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Deus lo Vult – The Board Game of Rampage, Betrayal and Agony

Created by Hiatus Games

Competitive board game based on medieval miniature and the strategic games played by the military aristocracy all over the world.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Rulebook: Chapter Three
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 11:01:54 PM

Urbi et Orbi!

Thanks to all our volunteers who are helping us with the translation of the rules! You are amazing! We see all your questions and answering them as quickly as possible.

Today we have prepared the third chapter of the rules. Please, read, comment, and ask your questions in the comments!

City Quarters

Crusaders may rob Quarters similarly to the way they engage in a battle: the Coin side of a district token is vulnerable, and the Skull and the Arrow sides can inflict damage in close combat or from a distance. In order to do that, any player can engage the attack during a Saracenian phase of his turn.

City Quarter
City Quarter

After a successful attack, the band may take coins from the district attacked. Each relocation counts for one move. One unit can carry only one coin; Pilgrims are capable of carrying two coins using the Fistfuls skill. Some Amenities, like the Dog, allow a player to ransack an extra coin.

When the first coin is taken from a settlement, player who took it draws an event card and plays it immediately.

When the last coin is taken from a settlement, player who took it picks the Amenity card and keeps it. The player can spend one move to put it on the board immediately or at any moment he chooses.

Refugees

Whenever Crusaders pillage a City Quarter to the ground and strip all valuables (coins and Amenity) off it, the Quarter Token must be flipped reverse side up, presenting the aggrieved and harbourless Refugees. 

Refugees
Refugees
  • Refugees appear when a City Quarter is thoroughly plundered.
  • You can move the Refugees under the regular movement rules with one exception: they can follow both Crusader and Saracen bands and thus can move during both turn phases.
  • Refugees can't end their moves on Saracenian tents.
  • Player can't move the Refugees who stopped at his camp tents (but can move them off the other camps).
  • Player can't use tents occupied by the Refugees to deploy units or place Amenities.
  • A Crusader unit could kill the Refugees, but killing a defenseless civilian is no doubt an abominable deed. Committing such a grave sin will immediately send a murderous token right into the Hellmouth of the Purgatorium, while a Refugees token returns to the City Quarters deck.
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More Stretch Goals Revealed!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 02:16:16 PM

Urbi et Orbi!

We heartily greet every new member of our congregation! Our numbers grow with every hour. And we are much pleased with the progress of our Kickstarter campaign. We couldn't even think that we would be supported by such a large number of honorary backers. 

We've made an update yesterday and asked you for help with translating the rules into other languages. Do you know how many people applied already? 44! Of 15 tongues, believe me, or not. It's incredible! We are most grateful to each one of you! And we eager to pay you back!

We've been asked about new stretch goals for a long time- and here they are, finally. Four goals are revealed, but the 5th we decided to keep secret for now.

Meister of Engines (Amenity)

The only person who can do math and fix a broken Siege Engine. His uniqueness and utter importance made him immune to most of the disciplinary measures, which inevitably led poor engineer to the common fate of many misconceived and underestimated geniuses - the unrestrained alcoholism.

Gravediggers (Amenity)

Their work is to collect their dead, to dig the graves and to bury these dead in said graves. There's apparently no "to relieve the dead from their belongings as the living need it more" in their job description, but the gravediggers consider this one to be a self-implicating and self-imposed addition to their duties.

PROCELLA (Divine Will Card) 

Sandstorms are quite common in the arid deserts of the Holy Land. A sandstorm can transport and carry large volumes of sand unexpectedly. Dust storms can carry large amounts of dust, with the leading edge being composed of a wall of thick dust as much as 1.6 km (0.99 mi) high. Give your archers a day off, milord, there's no use of them in weather like this.

PLUVIA (Divine Will Card) 

 

But regular storms are a thing in the Holy Land, too. Weak snaky creeks turn into speeding roaring streams in a trice, flooding the area, drowning people and leaving behind the mudslides. No way we could move these siege hulks over all of this dirt, milord, look: they're already bogged down to the axles!

The Secret Goal 

We are not quite ready to spill the beans yet. Share the news with your friends, subscribe on our social media and let's unlock this secret Goal together!

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Special Skills Icons
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 12:13:48 AM

work in progress
work in progress

Many units in the game possess unique skills that allow them to perform heroic acts occasionally. Some of these skills are passive while others can be activated by tapping the token or meeting a particular condition.

Greek Fire unit presents active ability "Blaze"
Greek Fire unit presents active ability "Blaze"

We are doing our best to keep these skills as simple, comprehensible and self-explanatory as possible, but it's still better to have some hint right on a unit's token.

Mounted Knight unit presents "Charge" passive ability
Mounted Knight unit presents "Charge" passive ability

You can see the skill icons at the lower right corner of each unit token. Initially, we wanted to make them look more "heraldic," but it turned out that they would be either too small or cover too much of the artwork. Thus skill icons were reduced to the size of all other icons.

Pilgrim with an icon of "Fistfuls" active skill
Pilgrim with an icon of "Fistfuls" active skill

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Rulebook Chapter One: The Game Assets & Chapter Two: Moves and Actions
over 6 years ago – Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 10:54:55 PM

Urbi et Orbi!

