Kingdom Combat CCG
Full Comprehensive Manual
Table of Contents
For the Quick Play manual
OBJECTIVE
Your objective is to build your kingdom and hire units to march across the battlefield and destroy your opponent's fortress while defending yours.
LAST FORTRESS STANDING WINS!
Kingdom Combat can be played by 2 or more players. Each player needs to have their own deck consisting of a minimum of 30 cards and a fortress.
CARD BASICS
Fortress
Fortress Cards
The game begins and ends with the fortress. Your Fortress is your base of operations. It starts the game already in play in your fortress zone and protected by the starting garrison.
Structures
Structure Cards
Structures are your kingdom's primary way to grow your power and fund your army. They come into play in your structures zone. This is where most of your gold is produced each turn. Gold is the resource used to play cards from your hand or activate card abilities.
Fortifications
Fortifications
When you play a fortification it is attached to a structure already in play. A fortification enhances a structure by adding more HP and/or abilities to that place. Each structure can only have 1 fortification attached to it.
Fortifications take damage before the structure it's attached to. When a fortification's HP is reduced to zero, place it into it's owner's discard pile. If there is more damage being dealt to the fortification than the amount of HP it has, the remaining damage is done to the structure it is attached to.
Starting Gold: This gold is used to hire units from your deck and place them in your fortress before the game starts. These units start the game active. Unused starting gold is lost before the game starts.
Gold Per Turn: How much gold this structure produces at the beginning of each of your turns.
Card Type: The sub-type of the structure.
Faction: Factions are at war. Each card belongs to a different faction or army. You can build your deck out of factions that match your chosen fortress faction.
Hit Points (HP): How much damage a structure can take before it is destroyed. Damage done to structures is permanent and should be marked with counters or dice.
Cost: How much gold it costs to put that card into play. Structures come into play in the Structures Zone.
Effect: Other effects or abilities this structures has while in play are listed here.
ACTION CARDS
There are 4 different types of action cards:
Dirty Tricks (Instant & Flexible)
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When: Play them at any time, on any player's turn.
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Purpose: These are designed to surprise your opponent or shift the momentum of a battle as it's happening.
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Vibe: A "gotcha" moment that can change the outcome of a move instantly.
Events (Strategic & Restricted)
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When: Play them only during your own turn and not during combat.
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Purpose: These are powerful cards that usually impact the entire board or set the tone for your whole turn.
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Vibe: A big tactical maneuver used to build your advantage before or after the fighting starts.
Playing Events & Dirty Tricks
Whenever you play an Event or a Dirty Trick, follow these three steps in order:
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Pay: Spend the required gold cost.
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Resolve: Carry out the instructions written on the card.
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Discard: Place the card into your discard pile once the effect is finished.
Understanding the "Stack" (Last In, First Out)
If players play multiple cards in response to one another, they resolve in reverse order. The last card played is always the first one to take effect.
Example of Play:
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Step 1: Player A plays an Event card.
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Step 2: Player B reacts by playing a Dirty Trick.
The Result: Because Player B was the last to play, their Dirty Trick happens first. Once that is finished, Player A’s Event card happens second.
Pro Tip: Think of it like a physical stack of cards. You always have to peel the top card off the pile before you can get to the one underneath it.
Abilities (Flexible Attachments)
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Target: You can play these on any unit currently on the board (yours or your opponent's).
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Timing: Only on your turn, either before or after the Combat Stage.
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Effect: They stay attached to that specific unit and modify how it behaves.
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Removal: If the unit leaves the board and goes to the discard pile, the Ability card goes with it.
Equipment (Personal Gear)
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Target: You can only play these on units you control.
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Timing: Only on your turn, either before or after the Combat Stage.
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Limit: A unit can only have one of each type of equipment (e.g., one weapon, one armor).
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Removal: If your unit is defeated and goes to the discard pile, so does the equipment on that unit.
UNITS
Units are the heart of your army. You use them to defend your own structures and to attack your opponent’s units, structures, and fortress to win the game.
The Basics of Deployment
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Arrival: Units are played at your Fortress.
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State: They enter the board exhausted (they cannot act immediately).
Combat Stats
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Attack: The damage this unit deals when it is your turn and you are on the offensive.
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Defense: The damage this unit deals when it is the opponent's turn and you are protecting your board.
