The goal
Reign of Kings is a duel between two rival leaders. You win the instant you control 15 or more Influence - the game's victory currency, tracked with counters on your faction card. You also win if your opponent is eliminated - most often by emptying their draw deck (more on that below).
You earn Influence mainly by winning struggles - clashes in one of four arenas (Combat, Guile, Sorcery, Faith) - and by holding the most Authority at the right moment. One anchor before the detail: your units' Power wins those clashes, and winning them earns Influence, the score you race to 15.
Power fights. Influence wins.
What you bring
Each player builds and brings their own:
- A faction card - your leader. It's in play the whole game and holds your Influence counters as you climb toward 15.
- A destiny card - your single always-on agenda; for example, a rule that makes your units cost less or bends your deckbuilding. It sits beside your faction card all game.
- A 7-card quest deck - one quest is active each round and sets your economy (see below).
- A draw deck of 60+ cards - your units (your fighters), locations (support), attachments (upgrades), and deeds (one-shot events you play for an effect, then discard).
Each round you draw wealth - the money you spend to play cards - from a shared bank into your own pool; whatever you don't spend goes back. Wealth never carries over.
A unit, up close - what you'll read at a glance:
- Name - two cards sharing a name count as the same card.
- Cost - the wealth you pay to play it.
- Illustration.
- Power - combat strength. This is what wins struggles; it is not your Influence.
- Struggle icons - which of the four struggles it can attack and defend in.
- Attributes & rules text - its traits, keywords, and abilities.
- Card type - unit, location, attachment, or deed.
Setting up
Once, before the first round. The digital table does the shuffling and the counting - what follows is what you'll be asked to decide.
Decide who goes first
At random. (From round 1 on, momentum decides it instead.)
Draw seven - and mulligan once if you like
You may set your whole opening hand aside, draw a fresh seven, and shuffle the old hand back. It's all seven or none, and only once.
Lay a facedown opening board
Before anyone has earned a coin, you place units, locations and attachments facedown from your hand, up to a budget of 8 wealth. You don't pay for them - the budget is a cap, not a bill, and you may spend less of it (or place nothing at all). Count each card's printed cost, plus Loyalty if it's off-faction, plus 2 for each card you hide with Secret - that 2 only hides it, so revealing it later still costs its real Secret price in wealth. You may also place one Restricted card here, on top of your normal one per round, and duplicates of your uniques are free. A card whose printed cost is X or – can't be placed at setup at all - there's no fixed number to charge the budget.
Reveal together, then refill
Both boards flip at once and the cards enter play. Setup doesn't fire "when this enters play" abilities - always-on ones are working immediately. Then draw back up to seven, and the first round begins at Quest.
The round
The game is a series of rounds, and every round turns through the same seven phases in order, again and again, until someone wins. Two of them - Kingdom (you build) and Confrontation (you fight) - are taken in turns: the active player acts, then the other. The rest resolve for both of you at once.
Kingdom and Confrontation are taken in turns.
- 1
Quest
Both players secretly choose one of their seven quests and reveal at once - setting your economy for the round, four dials in all: wealth (income), momentum (who goes first), spoils (how hard your struggle wins land) and levy (your hand limit). Highest momentum picks the first player - who acts first all round, so it's worth racing for.
- 2
Draw
Both players draw 2 cards at the same time. (Careful: if you're ever forced to draw from an empty deck, you're eliminated - your draw deck is never reshuffled.)
- 3
Kingdomin turns
Each player collects wealth equal to their quest, then - on their turn as the active player - plays units, locations, and attachments from hand. Locations only ever come down in this phase.
- 4
Confrontationin turns
The fight. On your turn as the active player you may make up to four struggles - one of each type, so a turn is really a choice of which to push and in what order. This is where most Influence changes hands.
- 5
Authority
Whoever has the most Authority - the Power of their ready units, plus 1 for each unspent wealth - gains 1 Influence and takes the Authority emblem (worth +1 in every struggle they attack). A tie awards it to no one - and strips it from whoever was holding it. Units you exhausted attacking don't count here, so every struggle is a quiet trade against your Authority - a second Influence engine, not an afterthought.
- 6
Refresh
Ready all your exhausted cards (turn them upright again) and remove one sorcery emblem from a card you control.
- 7
Toll
Return all unspent wealth to the treasury, then discard down to your levy (hand limit). The round ends - back to the top of the wheel.
When you can act
Only two things happen on your turn alone: playing cards in Kingdom, and starting struggles in Confrontation. Everything else happens inside an action window - and windows open constantly, at the start and end of every phase and at several points inside every struggle. In a window, each player in turn may take one timing-appropriate action or pass; the window closes only when you both pass in a row. Any action reopens the floor, so you can always answer what your opponent just did.
A card tells you which window it belongs to with a bold word at the front of its text:
- Action:
- Any action window - your turn or not.
- Response:
- Just after the stated event happens.
- Disrupt:
- While it happens, to change it.
- Halt:
- Before it happens, to cancel it - this is also how you save a card that's about to die.
- Forced Automatic
- Fires by itself whenever its condition is met. (Text starting "When…" works the same way.)
Around any one event they run in a fixed order: Halt (cancel it) → Disrupt (change it) → it happens → Response (answer it). Forced abilities resolve before optional ones. If something you do sets off a new trigger, that one resolves completely before you return to what you interrupted.
