HOTG Battle – Once A Ranger

Battle

Battle Defeat & Battle Cleanup

Preparation

A Player may initiate a battle during the Action Phase by flipping one of their Action Tokens face down.

Rangers

Both Magna Defender and White Mystic Ranger may draw until they have 5 cards in their hand. Shadow Ranger, however, already has 5 cards and therefore, cannot draw any more cards. Since he initiated the Battle though, he takes the Lead Ranger Token.

The Player that initiated combat is the Lead Ranger, and takes the Lead Ranger Token.
All participating players who have fewer than 5 cards in hand may draw as many cards as desired from their deck until, up to the maximum 5 card hand size.
Place 2 Energy Tokens from the supply and place them in the appropriate section of the Power Board. This becomes the Shared Energy Pool.

Foot Soldiers

All Foot Soldiers are participating in this battle.

1 card is drawn for each Foot Soldier in the location (up to 4).
Rangers cannot battle more than 4 Foot Soldiers at once, regardless of how many are in a location.
The Lead Ranger will choose which Foot Soldiers they will fight (if there are more than 4 in a location), and proceed to draw one card from the appropriate enemy deck for each Foot Soldier.
The Lead Ranger also decides which Enemy deck to draw from first.
Place the enemy cards face up in a row, from left to right, as they are drawn.
If an enemy card that has the FAST keyword is drawn, it is automatically placed at the far left of the face up row. This will create the Combat Sequence.

The Rangers could have also chosen to fight 2 Mastodon Troopers and 2 Tronics instead. They could have also chosen to fight only Mastodon Troopers and no Tronics.

Monsters/Nemeses & Bosses

When a Monster, Nemesis or Boss is part of the battle, players will draw 4 cards (one at a time) from the appropriate deck.
Similar to Foot Soldiers, these cards will be place face up, from left to right as they are drawn.
This will form another Enemy row, and is placed just above the Foot Soldier row.

Turns

A regular combat sequence will go: R1, Enemy, R2, Enemy, R3, enemy…all the way to R9 (where R stands for Ranger Turn).

In this battle sequence, the Rangers lose R1 from the previous picture, and the Enemy makes the first move. Otherwise, play proceeds as normal. Please note, however, that Rangers only get ONE TURN after the final enemy card has resolved.

Rangers and enemies take alternating turns in battle.
Rangers will normally get the first turn in a combat sequence.
If any enemy card has the FAST keyword, however, then the Enemies will take the first turn, and then the Rangers. Regardless of how many cards have the FAST keyword, however, enemies will only take one turn.

Even though there are 2 FAST enemy cards, the Rangers will still only lose their first turn. The rest of the sequence plays out like normal.

Even though none of the Boss’ Enemy Cards have the FAST keyword, the Rangers will still lose their first turn because the first Foot Soldier card has FAST on it.

Ranger Turns

Magna Defender has chosen to pay 2 Energy Tokens in order to play his Magna Blaster Card.

During Ranger turns, players may play one of their Combat Cards.
To play a Combat Card, a player must first pay the associated cost of the card.
Rangers may normally only play one combat card per turn.
Many Combat Cards, however, permit Rangers to immediately play another Combat Card after the first has resolved.
Reaction Cards may also be played to assist other Rangers during their turn so long as the requirements to play the Reaction have been met.
After playing a card, it goes to the Player’s discard pile.

White Mystic Ranger plays her Discipline Reaction card so that Magna Defender can reroll his miss results.

Enemy Turns

Forced Frenzy will resolve first, then Total Mayhem, then Cause Havoc and finally, Erratic Movement.

During Enemy turns, one of the Enemy Cards in the combat sequence will resolve (going from left to right).
To resolve the card, turn it 90 degrees sideways.
Enemy cards have a variety of effects to hurt and/or hinder the Rangers.
Only one enemy card resolves per enemy turn.
After resolving, the Enemy Card remains in the combat sequence until the Battle is over.

Upon resolution, the Enemy Card will remain, and can be chosen as an attack target for future Ranger turns.

Dealing Damage

Whenever Rangers or Enemies are attacked, they are take damage.
The way that damage is dealt to Rangers, however, is different to how it is dealt to Enemies.
Certain effects allow damage to be spread to multiple Rangers and/or Enemies. Always be sure to read the card text carefully.

Damage To Rangers

For the first attack of Q-Blades, Shadow Ranger has revealed a 1 shield card. Discipline will absorb 1 damage and be sent to the discard pile. Shadow Ranger will reveal another card to absorb the remaining 1 damage.

