Description

Assassins of Vance is a game for 2-4 players in which you maneuver to become the leader of the Assassins Guild in Vance, city of splendor. It is the first board game designed by Vic Davis, owner and operator of Cryptic Comet Games. Vic's previous games have been computer turn based strategy games and have won praise from critics and fans alike for their stimulating board game like mechanics.

Players first select a player card that represents their Assassin each possessing a unique one time use special ability and then assign dice from a pool to 4 attributes: Combat, Stealth, Traps and Lore. The assignments indicate how many dice are rolled for each corresponding challenge type and what face results constitute success when the dice are rolled.

Play then proceeds in rounds where each player takes his turn. 2 and 4 player games last 8 rounds while 3 player games last 9 rounds.

During their turn players can choose 2 of 8 possible actions (some actions can only be chosen once)

1. Visit the Guild Healer (pay gold to remove wound tokens)
2. Draw Guild Stipend (gold) (only once per turn)
3. Buy an Item Card
4. Buy a Spell Card (if you have a skill card that allows this)
5. Visit the Guild Sorcerer (pay gold to charge a spell)
6. Draw 2 Secret Objective Cards (keep 1 or none)(only once per turn)
7. Play a Guild Card for its Guild Event text
8. Attempt a Mission Contract Card (only once per turn)

The objective of the game is to accumulate Influence Points (IP). Influence Points can be gained by either successfully completing Mission Contract cards or buying influence cards at the end of the round during the Influence Bidding Phase where cards are auctioned off to the highest bidder. Each influence card has an IP value and a unique passive special ability that can help the player out during the game.

Mission Contract cards are at the heart of the game and represent assassination targets that the guild has available for its guild members. Players can play Guild Cards face down before the round begins to the revealed Mission Contract cards on the table in order to help their own or hurt their opponents' chances of accomplishing the mission. Missions vary from level 1 to 5 and offer an array of rewards from Influence Points to gold and additional ability die. However, the greater the rewards, the higher the risk that your assassin will be wounded or fail the mission. Take too many wound tokens and you are out of the game.

Each mission is composed of a chain of challenges corresponding to the 4 ability types on the player cards i.e. combat, stealth, etc.. Players determine the level of the challenge (number of successes needed) from the contract card and then select a challenge card from the top 3 revealed cards of the Challenge Deck. The challenge card indicates the type of challenge and the pass/fail rules. Players roll the appropriate number of dice, use Guild Cards, Item Cards, Skill Cards, Spell Cards and fate tokens (rerolls) to modify the results and hopefully win the challenge. Players can press their luck along the challenge track to earn better rewards but must be careful as a red skull challenge that is failed means that the mission is failed and all rewards are lost. Sometimes things just don't go well from the start and the player may elect to abort the mission.

Players also have the opportunity to use Guild Card Interrupts to take actions during their opponents turns to disrupt their carefully laid assassination plans.

When the last round finishes players add up their IP from their completed Mission Contract cards, Influence Cards and completed Secret Objective cards(uncompleted cards penalize the player). The player with the most IP wins and becomes the Master of The Assassins Guild in Vance.