Struggles
A struggle is a single attack of one of four types - each marked by a symbol you'll see printed on your units (shown below). To make one, declare the type, name your opponent, and commit (exhaust) at least one ready unit carrying that icon - an exhausted unit stays down until Refresh, win or lose. Your opponent may exhaust their own matching units to defend.
Each side totals the Power of its units. Higher total wins - the attacker takes a tie, except 0-0, which has no winner. Win as the attacker and you collect the reward below, scaled by your quest's spoils (the N in each effect - usually 1-2):
Combat
The defender kills N of their own units - they choose which.
Guile
The defender discards N cards at random.
Sorcery
Place N sorcery emblems on the defender's cards, blanking them (their text stops working).
Faith
Move N Influence from the defender's faction card to yours.
Bonus: if you win a struggle and the defending side's total Power is 0, you gain +1 Influence on top of the reward (an unopposed win) - so you don't need a big board to attack. But 0 vs 0 has no winner at all - you need at least 1 Power attacking. A unit's Power never counts below 0.
Killing & saving
When a unit is killed it goes to the dead pile; cards that are discarded or sacrificed go to the discard pile. Which pile matters - some cards reach into one but not the other.
Before a card leaves play, there's a brief window to save it - a Halt ability, or a spare copy of a unique (below), can keep it in play. Two exceptions: a sacrifice can never be saved, and some effects state outright that a card cannot be saved. When a unit does leave, its attachments are discarded with it (unless they have Lasting, which sends them back to hand).
Uniques and duplicates
A card marked unique (a small •) may exist only once on your side at a time. Play a second copy of one you already control and it doesn't come into play as a card at all - it goes under the one you have as a duplicate: no Power, no text, no icons, and free to play. It has exactly one use - discard it to save the card above it. Your opponent can cancel that save, and the duplicate is spent either way. Both players may each control their own copy of the same unique.
Keywords
Cards do extra things through keywords - you don't need to memorize these; each card spells out its own and the game prompts you. Skim and move on (or see them in the tutorial). These resolve when a unit is on the winning side of a struggle (each optional):
- Glory
- Put 1 Influence on this unit - it counts toward your 15.
- Mastery
- Draw 1 card.
- Cunning
- Gain 1 wealth.
- Prowess Attacker
- Ready this unit.
- Wary Defender
- Ready this unit.
- Compel Attacker
- Exhaust an enemy unit whose Power is below your win margin - how much you won by.
- Ravage (X) Attacker
- Mill X - send the top X of the defender's deck to their discard.
- Ruthless Attacker
- The losing player kills one of their defending units.
Others shape how cards are played:
- Loyalty (1-3)
- Playing an off-faction card costs this much extra.
- Restricted
- Only one Restricted card may enter your field per round.
- Secret (X)
- Hide a card facedown for 2 wealth; reveal it later for X.
- Haste (X)
- Pay X to play this from hand during Confrontation.
- Subtle
- When this attacks, you may bar one enemy unit that could otherwise defend.
- Scout (X)
- On entering play, look at the top X cards and put them back on top or bottom in any order.
- Lasting
- On an attachment: when its host leaves play, it returns to your hand instead of being discarded.
- Bound
- Deckbuilding only - this card may go only in a deck of its own faction, unless your destiny permits that faction.
Winning
The moment you control 15 or more Influence, you win - it's checked instantly, no need to wait for a phase. You also win if your opponent is eliminated, which happens when they're forced to draw from an empty deck: a draw deck is never reshuffled, so those 60-odd cards are a clock as well as a resource. (If both players would hit 15 at the same instant, the first player decides who wins.)
Words to know
- Influence
- The victory currency - the score you race to 15.
- Power
- A unit's combat strength; totals decide struggles.
- Authority
- A phase (and an emblem) - the holder gains +1 when attacking. Not the score.
- Faith
- One of the four struggle types; a Faith win moves Influence - it isn't a separate score.
- Wealth
- Money to play cards; refilled each round, never saved.
- Spoils
- The N in a struggle reward - set by your active quest.
- Exhaust / Ready
- Turned sideways (used) versus upright (available).
- Active player
- Whose turn it is to act in Kingdom or Confrontation.
- Action window
- A pause where either player may act; it closes when you both pass in a row.
- Duplicate
- A spare copy of a unique, tucked underneath it; discard it to save the card above.
- Faction card
- Your leader; always in play, holds your Influence.
Quick reference
Win
Control 15+ Influence (checked instantly), or eliminate your opponent by making them draw from an empty deck.
The round
Quest → Draw → Kingdom → Confrontation → Authority → Refresh → Toll, then repeat. Kingdom and Confrontation are taken in turns.
Struggles
Up to four per turn, one of each type. Higher total Power wins; the attacker takes ties except 0-0, which nobody wins. Defending Power of 0 pays the attacker +1 Influence.
Spoils (attacker wins)
Combat defender kills N · Guile defender discards N at random · Sorcery blank N of their cards · Faith take N Influence.
Timing
Halt (cancel) → Disrupt (change) → it happens → Response (answer). Forced before optional; a window closes on two passes in a row.
Ties
Card text beats these rules · "cannot" beats "can" and "must" · the first player breaks anything still tied.