Leadership

Strength, Endurance and Battle

When a unit attacks another unit the total strength of the unit and total endurance of the unit are used but only after all special abilities are used or not. The winner of the battle is the player whose unit’s strength to opponent’s endurance difference is the greatest. Battle is explained in more detail in the rules section. The winner of the battle chooses to whom the damage was dealt on both sides of the field.

When a character is disabled it can be revived in the next turn by paying the repair cost, but cannot use that character for another turn, this is called healing time. Characters are only removed from play if the damage dealt to them exceeds their endurance by 20 or if an event or special ability states that the character is destroyed or removed from play.

Card Abilites

1. Transformation is represented on the cards as “T:” and the alternate mode beside the colon. To transform a card, you will have to be in the transform phase of the turn and turn the card 90 degrees counterclockwise. A card can only transform during this phase, once per turn. If any card in a unit transforms, then all cards in the unit must transform. Only cards with transformed attack or rundown can attack while transformed. Transformation is usually a free ability but there are some cards that have an associated cost for transformation.
2. Transformed Attack is an ability that is possessed by most Decepticons and a few Autobots. On the card, the ability of the character will be listed beside the words “Transformed Attack’. If only a number is present, then that is the amount of damage they can deal when transformed. This number is used instead of Str or End when calculating a battle that the unit has been in.
3. Rundown is an ability that is possessed by most Autobots and a few Decepticons. This ability is for the character, while transformed, can literally run over another character on the field. A character can only be rundown if they are in robot mode or otherwise disabled. The number next to the word “Rundown” is the damage dealt by the rundown, and, like above, is used instead of Str or End when calculating a battle.
4. Sneak Attack is an ability possessed by spies on either side. This ability allows the character who posses it to deal his damage twice. They gets to attack one enemy character and deal their Sneak Attack damage before the battle starts, possibly disabling the character before the battle.
5. Form Gestalt is an ability possessed by combiner teams such as the Constructicons and Arielbots. On the card, this will be followed by the name of the gestalt they form, and the piece of the gestalt they form. In order for a gestalt to be formed, all 5 or 6 characters that form the gestalt must be in play and the gestalt card must be available. The gestalt card does not count in deck construction, but needs to be there for the gestalt to be formed.
6. Leadership is an ability possessed by those characters that inspire their troops in battle. This can either be through fear or by their bravery and courage. As a result all characters that are lead by a character possessing this ability receive +1/+2/+0/+0.

Specific Character Card Types

1. Gestalt this type exists when the characters that have the same name gestalt in their "Form Gestalt" ability. When all cards are in play they may form the gestalt, provided the gestalt card is available. When the gestalt card is brought into play it possesses two key abilities: A gestalt receives half damage from all characters normal attack (unless noted otherwise) and consumes 10 energon per turn (cost comes out of energon pool at the beginning of the command phase). If any one part of the gestalt is disabled then the gestalt falls apart since it can not function without all of its pieces. The gestalt card will have listed all of the characters required to bring it into play.
   Note: Anytime two or more characters combine into a different robot this is considered a gestalt.
2. Triple Changer is a character type in which the character has 2 alternate modes. This means that they may have two different transformed abilities. To transform a triple changer you rotate the card 90 degrees in the direction of the desired mode.
3. Base is a character type possessed by a few characters. Here the alternate mode of the character is a base. When these characters are placed into alternate mode they become the current location of the battle. Any events that remove locations, or if a new location is played, the character returns to robot mode. In robot mode these characters are extremely powerful and slow making them easy targets, but hard to bring down before they do massive damage to the attacking force.

1. Standard: This are listed as equipment in the card type box. This type of equipment must be attached to a character to be used. If the character that this equipment is disabled the equipment may be moved to another character. If that character is destroyed (removed from play) then the equipment is also destroyed.
2. Minicon: This type of equipment, listed as Minicon in card type, is like a character in that it has a robot and alternate mode. The difference is that when a minicon is transformed into alt. mode they must be attached to another character (not a minicon) to use their special attacks.
3. Standalone: This type does not need to be attached to any character but unless otherwise stated must have a character assigned to it (in Robot Mode) to use the equipment.

