Setup

Open your starter deck and pull out the 4 character cards and all the single-stat Power cards — that’s everything you need for Act 1. Stand the characters up on your side of the table, shuffle the Power cards, and set them beside your lineup as your draw pile. Your friend does the same with their starter.

• 3 on the front line — these fight.
• 1 in reserve, behind your middle fighter — your backup. Tags up to the front line the next battle after a front-liner is knocked out.
• Your draw pile to the left of your front line.

That’s the whole table. Four legends and a deck.

Your Characters

Each character has 4 numbers — one per power type. These four types are the game’s whole vocabulary of attack and defense:

A character’s number in a type is how hard they hit, and how well they block, in that type.

Higher number = bigger attacks of that type. Your four characters are all different — some hit harder, some are tougher. Learn what each one is good at.

Your Ammo: Power Cards

Power cards are numbered 1–8 in the four types above. To attack: pick a character, play a Power card of a type they’re strong in, and point it at one enemy.

Here’s what all that damage is for: pile 20 or more points onto one enemy character and they’re knocked out. Keep that number in your head — it’s the goal behind every swing. (More on knockouts below.)

Your Turn

Start: draw 8 cards — this is your hand for the battle. (A “battle” is one hand of fighting — you’ll play many over a game.)

Then, on your turn, take one action:

• Attack — one character, one Power card, thrown at one enemy. One swing. You don’t attack with your whole team at once.
• or Pass — you can pass only if you’re out of playable attacks. Got a legal attack? You must throw it.

If you attack, they get to try to defend before taking their turn. Then it’s their turn. Back and forth, one action at a time.

Defending

When they swing at one of your characters, defend on that character’s behalf:

• Block — play a Power card of equal or higher value. Attack stopped. You don’t need to defend with the same power type as the attack — any type blocks, as long as the number is high enough.
• Avoid — play a card that says “avoid” and the attack misses, no matter how big.
• …or take it — every character has 20 hit points. Sometimes eating a hit is smart — it saves a card you can attack with on your own turn.

Can’t defend it? The damage lands and stays. Damage is the wear of battle — it piles up on a character and never heals off on its own for the rest of the match (barring a special card or effect). Every hit brings that character closer to a knockout.

The Rhythm: Hands Come and Go

You fight from your hand of 8 — and you don’t refill mid-fight. When both players pass in a row, the current hand is over:

1. Discard whatever’s left in your hand.
2. Damage on characters stays — tucked in as permanent wear.
3. Both players draw a fresh 8.
4. Keep fighting.

You’ll often stop with cards still in hand — passing just means “nothing left you can throw with.”

You Could Win Right Here

Knock out all 4 enemy characters and you win the fight outright. But KO’ing four legends is hard — they block, they avoid, they hit back. Most real games aren’t won by wiping the table.

So how do you win when nobody gets knocked out? That’s what you’re really playing for. Read on.

Remember how, in Act 1, a hand ended when both players passed? That exact moment is where the real game settles a bet.

What You’re Fighting For

You have 7 Mission Objective cards — the steps of your story. They start in your Reserve pile. Get all 7 into your Completed pile and you win the game. That’s the goal behind every punch.

Every Battle Is a Bet

You met the word battle back in Act 1 — one hand of fighting: draw 8, trade blows, both players pass. Here’s the twist that makes it matter: each battle, you bet objectives on who wins it.

How You Climb: Venturing

Before the fight starts, you venture — put one or more objectives on the line. This is a real bet, and it cuts both ways. You’re not choosing to win or lose; you’re choosing how much to risk on the fight. The fight decides which direction they move:

• Win the fight → every objective you put on the line moves up, toward Completed.
• Lose the fight → those same objectives slide down, toward Defeated.

So venturing is the gamble at the heart of the game: bet big and win, you leap ahead; bet big and lose, you fall back. You must put at least 1 on the line every battle — there’s no sitting out. Now passing isn’t just “I’m out of attacks,” it’s “I’m ready to settle this bet.”

The Home Stretch — the moment you’re playing for

(You won’t grind all 7 in this short demo — but it’s the same loop you already know, just played to the end.)

Picture a few battles from now. You’ve stacked 6 objectives in Completed. One left in Reserve. Your opponent is down two characters and reeling. You venture your last objective for the win. You draw, you swing, you land the hits — and when both players pass, your Venture Total is higher — you win the fight. That 7th objective slides into Completed.

You just walked the first two steps.
The real game is where you climb the rest yourself.

A Battle, Start to Finish

1. Draw — 8 cards each.
2. Venture — bet at least 1 objective. (Then decide: fight, or concede?)
3. Fight — one action per turn, back and forth, until both players pass.
4. Settle — higher Venture Total wins the fight; ventured objectives advance if you won, fall if you lost.
5. Reset — discard leftovers, draw a fresh 8, next battle. Damage carries over.

Your Three Objective Piles

Every objective lives in one of three piles. Win fights to push them up; lose fights and they slide down.

Three Ways to Win the Game

Card Types at a Glance

Three card types do the heavy lifting. Here’s when each one earns its slot:

One Rule We Skipped

• Duplicates & unusable cards get discarded before each fight — you can’t hoard copies, and cards for a KO’d character become dead weight. Small rule, but it matters once you build your own deck.

What’s Next

You’ve played the core, and you now know the card types you’ll see most. The full game layers on more: Event cards that reshape a whole battle, team-up attacks (Teamwork & Ally cards), Homebases, Artifacts, and deeper venture tactics like placing a war-chest of cards for future fights. When you’re ready, the Comprehensive Rulebook and Glossary have every detail — or just ask at the table. Now go build a team and venture well.