You are one of King Arthur's knights, fighting dangerous adversaries to complete glorious adventures, winning fame and honour and hoping to be proclaimed Arthur's first knight.
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Each player fights adversaries with their knight cards. Defeated adversaries allow them to complete valuable adventures. The player who is most successful wins the game.
Lay out the 13 adventure cards face up at the top edge of the table.
Thoroughly shuffle the adversary cards, and lay them as a face down deck under the adventure cards on the right hand side. Then draw one card after another from the adversary deck, arranging them under the adventure cards in columns of matching colour, until you have drawn the fourth card of one of the colours.
Thoroughly shuffle the knights cards, and deal four to each player's hand. Lay the rest as a draw deck under the adventure cards on the left hand side.
Leave the 25 seals in the box - they are not needed in the basic game.
Choose a start player. Going clockwise, each player does the following actions:
If all adversary colours have fewer than four cards, then the player may replenish the adversaries. If they choose to do so, they draw one card after another from the adversary deck, arranging them under the adventure cards in columns of matching colour, until they have drawn the fourth of one colour, or the adversary deck is empty. They may not stop replenishing early.
The player may fight one of the adversaries that has been turned up. They play knight cards of one colour so that the number of cards played matches the number on the adversary. The cards are placed face up ont a discard pilenext to the deck of knight cards. Merlin cards may be treated as any colour. Double cards (which show two knights) are treated as two cards. The player takes the defeated adversary into their hand.
The player may complete one adventure by paying adversary cards that meet the requirements of that adventure. They discard the adversary cards from their hand, and lay the adventure card face up in front of them. The cards are placed face up onto a discard pile next to the deck of adversary cards. A description of the requirements is in Adventure Cards.
The player may draw one knight card from the knight deck. If they have not fought any adversaries and not completed any adventures this turn, then they have rested and may draw a second knight card. If the deck runs out, shuffle the played knight cards to form a new deck.
The game ends when the penultimate adventure card has been taken, or when the adversary deck is empty and the last turned adversary has been defeated. In the latter case, the player may still complete their turn by taking an adventure card. All players add together the points on their adventure and adversary cards. The player with most points wins.
In the setup, each player takes five seals of one colour. When you fight adversaries, instead of taking them into your hand, you place a seal on them. These adversaries may not be attacked by other players. When all adversaries of one colour have seals on them, then all those adversaries are defeated and taken into the players hands. (This occurs between step 2 and step 3, so the player who has placed the last seal may use the adversaries he has just taken into his hand to complete an adventure.)
Instead of fighting normally, you have two additional options. Firstly, you may fight a adversary with one of your seals already on it. If you do this, you take the adversary card into your hand. Secondly, you can double-attack a adversary that noone has yet attacked. By playing double the number of cards that you would usually use to fight it, you take the adversary card into your hand. Both these options mean you have used twice as many cards to defeat the adversary as normal - you should therefore be certain you have a good reason for doing so, for example because doing this allows you to claim an adventure card that another player was otherwise likely to take before you.