Core Concepts

The Golden Rule

If the text on a card directly contradicts the text of the rules, the text of the card takes precedence.

Objective of the Game

Players are trying to get the largest number of points in their score piles when one player has no cards left in their deck, discard pile, hand or play area.

Card States: Dormant, Active, Mature

Creatures and Relics in play can exist in one of three states:

Dormant cards are oriented 90 degrees to the left. A Dormant card cannot be used until it has been made Active or Mature. With the exception of the Start of Game, when Creatures and Relics enter play, they enter in the Dormant state.

Active cards are oriented vertically with their text being readable from left to right. Active cards may be used during a player’s turn.

Mature cards are oriented 90 degrees to the right. Mature cards may be used during a player’s turn.

Play Area Example

Card Anatomy

A card’s Victory Point (VP) value is printed in the bottom left-hand corner. In the above diagrams, each card is worth 1 VP in a player’s score pile. For Creatures, the Creature’s Power is printed in the upper left corner. The example Creature above has a power of 7.

Symbols on Cards And Deck Lists

In addition to the set specific icons, the other following symbols appear on a deck list to indicate the rarity, card type, etc.  In addition to cards from previous sets getting reprinted into the current set, cards may be revived into the current set. When this happens, they will appear in your deck list with their original set icon.

Score Piles

When a card enters a score pile it should be stacked with other cards in the score pile horizontally (cards rotated to the right 90 degrees), with the Victory Point (VP) value of the card in the upper left corner. Unless specified by a card effect, cards in the Score Pile are considered out of play. The contents of a player’s score pile are considered open information.

Start of Game

To set up the game, perform the following steps in order:

1. Players shuffle their decks and place their deck list next to their deck. Decklists are considered open information and may be referred to by either player at any point during the game.
2. Each player discards cards from the top of their deck until they discard a Creature. Move that Creature from the discard pile to its owner's play area and rotate it to the Active state in its owner’s play area. Repeat this step until each player has 2 Creatures in play. (Play: abilities do not get resolved when the Creatures are moved into play.) Relics and Actions discarded during this step will remain in the discard pile.
3. Each player fills their hand as if it were the “Draw Cards” step, drawing a hand of 3 cards. This can be modified by card abilities.
4. The player with the least powerful Creature in play goes first. If there is a tie for least powerful Creature, the player with the next least powerful Creature goes first. If there is still a tie, flip a coin, with the winner of the coin flip going first.

Turn Sequence

1. Use, Play, or Discard Cards
2. Rotate Cards
3. Draw Cards

Step One: Use, Play, or Discard Cards

On a player’s turn, they are considered to be the Active Player. During the Active Player’s turn, they may play cards from their hand, use any number of friendly cards in play, and discard any number of cards from their hand. Cards can be played, used, or discarded in any order.

Playing cards

The Active Player may play any number of cards from their hand each turn, but they must play at least one card if they are able, and they must play a card before discarding any cards. If a card ability prevents a player from being able to play any of their cards, they must reveal their hand to their opponent.

There are three types of cards in Ardent Reapers. Creatures and Relics remain in play from turn to turn. Actions are revealed, their Play: text is resolved and then the Action is placed into the Active Player’s score pile.

When playing a Creature or Relic, the card enters play Dormant (pointed to the left). Cards that are Dormant cannot fight or be harvested. Creatures are placed in the space of the play area called the battle line. When a creature is played it is placed on either end of the battle line. Relics are placed in the play area behind the battle line.

Using Cards

Creatures can be used in one of two ways: To fight an opponent’s Creature or to be harvested.

Fighting:
The Active Player can use a friendly Creature in an Active or Mature state to fight. When a Creature fights, the Active Player chooses an enemy Creature as the target of the fight.

If the power of the friendly Creature is greater than or equal to the power of the enemy Creature, the friendly Creature wins the fight. Otherwise, the friendly Creature loses the fight.

Resolve the Bonus: text of the friendly Creature regardless if it wins or loses the fight. Cards involved in the fight are still considered to be “in play” while Bonus: text is resolving.

After resolving Bonus: text, Move the winner of the fight to its owner’s discard pile and move the loser of the fight to the score pile of the controller of the winning Creature. A Creature may fight and intentionally lose to clear a card from the opponent’s board.

Harvesting: 

A friendly Creature or Relic that is in a Mature state can also be harvested. To harvest a Creature or Relic, resolve any Bonus: text the Creature or Relic may have, then place the Creature or Relic in your score pile.

Note that some Relics have constant abilities and remain in play from turn to turn. Relics must be Harvested to a score pile to complete the game.

