A mighty family and a righteous name. It is but a stepping stone to your true calling. Your rightful dominion… over all the world! Reign of Man is an empire management and territory control war game, for 2-5 players, that takes around an hour from start to finish.

Summary:
Reign of Man is a fast paced new take on the strategy war game that tips its hat to classics of the past while presenting a fresh and approachable combination of territory control, engine building and rapid dice driven battle resolution. Reign of Man moves along at a clip, as each player can only choose one action to take each turn, and it doesn’t take all afternoon to play to resolution, unlike many of its predecessors. Players are all equally effected by global events, which everyone sees coming several turns in advance. This helps guide you to knew strategies and lend replayability without being punishingly random. Winning comes down to engine development and not just having all the land. Exactly how you win depends on how you rule your kingdom. The Legendfolk and March of the Damned expansion introduce a host of high fantasy themes and, like the core game, are brought to life by the incredible artwork of Erwin Arozza.

Reign of Man - Legendfolk (included expansion)

Legendfolk introduces a set of fantastical ancient races that exist in the world but aren’t widespread enough for a grab at controlling it. They fear for their people and will offer their skills in return for protection. Players may contact them and dedicate armies from their available army pools to bolster their defenses, through a bidding process, in order to take advantage of their special abilities and units. This expansion can be played with 2 - 5 players in conjunction with the Reign of Man rules and components.

Reign of Man – March of the Damned (included expansion)

The world shudders as your people watch the dead rise under the command of great and powerful Lich Queens. Wicked beasts, they wield otherworldly powers and lay waste to our lands. Who will save us? Who will command our armies? The people await your mercy and your might. This variant can be played by itself or along with the Legendfolk. The Reign of Man rules apply to March of the Damned.

Gameplay Overview

Players begin the game with an empire mat that is somewhat developed and get right into the action of taking a single action each turn, in clockwise order.

Basic actions are to:

Develop your empire, building your engine by making improvements to your empire mat
Mobilize armies by moving them to adjacent territories, and in some cases trigger battles, resolved by the rolling of dice
Raise more armies by placing them on territories you control.
Starting in the third turn players will be effected by a World Event card each turn. You can always see these cards two turns in advance of their taking place, so they will drive dynamic strategic decisions. Each development category on your mat has a high rank ability that grants you victory points. As soon as one emperor reaches three victory points, the game is over and they win! The rightful ruler of all the world!

Attributes

Reign of Man rounds move lightning-quick because you can only "do one thing" on your turn. Even battle resolution moves quickly. There is no money. While player elimination is possible, it is very much not common.

Designer Notes

This game is a territory control war game and definitely tips its hat to some such classics of the past, but it doesn't play like most of those games. It's a much shorter overall play time and is more approachable. Turns are fast-paced and battles are resolved in no time. You won't suffer a slow grind to attrition. You won't have to sit at the table and finish a long grind to the inevitable, wherein you feel like you've already lost and there's no coming back. Victories are rarely won by player elimination, but are a race to prominence. We wanted to preserve the best parts of those classic games in the genre and fix the problems we saw germane to their most common mechanics. We love this game and sincerely hope you will too!

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