Learn to Play

Learn all about playing Ashes!
Abbreviations, the "meta", archetypes, and more...

Starting Off

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

Starting Off

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.



Starting Off

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!

Starting Off

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.

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

Starting Off

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. 



Starting Off

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


Starting Off

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


Preconstructed Matchups

Playing the preconstructed decks is a great way to get into Ashes Reborn! However, because the game is balanced mainly around constructed play, some of the preconstructed decks do not fare as well. Here is a list of recommended precon matchups.

Before you take any of these matchups for a spin, though, you should always remember to check Ashes.live or the FAQ for updated First Five suggestions! The suggestions in the rulebook are sometimes not the best, and of course expansions do not have recommended First Five suggestions included. (Choosing your own First Five is of course recommended once you have a little experience with a given deck, but the FAQ suggestions will get you into the game faster.)

Master Set

Unfortunately, two of the decks within the Master Set are the worst offenders for poorly constructed preconstructed decks: Noah Redmoon's deck has several dead cards (particularly Bound Soul and Sleight of Hand), cards that just make very little sense in that particular deck (Resummon and Small Sacrifice), and one card that is situational enough it's difficult to get good value out of it (Shadow Strike); and Jessa Na Ni's deck has relatively few cards that can reliably put damage on her opponent along with dead cards of its own (particularly Blood Transfer and Cut the Strings--widely considered the worst cards in the game-- but Blood Shaman, Living Doll, and Summon Blood Puppet are all situational to the point of occasional uselessness). Saria's deck is also occasionally problematic, in that it doesn't have a very solid gameplan (it was intended to showcase mill cards, but it doesn't lean into mill heavily enough so a lot comes down to how well you can leverage Seaside Raven).

The remaining three decks all provide good matchups:

I additionally enjoy Maeoni vs. Jessa. Yes, Jessa is not a great precon, but if you have two players who are used to the type of complexity found in these sorts of card battlers, this can be a really engaging matchup because the two players are fighting along such different axes.

Saria vs. Maeoni/Aradel/Coal will provide a potentially decent game, as well, but this isn't something I would recommend for your first game; both players will want to know how the first three decks tick before you add Saria into the mix.

If you have one player who is a lot better at Ashes than the other, given them Noah Redmoon as a handicap (and if you want to really handicap them, don't allow them to choose their First Five; make them use the one in the rulebook). Otherwise, I don't really recommend playing the Noah precon under normal circumstances.

Magic/Dice Flavours

Magic Types

Each dice/magic type has a certain flavour to them in terms of the card pools they support.

If you enjoy reading, here's an article by ImpossibleGerman on the foundations of deck-building which includes some information on the cornerstone cards of each type and what the types are like:

https://jaysonsethlindley.medium.com/colorful-cubes-foundations-of-deckbuilding-in-ashes-reborn-c49cd1abbe29

If you like butts and graphics:

image.png

Archetypes

Archetypes in Ashes Reborn are a fairly contentious topic, and there is no one defined set of archetypes or terminologies that the playerbase agrees upon. However, many common terms from Magic: The Gathering have informed the ideas about archetypes, including "burn" (direct damage to Phoenixborn), "mill" (early fatigue damage triggered by discarding from your opponent's deck), and "swing" (winning by using units on the battlefield to push damage through). Because Ashes is so battlefield-centric, there are additionally different aspects of "swing" decks that arguably stand as unique archetypes.

A seminal article for framing Ashes Reborn archetypes is Archetypal strategies in Ashes: Reborn.

There has also been a lot of chatter throughout the Discord's history on Archetypes, including a riff on the original "butt post":

Swarm swing: lots of little butts will bury your butt
Efficiency / value / mid-range / 4-book swing: a decent number of perfectly-sized butts will eventually outweigh your butt
Bypass swing: a small number of big butts will hit you really hard in the butt
Burn: not very threatening butts...except they will light your butt on fire
Fatigue / mill: sit your butt down!

Right down to extended analogies about milkshakes (copypasta from a post by Discord member Skaak)...

The Milkshake Analogy

Apparently media exploded today because people are arguing about archetypes in Ashes. I shall now explain Ashes archetypes using the universal metaphor of milkshakes.

So, you know there's that kind of janky hamburger joint that you don't visit all that often because it's a little out of the way (and kind of grungy), but once in a blue moon you go by because they have these just amazing milkshakes and there's like a million flavors?

