Dune: A Game of Conquest and Diplomacy: Rules and a Round

Setup

1. Put all spice tokens in the bank, then shuffle the spice, battle and market decks separately.

2. To assign factions, take one traitor card per faction, shuffle them and deal one to each player. Reveal the cards, then return them to the traitor deck.

3. Remove the traitor cards for factions not in play, then shuffle the rest. Deal 4 traitor cards to each player except the Harkonnen player; each of those players secretly keeps 1. Finally, the Harkonnen player draws 8 cards in a four-player game and keeps 4.

4. Each player takes the starting spice listed on their faction sheet: Atreides 13, Fremen 6, Harkonnen 15 and Imperium 18. Fremen put 5 forces in the Polar Sink; all other forces go in reserve.

5. Set the turn marker to 1, the phase marker to storm, and the storm marker on its starting sector.

6. Each player rolls the storm die. The highest roll takes the first player marker, with the storm icon counting as the highest value.

Turn by turn

• Storm and spice

  The storm circles 18 sectors, wrecking forces and spice on sand territories. Rock territories, strongholds and the Polar Sink are safe. On the first turn, ignore a sandworm card and reshuffle the deck. Later, a sandworm destroys what’s on the previous spice card’s territories, except Fremen forces, who ride the worm.

• Cards

  You can hold up to four battle cards and three market cards. Battle cards provide weapons, defenses and worthless cards; market cards add tricks played in the phase shown on each card. Each market card costs 2 spice, paid to the bank or the Imperium player. For a first game, you can start with only one market card per player.

• Shipping and movement

  Shipping costs 1 spice per force and sends forces into one territory. You can’t ship into a sector in the storm. Then move one group up to 3 territories. A stronghold with forces from two factions is closed to everyone else.

• Battle plan

  Secretly dial a number of forces on your battle wheel, from 0 up to the number you have in the territory. You must play a leader if you can. With a leader, you may also add a weapon card, a defense card or both. Reveal plans together.

• Resolving battles

  Add your dialed forces to your leader’s strength. The highest total wins; the player with battle advantage wins ties. A weapon without a matching defense kills the leader and cancels its strength. The winner gains spice equal to the strength of every leader killed in the battle.

• Traitors

  If your opponent plays a leader matching a traitor card you hold, call out Traitor. You win the battle, lose nothing and keep your leader. The traitor’s owner loses their forces in the territory and the cards they played. If both reveal traitors, both lose forces, cards and leaders, and neither wins.

End of the game and scoring

Key rules

• Losing and winning forces

  The loser loses all forces in the territory and every battle card played. The winner loses only the forces they dialed, so even a winning side can leave a territory empty.

• Faction powers

  Atreides see one part of an opponent’s plan before plans are made. Fremen ignore storms on sand and ride sandworms. Harkonnens hold extra traitors. The Imperium collects spice paid by others for market cards and uses the Voice to force or forbid a weapon type.

• Two-player games

  Any two factions can play, for six possible matchups, with sand covering one stronghold so only four are in play. In Allies mode, each player runs two factions: Atreides and Fremen against Harkonnen and Imperium.

• Battle advantage

  The first player has battle advantage. It passes in turn order until the Battle phase ends. The player with the advantage wins ties and chooses the order of their battles.