Starting Off

Get started on your Ashes journey with help on what to buy, where and what to play!

How To Play

Never played Ashes before but are interested in learning how it works?

YouTube: Ashes Reborn - How To Play

Ashes Reborn Rulebook

Ashes Reborn Primer for the differences from 1.0 to 1.5

 

Would you rather learn by trial and error against a computer?

Felt Table has 13 of the Preconstructed decks to try against a simple AI player.



Where To Play

Ashteki

https://ashteki.com/

The primary platform for online play. The majority of games and tournaments run by Ashes Discord members are played here.

Felt Table

https://felttable.com/ashes

Felt Table is a fan created website to play card games against AI opponents. Think of it as playing virtually over Skype or webcam except instead of another player, you will be playing against a computer in your web browser.

The Master Set and some expansions are supported, but not all. This site is intended for people looking to learn the mechanics of the game.

Team Covenant - Webcam

This league has been discontinued.

https://discord.com/channels/727928658190401636/741054569093660784

https://teamcovenant.com/product/discord-ashes-rise-phoenixborn-online-league-subscription

Interested in playing a casual Ashes Reborn match every week, getting a set of alt-art promos, including a promo phoenixborn, and using those beautiful, real cards? Join us for our Ashes Reborn Discord League – a recurring, quarterly (three month) league open to all players!

The league runs for 12 weeks, with one match happening every Wednesday night at 8PM Central Time. Games are played via webcam in the Covenant Discord, with pairings announced that night. At the conclusion of the league, every participant who was present for at least 8 of their 12 games will be mailed 4x Alt-Art Cards (usually a phoenixborn with a playset of alt-arts in the same style). Spoiler alert – these promos are unbelievable. Scroll through the images to see this league’s cards.

Format: Constructed, webcam
Roll call: 7:45PM Central Time, Wednesday nights
Round start: 8PM Central Time , Wednesday nights
Sign Up Period: Sign-ups close ~2 weeks before the start date

Cost: $30.00 USD / release

Tabletop Simulator

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2386753960

This mod features complete organized card collection, all preconstructed decks and all of Plaid Hat Games' Re-Constructed Decks, as well as tokens, dice reference cards and full Rulebook. It also features a deck builder tool as well as full integration with Ashes.live to spawn decks directly from the website!

What To Buy - PvP

Ashes 1.0 vs Ashes Reborn 1.5

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn was the original game developed by Isaac Vega in 2015. This game has been supplanted by Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn, developed by Nick Conley and released in 2021.

Differences

Ashes (2015) is common referred to in the community as "1.0". All products (master set and expansion) are sold in white boxes

Ashes Reborn (2021) is commonly referred to in the community as "1.5" or simply "Reborn". All products are sold in orange-red boxes. The ruleset was completely revamped, and a large portion of the original card base were replaced, therefore 1.0 and 1.5 are incompatible with each other. For details on what changed, see the Plaid Hat Games "Ashes Reborn Primer" document on https://www.plaidhatgames.com/board-games/ashes-rise-phoenixborn/.

The upgrade kit will replace cards from the Master Set through all the original expansions to make them playable for 1.5. The only exception to this is the Jericho 1.0 deck which was completely retired and eventually replaced by The Breaker of Fate expansion.

A marked-up copy of the upgrade kit card list is also available that highlights which cards are usable out-of-the-box, and which require the associated expansion due to linked cards not being included. It can be found here: changed_cards_list.pdf. At minimum, the document assumes you own the 2015 white-box Master set.

In general, 1.0 is no longer played in any form.

If you own (or buy on the secondary market) the 1.0 collection (and any number of expansions), you should buy the 1.5 Upgrade Kit. This will update the cards in your collection to be 1.5 compatible, and is often cheaper than re-purchasing all 1.5 products from scratch.

If you do not own any original products, you can jump straight in with the Ashes Reborn Master Set.

