Knight Tales and Last Stand Expansion (Standard Edition)

In Knight Tales players take on the role of a brave knight that has sworn to protect the heir and villagers from the evil hordes of darkness roaming the lands. While they all try to cooperatively defend the village and the heir, players may also decide to play the game semi-cooperatively in which case only one player - the one with the most valor points at the end of the game - will be the true hero of this tale.

The game is separated into three rounds of alternating day and night phases. During the day phases, players will either reveal a new quest (semi-cooperative variant) that they may fulfill to earn additional valor points or new townsfolk (cooperative variant) that will aid them during the night phases.

Players are then able to spend their gold to equip themselves with new items and hire new companions from the market by taking alternating turns. This way each player shapes their own character as market cards provide them with unique abilities. The first player to end their day phase by choosing to stop purchasing further market cards will be the starting player for the upcoming night phase and so on.

When night approaches, the battlefield is filled with roaming groups of monster minions and champions, led by a unique boss. The number of minions and champions appearing each night is determined by the difficulty level the players have chosen to play. Knight Tales can be played at three difficulty levels so it is easy to adjust the challenge and intensity of the game specifically to your game group.

After setting up the monsters for the night, players will then either reveal a renown card (semi-cooperative variant) that allows them to earn additional valor points by keeping their wounds at a low level, or they reveal additional townsfolk (cooperative variant) that will aid them during this night phase.

Once the night phase begins, players will need to figure out the most effective strategy in order to successfully fight off their enemies. They will need to spend fatigue in order to attack revealed monsters but the more fatigue they spend, or the more wounds they suffer, the closer their fatigue and health tokens move towards each other. Once the tokens touch, a player is out of actions for the night phase and returns to the day phase in the last available player spot.

In order to fight monsters, players will roll their knight dice against a defined number of weaker (yellow) and stronger (red) monster dice, depending on the monster they are about to attack. Dealing damage earns them gold and being the one to deal the most damage to a defeated monster will earn this player its card and additional valor points. Defeating a monster can sometimes be challenging but this is where your market cards come into play to help you out. Players may also use their wrath to either re-roll one of their knight dice or even add an additional knight die to their roll.

Any monster that is not defeated by the end of the night phase will cause irreversible damage to the village that will eventually result in the obliteration of the village, and ultimately the death of the heir you have sworn to protect.

The game ends after the third night phase has been resolved but may end prematurely if the palisades and village have suffered enough damage to be destroyed.  In this case all players collectively lose the game.

But if the players successfully fend off the hordes, they are victorious! However, if you have chosen to play the game semi-cooperatively, only one of you will become the real hero of this epic tale. This will be the player with the most valor points gathered in various ways during the game, e.g. by obtaining monster cards, collecting items, fulfilling daily quests, getting renown and collecting sets of different types of monsters and market cards.

As valor points are irrelevant when playing in coop mode, the coop mode comes with its own new mechanism.

The three quest and renown cards will each be replaced by one of six oath cards. These provide general effects that can be used just like market cards once during each night phase but may be used by any player at any time, even out of turn.

All oath cards start the game inactive. At the beginning of each day and night phase, players collectively choose to activate one that will stay activate until the end of the game. This way, players can still use the cards to keep track of their day and night phases. Once an oath card has been activated, it may then be used during the night phases.

As the oath cards provide additional help for the players, they should feel encouraged to test their skills by choosing a higher difficulty level as their knightly challenge.

The rest of the game mechanisms stay exactly the same as in the semi-cooperative mode.

Similar to the cooperative mode, the solo mode does not make use of quest and renown cards.

Instead, you exchange them with villager cards, each one represents townsfolk with a unique ability. They also start the game inactive. With each day and night phase, the player chooses one to activate. Activated villager cards may then be used during each night phase for the rest of the game.

A villager card may be used multiple times during a night phase, but each villager can only be used once during each attack.

To make use of a villager, the player will need to spend the indicated gold cost shown on the villager card.