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Armor: Think of this as a "Damage Threshold." It is the amount of damage a unit can soak up in a single turn before it actually loses 1 HP.
Health & Hit Points (HP)
HP represents how many "lives" a unit has. Every unit has at least 1 HP.
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1 HP: Most units have 1 HP. There is no special icon for this.
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Multi-HP: If a unit has more than 1 HP, it will be clearly marked on the card with the symbol and how many HP it has
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Taking Damage: Damage is compared to Armor.
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If you take enough damage in 1 turn to beat your armor value, you lose 1 HP.
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If the amount of damage in 1 turn is is double your armor value, you would lose 2 HP, and so on.
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Permanent Loss: HP loss is permanent. When a unit has 0 HP, the unit is destroyed and sent to the discard pile.
Example Scenario: If your unit has 3 Armor and 2 HP, and it takes 6 damage in one turn, it loses both HP and is destroyed. If it only took 3, 4, or 5 damage in 1 turn, it would survive but remain at 1 HP for the rest of the game.
Skills
Some units will have special skills. The easy to identify icon will be here and rules reminder text will be in the effect box in parentheses.
Skills
Mounted: Mounted units can move up to 2 zones per turn or attack up to 2 zones away. You cannot move through the battlefield zone or structure that has an opposing unit in it.
Ranged: Ranged units can exhaust and deal damage to a unit up to 1 zone away. The number next to the arrow is how much damage is done when the unit uses it's range ability. The range ability can be used during any player's turn at ANY time.
Charge: Attacking units with Charge deal damage first in combat. It will deal damage before a defending unit can deal it's damage. If the attacking unit deals enough damage to destroy the defending unit, the defending unit is destroyed before it has a chance to hit back so the attacker would take no damage.
Deflect: A unit with Deflect prevents all damage from range attacks.
Etherial: A unit with Etherial prevents 1 damage from EACH source that deals damage to this unit.
Dual Wield: A unit with Dual Wield may use up to 2 weapon equipment cards.
Alert: A unit with Alert cannot be targeted by your opponent's dirty tricks. You can still target your own unit with dirty tricks.
Ready: A unit with ready becomes active at the end of it's owners turn.
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Cast: A dirty trick or event can have cast. That card costs 1 less gold for each wizard unit you exhaust when playing the card from you hand.
Evolve: Units or structures may have the evolve skill. These cards have a cost to pay and then the card will flip to the other "evolved" side. You cannot evolve during the combat stage. A structure cannot evolve if an opposing unit is occupying that structure.
USING YOUR UNITS
Active
Exhausted
In Kingdom Combat, units exist in one of two states: Active or Exhausted. Mastering how to manage these states is the key to controlling the battlefield.
The Two States
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Active (Vertical): The unit is standing tall and ready for action.
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Exhausted (Horizontal): The unit has spent its energy and is "tired" until your next turn.
How it Works
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Deployment: All units enter the playfield at your fortress and are exhausted.
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The Refresh: At the very beginning of your turn, turn all your exhausted cards vertically to make them active.
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Taking Action: Once a unit performs an action, you must exhaust it (turn it sideways 90 degrees). It cannot do anything else until your next turn.
What can an Active Unit do?
If a unit is vertical, you may choose one of the following actions. Performing any of these will exhaust the unit:
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Attack: Strike units or structures up to 1 zone away.
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Move: Travel between different structures or zones.
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Activate Effects: Use special card abilities that specifically require you to exhaust the unit.
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Join-In: Enter an ongoing battle already happening on the battlefield.
- Retreat: Withdraw from a combat encounter (Note: Exhausted units cannot retreat).
GAME ZONES
The Basic Setup
Each player must have these three areas ready:
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The Deck: Your main pile of cards, shuffled and face-down.
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The Discard Pile: Where your used Events and defeated units go.
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The Fortress: Your primary structure, which starts the game already in play with your starting garrison units.
The Starting Garrison
Before the game starts, you get to "hire" your first defenders.
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Choose Units: Pick specific units from your deck to be your starting garrison.
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Spend Gold: You must pay for these units using only your starting gold.
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Deploy: Place these units at your fortress active.
To make the game layout easier to learn, think of the table as being divided into your protected territory and the shared combat zone.
1. Your Homelands (Your Side of the Board)
Your "Homelands" is the collective name for your private territory. It consists of your fortress zone and your structures zone.
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The Fortress Zone: This is your command center.
