Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One

Edition, components, and modes: This entry covers Restoration Games’ 2019 Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One base box. The publisher lists King Arthur, Alice, Medusa, and Sinbad, with 30 action cards per hero and 120 total. The rules cover a two-player duel plus team rules for three and four players; they do not supply a three-player free-for-all procedure. Cross-box heroes and battlefields are compatible at the series level, but other boxes’ character rules are outside this entry.

Battlefield setup: Choose a battlefield for a two-player duel. Each player chooses a hero and takes its action deck, character card, miniature, Sidekick tokens, and health dials. Set hero and Sidekick health as shown, shuffle the action deck, and draw five cards. Place the hero and Sidekicks in the permitted starting spaces and zones. Each circular space can hold only one fighter. Zones are used for ranged attacks and card effects; spaces with the same pattern can belong to one zone even when separated on the map, and a space can belong to multiple zones.

Turn and actions: A turn requires two actions; a player cannot skip an action. Choose Maneuver, Scheme, or Attack, and the same action may be chosen twice. At the end of the turn, discard down to a hand limit of seven cards. Action cards show their type, eligible fighter, attack or defense value, effect, and Boost value. Use a card only when its fighter and timing conditions are satisfied.

Maneuver and movement: When taking Maneuver, first draw the top card of the deck; drawing is mandatory. The player may then move their fighters up to the Move value on the character card and may discard one card to Boost that movement by its printed Boost value. Move fighters one at a time through connected spaces. They may pass through friendly fighters but cannot end in an occupied space, and they cannot move through opposing fighters. Each fighter may move a different distance, including zero spaces.

Scheme and attack: A Scheme action plays a Scheme card and resolves its printed text, which may move fighters, deal damage, draw cards, or affect later combat. For an Attack, choose an attacker and legal target; melee normally requires adjacency, while ranged attacks use the zone rules. Play an attack card, and the defender may play a defense card. Card effects are marked Immediately, During Combat, or After Combat: resolve those timing windows in order, then calculate damage. If effects trigger at the same time, the defender resolves theirs first.

Combat and damage: The attacker’s card provides the attack value; if the defender plays a defense card, subtract its defense value before applying damage. Without a defense card, the attack card’s value is the attack damage. Reduce the target’s health accordingly, then resolve additional card effects at their stated timing. Some cards check who won the combat: the attacker wins only if the attack itself deals at least one damage, while the defender wins if they take no damage from the attack. Do not count extra effect damage as damage from the attack itself for that test.

Defeat and ending the game: A fighter is defeated when its health reaches zero; remove a defeated Sidekick from the battlefield. In a two-player duel, the opponent wins immediately when a hero is defeated. Team play is different: if a hero is defeated, that player keeps taking turns as long as they still have a Sidekick. A team loses only after both of its heroes have been defeated. Teammates may discuss cards and tactics, but each player still controls their own hero and Sidekicks.

Exhaustion and team play: Drawing is mandatory whether it comes from Maneuver or a card effect, unless a rule says otherwise. When a deck is empty, do not reshuffle the discard pile. If a player must draw, each of their fighters immediately takes two damage. In team games, players alternate turns by team and choose a battlefield with four starting spaces. In a three-player game one player controls both heroes and Sidekicks for one team; a normal four-player game has two players on each side. Empty decks can damage every fighter at once, so repeated drawing carries a real exhaustion cost.