But then after you've bought a few milkshakes you realize: wait, all of these flavors are actually vanilla but with fruit preserves or syrup or whatever mixed in. And sometimes the new hire makes it, and you can literally see the swirls of vanilla with just the occasional shading of chocolate syrup.

Well, that's Ashes deck archetypes. Swing decks are vanilla. Burn is chocolate. Mill is chocolate-peanut-butter (you either love it or hate it). Control/removal is the malt extract that you can add to any milkshake for a little extra, but it doesn't always work out and if you add too much you can't taste anything else and you have to just toss it in the bin.

Granted, there's this crazy long-term employee named Redd King who sneaks in non-vanilla ice creams and will mix up a batch with those as a base if you ask nicely, but mostly it's just flavored vanilla.

Doesn't mean that a chocolate milk shake isn't chocolate flavored, though, even if they didn't add all that much chocolate this time around. 

Deck Cores

* Swarm/tempo swing: James Widows, Redking's Noah, most Hope decks. Characterized by fragile units with high burst potential, often accompanied by high tempo removal or bypass, like Light Bringer, Stand Still or Clashing Tempers.
* Value swing: 4-book and the vast majority of "mid-range" swing decks. Aims to leverage value trades to win.
* Bypass swing: Maeoni Snake, Hydra/Massive Bear. Tends to deal burst damage from a small number of units that can't be easily blocked.
* Stall: Monk's prisons, Ninja's Astrea deck. Aims to effectively shut battlefield damage out of the game.

Deck Flavors

* Burn: inevitability through burn spells.
* Mill: inevitability through permanently removing their deck/options (usually on the back of fatigue or something like Orrick).
* Control: perfect answers for your opponent's threats, which allows your damage to push through faster.
* Synergy/engine (e.g. "combo", but I think that term is toxic for understanding how Ashes tends to actually work): card effects and abilities that combine into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Deck "Speeds"

* Aggro/fast: favors allies (or burn or both) over spellboard and aims to push so much damage so fast that the other deck doesn't have a chance to bring its strengths to bear. Probably aiming for R2/top of R3 wins.
* Mid-range(?)/default: balances spellboard and allies to start strong and convert ongoing value trades into an eventual win. Probably aiming for R3/R4 wins.
* Defensive/long game: higher up-front costs that amortize into long-term advantage (typically heavier on utility spellboard cards).

Pick one entry from each menu sub-section, and you've got yourself a milkshake.

The "punchy" to "birdy" continuum

Another method for describing decks at a high level is the "punchy" to "birdy" continuum. These terms are thankfully self-explanatory, unlike most of the rest of the nonsense that gets thrown around when talking archetypes.

The Meta

The "meta" in Ashes is not as well defined as it is other card games such as Pokemon or Magic The Gathering. This is in part due to the depth and viability of the card pool for deck building, the nature of it being an extendable card game without rotation, and a smaller community resulting in a lower volume of data.

That said, there are definite trends in Phoenixborn and cards that get repeated play and have shown across multiple tournaments that they are always competitive. Here's a listing of articles written by various community members on the topic:

Etiquette

Before Play

Testing and Scouting

If a player is going to be your upcoming opponent for a tournament match and they are conducting testing for that match, spectating on that testing is discouraged as it may provide an unfair advantage. For players who are conducting testing for tournament matches, it is recommended to make your online games private to avoid any unintentional scouting.

Spectating

For competitive online matches, check prior to the game whether the other player is ok with you inviting spectators to watch.

Recording and Streaming

Check prior to the game whether the other player is ok with you recording and/or streaming a match.

Chains in Casual Play

Time Limit / Sudden Death

For online tournament games, rules such as sudden death may apply and it is disappointing to have a game finish in an unexpected way. Please confirm any time limit with sudden death settings that the player creating the game has selected prior to starting the match. Make sure that you understand via your opponent, or the Tournament Organiser, what those settings mean.

Spectators

While spectating, try not to interrupt the play. If you spot a problem with a mandatory part of the game state (a “must” effect), ask the players to pause and either notify the judge (if it is a tournament match) or mention to the players what has been missed. If you interrupt the play for other reasons, the players may politely ask you to stop spectating.

