Dune: Imperium rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are trying to reach ten or more Victory Points before your rivals. You do that by building a deck of Imperium cards, sending Agents to board spaces to gather resources and Influence with the four Factions, and winning the Conflict each round with troops and swords.

For setup, remember the Conflict deck is built in layers. Shuffle the four Conflict III cards and place all of them face down. Shuffle the ten Conflict II cards and deal five face down on top. Shuffle the four Conflict I cards and place just one on top of those. Unused Conflict cards go back in the box unseen, leaving a ten card deck. The Mentat lies on its side in its Landsraad space, and the four Alliance tokens sit on their Faction Influence tracks. Deal five Imperium cards face up as the Imperium Row, and set the three Reserve stacks nearby: Arrakis Liaison, The Spice Must Flow, and Foldspace. Each player takes a Leader, shuffles their ten card starting deck, and puts two Agents on their Leader with the third, the Swordmaster, beside the board. Put one cube on the bottom of each of the four Influence tracks, three troops in your garrison, your Combat marker on zero, and one water in your supply. Score markers start on zero, except in a four player game, where everyone starts on one.

Each round has five phases. First, Round Start: reveal the top Conflict card, then everyone draws five cards. Second, Player Turns: beginning with the first player and going clockwise, each player takes one turn at a time, either an Agent turn or a Reveal turn. Normally you take Agent turns until your Agents are gone, then a Reveal turn, but you may take your Reveal turn early if you like. Once you have revealed, your turns are skipped for the rest of the phase. Third, Combat is resolved. Fourth, Makers, where spice accumulates. Fifth, Recall, where you check for the end of the game and reset for the next round.

On an Agent turn you play one card from your hand face up in front of you and send an Agent from your Leader to an unoccupied board space whose icon matches one of the Agent icons on that card. Only one icon per card, and you can never send an Agent to an occupied space. You must be able to pay the space's cost immediately, before resolving anything. Then take the board space effect and the card's Agent box effect, in any order, and ignore the card's Reveal box. If the space belongs to a Faction, also move your cube up one on that track. Cards with no Agent icons cannot be played on an Agent turn at all. Sietch Tabr is the odd one: you need two or more Fremen Influence to go there.

Combat spaces are the ones with the desert art and crossed swords. When you send an Agent to one, you may deploy any or all troops you recruited that turn, from both the card and the space, plus up to two more troops from your garrison. Troops sitting in your garrison score you nothing.

On the Influence tracks, reaching two Influence with a Faction gives a Victory Point, which you lose if you drop back below two. Reaching four gives the bonus shown, and you keep that bonus even if you fall back. The first player to reach four also takes the Alliance token and its Victory Point, but if an opponent later rises to a higher space on that track, the token and the point pass to them.

On your Reveal turn, reveal all the cards left in your hand and resolve their Reveal boxes, not the boxes of cards you played earlier on Agent turns. Persuasion from those cards buys new cards, before, between, or after your other effects. You may buy any of the five Imperium Row cards, or Arrakis Liaison or The Spice Must Flow from the Reserve. Refill the Row to five immediately, so you can buy the replacement too. New cards go to your discard pile, and unspent Persuasion is lost. Then set your strength: two per troop of yours in the Conflict, plus one per sword revealed this turn. If you have no troops in the Conflict your strength is zero and nothing can raise it. Announce it and move your Combat marker. Finally sweep all your played and revealed cards into your discard pile.

Intrigue cards stay face down and separate from your deck. Plot cards may be played at any point during one of your own Agent or Reveal turns, Combat cards only during the Combat phase, and Endgame cards only at the very end of the game.

In the Combat phase, starting with the first player, each player with at least one troop in the Conflict may play any number of Combat Intrigue cards or pass. Passing earlier does not stop you playing later. When all involved players pass consecutively, resolve. Highest strength takes the top reward, second highest takes the second reward, and only in a four player game does third highest take the third reward. Zero strength earns nothing. If players tie for first, nobody wins the Conflict and the tied players each take the second reward. Tied for second, each takes the third reward. Tied for third, nothing. Then all troops in the Conflict go back to their owners' supplies, not their garrisons, and Combat markers reset to zero.

Winning a Conflict for Arrakeen, Carthag, or Imperial Basin gives you a Control marker on that space, replacing any opponent's. After that, you gain one Solari whenever anyone sends an Agent to Arrakeen or Carthag, or one spice for Imperial Basin, yourself included. And when a Conflict card is revealed for a space you already control, you may deploy one troop from your supply to the Conflict.

In the Makers phase, check the three Maker spaces, The Great Flat, Hagga Basin, and Imperial Basin. Each one with no Agent on it gains one spice from the bank, added to whatever bonus spice is already there.

Then comes Recall. If any player is at ten or more Victory Points, or the Conflict deck is empty, the game ends. Otherwise return the Mentat to its space, recall all Agents to their Leaders, pass the First Player marker clockwise, and start a new round. When the game does end, players may first play and resolve any Endgame Intrigue cards. Then the most Victory Points wins. Ties are broken by most spice, then Solari, then water, then garrisoned troops.

A turn, played out

It is round 5 of a 3 player game. The Conflict card revealed is for Arrakeen, which you control from an earlier win, so you deploy 1 troop from your supply straight into the Conflict. The player to your left sends an Agent to Arrakeen, and you gain 1 Solari. You have 1 Agent left and 3 cards in hand. You play a card whose Agent icon matches Carthag, a Combat space, and pay its cost first. The player to your right controls Carthag, so they gain 1 Solari. You take the space's effect and the card's Agent box, which recruits 2 troops. Those 2 go into the Conflict, plus 2 more from your garrison of 5, so 3 stay behind scoring nothing. Next turn you reveal your last 2 cards: 5 Persuasion and 1 sword. You buy a Row card costing 4. The Row refills with a card costing 2, too much for your leftover 1, so that point is lost. Your strength is 5 troops at 2 each plus 1 sword, 11. The player to your right also stands at 11, the player to your left at 9. In Combat everyone passes in turn, so it resolves. You and the player to your right tie for first, so nobody wins, and you each take the second reward. In 3 players the 9 earns nothing. No one won Arrakeen, so your Control marker stays. All troops return to supplies, not garrisons.