Dune: Imperium – Uprising rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are racing to ten victory points, which you earn mainly by winning Conflicts, climbing the four Faction influence tracks, and taking Alliances. You do it by playing cards from a deck you build as you go, using those cards to send Agents to board spaces.

For setup, remember the Conflict deck is built in layers: all four Conflict three cards on the bottom, five of the nine Conflict two cards shuffled on top of those, then one of the three Conflict one cards on top. The Shield Wall token goes below the Spice Refinery space, and the four Alliance tokens sit on their Influence tracks. Deal five Imperium cards face up as the Imperium Row, and set out the two Reserve stacks, Prepare the Way and The Spice Must Flow. Each player takes a Leader, shuffles their ten card starting deck, and takes one water. Two Agents go on your Leader, your third Agent, the Swordmaster, waits beside the board. Your score marker starts on zero, except in a four player game where it starts on one. Combat marker on zero. Four cubes on the bottoms of the four Influence tracks, and three troops in the garrison nearest you. Finally, each player draws one Objective card at random, and whoever's Objective shows the First Player marker takes it.

Each round has five phases. Round Start: flip the top Conflict card face up, then everyone draws five cards. Then Player Turns, going clockwise from the first player, one turn at a time. On each of your turns you take either an Agent turn or a Reveal turn. Normally you take Agent turns until your Agents run out, then Reveal, but you may Reveal early if you like. Once you have taken your Reveal turn you are done, and the phase ends when everyone has Revealed. After that comes Combat, then the Makers phase, then Recall.

On an Agent turn, you play one card face up and send an Agent to an unoccupied board space whose icon in the upper left matches one of the Agent icons on that card. Pick just one icon; one card sends one Agent. Pay any cost of the space immediately, and meet any influence requirement, or you cannot go there. You then get the space's effect and the Agent box of the card, in any order. If the space belongs to a Faction, you also move your cube up that Faction's Influence track. A card with no Agent icons can never be played on an Agent turn.

On the Influence tracks, reaching two gives you a victory point, which you lose again if you drop below two. Reaching four gives you the bonus printed there, and you keep that bonus even if you fall back. The first player to reach four with a Faction takes that Alliance token and its victory point. If someone later passes you to a higher space on that track, you hand the Alliance and the point over to them.

Spies are placed on unoccupied observation posts when the Spy icon appears. A Spy lets you do three things. The Spy Agent icon lets you send an Agent to any space connected to a post where you have a Spy, without recalling it. Infiltrate: recall a Spy from a connected post to ignore another player's Agent and place yours on that occupied space anyway. Gather Intelligence: recall a Spy from a connected post to draw a card, and you must decide that immediately after placing your Agent, before any other effects. The same Spy cannot do both Infiltrate and Gather Intelligence.

Troops are recruited from your supply into your garrison. They only matter if you get them into the Conflict, and the usual way to deploy is by sending an Agent to a Combat space, the ones with the desert art and crossed swords. There you may deploy any or all units recruited during that turn, plus up to two more from your garrison. Sandworms are summoned straight into the Conflict, never into a garrison. Usually the sandworm icon requires a Maker Hooks token on your garrison, which you get at Sietch Tabr, and a sandworm cannot be summoned to a Conflict at Arrakeen, Spice Refinery, or Imperial Basin while the Shield Wall token is still on the board. Certain effects let you remove the Shield Wall permanently. Winning a Conflict at one of those three locations gives you a Control marker there: you collect a bonus whenever any player sends an Agent there, and when a Conflict card for a space you control comes up, you may deploy one troop from your supply to the Conflict.

Your Reveal turn is three steps. Reveal your whole remaining hand face up, resolve the Reveal boxes of just those cards in any order, and spend Persuasion to acquire cards. Only the cards you just revealed give Reveal effects, not the ones you played earlier on Agent turns. Persuasion is never saved; anything unspent is lost. You may buy from the five card Imperium Row or from either Reserve stack, new cards go to your discard pile, and the Row is refilled to five immediately. Before you clean up, set your strength: two per troop in the Conflict, three per sandworm, plus one for each sword revealed this turn. If you have no units in the Conflict your strength is zero, no matter how many swords you have. Announce it and set your Combat marker. Then sweep all your played and revealed cards into your discard pile.

Intrigue cards are kept face down and separate. Plot Intrigues can be played at any point during one of your own Agent or Reveal turns. Combat Intrigues only during the Combat phase. Endgame Intrigues only at the very end of the game.

In the Combat phase, starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player with at least one unit in the Conflict may play Combat Intrigue cards or pass, adjusting their marker as strengths change. Passing earlier does not stop you from playing later; combat resolves once everyone involved passes in a row. Highest strength takes the first reward, second highest the second. The third reward is only handed out in a four or six player game, or in smaller games as a tie consequence. Zero strength gets nothing. If you have a sandworm in the Conflict, double the rewards you take, though you cannot double taking control of a location or a battle icon. If players tie for first, they each take the second reward, nobody wins the Conflict or takes the card, and with three or fewer players no other rewards are given. With four players, if exactly two tied for first, the rest compete for the third reward. Players tied for second each take the third reward and no further rewards are given. Players tied for third get nothing. The winner takes the Conflict card face up into their supply and checks its battle icon, one of Crysknife, Desert Mouse, or Ornithopter. If they already have another face up Conflict or Objective card with the same battle icon, they flip that pair face down and gain a victory point. Then all troops go from the Conflict back to owners' supplies, not garrisons, sandworms return to the bank, and Combat markers reset to zero.

In the Makers phase, check Deep Desert, Hagga Basin, and Imperial Basin. Each one without an Agent on it gains one spice from the bank, accumulating round to round. Then Recall: if any player is at ten or more victory points, or the Conflict deck is empty, the game ends. Otherwise everyone takes their Agents back to their Leader, the First Player marker passes clockwise, and a new round begins.

At the endgame, players may play and resolve Endgame Intrigue cards, and the wild battle icon can be matched with any one of the three battle icons in your supply to flip a pair and score a point. Most victory points wins. Ties are broken by spice, then Solari, then water, then troops in your garrison.

A turn, played out

It is mid-game in a 3 player game, and the face up Conflict is at Arrakeen. Green is first player. Earlier this round you sent an Agent to a Combat space, recruited 2 troops that turn, and deployed both plus 1 from your garrison, so you have 3 troops in the Conflict. Green has 3 troops and a sword showing, so their marker sits at 7. Red has no units in the Conflict. Your Agents are spent, so you take your Reveal turn. You reveal your last 3 cards. One has 2 swords. Another has a sandworm icon in its Reveal box, and you do hold Maker Hooks, but the Shield Wall token still sits below the Spice Refinery, so no sandworm can join a Conflict at Arrakeen. The icon does nothing. Your cards total 5 Persuasion. You buy a card costing 4 from the Imperium Row, it goes to your discard pile, and the Row refills to 5. Your last point is lost. Strength is 2 per troop plus 1 per sword: 6 + 2 makes 8. You set your marker at 8 and sweep your cards away. In Combat, Green goes first and plays a Combat Intrigue that adds 1, tying you at 8. A tie for first would give you each only the second reward. So you play your own Combat Intrigue for + 2, reaching 10. Green passes, you pass, and it resolves. Red, with no units, gets nothing. Green takes the second reward. You take the first reward and a Control marker on Arrakeen. The Conflict card shows a Desert Mouse, matching your face up Objective card, so you flip the pair and gain a victory point. All troops return to supplies, and both markers reset to zero.