Gamehelpfate

Rules summary

Fate: Defenders of Grimheim is a cooperative game. Each player is a hero defending the town of Grimheim against waves of monsters. Each monster that enters Grimheim destroys a town piece (a Legend destroys 3). Everyone wins if Freyja's Well still stands after the last turn of the time track, and everyone loses if it is destroyed.

Hero turn

Take 2 different actions:

• Move - up to 3 areas. Each area holds one character, and you cannot move through occupied areas. Heroes cannot enter mountains (except Troll Caves). No one can enter lakes (except Nailfare). Grimheim holds any number of heroes, and entering it ends your move.
• Attack - roll as many dice as your total strength against a monster in range.
• Prepare - draw 1 event card (hand limit 4).
• Focus - add 1 mana to an ability or equipment that uses mana.
• Mend - remove 2 damage from your hero. In Grimheim, remove up to 5 instead, from your hero and equipment cards.
• Practice - gain 1 experience.

Free actions, any number: use each equipment or ability once per turn (cards that prevent damage can be used each time you receive damage), and play event cards. Free actions never count as attack actions.

End of turn: upgrade if you can afford it, add mana to cards with mana generation, draw 1 card, then you may put the top equipment or the top ability on the bottom of its pile.

Attacks

• Crossed axes = hit. Axes with a circle = hit, unless the target is in a forest. Blank and rune = miss.
• Killing a monster gives experience equal to its rank (1-3). Legends give more.
• A hero who takes damage equal to their health is knocked out: they go back to Grimheim with exactly 5 damage, and 2 town pieces are removed.

Experience, quests and upgrades

• Gold and experience are the same resource.
• Upgrade (once per turn, at the end of your turn): pay the next cost on your upgrade track, then either gain the top ability or flip one of your abilities or your hero card to its upgraded side.
• Quests: the top card of your equipment pile shows a quest. Complete it to gain that equipment. You may have only 1 Main Weapon.

Monster turn

After all heroes have played:

1. Advance the time marker. A skull spot means all monsters charge (move 1 extra area).
2. Optional variant: roll the Monster Die.
3. Monsters move 1 area toward Grimheim along their paths, closest first. Monsters adjacent to a hero do not move. A monster that cannot attack after its move, but could by charging, charges.
4. Monsters attack. Players decide the order, and which hero is attacked when a monster can reach more than one.
5. On reinforcement spots, each player draws a monster card and places the monsters shown.

Monster families

• Trollkin (goblin, brute, troll) - +1 strength for each adjacent trollkin. Goblins move 2.
• Fire Horde (sprite, elemental, jotunn) - attack range 2.
• Dead (imp, skeleton, draugr) - runes count as hits. Draugr have armor (prevent 1 damage each time they are dealt damage).

Differences from the physical game

Turn flow

Some rules let several players act at the same moment (for example, any hero helping during another hero's turn). On BGA this would make turn-based games very long, so play is simplified as follows:

• Monster attack target - when a monster can attack more than one hero, the game picks the target instead of the players.

Not implemented yet

• Hero selection - heroes are dealt randomly. Only a solo game lets you pick your hero.
• Share Gold - giving or receiving gold from an adjacent hero is not available yet.
• Difficulty options - the Long time track and the Monster Dice variant are available as table options. Not available yet: starting with no gold, mana or cards in hand, and starting one step up on the upgrade cost track.