Spectators are not to provide assistance to either player during a game. This can be especially difficult if you see the winning move, are watching a strategic blunder, or just want to show off your superior deductive reasoning skills! This behaviour can ruin the player experience if you don’t keep quiet and allow players to learn through play. The main exceptions would be where the players ask for assistance with an online game interface (such as how to do a particular action in TTS or how to perform a manual action in ashteki) or a rule interpretation where neither player is certain what to do and they ask a spectator if they know (such as how does Harold’s Hunter’s Mark interact with Root Armor?).

During Play

Conceding

Take-backs

Ashteki Disconnections

Sometimes, despite your best intentions, you may have internet issues while trying to complete a game of Ashes on Ashteki. It is recommended that you try to use an alternate network (e.g. your cellular/mobile phone provider) to contact the other player on Discord to let them know the issue that has occurred. If you cannot reconnect within a specified time, Ashteki will eventually concede the game on your behalf.


Abbreviations

**Keep in alphabetical order

Dice spreads are usually abbreviated using the following single letter assignments:

These are abbreviations/short forms of terms or card names in Ashes that are commonly used across Discord and Ashteki

Strategy Tips

Strategy Tips

General - WIP

Important Caveat

Ashes is a deeply strategic and dynamic game. As a result of Phoenixborn matchups, deck-building, and meta changes (from expansions or changes to chain rules) it is nigh possible to give any absolute advice that will apply in every situation. Therefore any strategy tips should be viewed as general guidelines that will lend themselves to improving your play over time. Assume any concrete statements are prefaced with "generally" or "usually".

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Play known good decks

Whether starting out as a new player, a fumbling amateur, or grizzled veteran, it's never too late to play known good decks. Good decks naturally bubble up over time, "qualifying" as good by repeated successful tournament performance. While they may not always be meta relevant, they will have strong and clear plans that are easy understand and straightforward to pilot. Playing good decks removes deck-building as a variable on your path to improving game-play; you can more easily assess mistakes in your in-game choices.

Use known decks as a base for deck-building

Deck-building from scratch can be very intimidating as a new player, especially as the card pool continues to grow and the meta shifts. Starting with a known good deck as a base for building will allow you to limit the number of choices you need to make while still allowing you to flex your own style and preference.

Play with a deck consistently

The deck building in Ashes is so open that it is incredibly fun to continuously brew new ideas and give them a try, and you should not be discouraged from doing so. However for the purposes of increasing your skill and success, playing with single deck consistently gives a lot of benefits:

Do the dice math

Ashes has a fixed resource system of 10 dice per round, and you always want a plan that enables you spend all 10 each round (you won't always need to, but you should be able to if necessary). As such, you want to ensure the dice types and amount ("spread") support the cost of your ready spells and some, or all, of your drawn cards. 

At a basic level, each die can support between 3-5 costs of a given type. That means, for each type, adding up all the non-basic costs on the 25 cards in deck (exclude first five cost) and dividing by 3 will give you the number of dice of that type you need in your pool. (Use 3 as a more consistent/stable factor, or 5 for a less consistent/"tight" spread).

You also want to balance the costs between your spellboard and probable card draws. If your spellboard will cost 6 dice each round, then you want to have a very low (or 1) average cost of cards in deck as you won't be able to play them all.

For more details see steps 6-13 here: https://wiki.ashes.live/books/articles/page/ashes-normal-coaching

Watch game replays

A great way to learn is to watch other players and other PB/deck matchups, even if there's no active commentary. Jump in to a live game as spectator and see how players sequence their moves, observe what works and what doesn't. See whether there are cards that are particularly helpful in certain matchups that you could include in your deck.

There are also some great community members that record and publish their games with commentary. Sometimes watching is just as fun as (and less stressful than) playing. https://wiki.ashes.live/books/podcasts-and-videos?shelf=5

Also, record your own games and rewatch them.  This one takes time, but it’s a great way to evaluate lines of play that you could’ve taken.  Lines of play are much easier to see as an observer than in the heat of the moment.

Play against the good players (don't be afraid, ask questions)

Blow to the ego aside, you can learn a lot from playing against the best if you pay attention. Watching how and when they choose to play cards in their first five, when to attack, when to use a PB guard vs unit guard, when to block vs taking a hit...there are so many nuances and situational contexts to Ashes that can be hard to explain but much easier to soak in when playing good players. Even more so since the community is incredibly welcoming and virtually anybody is willing to answer questions or give pointers.