Discarding Cards

A player may discard any number of cards from their hand each turn, provided they have played at least one card during their turn. If a card ability prevents a player from being able to play any of their cards, they must reveal their hand to their opponent; after doing so, the player may discard cards if they wish.

Step Two: Rotate Cards

The Active Player rotates each of their cards that are in a Dormant or Active state 90 degrees clockwise. Cards in a Mature state do not rotate.

Step Three: Draw Cards

The Active Player refills their hands up to three cards. If that player already has 3 or more cards in their hand, they do not draw any additional cards. If, during this step or any other time, a player needs to draw cards and cannot because their deck is empty, that player shuffles their discard pile to create a new deck, and then continues to draw.

If the player has no discard pile to shuffle and draw, they play their next turn with fewer cards in their hand. 

Abilities

Abilities are card text that add special effects to the game. There are three types of abilities: bold-faced abilities (Play: and Bonus:), Skills, and Constant abilities. Unless otherwise specified, abilities on a card can only affect cards that are in play.

The Active Player Makes All Decisions

When resolving abilities, the Active Player makes all necessary decisions for the resolution of those abilities.

Resolve as Much as You Can

When resolving an ability, resolve as much of the ability text as can be resolved, and ignore the rest.

Bonus: Abilities

Bonus: abilities on Creatures and Relics are effects that resolve after a Creature is used to fight or after the card is Harvested, but before the card is removed from play. If there are multiple Bonus: abilities to resolve, the Active Player resolves the abilities one at a time in the order of their choosing. Once all Bonus: abilities have finished resolving, place the cards in the appropriate out of play zone (owner’s discard pile for winning a fight, opponent’s score pile for losing a fight, controller’s score pile for harvesting). If a card is moved from one zone to another by rules text or an ability, any Bonus: abilities on the moved card do not resolve.

Play: Abilities

Play: abilities on Creatures and Relics are effects that resolve after the card is played, immediately after it enters play. Play: abilities on Actions resolve after the card is played, after which the Action is placed into the Active Player’s score pile.  

Skills 

Skills modify how Fights resolve.

Resilient X:
When the active player uses a creature to fight against a creature with the Resilient Skill, they compare the X value of Resilient to the power of their creature, rather than the power of the opponent’s creature to determine the winner of the fight.  As with regular fighting, the winner of the fight is placed in its owner’s discard pile, the loser of the fight is moved into the score pile of the controller of the winning Creature. If an ability grants an additional instance of the Resilient Skill, the higher of the two X values applies.

Constant Abilities

If a card has text that is not prefaced by the word Skill: or Bonus:, the ability is active as long as the card with the ability is in play and all conditions of the ability are met.

Example:  Bash’s constant ability means that when Bash is defeated in a fight, regardless if it is controlled by the Active Player or not, the opponent of Bash’s controller will discard their hand.

End of Game

When one player has no cards in their play area, hand, deck, or discard pile (meaning all of the cards they own are in a score pile or in the opponent’s area), the game is over. Players count the number of Victory Points (VP) in their score piles and the player with the highest total points wins. Only cards in score piles count for the final score; cards in play, hand, deck, or discard are not counted at all. In case of a tie, the player who went second is the winner.  In exceptionally rare cases, it may happen that a game ends up with both players able to continue to play, but neither could ever win. In such cases, the game is declared a draw.

Glossary

Ability

Abilities are card text that adds special effects to the game. There are three types of abilities: Bonus: abilities, Skills, and Constant abilities. Unless otherwise stated on the card, Abilities can only affect cards that are in play.

Active Player

The Active Player is the player that is currently taking their turn. When resolving card abilities, the Active Player makes all necessary decisions.

Battle line

The battle line is the ordered line of Creatures in a player’s play area. When a Creature is played, it is placed on either end of the battle line.

Control
A player can take control of an opponent’s card through the resolution of abilities. When this happens, that card is placed in the new controller’s play area. If it is a Creature, it is placed on either end of the new controller’s battle line. If multiple effects that take control of a card are used on the same card, the most recent effect takes precedence. If a card changes control, it moves to its new controller's play area in whatever state it existed in its previous controller’s play area.

Discard

Unless otherwise noted, when an ability or rule instructs a player to discard a card, that card should be moved from the player’s hand to the discard pile.

Discard Pile
The Discard Pile is a face up pile of cards in a player’s play area next to the player’s deck. When a player runs out of cards in their deck and needs to draw a card, they shuffle the discard pile to create a new deck. The contents of a player’s discard pile are open information. Cards in the Discard Pile are considered to be in an out-of-play zone. 