Which expansions

Once you've purchased the Master Set the common advice is to pick whichever expansions appeal, either art style or card-wise. Most expansions require either Divine, Sympathy, or Time** dice and therefore it is strongly recommended that the Deluxe Expansions (which introduce those dice) are purchased earlier.

**The Time magic (introduced in Jericho, Breaker of Fate) doesn't begin to "shine" until the later expansions (Hope, Dimona, Tristan, Rowan) when status tokens have more uses and impact.

Visual Buying Guide

image.png

What To Buy - PvE

Red Rains was not designed to be a standalone product. PHG intends for you to have the Master Set to be able to use it. 



What To Play

Starting Off

Precons

https://wiki.ashes.live/books/learn-to-play/page/preconstructed-matchups

** Note this applies to player vs player ("pvp"). The Red Rains solo/coop game ("pve") has a campaign mode in which is it suggested you start with the precons.

Master Set Only

Once you are comfortable with the basics of Ashes mechanics and rules, you can move on to building decks that use only the core/master set. There are a few options listed here:

https://wiki.ashes.live/books/deckbuilding/page/master-set-only

Next Steps

When you (eventually) end up with a complete collection of Ashes, you're ready to dive into the deep end of deck building. There are near infinite ways of assembling a deck which can be overwhelming. To help with that there are two traditionally recommended routes to start with.

PHG's Reconstructed Series

The Aventuring Party Sets


How To Organize Your Collection

Card Organization

This question comes up frequently and there are a variety of preferences, however they broadly fall into two categories.

  1. Sort your collection by Precon
    • This is good for players who store their collection in binders as it means you don't have to rearrange cards each time a new expansion comes out.
    • This is the recommended way for players of the Red Rains solo/coop mode, especially if you intend to play the campaign.
    • Con: You need to know which release a card is from when you want to include.
    • Con: You cannot find and compare types of cards when building a deck as they are spread across precons.
  2. Sort your collection by card type and alphabetically
    • This matches how Ashes.live organizes cards and is very conducive to deck-building.
    • Con: Take a long time (full collection) to sort initially, and you have to maintain it.
    • Con: Not good for pick up and play with friends/new players, or Red Rains play.
  3. Sort to play Draft: 1 copy of every non-Phoenixborn card then by one of the above methods
    • This is only if you're playing exclusively in person without building decks ahead of time.
    • Con: It requires a lot of clean up since you have to put all of the cards away after each game
    • Con: Draft encourages more randomness so combos are harder to make happen
    • Con: All players need to already be familiar with the cards, especially which ones are generally good and which ones are less efficient.
  4. Sort your collection by dice types
    • This is helpful after choosing dice types for a deck to easily see what other cards can be used
    • Con: Figuring out where to put cards with different dice type costs is a riddle as old as the Master Set itself.


Storage Solutions

  1. Master Set Box
    • At the time of writing, all cards can fit in the master/core box. If you sleeve all your cards, all cards except the conjurations should be able to fit. Conjurations can then be kept in a deluxe expansion box.
    • There are custom dividers available on Go7Gaming, Etsy, or other manufacturers for the master and deluxe expansion boxes
  2. Binders
    • Binders are most often recommended for players who sort by precon, as that is a sorting method that does not require rearranging cards within the binders
  3. Gamegenic Dungeon 1100+
    • The Gamegenic Dungeon is a popular option for storing a complete collection
    • As of the February 2023, it can comfortably hold a complete collection that is single-sleeved, with room to likely support some upcoming expansions
    • Dice and tokens can be stored in empty space to the side of the cards

go7gaming-collection.jpg

Pictured above: a single-sleeved collection of all cards prior to the Time cycle stored in a Go7Gaming LGC-006 insert. After the Time cycle arrived, I moved the Phoenixborn cards and Time dice to a similar insert from Etsy designed for the deluxe expansion boxes.

20230206_020010.jpg

Pictured above: A full collection of Ashes Reborn as of February 2023, single-sleeved in Dragon Shield matte sleeves, stored in a Gamegenic Dungeon 1100+, with dice, tokens, and reference cards stored to side of the cards