No shame in losing, and don't give yourself excuses

There is an element of luck/randomness to Ashes, true; but 9/10 the better player with the better deck will win. If you are serious about improving, set yourself up for success and don't make decisions that give you an excuse for your losses. That means doing all the above. That means registering a deck you know and believe in for a tournament rather than a last minute or "jank" idea that you can blame. There is no shame in losing; Ashes has a steep learning curve when it comes to decision-making. Play in earnest, learn from your mistakes, then come back and do it all again. You can and will improve your gameplay.

In Game

Play with patience - slow the aggression

It’s easy to want to remain on the offensive.  However, in Ashes, each player has 10 dice every round.  While there are times when you want to push aggression and control the tempo of the opponent, your first instinct should be patience.  Oftentimes, throwing all of your units at the opposing Phoenixborn is not the correct play, and will leave you open to your opponent playing out their units with their remaining dice and systematically picking your board apart.  Ashes is a game of inches; a game of incremental advantage.  Be on the lookout for situations where you can gain a small 

Play your plan A and make sure your best FF plan demands a response

The best decks in Ashes come out of the gate hard.  That doesn’t always mean super aggressively, but it does mean that they know what they want to do and how they want to execute it.  It’s easy to get caught up in counter-playing your opponent in Round 1 when choosing your first five, but generally you want your opening to be the one that demands an answer from the opponent.  When deckbuilding or when looking at the strong decks, try to choose a first five that presents a threat that, if left unchecked, will setup your game plan and put your opponent on the back foot.  Test out that open against cards you feel would be difficult to deal with, so you know how to respond to them when you run into them in-game.

Test with intention, especially sequencing in round 1

This builds off of the prior point.  Once you have an open that you feel demands a response, test both against and not against that response.  Stress test this - play against what you feel is the worst possible matchup for your open, and learn in what order to play and activate your cards that gives you the best outcomes.  You get to start with 5 cards, but it’s up to you in what order to play those cards.  Don’t get tunnel visioned into thinking you always have to lay your books down before summoning a unit, for instance.  Play with different sequences and continue to look for opportunities to attack when a good trade is available.  This type of testing will increase your confidence in Round 1, and therefore the game as Round 1 is easily the most important round in a game of Ashes.

Pay attention to value in trades
Plan dice expenditure in the round
Manage your side action economy
Always know your opponent's unique and ability

One of the easiest mistakes to make in Ashes is forgetting what your opponent's Phoenixborn ability and unique/loyalty card are; what they do, what they can target, and what they cost. It can easily lead to sequencing mistakes, or putting out units that will immediately be lost before you can make use of them and therefore put you at a dice/card disadvantage (examples not limited to Odette's Enter the Fray and Sword of Virtue, Tristan's Tsunami Shot, Harold's Hunter's Mark, and Jessa's Fear). This is also one of the easiest mistakes to rectify by simply asking your opponent (if playing in person) or keeping Ashes.live open for reference while playing online.

Prepare to pivot
Frog  Up

The Natural die power (frog "ping") is widely considered the best dice power in Ashes due to it's ability to damage and/or destroy units. It's incredibly versatile and non-committal. You can clear a blocker before swinging; you can set up removal with other cards, particularly Fester, or leave a unit vulnerable to attack in a subsequent round. The threat of a frog ping alone can alter the sequencing of your opponent, and also makes a pass on their side risky because you can ping a unit before your own pass into the next round. If you are in nature, you should always have a frog ready, even if you able to fully spend your dice elsewhere.

Be conservative and patient with your guard; let units die
Strategy Tips

First Round

Selecting Your First Five

Playing Round One

Variants

Variants

Super Auto Chimera

Created by community member and Red Rains playtester Lark, Super Auto Chimera is a Red Rains variant in which the Chimera battle each other! (Text version follows the images.)

Super_Auto_Chimera_p1.jpg

Super_Auto_Chimera_p2.jpg

In Super Auto Chimera, you are a rogue member of the Vermillion Council with a secret agenda--training and battling the lovable Argaian creatures known as Chimera!

Send your Chimera into the automated battles against other Chimera, and become stronger as you defeat, befriend, and learn from your opponents. Each Chimera has unique abilities to offer, so choose wisely as you train your perfect pet Chimera!

