Overview

Rivals is a deckbuilding board game based on a Battle Royale gameplay. You play the chosen one of your clan and fight to save your people from extinction. You win by being the last man standing or collecting 5 Rival Points (RP). You collect Rivals Points by eliminating players, spending ressources or by negotiating with Sponsors. The game is played over 3 Eras, which consist of a speficic amount of rounds. Each round consists of the action phase and clean-up phase. The active player is changing clockwise and players have two turns with 2 action points (AP) each action phase/round. During the first turn of the first action phase no attack cards are allowed to play.

Action phase

Types of actions (2 AP per turn)

• Scout (0 AP): turn over any adjacent tiles (can be repeated)
• Move (1 AP): Move 2 spaces (other Ashak do not block, cannot be interrupted)
• Collect (1 AP): Collect All resources of the tile + bonus of the space (tile is drained for 2 rounds)
• Negotiate (1 AP): Pay 1 Anticipation Token (AT) → Gain 1 RP + choose additional reward → sponsor is removed afterwards
  • Install 1 schema
  • gain 2 AT
  • uninstall 2 cards (hand/discard)
• Spend ressources (0 AP):
  • Shield: Pay 2 Resin → Shield on field (max. 2 per player) → blocks 1. shot of salvo → destroys
  • Uninstall: Pay 2 Crystal → Uninstall 1 card, draw new card
  • Install: Pay 5 resources of one kind (resin or crystal) → Install 1 schema
  • Rivals Point: Pay 10 ressources of one kind (resin or crystal) → 1 RP

Whenever you install cards, they go straight to your hand.

Card play

• Card: pay cost (0-2AP) → check range of card, distance to target and Line of Sight (LOS)
  • LOS: if closest path to the target does not have an obstacle (Ashak or enemy shield, which are not the target of the attack, enemy drone), line of sight is given (
  • When reacting: Resolve cards from last to first
• Defend: Roll 2 (+2 per AT (max 2 AT), +1 for Forest) dice, block shields 1 salvo, play utilities
• Poison: Poison token of the attacker to defender (no limit), -1HP + 1 die per poison token at
  • Beginning of turn (remove token if successful) → Initiator receives 1 Ultimate Point (UP)
• Elimination: Gain 2 RP and install 1 card from opponent's deck (except Guild + Ashak cards)
• LoS: is blocked by: Field with other player (incl. drones), enemy shield
• Ultimate: gain 1 Ultimate Point per damage you inflicted (+bonus depending on HP, calculated separately for each volley), if you reach full capacity: you can use your Ultimate
• Mental: does not need/ignore LoS and can gain additional effects by discarding card from hand
• Physical: attacks are boosted/enhanced by one or more mods, salvos receive the bonus for every shot
• Explosive: effect and damage on all hexes (incl. shield) of the tile → afterwards uninstall the card and install the top card of the interface deck
• Skills:
  • passive: card effect is active directly;
  • active: installed exhausted on board, can only be used in the next action phase
• Tactics:
  • Mods: enhance physical attacks
  • Defenses: can give various bonuses such as AT, HP, Shields, etc.
  • Utilities: can be used anytime, active for the duration, discarded afterwards / in between rounds
• Guild: cost 0 AP and are usable 1x per action phase, exhausted after use

Hex properties

• Lake: -2HP when entered, you lose your remaining movement
• Volcano: no special rules
• Void: cannot be entered (not even by teleport), -4 HP → Ashak on adjacent tile next to the void
• Forest: collect 1 Resin (bonus: 3 + if no fire: additional dice for defense)
• Crystal: collect 1 Crystal (bonus: 3), can be entered
• Interface: consult 2 (with bonus: 4) visible/top cards → install 1 (with bonus: 2), discard 1-4 cards
• Anticipation: pay 2 resources (Resin/Crystal) → gain 1 Anticipation Token (AT) (repeatable), bonus: 1 token free
• Shield: Blocks one salvo and line of sight (LOS)
  • enemy shields: 2 movement points to get on the field, blocks line of sight (LOS)

Clean-up phase

• the Wildtech (play area) shrinks depending the drawn zone card(s).
  • Players still standing on the vanishing tiles (void) lose 4 HP and choose a hex adjacent to the void.
• inactive sponsors become active and up to 2 additional sponsors are randomly generated.
• Drought tokens are flipped or removed
• interface cards are replaced with new ones
• Exhausted cards on player boars are refreshed and cards in the temporary slot as well as remaining cards on the hand are discarded
• only between eras: schema cards are replaced