sigmar, and in your first few games this is often a good idea. However, every Hero token you hold at the end of the game contributes to the group's Victory Point Score – in particular, if you think there's a good chance the Heroes will find the Gateway Shards needed to open the Stormvault without any extra help, you might be better off holding onto the tokens you've earned.

Alternate Ways to Play

Randomly Selecting Starting Heroes

As an alternative to each player selecting a Hero during set-up, you can choose to shuffle the Hero cards and randomly deal one out to each player. The card you are dealt will be the Hero you play as during the game.

Sigmar's Champion

You can add an extra level of friendly rivalry to your games by choosing to compete to be crowned Sigmar's Champion. If you do, all Hero tokens earned by players should be kept face down until the end of the game.

If the game ends in victory, add up the total point value of Hero tokens received by each player. The player with the most Hero points is named Sigmar's Champion, the first among equals who has earned true glory! If there is a tie for most Hero points, those players share the honour.

Against All Odds

For a shorter game, remove the six Aspiring Champions cards from the Chaos deck during setup and place them back in the game box (they won't be used). Note that doing this will significantly increase the challenge level of the game, as the threat of running out of Chaos cards and losing the game due to the Chaos Ascendant defeat condition becomes far more likely.

Achievements

Once you've got the hang of Stormvault, you can track your achievements on the record page of the rulebook. Make a note of when you completed each achievement, and who was playing when you did. Some of them are fairly easy to achieve, but others will test even the most dedicated of players!

• Win your first game on the Introductory challenge level
• Win your first game on the Standard challenge level
• Win your first game on the Heroic challenge level
• Win the game without any heroes having to be reforged
• Win the game with every Hero (Alya, Uran, Thurnos, Quain, Oswin, Bran)
• Win the game in 2020
• Win the game in 2021
• Win the game in 2022
• Win the game without ever dropping a Gateway Shard
• Win the game in 20 minutes or less
• Win the game having drawn two Chaos cards in each Chaos activation step
• Win the game while on holiday
• Win the game without using the effects on any Gateway to Azyr or Fate's Mercy cards
• Win the game and claim all five Gateway Shards
• Win the game twenty times

Reference

Turn Sequence

1. Storm Strike: If your Hero is in Azyr, set them up on a Storm Strike location not occupied by another Hero. If there are Chaos Champions at that Storm Strike location, resolve a Combat with each one in turn.
2. Chaos Activation: Draw the top card of the Chaos deck.
   • New Foes instructions will tell you to draw new Chaos Champions from the bag, and where to place them.
   • Movement instructions will tell you to move certain Chaos Champions, following the arrowed pathway (remember that Slaanesh Champions move twice). If a Chaos Champion begins its move on a location occupied by a Hero, or moves onto one, its move ends and you resolve a Combat with that Hero.
3. Hero Activation:
   • Quest: Roll the Quest dice to see how many Quest points you have this turn. Each can be spent to move your Hero along one pathway, and resolve a Combat with each Chaos Champion at that location in turn; or to initiate a Combat with a Chaos Champion at your Hero's location.
   • If your Hero is in the Whispering Keep when you reach their Explore action, place your Gateway Shard tokens on empty Gateway spaces – you receive one value 5 Hero token for each Gateway Shard token placed.
   • Explore: Pick up the Quest card for your Hero's current location, if there is one.
   • Receive Gift of Sigmar: If you wish to, you can discard 3 points' worth of Hero tokens to shuffle the Quest cards on the Gifts of Sigmar space, draw the top card and add it to your hand.

Combat Sequence

To resolve a Combat, roll the Combat dice:

• On a Hero symbol, the Hero is defeated and is moved to Azyr.
  • Any Gateway Shard tokens the Hero has are placed on the location where the Hero was defeated.
  • If the Hero has any Quest cards, choose one and discard it.
  • Move the Reforgings token 1 space along the Reforgings tracker.
• On a blank face, nothing happens.
• On a Chaos Champion symbol, the Chaos Champion is defeated.
  • Return that Champion's token to the drawstring bag.
  • The player receives a value 1 Hero token.