Description

-Seize them! ...said the King.
My chambers were robbed!!
Those bandits took my treasures and they are escaping through the castle!

In Rogue you own one of the four thieves groups: Cult of Masks, Sentinels, Fox Guild, Narrow Path Clan and your purpose is to become the Master Rogue by leading your group to have the more Victory Points at the end of the game. To do that you must collect the most Treasure tokens. Each player owns 11 cards, 4 Master Thieves, 6 Gambits and 1 Black Market card (score card which gives you points depending on the treasure you have collected).

Each player chooses 1 Master Thief and 3 Gambits to begin the game and places the chosen cards face down on the table in an accessible (by all the players) area. All these cards form a mini deck of 16 cards. You never shuffle the deck. Now you cut the deck 3 times (one time each player) and the last player takes the deck, deals the cards on the table (4 rows x 4 cards each row, from the top left to the bottom right) and plays first. In each round, the player can do one of the following actions:Reveal a hidden card or to Exchange one of the cards in his/her hand, with a hidden card on the table. In that case the player who chooses the 2nd action, must place his new card faced up but note that this action costs you -1 Victory Point at the end of the game.

The Gambit cards have 2 different colored dice from the four colors you will find in the game (red, blue, green, yellow). When a Gambit card is revealed and in the same column (vertically) there is another Gambit, a Dispute takes place between the two. The players who own these Gambits, roll the corresponding dice and the one with the most hits takes a Treasure token. The Treasure tokens are faced down aside and when a dispute is commencing, you take one such token in random and place it on the Gambit cards, revealing the Treasure (the cards have been designed specifically for this purpose). In case of a tied dispute, the Treasure is lost (the King's guardians snatch it as your thieves flea to take cover). In case the 2 Gambits belong to the same thieves group, no dispute takes place as they work together to get the treasure. The player who owns them, takes a Treasure token immediately!

Each colored die represents a basic element: blue for Aqua, red for Ignis, green for Terra, yellow for Aura. The Master Thieve cards have those elements. The Master Thieves give additional skills to the Gambits when a Dispute takes place. For example when you roll a Red and a Green die for your Gambit and there is a faced up Master Thief on the table (your or your rivals') which represents Terra (green die), you add +1 Hit to the final result! Yet nothing is over. The Black Market cards have 4 different combinations of the Treasures, different for each player which grant him Victory Points, depending on the combination. But don't be so sure you can win the game since the Master Thieves can steal the Treasures from each other with a very tricky mechanic you will discover in the game. Beware.. If your Master Thief loses his Treasures, then you must place him sideways to deactivate his ability to steal, so you must place a new Master Thief to get revenge! Prepare yourself for the faster course of your life as no one knows of his victory, until the last card on the table is revealed!

A race begins...

A Thieves' Race!