Keep the Heroes Out!

Objective and players: Choose Monster Clans and work together to protect the Vault treasure through two waves of Heroes. If the value-4 Vault treasure is looted, the team immediately loses; if Wave 2 is fully completed while it remains, everyone wins. The base rules list 1–4 cooperative players. The Dungeon Book adds true solo and adjustments for five or six players. The 40-minute and age-10 figures are catalogue or licensed-edition data.

Scenario setup: Choose a dungeon from the Dungeon Book and build the rooms, treasure, events, and starting monsters shown. Each player chooses a Monster Clan, takes its Monsters and Tactics deck, and draws five starting cards. Build the Guild deck and Loot market according to the scenario and Family, Challenging, or Hardcore difficulty. Clans differ in monster count, abilities, and tactics, so read the scenario and clan rules before play.

Five phases in a player turn: Play Tactics cards; optionally discard a card to refresh one to five cards in the Loot display; discard played cards and refill your hand to five; resolve the Heroes Invasion; then pass the Active Player marker left. The order determines when resources, hand cards, and incoming heroes are handled. Do not resolve the invasion before the discard-and-refill phase.

Card actions: Resolve actions on Tactics cards in an order of your choice and assign them among different Monsters in your dungeon; you do not need to use every action printed. Common actions include activating a room or clan power, moving, melee or ranged attacks, drawing cards, placing traps, reacting defensively, creating portals, placing resources, summoning Monsters, and Reinforcing. A moving Monster may carry one resource or trap marker; follow the card and room text.

Loot and Cells: To refresh Loot, discard a hand card and replace one to five cards in the market. Once per turn, at any point during your turn, you may also try to send a Hero to the Cells: reveal a Guild card; if it is a Hero, exhaust it in the Cells and draw three extra Tactics cards, while a Scenario card gives no such reward. A Hero sent to the Cells still resolves its normal summon ability under the designer’s clarification, so effects such as a Mage may release Heroes from the Cells.

Heroes Invasion: At the end of each player turn, reveal Guild cards according to the current Wave and difficulty. Family reveals one card at a time in Wave 1 and two in Wave 2; Challenging reveals two in both Waves; Hardcore reveals two in Wave 1 and three in Wave 2. A Hero enters the indicated room and resolves Show Off. If a Monster is there, the Hero attacks and becomes exhausted; if the room is empty, treasure value, active Heroes, and room state determine looting, waiting, or charging.

Treasure and defense: In an undefended room, if the number of active Heroes reaches the treasure value, exhaust the required Heroes to loot it and resolve its effect; otherwise the Heroes wait. With no Monster and no treasure, a Hero charges along passageways toward the nearest Vault. A new Hero entering a room can also activate exhausted Heroes there, increasing the pressure on the defense. Guard the Vault and block routes before Heroes advance to the core treasure.

Waves and victory: When the Guild deck is exhausted, shuffle it as instructed and enter Wave 2. If the value-4 Vault treasure is looted, the team loses immediately regardless of remaining rooms or treasure. If the team finishes the full second Wave with that treasure still safe, all players win. Treasure can be looted by Heroes and may trigger effects, so each invasion can alter the defense rather than merely adding a defeat count.

Difficulty, solo, and player count: The Dungeon Book explicitly supports true solo: one player uses one chosen Monster Clan, with its figures set up according to the Clan card and leaves the difficulty rules unchanged. The base game is cooperative for 1–4 players. Its five- to six-player adjustment keeps Family rules unchanged; Challenging and Hardcore add a Wave 0, revealing two Guild cards at a time before normal Waves 1 and 2. This scenario-book adjustment is distinct from the base rulebook’s standard player count.

One Shot, Chronicle, and expansions: A One Shot is a single selected scenario. Chronicle mode plays four specified scenarios in each chapter; losing a scenario does not stop the sequence, while winning the chapter’s final scenario unlocks an ability for the remaining Chronicle. Guild Master’s Revenge adds 1-vs-many play, while Boss Battles and other content have separate expansion rules. These are not default modes in the base box.