Mage Knight: Basic Reference and Notes v1.0.

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(that seem to always arise while learning, but are sometimes forgotten, due to space between plays)
Setup Notes
1. Advanced Actions - 3 flops; Spells - 3 flops; Artifacts - NO flops; Unit Offer Area: Level I/II - # of players +2; Number of Dice - # of players +2
2. Set tile flop accordingly per scenario. Some have 2,3, or 4 face-up tiles to begin. Pick cone, wedge, etc. (Start tile has 2 sides)
3. If scenario says use '8' countryside tiles (green), then some of these 8 will 'flop' prior to game start
4. Remove appropriate skill tokens from skill token deck prior to game (black or white headed tokens based on type of game, i.e. co-op)
Turn and Round Notes
1. Day/Night Tactic cards picked AFTER hand draw (so you can use hand info to make Tactic selection)
2. First to pick Tactic Cards each round is determined by lowest on fame track (ties are broken by lowest on turn order track)
3. ANY non-wound card played sideways can be +1 for basic 4 functions: Move, Block, Attack, OR Influence. No 'primers' needed
4. Dice: Gold are wild during Day, 'depleted' at Night; Black are 'depleted' during DAY and usable at NIGHT (but NOT wild)
5. Day/Night Mana: You may not use Gold mana at NIGHT; You may NOT use black mana during DAY (except in Dungeon or Tomb)
6. Crystals: You may never have more than 3 crystals of any 1 color in your possession; no Gold or Black crystals (only temporary tokens)
7. Artifact cards, always draw number obtained in the turn +1, then place 1 declined card at bottom of Artifact deck
8. Spells and Advanced Action Card piles immediately refill slots when less than 3; Henchmen/Units DO NOT immediately refill slots
9. You can always discard ANY number of non-wound cards at end of turn (not used too often, but is nice based on fast opponent deck use)
10. No 'Carry Over' between movement phase and attack phase (example: movement cards) *LL
11. 'A' in the upper left corner of your card? You must use this card during the 'Action' phase of your turn! *LL
12. End of round trigger: choice to end round when draw deck is empty, declaring player forfeits turn, all others now get one last turn.
Leveling Up
1. ONLY level up at END of turn, after obtaining site/turn reward card bonuses first (spells, advanced actions, artifacts, units)
2. Site rewards can be obtained in any order, but always go to top of deed deck first, then AA reward from leveling up, then hand draw
3. If applicable, take 2 Skills, select 1, other goes to 'offer' area OR obtain 1 from 'offer' area (not yours) but must take 'bottom' AA card
Movement / Exploring Notes
1. Walls at the edge of a hex increases movement costs by 1 to enter 'through' the wall *LL
2. You may choose to stay at the same site on your turn (i.e. no requirement to move away from a Crystal Mine)
3. You can Explore (new tile flop) multiple times per turn, independent of movement (aka, you can move, explore, move, explore)
4. No requirement to stop movement when traveling in or through 'adventure' sites (ruins, dungeons, tomb, monster den, spawning ground)
5. You must 'Assault' (move into a location) to attack the monsters there (except for marauding GREEN and RED token monsters)
6. When adding 'countryside' (green) tiles, they must touch 2 other tiles, or, touch 1 tile that is touching at least 2 other tiles
7. When adding 'core' (gold) tiles, they must touch 2 other tiles (Also, if playing a 'wedge' format, core tiles can not be placed on a 'coast')
8. After the setup stack of tiles have been exhausted, you are allowed to add leftover countryside (green) tiles (required to touch 3 others)
End of Round (aka end of Day OR end of Night) (these are just some of the items, but ones that have been commonly forgotten)
1. Advanced Action and Spell offer area lose 'bottom' card of the column, goes to bottom of deck, new flop and 'push' offer to fill 3 slots
2. Ready all Units (even if wounded)
3. Roll dice, at least HALF of dice must be basic colors (NOT black or yellow). Re-roll black/gold until requirement is met.
4. REPLACE ALL Units/Henchmen (# of players +2) and add # of Advanced Actions (AA) at 1 per non-burnt Monastery available on board
5. If core tiles are in play, Offer Area for Henchmen use new rule: Level III/IV Units first during fill, then alternate with Level I/II
6. Artifacts: Banners turn face up if needed and may be unattached from Units (Unit discarded if 'un-attach' with 'Banner of Command' card)
Wound Cards, and how to deal with them
1. HEAL: You can use card text abilities to HEAL wounds (rid them from hand/deck, NOT to discard pile) independent of resting; You can also
'Influence' Locals to Heal (Village 3 Influence for 1 Heal, Monastery 2 Influence for 1 Heal).
