SHINOBI CLANS RULEBOOK CREDITS PLAYTESTERS SPECIAL THANKS Last Updated: August 8th, 2014 Robert Aigner, Iain Anderson, Claudia Ozzy Beck, Jason L Blair, Seth Ben Ezra, Andy Version 1.0 CONCEPT AND GAME DESIGN Arndt-Dont, Rob Boyle, Berianne Bramman, Kitkowski, Eric Lang, Robert Pfaff, Daniel Solis, Jürgen Mayer Thomas Brandl, John Brudenell, Nick Jeff Tidball, cardmarket.eu. Caputi, Marisa Castengera, Davidson Cole, EDITING Jan Christgau, Matteo Colaianni, Frank FIRST PRINTING BY Rob Boyle, Davidson Cole Disselkamp, Sabina Dzafi c, Oliver Erhardt, POSTHUMAN STUDIOS, MARCH 2014 Contact us at Susanne Finger, Isabel Fischer, Paul Foster, ARTWORK Eric Geiger, Dino Gheri, Mason Hoffos, Basti Contact us at [email protected] Nen Hofmann, Patrick Jansen, Ingmar Juhnke, [email protected] or via Adam Jury, Reid Kleiner, Seth Larson, Andi http://shinobiclans.com or search your favorite or via http://shinobiclans.com LAYOUT AND GRAPHIC DESIGN Lintzmaier, Peter Lohse, Thomas Lorenz, social network for “Shinobi Clans” Adam Jury Michael May, Johannes Mayer, Tikki Nagual, or “Posthuman Studios” or search your favorite social network for “Shinobi Clans” Jacob Norwood, Thor Olavsrud, János Palágyi, ICON DESIGN Robert Pfaff, Chris Riemer, Sam Pim, Schänder, © 2014 Jürgen Mayer. All rights reserved. or “Posthuman Studios” Marisa Castengera Frank Schmid, Uwe Schüller, Monina Schwarz, Shinobi Clans is a trademark and/or registered Rhett Skubis, Holger Sonnberger, Vic Thorris, trademark of Jürgen Mayer in the United LOGO DESIGN Wolfgang Tretter, Kevin Van Den Elzen, States and/or other countries. Produced under Tiara Lynn-Agresta Edmund Wasinger, Stefan Will, Jaqui Wujec license by Posthuman Studios LLC. GAME BACKGROUND CARD TYPES In Shinobi Clans, every player takes on the role of a ruthless and cunning ninja clan Assassins: Specialists: Used to help fulfi ll leader. Using ninjas from your clan and weapons from your arsenal, you will choose Used to attack Targets. both Assassination and Guard whether to assassinate or guard certain targets. For each successful assassination or Contracts. defense of a target, your clan earns gold. e player that earned the most gold for their clan at the end of the game is the winner. Weapons: Increase a ninja’s Guardians: power or decrease the power Used to protect Targets. of their opponents. GAME MATERIAL Targets: 5 Target cards (red back) 1 Starting Player token Meddlers: Infl uential people Ninjas guard or that pull strings behind the 5 Reward cards (yellow back) 1 First Pick token assassinate them for scenes, impacting Contract 87 Battle cards (black back) 50 Contract tokens (5 sets of 10) rewards. rewards. 40 Gold tokens 3 Tip cards x Events: One-time effects that Rewards: are immediately discarded Gold that ninjas earn for once the effect is resolved. successful Contracts. CARD DIAGRAMS Card Type Auxiliary Power symbols help you Card Name quickly identify cards in your hand. Guardian Card: Grandmaster Card: Guardian Assassin Card: Grandmaster Assassin Card: Weapon card: Shuriken card: Weapon Meddler card: Thief card: Meddler Guardian Blue symbols and placement on the left are associated Assassin Guardian Assassin Guardian Assassination Power with Guardians. Power Power Power Contract Gold Contract Gold Red symbols and placement on the right with Assassins. Modifi cation Modifi cation 2 GAME BACKGROUND • GAME MATERIAL • CARD DIAGRAMS CARD TYPES 3 TARGET PHASE GAME PREPARATION Choose a starting player by having each draw a reward card. A set of Contract tokens At the start of each round, shu e all 5 Target cards, then Whoever draws the highest gold value is the starting player and stays with a player during randomly draw 3 Target cards (4 Target cards for 5-player the whole game. receives the Starting Player token. Players return the reward games) and place them face up on the table. en, shu e all 5 ey are never discarded Reward cards and randomly draw 3 Reward cards (4 Reward cards a erwards. or given away. cards for 5-player games). Place one Reward card under each Each player receives a complete set of Contract tokens, used Targets and Rewards after the Target Phase Target card with the gold symbols visible. in each round of the game. A set of tokens consists of both an Guardian Contract tokens have a blue banner on the Assassination and a Guardian contract for each of the 5 targets: le . Assassin Contract DRAW PHASE: Shogun, Old Ninja Master, Daimyo, Merchant, and Ronin. tokens have a red banner Each player’s set has a di erent color on the back of the tokens. on the right. BASIC DRAFT Shu e the Battle cards