Least Powerful

If text refers to the Least Powerful card, that text refers to the card that has the lowest Power. If there is a tie for the Least Powerful card, the Active Player can choose from the tied cards to resolve the text. A card without a Power cannot be considered the Least Powerful.

Least Valuable
If text refers to the Least Valuable card, that text refers to the card that is worth the lowest number of Victory Points (VP). If there is a tie for the Least Valuable card, the Active Player can choose from the tied card to resolve the text. A card without a Value cannot be considered the Least Valuable.

Most Powerful

If text refers to the Most Powerful card, that text refers to the card that has the highest Power. If there is a tie for the Most Powerful card, the Active Player can choose from the tied cards to resolve the text. A card without a Power cannot be considered the Most Powerful.

Most Valuable

If text refers to the Most Valuable card, that text refers to the card that is worth the highest number of Victory Points (VP). If there is a tie for the Most Valuable card, the Active Player can choose from the tied cards to resolve the text. A card without a Value cannot be considered the Most Valuable.  

Move

When a card moves from one area to another (such as hand to discard or in play to score pile), the card is removed from its current area and placed into the new area. Play: and Bonus: abilities do not resolve when a card is moved. If a card is moved from an “in play” zone to an “out of play” zone , any effects that would apply to the card no longer apply.

Neighbor

If an ability refers to a Creature’s neighbor, it refers to the card to the immediate left and/or the card to the immediate right of the Creature.

Out of Play

Relics and cards that are in the battle line are considered to be in play. Cards in a player’s deck, hand, discard pile, and score piles are considered out of play. If an ability or part of an ability moves a card out of play, all affected cards are moved out of play simultaneously. If moving a card out of play makes one or more abilities available to resolve, those abilities are resolved in the order of the Active Player’s choosing.

Owner
A player owns all the cards in their deck. If an effect refers to the card’s “Owner”, it refers to the player who is playing the name of the deck that appears on the card.

Score Pile

When a card enters a score pile it should be stacked with other cards in the score pile horizontally (cards rotated to the right 90 degrees), with the Victory Point (VP) value of the card in the upper left corner. Unless specified by a card effect, cards in the Score Pile are considered out of play. The contents of a player’s score pile are considered open information.

Stash

If an ability instructs a player to stash a card, place a card facedown under a card. By default, the stashed card is placed under the card with the ability instructing a player to stash a card. The facedown card is referred to as a stashed card and is considered out-of-play. Unless otherwise stated by the ability, the stashed card comes from the active player’s hand (this can be modified by instructions on the card.) At any time, the controller of the card with a stashed card beneath it can look at the stashed card.

If you harvest a card with a stashed card, you move both the harvested card and the stashed card to your score pile.

If one or more creatures with stashed cards are involved in a fight, all stashed cards are moved to the score pile of the controller of the winning creature at the end of the fight.

If a card with a stashed card leaves play for any other reason, the stashed card is placed in the owner's discard pile.

Zone
A Zone is the generic term for a location in the play area, such as Deck, Discard Pile, Hand, etc.

Often Overlooked Rules

Setup:
During setup, after putting two creatures into play, the cards that were discarded remain in the discard pile.

Playing Cards:
If you can’t play cards, you must reveal your hand. After you have revealed your hand, you may discard any cards you do not wish to keep.

Fights:
The creature that wins the fight goes to its owner’s discard pile. The creature that loses a fight goes to the controller of the winning creature’s score pile.

Bonus: Abilities:
Bonus: abilities resolve when a creature is harvested. Bonus: abilities also resolve when the Active Player uses the creature with the Bonus: ability to fight, regardless if the Active Player’s creature wins or loses the fight.

Skills:
When using creatures with the Team-Up skill to fight, the total power of the creatures with Team-Up must exactly equal the power of the opponent's creature.
When a creature with the Bear Hug skill is used to fight multiple creatures the creatures being fought must have a total power exactly equal to that of the creature with Bear Hug.
Using a creature’s Sneak X skill is optional. The Active Player may choose to use the printed power instead when fighting.

Resilient is not optional; the Active Player always compares the X value of Resilient to the power of the creature they are using to attack, even if the power of the creature is higher.  

Errata

Silence Enforcer’s ability should read: If this card is Active, your opponent cannot play Actions or Relics.

Budge's ability text should read: If this card is used to Harvest, it gains "Bonus: Move a card from your opponent's score pile to the bottom of its owner's deck."

Taco's ability text should read: If this card is used to Harvest, it gains "Bonus: Move a card from your score pile to the top of its owner's deck."

Bamphf's ability text should read: If this card is used to Harvest, it gains "Bonus: Play the top card of your deck."