2. RESTING – No action available if Resting (no interaction, no combat, etc)
1. STANDARD REST: You can 'Rest' on your turn independent of site. Discard 1 NON-wound card, and put ALL (min. of 0) wound cards
from hand to DISCARD pile. *(you can additionally play heal cards on this turn, but NOT interact for healing)
2. SLOW RECOVERY (EXHAUSTED): When your hand is ONLY wound cards, reveal to prove, and then you can discard 1 wound to
DISCARD pile. Then, if hand is less than hand limit, draw up to hand limit
3. KNOCKED OUT: When you get damaged by combat, and it immediately gives you wounds so that the total wounds (just received) are
greater than or equal to 'base' hand limit (per your octagonal level token), you must discard ALL non-wound cards immediately.
Units (aka Henchmen) – Occupy Unit 'slots' based on player level (octagon chits), can be displaced by a new recruit at any time
1. Use Octagon chit to use ability on card at appropriate time. Once 'spent', has to be 'readied' at end of round or via card text
2. Each henchman can be 'wounded' or 'not wounded'. If wounded, 1 wound card on them (2 if poisoned). They can't be activated.
3. 'Spent' henchmen can still absorb damage during combat (but must have no wound cards on them before doing so)
4. To heal a wound on henchman you must spend heal points equal to the roman numeral 'strength' on the henchman
5. Remember, unwounded henchmen at the end of the game are worth fame points!
6. Recruting Symbols – Red Down Thumb: 'opposite' on Influence from Reputation, Gold Up Thumb: use the 2x to multiply present
Reputation bonus or penarly, Exclamation point(!): only influenced at City or Refugee Camp, purple Mana Symbol: see card *LL
Location Notes and Reminders there are a lot more, these are just some reminders for forgotten or uncommon
1. Keep: You can attack keeps owned by opponents, just draw gray token each time. If within one space of 'owned' keep, hand limit is +1 for
all keeps owned (max of +2); already conquered keeps provide only ½ fame for monster kills (rounded
2. Monastery : When burning down monastery, monster does NOT gain 'fortify' ability. When Monastery is revealed, immediately add 1
Advance Action to Unit Offer. Any AA in offer can now be obtained at Monastery with 6 Influence. Successful burning gives Artifact.
3. Mage Tower: Spell can be purchased with 7 influence + 1 mana of related spell color. Spell also obtained from conquering tower
4. City: It costs only 2 movement to move into any city area, as shown in the corner of the Day/Night board (sometimes missed)
5. 1 shield token on city for each monster defeat; Once city conquered, determine leader by majority tokens (tiebreaker: first token in)
6. Once city is conquered, anyone can enter the city, anyone can use city interaction; +1 influence in city per hero shield token
7. Hand size increased for proximity: +2 if leader. +1 if minimum of 1 shield present (Hand size NOT cumulative with Keep bonus)
8. Additional incentive to attack city: Leaders and those who have shields present, gain Fame (set per Scenario) at End Game scoring
9. Glades: You can throw away wound from hand or discard pile, and gaing gold/black mana token at START of next turn
10. Limited Unit Help: You can bring 0 Units with you into a Dungeon , Tomb, or Monastery, and only 1 Unit into a Maze or Labyrinth
Reputation Track Modifiers (some Advanced Actions and Artifacts can modify the Reputation Track also)
+1: Kill Rampaging Orcs (green tokens) -1: Attack Mage Tower / Attack City / Attack Keep / Plunder a Village
+2: Kill Rampaging Draconum (red tokens) -3: Attack Monastery
+0: Kill NON-Rampaging Draconum or Orcs (Red/Green tokens found in Ruins or Cities, for example)
Combat 'Made Easy' (this covers BLOCK and ATTACK phases, NOT the prior 'range and siege' phase)
1. Rulebook kind of describes differently, but... (rulebook says 'subtract' (absorb) armor, then take 1 wound and repeat)
a) Must 'block' ALL offense from monster, or else it ALL that 'damage' comes through
b) Then, if it comes through, take 'damage' and divide by armor, and round up, to determine number of wound cards
c) Units/Henchmen CAN (but not required) absorb da mage first before going to hero (each Unit can absorb only 1X)
d) If henchman absorbs damage, subtract their armor value from total damage, give 1 wound to henchmen, remaining damage value
comes through to another henchman, or to hero, then deal damage like step 'b' above (divide and round up for total Wounds)
e) KNOCKED OUT: If you receive # of Wounds ≥ raw hand size during combat, must discard the remaining non-wound cards form hand
2. Attack FAILURE
a) Failed Attack on Fortified areas (keep, tower, city): Must retreat to safe place (typically where you attacked from), if not 'safe', have to
engage 'Forced Withdrawal': Take 1 wound card for each extra space retreated (in addition to what you took from combat)
b) Failed Attack on NON Fortified areas: Stay in the hex and don't have to retreat to where you attacked from
c) If you failed to defeat a monster in a Tomb, Dungeon, Monastery, Maze, Labyrinth, or oppoent's Keep, you DISCARD the token(s)
