How to Play Barnburners & Noblemen

Have a rules question? Ask Banner. He has read the rulebook and the special indexes more times than we have. Below him: the how-to-play video, the rulebook PDFs, and a ten-minute version of the rules.

Watch it played

Full playthroughs and character showcases are on our YouTube channel.

The rulebook

When a back-card special needs a ruling, the Specials Index at the back of the rulebook has the long answer; the expansions have their own indexes above.

Barnburners & Noblemen in ten minutes

This is the short version of the rulebook: enough to set up, draft a team and play your first game tonight.

The goal

Defeat every opposing character. The game ends when only one player has characters left on the map, and that player wins. Two to four players, ages 12 and up.

Setup in five steps

  1. Unfold the hex board and place The Rock on the three center hexes, logo side up. Spin it, then flip it to the enhancement side.
  2. Give each player one six-sided die, one eight-sided die and five attack/defense dice. Shuffle the Diplomacy deck and set it beside the board. The bag of coins is the bank.
  3. Draft teams (see below). Collect the standee for each character you drafted and clip it into a base hex of your team color.
  4. Roll the eight-sided die for starting bases, highest picks first. Everyone secretly chooses two starting characters, reveals at the same time, and places them on the highlighted hexes of their base. The rest of your cards are your reinforcements pile.
  5. Wound markers go on each card at full health. Roll the eight-sided die again for turn order; highest goes first, then clockwise.

Reading a character card

The front left of every card lists the character's basic abilities: Move, Range, Attack, Defense, Coin Roll and Life Points. The front right lists the names of its back-card specials, but the specials themselves are written on the back, and once the game starts your opponents may only read the front. Skill level (1 to 3) tells you how strong the card is; the letter tells you whether it is a Hero, a Unique Unit or a Group with several standees.

Drafting a team

  • Scenario teams (best for your first game): the rulebook lists balanced two-card teams, such as Grandor and Rupert or Funkter and Banecroft. Roll or pick.
  • Random selection: agree on a total skill level, say 7, and pull cards blind until you reach it. Variant B: pull extra cards, then choose which to keep.
  • Fantasy draft: roll for draft order, then pick cards in snake order (first to last, then last back to first) until the deck is gone.
  • Anything else the whole table agrees on.

More on this in How to Draft a Team.

Your turn: move, then act

Movement phase. Move any or all of your characters up to their Basic Move in hexes. You cannot pass through other characters, white border lines or the edge of the map. The moment one of your characters takes an action, movement is over for your whole team, so move everyone first.

Leaving engagement. If a character starts its turn next to an enemy and ends its movement no longer adjacent, that enemy gets a free swing: two attack dice against one defense die. Running away costs something.

Action phase. Each character gets one action: attack, roll for coin, use a back-card special that requires an action, or play a Diplomacy card that requires one. Buying and returning Diplomacy cards never counts as an action and can be done any time on your turn.

Attacking and defending

Pick a target within your Basic Range. Roll a number of attack/defense dice equal to your Basic Attack; every red sword is a hit. The defender rolls dice equal to their Basic Defense; every blue shield blocks one hit. Each unblocked hit removes one life point. When a defender rolls more shields than there were hits, each surplus shield is a counter attack: one automatic damage back at the attacker.

A few terms you will see on cards: automatic attack hits without rolling but can be defended; automatic damage cannot be defended at all; automatic defense means a single shield blocks the whole attack.

Coin and Diplomacy cards

Rolling for coin is an action: roll the six-sided die, and if it shows one of the numbers in your Basic Coin Roll, take a coin from the bank. Three coins buy a Diplomacy card from the deck. Cards you buy stay hidden until you play them and are usable from the turn after you buy them unless they say otherwise. There is no hand limit. An unused card can go back to the bottom of the deck for one coin.

The Rock

The acrylic tri-hex in the center gives the character standing on it one of three enhancements: +1 basic attack, +1 basic defense or +2 to the basic coin roll, depending on which third of The Rock they occupy. Each player may have only one character on The Rock at a time. Expect the first real fight of every game to happen here. Why it matters: The Rock, Explained.

Reinforcements and defeat

When every standee linked to a card is gone, the card goes to your defeated pile face up for all to read. On your next turn you must bring in a card from your reinforcements onto your starting base; forget, and that card cannot move or act the turn it finally arrives. Alliances between players are allowed and completely non-binding: no sharing coin or cards, and leaving-engagement attacks still happen.

Ready to play? The Master Set has everything above in the box. Common questions are in the FAQ.