BATTLELINES - Instructions

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2-4 players

• Shuffle the deck and deal 5 cards to each player.
• Place the remaining cards in the centre of the table as the draw pile.
• There will be a discard pile next to the draw pile.
• Each player will have their own spoils of war pile that will grow during the game. 
• The person on the left of the dealer goes first.

There are two phases to each turn. The first is the combat phase. Each person must fight if they can in this turn. The second phase is the restocking phase.

Take turns moving clockwise around the table to complete the combat phase. On the very first turn, the person to the left of the dealer starts. The next time you begin the combat phase the person to their left starts, and so on.

• Step 1: Select the player you wish to attack.
• Step 2: Place 1 or more of the same unit in front of you to attack. You must play all the cards of the same type. Eg: If you have 3 archers, you must play all 3 of them.
• Step 3: The defendant must counter with as many units of the same type as they can. Eg: Place 2 cavalry down to defend.
• Step 4: The attacker then places as many bonus cards as they wish.
• Step 5: The defendant places as many bonus cards as they wish.
• Step 6: If the defendant places the King card, the attacker has a chance to respond with the assassin card.
• Step 7: Calculate your battle points. Each unit is worth 1 point. Each unit that has an advantage over another unit counts as 2 points. Infantry has an advantage over cavalry, cavalry has an advantage over archers and archers have an advantage over infantry. Apply any bonus cards when scoring.

The person with the highest score wins the fight. The winner discards 1 unit card and places the rest back in their hand. They also discard all secondary action cards used. They then collect the remaining cards from the defeated player and place them in their spoils of war pile in front of them.

If there is a draw, each player must discard all secondary action cards. They are to then discard half the unit cards in play. If there is an odd number of cards you always round up when halving. The rest of the cards are placed back in your hand.

Once each player has had a chance to fight during the combat phase, you enter the restocking phase. Each player draws 2 cards from the deck in the centre. If they still have less than 5 cards, they may continue drawing cards until they have 5.

If you have a unit card in your hand you must fight. However, if you do not have any unit cards in your hand when it is your turn to fight, you must give each player a card to place in their spoils of war pile from your hand. If you do not have enough cards, you may take from the discard pile followed by the deck if needed.

You can not fight a player without cards in their hand.

You must hand over all the cards in your hand to the attacker as you cannot defend yourself. These cards are added to their spoils of war pile.

The game continues until there are no more cards left in the deck and everyone has exhausted their unit cards. At this point you may place any remaining cards in your spoils of war pile. The person with the most number of cards is the winner.