Saboteur's ability text should read: If this card is used to Harvest, it gains "Bonus: Move a card from your hand to your opponent's score pile."

Jer the Spike's ability text should read: If this card is used to Harvest, it gains "Bonus: Your opponent discards 2 cards."

Gynormica's ability text should read: If this card wins a fight, it gains "Bonus: Draw 3 cards, then end your turn."

Lullaby's ability text should read:  Play: During your opponent's next turn, your opponent's Creatures cannot be used to fight.

Rolando’s ability text should read: Bonus: Discard the top card of your deck. If the discarded card is worth 0 VP or more, your opponent discards a number of random cards equal to the discarded card's VP value.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: My opponent has no creatures in their battleline. Can I play Corrode or Shine and choose to rotate an enemy creature to Mature, even if there are no enemy creatures?
A: Yes. When you resolve an ability that begins with “Choose one:” you may choose which option to resolve, then resolve as much of that option as you are able, and ignore the rest.

Q: I use Gynormica to fight an enemy creature and Gynormica wins the fight, what happens?
A: Gynomrica’s ability resolves when Gynormica wins the fight.  The Active Player would then draw 3 cards and end their turn. This means that the Active Player draws three cards via Gynormica’s ability, but does not perform the “Rotate Cards” or “Draw Cards” steps.

Q: In my battleline, I have two creatures with the Team-Up skill. I also have Fog Machine, which gives friendly creatures Sneak 5. How do these skills interact?
A: The Team-Up skill utilizes the Power of the creatures, not the Sneak value. In this case your creatures could combine their power and utilize the Team-Up skill, or they could individually fight utilizing the Sneak 5 skill.

Q: In my battleline, I have Brother Bear, which has the Bear Hug skill. I play The Buddy System to give Brother Bear the Team-Up skill. Can I combine Bear Hug and Team-Up to attack multiple Creatures?
A: No. The Active Player can choose to use Brother Bear’s Bear Hug skill or its Team-Up skill, but the skills do not combine.

Q: I use Eager Martyr to fight and win against an opponent’s creature. When does Eager Martyr’s ability resolve?
A: Eager Martyr’s ability resolves when it successfully leaves play. In this case, its ability will resolve once it reaches the discard pile. This means that if a player’s deck is empty, Eager Martyr will get shuffled into the new draw deck.

Q: If Breach discards multiple 2VP or higher cards, do you choose one to score, or do you get to score them all?

A: Breach’s ability allows you to move a single card from the discard pile to your score pile. If multiple cards qualify, the Active Player chooses one card to move.

Credits

Game Design and Development: Gee Barger and Luke Olson

Art Generation and Curation: Steven Lewis notsteve.com
Card Typeface: NaN Tragedy Text by Phantom Foundry

Ardent Reapers Logo and Title Design:  SteVader

Fiction: Aaron King

Playtesting: Members of the Ardent Reapers Discord.

TIMING CHART

Start of Turn Abilities Resolve

Discard, Play, and Use Cards in Any Order
        Play Cards

1. Active player selects an eligible card to be played.

1. If the played card is a Creature or Relic,

1. The card enters the play area in a Dormant state.
2. Active Player resolves Play: ability of the Creature or Relic.

2.  If the played card is an action,

1. Player of the card resolves Play: ability of the action.
2. Action card is placed in the score pile of the player who played the action card.

Discard Cards

1. If at least one card has been played, the Active Player may discard any cards from hand they wish.
2. If none of the cards in the Active Player’s hand can be played, the Active Player reveals their hand.

1. After revealing their hand, the Active Player may discard any cards from their hand they wish.

Use Cards to Fight or Harvest

Fight

1. Active Player selects a friendly Active or Mature Creature to use to fight.
2. Active Player selects target for the fight.
3. Compare the power of the friendly and enemy Creature to determine the winning and losing Creature. (Constant abilities referring to a Creature winning or losing a fight resolve.)
4. Active Player resolves Bonus: ability of the friendly Creature involved in the fight.
5. Winning Creature is moved to its owner’s discard pile. Losing Creature is moved to the controller of the winning Creature’s score pile. (Creatures move out of play simultaneously.)

Harvest

1. Active Player selects a friendly Mature Creature or Relic to use to harvest. (Constant abilities referring to a Creature or Relic being used to Harvest resolve.)
2. Active Player resolves Bonus: ability of the harvested card.
3. Harvested card is moved to its controller’s score pile.

Rotate Cards

1. Active Player rotates friendly Creatures and Relics to the next state.

Draw Cards

1. The Active Player fills their hand up to 3 cards.

End of Turn Abilities Resolve