There is no limit on the amount of energon that any player can receive at the beginning of their turn. However, at the end of their turn they can have no more energon greater than their holding capacity. The energon holding capacity starts at 10 and only increases if resource cards are played that increase it. A player is dealt one point of damage for each unit of energon left over at the end of the turn. This is called energon burn and comes from wasting a precious resource.

There is no cost for bringing a resource card into play but all abilities are activated by energon use. A player may or may not have any energon left at the end of their turn, they just can’t have any more left than their capacity will allow without receiving energon burn.

Deck Creation

How to play: Each person shuffles their decks and draws 5 cards. They reach and draw one random card from their decks and the person whose card has the highest energon cost goes first. Players start off with 5 energon in their energon pool which has an initial capacity of 10. They also start off with 50 hit points

Objective: Conquer your opponent(s) by reducing his (their) hit points from 50 to 0.

Phases of Play:
Draw
Command
Battle
Clean-up

The Turn

Draw Phase: The player draws a card and plays one resource card if he has one. He then calculates based on his pervious amount of energon, the amount of energon he has available. If a player has no cards to draw from they lose the game instantly.

Command Phase: The player uses the energon in his pool to play any character or equipment cards in his hand. During this phase he can assign cards into units, units into other units (which must not exceed the leadership stat of the new unit commander), or leave characters by themselves. He may also move equipment between people and choose to transform units if he so wishes. During this phase the player also can use his energon to repair any character card in his disable pile by paying its repair cost. If this happens the unit is placed back in the staging area and can’t be used for one turn.

Battle Phase: The player may now choose to attack his opponents. During this phase he can play one location card and any number of event or equipment cards or special abilities. The opponent may also play any event cards he can afford and chooses to either block the attack with one of his units or take the damage to his hit point total.

If the total attack of the attacking unit, the sum of all of the strength of the characters in the unit, is greater than the total defense, the sum of all of the endurances of the defending unit, then the attacking unit has won the battle and the damage is given evenly to all the units on the losing side. The attacking units receive damage equal to half of the total attack of the defending unit divided evenly over the entire unit. However if the attacking unit’s attack does not exceed the defending units then the battle switches and the defending units total attack is calculated versus the total defense of the attacking unit and the battle is calculated as stated above. If the defending unit’s total attack does not exceed the total defense of the attacking unit then the battle is a stalemate and both sides receive damage equal to half (rounded down) of the total attack of the opposing unit divided evenly across all characters in a unit.

If the damage that a unit receives exceeds the endurance of all characters in the unit then the remainder of the damage is dealt to the player’s hit point total.

Clean-up Phase: After the battle phase has concluded the player enters into the clean-up phase. In this phase all abilities and events that last until the “end of turn” are concluded. The player must then discard to no more than 7 cards in his hand and end his turn

The Play Area

1. The Deck Library -- Your pile of shuffled cards from where you draw at the beginning of every turn.
2. Disable Pile – The pile where your characters go after being disabled so they can wait to be repaired.
3. Discard Pile – The pile where all events go after being used and where cards that have been destroyed or removed from play are placed.
4. Resource Pile – Place to put your resource cards to keep them accessible so you can get the proper amount of energon at the beginning of the turn
5. Unit Staging Area – The area where you create your units and place cards before send them to battle.
6. Battlefield – Send units here to attack your opponent and where your opponent can send units to block your attack.

Example game

Legend: A card with extraordinary power. These are special rare card that have very powerful special attacks as well as high strength and endurance values. As a result, only one of these cards can be in play on either side at a time (that is there cannot be two legend cards with the same name in play at the same time).

Energon Burn: If the energon left in the energon pool exceeds the holding capacity of the pool the player receives 1 point of damage per unit of energon above the holding capacity.