Setup

  1. Choose an aspect deck (Fury, Shadow, etc.) and its corresponding Chimera, behavior, and ultimate cards to be your personal pet Chimera.
  2. Choose another aspect deck and its corresponding Chimera, behavior, and ultimate cards to be your first opposing Chimera (if you don't have a second set of the necessary Chimera, behavior, and ultimate cards, it's okay to proxy).
  3. Set up both Chimera opposing each other at Heroic Level 1 difficulty.

    In Super Auto Chimera, you get to choose your pet Chimera's 'First Five'. Instead of placing randomize aspects like you would in standard Red Rains, choose a set of 5 aspects from your draw pile that match the Blood values shown in your pet Chimera's starting setup, and place them face down onto your Chimera's battlefield in a matching order of your choice.
  4. Place the first player token on your side of the play area and begin the game, starting with your pet Chimera's turn.

Gameplay

Follow the standard Red Rains rules, automating both your pet Chimera and the opposing Chimera as they battle each other. If an effect would require either Chimera to make a choice between multiple options, you choose which option that Chimera selects.

After your pet Chimera replenishes aspects during the recovery phase, you may look at the face down aspects on your pet Chimera's battlefield and rearrange them in the order of your choice.

Campaign

After you defeat an opposing Chimera, it becomes your friend and can teach your pet Chimera new abilities! Choose up to 6 aspects in your pet Chimera's draw pile and replace them with aspects of the same blood value from the defeated Chimera's deck.

For your next encounter, challenge a Chimera one level higher, while keeping your Chimera at Heroic Level 1. Only a true friend of the Chimera, like your old study buddy Rowan Umberend, can defeat a Level 3 Chimera and achieve a campaign victory!

Ashteki

Stuff about ashteki that may need a bit of explaining...

Layouts

There are a couple of settings that affect how the screen appears:

Playing against the chimera demonstrates both of these settings, and at time of writing, users are unable to change the layout when fighting the chimera:

image.png

Left Mode

When left mode is activated the player prompt and the dice box are both aligned to the left. In the area above the player prompt the action log is a high level audit of what is happening. This is handy for keeping track of the game when you need to hide the full chat/log e.g. when playing on an iPad mini.

Compact layout

Notice that the chimera cards and dice are all on one row of the main screen, and there are buttons to access its conjurations, draw pile, and hand at the top of the screen. 

Player vs Player

When you have a 2-player game there is more flexibility on layout. 

No compact Layout

if you have the screen estate then removing compact mode places the opponent's cards on two rows

image.png

I had to set the browser zoom (using Ctrl + mouse wheel) to 90% when using this layout because otherwise the battlefield rows overlap. In this view 'left mode' is still active.

Original, or 'right mode'

Originally ashteki only had one mode, with the prompt and dice on the right, and opponent cards on 2 rows. this simulated the suggested layout for IRL games presented in the rulebook. Note that in this layout the action log above the prompt is displayed without text, and the last used card shown a bit larger.

image.pngI introduced left mode because of the distance between the prompt, the cards in hand, and the dice box, and my desire not to tire out my mouse.

What about compact right mode?

At this time, compact mode enforces left mode. The dice layout for compact mode is left aligned, so it looked odd to do otherwise. I don't have plans for a compact right mode unless I get a lot of requests for it.

Settings?

you can change the settings in the profile page, or in-game. The settings changes in-game only last for the current game, and if you fancy trying out different layouts but regret it mid-game you can easily go back to what you are used to.

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Player Resources

Phoenixborn Pre-Con Reference Cards

These are miniature versions of the standard Phoenixborn pre-con deck lists found on Ashes.live, sized to fit a standard playing card. 

To use: print each sheet on standard 8.5"x11" paper and cut out around the thick black line to fit to a card.

I use these by attaching to a Gamegenics divider to organize my collection by pre-con within a Gamegenic Dungeon. Optionally, you can print and cut the smaller "Divider tops" to attach to the tabs for quick reference. These are handy when deckbuilding to know where to look for cards in specific magic types (or to make sure you are putting a card back into the right deck!) without needing an online reference.

Enjoy! ~Del

Pre-con Cards 1 of 4.pdf

Pre-con Cards 2 of 4.pdf

Pre-con Cards 3 of 4.pdf

Pre-con Cards 4 of 4.pdf

Pre-con Cards Divider Tops.pdf

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PvP + PvE reference card

Download: PlayerAid.pdf

Full round reference, with PvE-specific items called out in red.