and place them face down as the draw Battle cards have black At the start of each round, players are dealt a number of pile. e discard pile will go next to the draw pile. backs and include cards randomly. These cards are the start of each player’s If the draw pile is empty at any time, all cards in the discard Assassins, Guardians, hand. The rest of their hand is obtained through drafting. pile are shu ed into a new draw pile. Targets and Rewards Specialists, Meddlers, never go into the draw or discard pile. Weapons, and Events. A DEAL FIRST CARDS e game is now ready to begin. In Round 1, deal 4 Battle cards to each player, face down. In Round 2, deal 2 Battle cards each. In Round 3, do not deal Contract Front Contract Front Contract Back —Guardian —Assassin any Battle cards. Players are allowed to look at their cards. B DEAL DRAFT CARDS Keep the dra cards separate from the player’s hand until dra ing is complete. In Round 1, deal 6 Battle cards to each player, face down. In Round 2, deal 8 Battle cards to each. In Round 3, deal 10 Battle cards to each player. C DRAFTING ROUND SEQUENCE Each player selects one of the dra cards to keep for their hand and places it on the table in front of them, face down. en they pass the remaining dra cards to the next Shinobi Clans is played over three rounds. e player who has the most gold at the player; this happens simultaneously for each player. Players continue picking one card at conclusion of round 3 is the winner. at a time until all of the dra cards have been picked. en each player adds the dra ed cards to their hand. Every round consists of ve consecutive phases: In Round 1, players pass the remaining cards to the le (clockwise). In Round 2, 1. Target Phase players pass to the right (counter-clockwise). In Round 3, players pass to the le again. 2. Draw Phase (Basic Dra or Advanced Dra ) 3. Contract Phase D DISCARD Each player must discard down to 10 cards (necessary in case they retained cards in 4. Ninja Phase their hand from the previous round). 5. Battle Phase 4 GAME PREPARATION • ROUND SEQUENCE ROUND SEQUENCE TARGET PHASE, DRAW PHASE: BASIC 5 DRAW PHASE: ADVANCED DRAFT IN ROUNDS 2 AND 3 ADVANCED DRAFT OPTIONAL It is possible a player has le over cards in their hand from the previous round. If so, at the beginning of the advanced draw phase, the player places these cards face up e advanced dra rules are for experienced players and add an open card dra to the on the table directly in front of them. Each time a player with le over cards is required to game. is allows for a more strategic game because players can try to deduce their pick a card from the dra pool, they can alternatively choose to select one of their own opponents’ game plans from their card dra choices. To employ the advanced dra cards from the previous round. Players cannot pick le over cards from another player. rules, use the following rules instead of the basic dra rules. When dra ing with cards le over from a previous round, there may be cards remaining in the dra pool a er each player has picked two cards. In this case, discard any cards A FIRST DRAFTING PASS remaining in the dra pool. At the beginning of the advanced draw phase, the player with the Starting Player token A er the h dra ing pass, when every player has picked 10 cards for the round, receives the First Pick token. e First Pick token is passed from player to player during discard any le over cards from the previous round still in front of any players. the draw phase. Draw a number of cards from the draw pile equal to twice the number of players: 6 cards for 3 players, 8 cards for 4 players, 10 cards for 5 players. Place the drawn cards CONTRACT PHASE in the middle of the table, face up and side by side. ese cards are called the dra pool. Each player secretly chooses 2 Contract tokens and places Place the selected Contract Beginning with the player who has the First Pick token and then continuing le tokens so that they are them face down in front of them. Any combination is (clockwise), each player chooses one card from the dra pool and puts it into their hand clearly separated from the (place them face down in front of you). You can look at your own cards at any time. e allowed except an Assassination and Guardian contract on rest of your tokens. nal player to pick their rst card then immediately chooses a second card, a er which the same Target. Players are allowed to the dra moves right (counterclockwise) until each player has chosen a total of two At the end of the round, players earn gold for successful look at their own Contract tokens at any time.