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Place your Fortress and Starting Garrison here at the beginning of the game.
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Any new units you hire always come into play here exhausted.
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The Structures Zone: This is where you build your town.
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When you play a Structure, it comes into play here lined up next to your other structures vertically.
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When units move into this zone, they must move to a structure if one is available. If there are no structures here yet, you can still move into the zone. It is treated as just one place. If there are units in your structure zone and then you build a structure, those units remain outside the structure until they use an action to move into the structure or attack it.
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2. The Battlefield (The Shared Zone)
The Battlefield is "No Man's Land". This is a neutral space in the middle of the table.
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Neutral Ground: Both players can have units here at the same time.
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The "Blocker" Rule: You cannot move your units past the battlefield if an opponent has a unit stationed there.
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The "Clear the Way" Rule: You are not allowed to attack an opponent’s structures from the battlefield until you have defeated all opposing units currently in the battlefield.
3. Card Management
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The Deck: Your deck is your resource pile. It can only contain cards from your Fortress’s factions.
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The Discard Pile: This is a face-up card pile. This is where cards go after being destroyed or used.
STARTING THE GAME
To get your game of Kingdom Combat started, follow these steps in order. Setting up correctly ensures a fair fight!
1. Build Your Starting Garrison
Before drawing any cards, you must hire your first defenders:
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Budget: Check your fortress card for its starting gold amount.
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Hire: Search your deck for units to hire units. Their combined cost must be equal to or less than your starting gold.
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Restriction: You cannot hire units that cost 0 gold for your starting garrison.
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Deploy: Place these units face-down at your fortress. They begin the game active.
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Note: Any unspent starting gold is lost; it does not carry over to Turn 1.
2. Drawing Your Hand
Once your garrison is set, shuffle your deck thoroughly.
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Each player draws 7 cards. If a player is only using 1 faction, they get to draw 8 cards and then shuffle 1 card from their hand back into their deck.
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Once everyone has their hand, flip your starting garrison units face-up.
3. The Mulligan (Optional)
If you don't like your starting hand, you can trade it in for a new one.
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First Mulligan: Shuffle your 7 cards back into your deck and draw 7 new ones. This is Free.
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Second Mulligan: You may do it again, but your fortress will produce 1 less gold on your first turn.
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Additional Mulligans: Each extra mulligan costs you another -1 gold on your first turn.
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The Limit: You cannot mulligan more times than your fortress’s total gold production. If your gold reaches 0, you must keep that hand.
4. Determining the First Player
Once all hands are finalized, use a coin flip or die roll to see who starts.
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The First Player Rule: The person who goes first does not draw a card on their very first turn.
STAGES OF A TURN
To make the flow of the game easier to track, here is the breakdown of a single turn in Kingdom Combat.
1. Beginning Stage (The Reset)
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Reset Gold: Clear any unspent gold from your last turn. You always start at 0.
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Ready Up: Turn all your exhausted cards vertically to make them active.
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Collect Income: Gain new gold from your fortress, structures, and other card effects.
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Draw: Take 1 card from your deck. (Remember: The very first player skip this on turn 1).
2. Pre-Combat Stage (The Build-Up)
This is your main time to prepare. You can:
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Play Cards: Units, Structures, Abilities, Equipment, Events, and Dirty Tricks.
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Move: Shift units to zones that aren't occupied by your opponent.
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Activate: Use any special effects on your cards.
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Note: Your opponent can play dirty tricks or card effects during this time to disrupt you!
3. Combat Stage (The Clash)
Combat happens in three distinct steps:
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Declare Attacks: Choose your active units and their targets (must be within 1 zone). Move them into the fight and exhaust them. You must pick all attackers now.
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Defend or Retreat: Your opponent chooses what to do with their active units.
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Stay: They stay and fight.
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Retreat: They move back 1 zone and become exhausted. (already exhausted units cannot retreat.)
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Resolve Damage: All units involved deal their damage simultaneously. Destroyed cards go to the discard pile.
During each of these steps either player can play dirty tricks.
4. Post-Combat Stage (The Reinforcement)
If you have gold left, you get a second chance to act:
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Play Cards: Units, Structures, Abilities, Equipment, Events, and Dirty Tricks.
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Move: Shift units to zones that aren't occupied by your opponent.
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Activate: Use any special effects on your cards.
