The throne of Scotland lies empty and the clans fight each other to lay claim to it.

As a Lord of Scotland, you are gathering the loyalty of clans by showing your prowess in battle. Gather enough support and you will be able to claim the throne and be crowned king.

Content

• 98 cards
• 9 Clan tokens
• 1 Victor's Initiative token

The Cards

A Clan - Each card belongs to one of the eight normal Clans or to the royal Clan Bruce. The name of a Clan, the portrait of its chief, its Clan tartan, and badge are displayed on each card.

B Rank -Each card has a different rank. Its unique rank among the cards is displayed in the upper right corner and may be used to break ties. The larger the number, the higher its rank.

C Strength - A card's strength is listed in the upper left corner. At the end of each round, the army with the highest total strength wins the right to claim the first Sup- porter.

During the round, strength determines whether or not you can activate the Clan's power. A card's strength also represents its value towards victory when claimed as a Supporter.

D Power - There are nine different powers in the game corresponding to the eight normal Clans and the royal Clan Bruce.

During the game, each card can have one of these functions:

• Recruit - A card that may be added to your hand.
• Follower - A card played from your hand into your army.
• Supporter - A card taken as points into your victory pile.

Setup

• Give the Victor's Initiative token to the oldest player.

• Set aside the two Clan Bruce cards. Once you have played the game a couple of times, you may add them back in for more challenging play.

• Shuffle all the remaining cards together.

• Deal out five cards to each player.

• Create a draw pile with the rest of the cards.

• Take the top five cards from the draw pile and place all of them face-down side by side to the right of the draw pile as Recruits.

• Take a number of cards from the top of the draw pile equal to the number of players and place them face-up side by side to the left of the draw pile in a direction horizontal to the draw pile. These cards are the Supporters.

• Make a space for a discard pile on one of the other sides of the draw pile.

• The player with the Victor's Initiative token goes first.

Object of the Game

Once 40 strength worth of Supporters is reached at the end of a round, the player with the highest strength claims the throne and wins the game.

Game Play

A game is played over a series of rounds, each representing a skirmish. Each skirmish is divided into five turns. During each turn, one after the other, each player will have two options: mustering a Follower by playing a card from their hand, or recruiting by drawing a card from the Recruits.

Mustering lets you strengthen your army while recruiting gives you more cards to play. At the end of each round, each player gets to claim one Supporter in order of highest strength army to lowest.

The mustered Followers, Recruits, and remaining Supporters are then discarded and a new round begins.

Important: If you have the Victor's Initiative token, at the beginning of each of your turns and before taking your action, you must turn face-up one face-down Recruit.

This helps identify which turn is being played. When the fifth Recruit is turned face-up, the last turn of the round is being played.

During each round, when it is your turn, you must either:

1. Recruit a card - Draw any card from the Recruits and add it to your hand. Replace that card with a card from the draw pile. If the Recruit you took was face-up, replace it with a face-up card. You may not recruit if you have ten cards in your hands

2. Muster a Follower - Play a card from your hand in front of you either FACE-UP or FACE-DOWN to add it to your army for the current skirmish.

   If you play your card face-up and there is no other card in the skirmish with a LOWER strength than your card, then you may immediately activate the power described on the card.

After you have either recruited a card, or mustered a Follower (and maybe activated its power), your turn is over and it is the next player's turn (in clockwise order).

End of the Round

At the end of each round, flip over all face-down Followers in the skirmish and total up the strength of all the cards in each player's army. Double the total of any army if it contains more than one card and ALL cards in this army are from the same Clan.

If your army has the highest total strength, you win the round.

Collect one of the available Supporters, and set that card aside, face-up, in your victory pile to keep track of how many points you have. Then, in the order of the second highest value army to the lowest value army, each other player claims a Supporter and places it aside in their victory pile.

A player without any Follower does not get to claim a Supporter. If there is ever a tie between two or more players, the player who controls the highest ranking Clan (the number found in the upper right corner of a card) in the skirmish wins the tie.

Example: Judy has won the skirmish with 22 points (11 doubled to 22 for having her whole army composed of two or more cards from the same Clan). Roger has only one card and cannot qualify for the doubling.

Sean has two cards from the same Clan, but the third card in his army is not from the same Clan. Had the 7:Makgill been from the Scott Clan, or an activated Bruce card, then his score would have been doubled.

Both players tie the skirmish with 12 strength. However, Pierce breaks the tie and wins the skirmish with his card that has a rank of 66, higher than all the other Clans in the skirmish.

Once every eligible player has claimed their Supporters, discard any remaining Supporters, all Recruits, and all Followers.

Then replace with new Supporters and Recruits from the draw pile (arranged as described in the setup of the game) and start a new round. The player who won the previous round takes the first turn in the next round. Give that player the Victor's Initiative token.

Rules Clarification

• If the draw pile runs out of cards, reshuffle the discard pile and create a new draw pile.

• You may look at the face-down cards in your army at any time.

• You must have at least one Follower in your army at the end of a round to claim a Supporter.

• If there are no Supporters left to be claimed when it is your turn to claim a Supporter, you claim no Supporters this skirmish.

• If one or more Supporters are not claimed at the end of a skirmish, discard them and replace them with new Supporters.

• If all the Supporters you draw at the start of a new round have the same strength, discard them immediately and replace them with new ones.

• A Clan's power only activates on the turn it is played. If it begins the skirmish in play or comes into your possession through a swap, its power does not activate. Note, however, that an activated end-of-round power remains active if swapped.

• Copying the power of another Follower does not negate the power of the copied Follower.

End of the Game

Continue completing rounds until someone accumulates 40 or more strength worth of Supporters.

At that point, the player with the most strength from Supporters wins.

If two or more players are tied, then the player who placed higher in the final round wins.

Alternative Rules with 4 or 5 Players

If you are playing with four or five players, then a Clan's power activates as long as there is no other Follower of the same Clan in the skirmish with a strength equal to or less than the strength of your Follower.

Basically, when determining if a Clan's power activates in a game with four or five players, ignore the strength of any Follower from a different Clan.

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