The next card has 3 shields. Since the shield value is greater than the damage being taken, Crowd Control is not sent to the discard pile, but instead will move to the bottom of the Combat Deck facedown.

When damage is dealt to Rangers, the players will first determine both the total amount of damage being taken, as well as the target(s) of the damage.
The player(s) then flips over the top card of his deck, and looks at the shield value shown.
If the shield value is GREATER than the damage being taken, then the card is place on the bottom of the deck face down.
If the shield value is EQUAL to the damage being taken, then the revealed card is placed in the discard pile.
If the shield value is LESS than the damage being taken, then subtract the shield value from the total damage, place the revealed card in the discard pile and flip the next card in the deck face up.
Continue this process, one card at a time until the number of shields is greater than or equal to the remaining damage.

For the second attack, Shadow Ranger has revealed a 2 shield card. Because the shields are equal to the amount of damage taken, Bark Orders will be sent to the discard pile.

Damage To Enemies

When damage is taken by Enemies, players will first determine both the total damage, as well as the appropriate target(s) of the damage.
Players will then place the appropriate amount of Hit Tokens on the appropriate target(s).
If the number of hit tokens is equal to, or greater than, the health value of the enemy card, then the enemy card is defeated.
If the number of hit tokens is less than the health value of the enemy card, then the enemy card is not defeated, and the hit tokens remain on the card to keep track of how much health the card has left.

Battle Defeat & Battle Cleanup

Rangers and Enemies are defeated in Battle if certain thresholds are met.
Once defeated, different steps are taken depending on who was defeated.
After the combat sequence is completed, then players will perform Battle Cleanup.
Battles end after the final Ranger turn has taken place, or if all enemy cards have been defeated.

Ranger Defeat

The resolved enemy card dealt 3 damage, and the Ranger’s last card in the deck had 3 shields. It is, therefore, sent to the discard pile, meaning that the Ranger is defeated.

A Ranger is defeated in battle if at any point, there are no cards in their combat deck.
When defeated, the Ranger Figure is immediately removed from the battle and placed in the Command Center.
Remove one energy token from the Command Center (if there are none to remove, then the Rangers lose the game).
The Ranger then shuffles all combat cards from their hand and discard pile together, and then draws up to 5 cards to form a new hand.
The Ranger then takes one energy token from the supply (if they do not already have one).
If the Ranger that was defeated was the Lead Ranger, then the Lead Ranger Token will pass to another Ranger that is still involved in the battle.
If all Rangers that are participating in the Battle are defeated, then proceed immediately to the Battle Cleanup step.

The Ranger is completely healed in the Command Center while all other participating Rangers stay to continue the battle.

Enemy Defeat

An enemy card is defeated when the number of hit tokens on it is equal to, or greater than, the health value of the card.
When defeated, an enemy card is flipped face down, and all hit tokens on it are returned to the Supply.
Defeated enemy cards still resolve when it is their turn, but nothing happens when they do.
To defeat a Foot Soldier, you need to defeat one corresponding Foot Soldier Enemy Card.
For Monsters/Nemeses, you need to defeat four Monster/Nemesis Enemy cards. The Rangers must also survive the remainder of the Battle. All undefeated Monster/Nemesis cards will still resolve as normal
Defeating a Boss is the same process as Monster/Nemesis except that it requires the Rangers to defeat 6 Boss Enemy Cards. The Rangers must, again, also survive the remainder of the battle.
When a Foot Soldier is defeated, remove the appropriate figure from the battle and place it on the experience track on the Power Board.
When a Monster, Nemesis or Boss is defeated, the figure is removed from the location and place it off to the side. Any remaining Foot Soldier figures are also removed from the location, but are not placed in the experience tracker. Instead, they are put back into the Supply.

The Foot Soldier was moved from the Surf Spot to the Power Board. Only 5 more to go!

Cleanup

Only 1 energy will go to the Ranger.

Once the battle is over, then cleanup commences.
During cleanup, any energy tokens remaining in the shared energy pool will be dispersed to participating Rangers as they see fit. Remember that Rangers can only store one energy token at a time.
All excess energy is returned to the energy supply.
All defeated and undefeated Foot Soldier Enemy Cards, as well as all undefeated Monster, Nemesis and Boss Enemy Cards are taken from the combat sequence and shuffled back into their appropriate decks.
Defeated Monster, Nemesis and Boss Enemy Cards will be placed in discard piles face-up next to their enemy decks.
If no remaining enemy figures remain in a panicked location, then the area is no longer panicked, and the Panic Token is removed.

All defeated Boss cards will be unavailable to them in future battles. Taking out very powerful cards in the first Battle could be beneficial to the Rangers.