d) If you failed to defeat a monster in a Monster Den, Spawning Grounds, City, or Ruins, the token(s) remains there
3. Monster and Sight Abilities - Resistances and Specialized Attacks
a) Ice/Fire Resistance - Your attacks are halved (rounded down) for the type only (Ex/ Ice attack on Ice resistance). Also gives
resistance to Blue/Red 'effects' respectively (the extra wording on a colored card (beyond the 'Attack' wording))
b) Physical Resistance - applies to Ranged and Seige also. Everything that is not Ice, Fire, or ColdFire is Physical
c) Ice/Fire Attacks - Your blocks are halved (rounded down) for same type and regular type, you need 'opposite' type to effectively block
d) Fortified on Monster means NO ranged attacks; 'Double Fortified' from monster token + site, means NO ranged and NO siege
e) Green and Red tokens BOTH have the 'move perpendicularly, nearby' attack trigger
f) City Cards ADD defensive abilities ONLY to monsters in a city that have that ability already
Combat Notes
1. Pooling and Splitting: Enemies can be pooled or split an Attack (or a combination of both). In pooled groups, a single enemy defense
bonus might make attack 'inefficient' for the pool (or equivalent, i.e. Fortifiation). Enemies can NOT be pooled for Blocks, treat separately
2. Movement points can NOT carry over between movement phase and action phase (therefore, combat) *LL
3. Assign damage to units before you assign damage to yourself (i.e. you cannot take a wound to reduce an attack and then let a unit with
resistance 'absorb' the remainder)
4. When you attack another player's keep and the defending unit is a gray keep unit (rather than the enemy mage knight actually being
there), then you only get 1/2 the fame value
Miscellany
1. Review the end game Fame bonuses/penalties for various acquisitions/accomplishment (for both General and Scenario based
modifications)
2. If a card says to "take" a mana die from the source, it does not count as the one die per turn from the source. If it says "spend", “use", or
“pay”, then it does. (Crystallize says 'pay')
3. Moving into a city costs 2 movement points regardless of the terrain it's on (See Day/Night Board, the graphic is plain as 'Day' :) )
4. Assign damage to units before you assign damage to yourself - you cannot take a wound to reduce an attack and then let a unit with
resistance 'absorb' the remainder. (Also, 'assassinate' creature ability trumps this *LL)
Solo and Co-Op Play (Dummy Player is used for both)
1. Dummy Player is randomly selected. Use Hero Card, Round Order token, 16 basic action cards, and Skill stack
2. Load Dummy with 3 crystals per dots on Hero Card.
3. Use Tactic (Day/Night) Card per Scenario (typically random card given after selection via players)
4. Dummy Turn: Flop 3 from deck. If last card matches crystal color(s), flop 1 more per crystal of the matching color. If draw pile is empty on
turn, Dummy announces end of round (all others get 1 last turn per normal).
5. Dummy Player skills flop when active player has a skill flop from a level up.
6. Distribute enemies randomly in a cooperative city assault. All that you get to choose, is the number of enemies each player faces.
7. Lost Legion Volkare Notes – Different use of Volkare per Scenario, but the following are constants
1. If Volkare Moves on his turn, flip card, follow iconography on Scenario card, remember to add gray tokens, if needed
2. Attack him by moving into his space (use terrain requirements and bonus, if applicable), roll 1 die to determine Volkare's attack type;
Defend against him like regular PvP rules (you can choose partial or full attendance)
3. Co-op Assault on Volkare: Break up tokens into elite and regular, decide # of each to each player, shuffle both token piles and deal
I have a lot of Influence in my hand, what can I do?
1. Recruit a Unit at the associated symbol location. Know your Symbols!
2. Heal yourself and/or Units at a Village or Monastery, 3 for 1 and 2 for 1, respectively
3. Buy a spell at a Mage Tower for 7 Influence +1 mana (color matching color of spell)
4. Buy an Advance Action at a Monastery for 6 Influence
5. Buy something at a City (each city is different, see associated City card)
Deck – Know your deck, this will help, especially in the first 2 rounds (if you haven't seen x yet, you know it's coming)
Your 16 basic cards consist of (the numbers don’t add up because some cards give you multiple options):
7 cards to give movement Enemy and Unit Abilities :(sometimes forgotten)
4 cards to attack or block Arcane Immunity (Purple Star): Immune to type effects
2 cards to range attack Elusive (Ghosted Double Armor): Make sure to successfully Block, or else higher Armor
3 cards to influence Assassination (Bloody Dagger): Damage to player only, along WITH other effects; Units CAN Block
3 mana management cards Unfortified (Red X on Tower):
1 card to heal Exclamation Point (!): Means you must recruit via Interaction, NOT with a card effect
*LL = Lost Legion Expansion that added new rules and/or clarified details