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Note: Your opponent can play dirty tricks or card effects during this time to disrupt you!
5. End of Turn (The Clean-Up)
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Heal Minor Damage: If a unit took damage but didn't lose enough to remove a HP, that "partial" damage is removed.
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Clear Effects: Any card abilities that say "until end of turn" stop working now.
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Pass the Turn: Let your opponent know you are finished and it is their turn.
COMBAT BASICS
To make the Combat Stage easier to follow, think of it as a three-step process: Declare, Respond, and Resolve.
1. Declare Attacks
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Choose Attackers: Select any of your Active (vertical) units.
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Pick Targets: Each unit can attack a target (a unit or structure) up to 1 zone away.
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Commit: You must declare all attackers at once. Once you commit, move them toward their targets and exhaust them (turn them sideways).
2. The Defender's Choice
Your opponent looks at their units being attacked and chooses one of two options:
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Option A: Stand and Fight. The unit stays put and deals damage back.
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Option B: Retreat. If the unit is Active, it can flee to avoid damage. It moves back 1 zone, becomes exhausted, and takes zero damage from that attack. To be able to retreat you must have someplace safe to fall back to. You cannot retreat to a place that is occupied by your opponent.
Important Restrictions:
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Exhausted units cannot retreat; they must stay and fight.
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You cannot retreat further back than your Fortress.
3. Resolve Damage
If the defender stays (or is forced to stay), both units strike at the same time:
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Attacker deals damage equal to its attack value the the defender's armor value.
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Defender deals damage equal to its defense value to the attacker's armor value.
How Armor & HP Work:
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Damage is applied to a unit’s Armor first.
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If damage equals or exceeds the armor value, the unit loses 1 HP.
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If a unit has 0 HP, it is destroyed and placed into it's owners discard pile.
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Healing: Damage "lingers" during the turn, but is fully cleared at the end of turn (unless a unit actually lost an HP, which is permanent).
In this example, the attacker is doing 4 damage to the defender's 2 armor which is enough damage to destroy the defender. The defender is only doing 2 damage to the attacker's 4 armor so it
will survive as long as 2 more points of damage are not done to it before the end of the turn.
Here is how attacking and damage works in a structure.
Defending a Structure
When a unit attacks a structure, your units act as a shield and protects the structure from damage.
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If a Unit defends: The unit takes damage first.
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The unit absorbs damage up to its armor value.
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Any extra damage beyond the defender's armor value is done to the structure.
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If No One Defends: If a structure is undefended, the attacker deals its full attack damage directly to the structure’s HP.
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Destruction: Once a structure reaches 0 HP, it is destroyed and sent to the discard pile.
ADVANCED COMBAT
Fighting in the Battlefield and using Teamwork are essential strategies. Here is how those mechanics work:
Battlefield Combat
The Battlefield is a neutral zone, so combat here is a direct unit-versus-unit duel.
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Targeting: You declare your attack directly against an enemy unit standing in the battlefield.
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Retreating: If your unit wants to retreat from the battlefield, it must have a safe place to fall back to. You cannot retreat to a place that is occupied by your opponent. If you do not have a safe place to go you must stay and fight.
Teaming Up
You don’t have to fight alone! If you have multiple active units in the same location, they can "stack" to act as a single, powerful force.
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Combined Stats: When units team up you add all their attack, and defense into one total number. That is how much damage they will do as a group this turn.
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How to Stack: You choose the order of the units in the stack.
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Taking Damage: Damage is dealt to the units in the order you stacked them. The first unit takes the damage until it's armor/HP is depleted, then any leftover damage carries over to the next unit in line.
Example of Joining Units
Imagine you join a Scout (1 armor) and a Knight (3 armor) to defend:
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Total Armor: Your combined armor value is 4.
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Order: You put the Knight in front.
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Result: The enemy must deal 3 damage just to get past the Knight before it can start to deal damage to the Scout.
In this example, the attacker is attacking 3 defending units that have joined together to defend. The attacker will do 4 damage to the joined together defenders and destroy the first 2 defending units. The defenders that joined together will do a total of 6 damage to the attacker and destroy it.
After a battle is over, any team-up naturally dissolves. Here is the simplest way to remember it:
Separating After Combat
Once the Combat Stage ends, your units stop acting as a single "stack" and return to being individuals.
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The Rule: If your units joined together to attack or defend, they separate immediately after the fight is resolved.