While we're taking care of the most complicated question of opulent production, there's still one common and yet virtually unanswered question we have here - the Rulebook, and today is the day when it starts being answered, too. We'll be publishing one or two chapters daily, and we'll heartily welcome and appreciate all the questions and suggestions - as well as other language translation and editing volunteers, and we promise that no contribution will go unrewarded!

Tokens

Tokens are 45 x 45 mm, and there are three kinds of them: units, quarters, and improvements.

  • Units 
 

Units are of three types - light, medium and special - and cost one, two or three points respectively. Units are for battling and looting; they belong to either of two sides, crusaders (divided by four armies) or the Saracens. Players may employ individual crusaders while the Saracens are a single body passed from player to player in turn. A player uses the Saracens to make life difficult for other players. Each unit has two sides: "healthy" and "weak."

  • City Quarters 
 

The basic version features districts of three types — poor, middle class and wealthy — to be placed on specially designated squares in the center of the board. Each Quarter possesses one, two or three golden coins. When a player takes the first coin, a Divine Will Event happens. When a player takes the last coin, he gets the Amenity card

The Quarters differ by the ability to defend themselves, the money they're worth of and the scope of events, respectively. Upon becoming ransacked entirely (stripped off all coins and an Amenity), the Quarter token has to be tapped, becoming the Refugees token.

  • Amenities 
the Hospital Amenity
the Hospital Amenity

Players place their amenities — kitchens, latrines, hospitals, etc. — around camps near tents. When an amenity is used, its card is tapped (turned face down). To turn it up (untap), a player must spend a movement point. Tapping some of the Amenities may cause another Amenities to be tapped or untapped for free. Amenities could be stolen by Saracens or other player's Crusaders by adjoining them to their band and then brought to another camp.

Events of Divine Will

Divine Will Cards are a particular type of cards of 63.5 x 89 format to be played when a settlement starts being sacked. The cards of this type trigger an event that affects the assets on the boards in some way (e.g., cholera hurts units of all players except those who have an outhouse in their camp, a wine barrel calls all crusaders units back to their camp, etc.). 

Debauchery Card
Debauchery Card

Divine Will effect strength equals the number of coins it presents, i.e., The Plague event will affect 3 units in each army when produced by the wealthy Quarter, while the same card being drawn on a poor Quarter only affects 1 unit in each army.

The Board

The Board (560 x 560 mm, a 12 x 12 grid)
The Board (560 x 560 mm, a 12 x 12 grid)

Players place their crusader camps in its outer corners; between those, are the Saracen camps. Four City Quarters set in the center of the board, along with the coins (tokens) for looting. Camps are the place where crusaders keep their loot, attend to their wounded and quarter their reserves. A camp has a citadel of 2 x 2 squares and five tent squares.

  • Citadels are for storing gold, captives, and reserves.
  • Tents are the starting point for units that leave or enter their camp. You can't place a unit in a tent square occupied with Amenity.

Moves

The number of moves available for every player during each turn depends on a number of players and always totals 24: 2 players have 12 moves each, 3 players have 8, and 4 players have 6 turns. 

1. Player A moves his or her crusaders. Types of moves: 

  • Move a token (unit or amenity) according to the rules.
  • Take a unit from the citadel to the tents.
  • Take a unit from the tents to the citadel.
  • Take gold from a square (settlement, battlefield, another unit) nearest to a unit according to the rules.
  • Take gold from his or her unit to the nearest field (e.g., camp, battlefield, another unit).
  • Turn an earlier used amenity card face up (untap).
  • Attack an enemy unit within the battle range.

2. Player A may move the Saracens in three ways:

  • Move one unit on the board according to the rules.
  • Take a unit to the tents.
  • Attack a unit within range.

3. Player A passes a move over to Player B.

Relocations

One soldier doesn't make a battle; therefore, units may move only two by two or more. A player may relocate detachments (called bands) on the board, moving units from one end of the band to the other. If a unit is left alone because of an epidemy or a battle, it can't move and should wait until a friendly band picks it up or an event card is played to move it to the camp (a caravan or a muezzin). When a detachment carries an amenity, it counts for a unit and must be moved respectively. When moved, a unit can't have with less than one or more than two adjacent friendly units as a result.

Attacks

Each side of unit and settlement tokens presents one of the following symbols:

  • Heart/Coin — vulnerable side, unretaliated attack 
  • Skull — melee attack, this side is also vulnerable to attack, but attacker gets wounded as well 
  • Shield — invulnerable side 
  • Arrow — ranged attack, also vulnerable side, unretaliated attack

When attacking, a player places a unit in such a way that it touches the vulnerable side of the target token with its melee attack side to wound it (unit), rob it (crusader), steal it (amenity) or sack it (settlement). An attack itself costs one more move.

A wounded unit turns its "weak" side up. Whenever a weakened unit is wounded, it goes to the Purgatorium.

When the attacking sides of the units meet, they both are wounded. Crusaders don't wound or kill each other, although they might be cunning enough to rob their counterparts. When a crusader successfully attacks another crusader, the winning one takes a coin from the losing token.

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Translation of the Rulebook
over 6 years ago – Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 07:26:32 PM

Thanks to everyone who responded to our call and volunteered to help translate the rules into many languages. Please, fill this form so we could give you access to the special document where you will create your translation:

Click on image to open the form
Click on image to open the form

Thank you all! We will appreciate every minute you spend with us and every letter you translate. Your names names will live forever!