• First line: Where cards are played

• Melee line: Units are moved here from the first line to attack the enemy's first line; Enemy's units on the Melee line can be attacked by your units in the First Line

• Enemy First Line

Your hand and your adversary's hand represents the Second Line.

The lines aren't constrained on the number of cards you can play on it.

Main rule: cards are always played/moved so that they are unopposed or opposing a single enemy card.

You play your units on the First Line: here the units can missile attack the enemy units on both the melee line and the enemy's first line (if capable of long range missile). Units in the first line can also attack enemy units in the Melee line.

Each player use a personal deck created using the specific rules of the choosen historical period or with the Fast Play option (see below).

Each player can select three units from the deck and play them face down on the center zone. The deck is then shuffled and each player draws a hand of 7 cards. The remaining cards are put aside. Cards discarded during the game will constitue the "Reserve" deck, while units eliminated will be put on the "Casualties" deck.

When both players have setup the three cards on the central zone the cards are turned face up.

DECK CREATION

You can quickly create a deck and play using the Fast Play option here below: no constraints, no calculations simply shuffle and start playing. The second option is to create a deck using the point system: basically you will select an "historical" army and you will create your decks using the army limits and the unit costs.

FAST PLAY option.

Create two decks using the same card set: two cards for each Unit (23 units x 2 = 46 units) and 5 cards for each Tactical Card (12 tactical cards x 5 = 60). In total each deck will have 106 cards.

POINT SYSTEM deck creation

You must define a number of Bugdet Points to be used to by the card. 1800pts are a good value for medium length games, while 1000 pts can be used for a quicker play. You can find in the armies page some examples of ready-to-play decks.

You can use the Budget Points to create your army using the costs associated with each unit: for a more detailed game you can define some limits on the available units depending on the army nationality: since a lot of games (DBA, DBM are the best know examples) have already introduced the "army list" concept you can easily introduce your own OOB in the game.

If you want to customize the tactical cards you can use a separate Budget of 2000 points: each tactical card costs 40 points. You can use these points also to buy additional units, while the army Budget Points cannot be used to buy extra tactical cards.

At the beginning of every game roll a D10: the player with the highest result goes first.

Note: there are two types of flanking in the game: a "strategical" flanking (encircling) that represents the overall manoeuvre of the armies and a "tactical" flanking to represent the advantage of a single unit on the field. The encircling phase will allow each player to manage the strategical flanking by playing cards with the Flank trait. During the Attack phase you will be able to gain the tactical flanking for unopposed units.

• when you play a unit on the Fist Line and there is an enemy unit opposing your card in the Melee Line
• when you move a unit from the First Line to the Melee line and there is an enemy unit opposing the moving card in the enemy's First Line

In both cases the enemy unit can conduct a missile attack against your unit following the standard rules.

• units with a TFA have a +4 modifier.
• units of the Encircling army have a +1 modifier.
• Tactics card can be played by both players to modify the result before and after the dice roll.
• Unopposed units adjacent to the attacker add a +1 each as "support" .

• Attacking cavalry unit: roll a D10; if the result is less than the unit mobility value then the flanking is successful, otherwise the attack is aborted.
• Attacking a different zone: if the defender is on a different zone (centre -> wings or wings -> center) the flanking is successful for any unit without the need of a dice roll (exception: PH and CH cannot gain the TFA in this case)
• Play a Outflank tactical card: the flanking is automatically successful

A unit that gained a TFA is rotated 90 toward the defending unit.

Effects:

Units with TFA have a +4 modifier on the attack roll; moreover any TFA negates the weapon type advantages.
Example: HC attacking HI normally suffer the +2 vs CAV of the infantry unit; if the HC can obtain a TFA the +2 Vs CAV is negated and the HC will have the +4 modifier.

Attacker with TFA will rout the defender on any successful result

When a enemy card is played/moved in opposition to a unit with a TFA the flanking unit is newly rotated in the upright position.

1. Unit on the Melee Line: you can Withdrawal on your first line if the area behind the selected unit is empty.
2. Unit on the First Line: you can Withdrawal to your Hand or
3. Unit on the First Line: you can try to stay in the field manoeuvring

In any case to Withdraw you must roll a D10; if the mobility value of the unit in withdrawal is greater than twice the mobility value of the attacker then add a -2 modifier to the dice roll:

• If the result is less of the mobility value of the unit the manoeuvre is successful: in the case 1 and 2 simply move your unit back or into your hand; if you where manoeuvring on the field (case 3) rotate the unit 90 degrees to represent the Withdrawal. In all cases the attack is aborted.
• If the result is equal to the mobility value the unit is moved on your hand (also in case 1) and the attack is aborted.
• If the result is greater than the mobility value then the manoeuvre is failed and the attack will be completed with a -1 modifier for the defending unit.

Exception 1: SK can always conduct a withdraw from the Melee Line (case 1) when attacked by other non SK foot units; moreover SK can withdraw into your hand (case 2) when attacked by HI and MI.

Exception 2: CAV units can always conduct a withdraw from the Melee Line (case 1) when attacked by any foot unit.

DRAW PHASE

Discard any number of cards from your hand to your reserve pile.

Draw a card from your deck. After the discard and draw action you cannot have more than 7 cards on your hand.

If your deck ever runs out, shuffle your Reserve pile and use it as your deck.

Cards sent to your Casualty pile stay there for the rest of the game.

If there are no cards left in your deck or reserve pile, you lose.

You can play an Initiative Tactical Card in this phase to keep the initiative for the next turn (playing twice in a row). Your opponent can cancel this effect by playing an Initiative card.

OPTIONAL RULE: Route level

If you select this rule then you loose the game when the losses in your Casually Pile exceed half of the army Route Points. The Route Points for each army are calculated

• Half point for any SK
• Twice the number of hits for HI, PH and HC
• The number of Hits for any other unit.

CAV (cavalry) refers to both LC and HC

Phalanx is a special class of Heavy Infantry: any reference to HI also apply to PH unless stated otherwise.

UNIT LIST