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The Exception: If the units are currently inside a structure, they all occupy that structure together and will defend it together.
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The Result: If they are out in the open (like in the Battlefield or a structure zone), they are treated as separate units again for the rest of the turn.
DECK BUILDING
Building a powerful Kingdom Combat deck is straight forward once you know the fundamentals. Follow these four steps to get battle-ready:
1. Select Your Factions
Decide whether you want to specialize in a single faction or mix the strengths of two factions. Your choice here dictates the cards available for the rest of your build. Pick one Fortress card from each of your chosen factions. This serves as your base of operations and is the most critical card in your setup.
Single Faction
With only one fortress, you can only use cards from that one faction to create your deck.
If you decide to only use 1 faction, then at the beginning of the game you get to draw 8 cards instead of 7. Shuffle one of those cards back into your deck before the game starts.
<-- Ignore this line.
Dual Faction
With up to 2 fortresses, you can use cards from both these factions to create your deck. When combining fortresses you ignore the bottom line of the top fortress and replace it with the bottom line of the bottom fortress to get your final fortress stats. Depending on how they are stacked will decide your fortress' total stats.
<-- Use this line as your top stats.
<-- Use these lines as your bottom stats.
2. Construct Your Deck
Select a minimum of 30 cards from your chosen factions to form your main deck. Note that your fortress cards are kept separate and do not count toward this 30-card minimum deck size.
3. Prepare for Battle
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Set your Garrison: Choose your starting garrison.
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Shuffle: Give your deck a thorough mix.
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Engage: Find an opponent and begin the skirmish!
There are different colored borders on the cards that restrict how many of the same named card you can have in your deck.
Gold
Up to 1 per deck
Silver
Up to 2 per deck
Black
Up to 4 per deck
Green
Not in your deck
Green border cards are token unit cards and are not to be put into a deck. Token units are treated the same as any other unit when in play.
Building your first Kingdom Combat deck is all about balance. Use these five tips to create a deck that is reliable, powerful, and fun to play:
1. Lean and Mean (The 30-Card Rule)
While 30 cards is the minimum, it’s also usually the best number. A smaller deck makes it much more likely that you’ll draw your strongest cards when you actually need them.
2. Balance Your Units and Structures
Your deck needs a healthy mix of "Economy" and "Military":
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The Army (1/2 to 1/3 of your deck): Units are your only way to attack and defend. If you don't have enough, you'll be left defenseless.
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The Economy (1/4 of your deck): Structures are your primary source of Gold. If you don't have enough structures, you won't be able to afford your expensive units.
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Actions: Fill the rest of the space in your deck with events, dirty tricks, equipment, abilities, and fortifications that further your strategy and work with the other cards you have chosen for your deck.
3. Mind Your Budget (The Gold Curve)
Before adding a powerful card, ask yourself: "Can I actually afford this?" If your deck is full of high-cost cards but you have low-income structures, you’ll spend most of the game with a hand you can't play.
4. Find a Strategy
Don't just pick "good" cards. Pick cards that work together. Look for a theme (like focusing on Ranged units) or a faction keyword and build your strategy around that. Synergy is often stronger than raw power.
5. Experiment and Adapt
Your deck isn't set in stone. If a card feels useless during a game, swap it out! Some of the best strategies are discovered by accident when trying out a new card interaction.
ALTERNATE VICTORY RULES
If a player runs out of cards in their deck they don’t die. They just have run out of resources being delivered to their kingdom. The game is now on a 5 turn clock.
The turn clock starts after a player draws the last card in their deck.
Player A - draws their last card.
Player B - Turn 1
Player A - Turn 2
Player B - Turn 3
Player A - Turn 4
Player B - The final turn
Once the final turn is taken, each player totals up the gold value of all their cards in play. The player with the highest gold total wins.
THE FINAL RULES
HAVE FUN!
Kingdom Combat was designed as an expandable, social experience. We encourage you to get creative and invent new ways to play, design multiplayer variants, and tailor the game to be fun for your entire group!
We would love to hear your stories and ideas. If you’ve created a new game mode, please email us your suggestions! Your feedback helps shape the future of the kingdom.
Breaking the Rules
In the heat of battle, you may find a card that seems to contradict the rules of the game. Remember the golden rule of Kingdom Combat: If a card’s text contradicts the rulebook, the card overrides the basic rules while it is in play.