Astris

Rules

9. Acts and Game Progression

The game progresses through three Acts and some cards have timing restrictions indicating which Act the card can be played. The timing restriction can be found on the right side of the type line of the card, indicated by Roman numerals. For example, if a card has (II, III), that indicates the card may only be played during Acts II and III.

9.1 Act I --- The Foundation#

The setup phase. Players establish Homeworlds, deploy starter Characters, and build economic and territorial position.

9.2 Act II --- The Schism#

The middle game. Conflicts erupt and escalate.

9.3 Act III --- The Reckoning#

The climax. Decisive plays and resolution.

9.4 Act Transitions#

An Act ends when a Storyline is completed (§8.9). Completing one does not by itself win the Act — it ends it, and awards the face's printed reward to the player it names (§8.9).

The winner of the Act is the player with the most Story Points once scoring resolves (§15), with ties going to the active player (§15.3). Every other player is a loser of the Act for the purposes of the catch-up steps below.

At the end of each Act, resolve the following in order.

1. Count permanents. Before any other end-of-Act step, count the permanents each player controls. A permanent is any card on the Map (§18.25). Record both totals; they are used in step 4.

2. Score Story Points. Each player counts their Story Points from the board under §15.1, adding any awarded during the Act for an empty Treasury (§16). The player with the most wins the Act; ties go to the active player (§15.3). Story Points then reset to zero.

2a. The completed Storyline is Burned. The Storyline that ended the Act goes to the Burned Pile (§8.9). Storylines still in progress stay on the Map with their progress intact.

3. Board state. All remaining cards in play stay in play.

4. Losing player catch-up. The player who lost the Act:

  • Adds 10C to their Treasury.
  • Adds further Currency equal to the difference in permanents recorded in step 1, if the loser controlled fewer: winner's permanents − loser's permanents = Currency gained. If the loser controlled the same number or more, this adds nothing. This is in addition to the 10C above.

5. Winning player Treasury reset. If the winning player has more Currency in their Treasury than their Homeworld's starting Treasury value, their Treasury is reduced to that starting value. If they are at or below it, nothing changes.

Both players' Treasuries remain subject to the 20C cap (§3.1).

6. Hands. In order:

  • The losing player may select any number of cards from their hand and set them aside. They place the rest of their hand back into their deck.
  • The winning player places their entire hand back into their deck.
  • Both players may add cards to, or remove cards from, their deck using their sideboard (if they have one). The sideboard cannot have more cards than the number it contained at the beginning of the game.
  • Both players shuffle their decks.
  • The winning player draws 5 cards. The winning player does not mulligan.
  • The losing player, if they set cards aside, takes those cards into their hand and draws nothing further. If they set no cards aside, they draw 7 cards and may follow normal mulligan rules (§17.6).

A losing player who sets cards aside keeps only those cards. Setting cards aside is not a partial keep topped up to 7 — it is a choice between known cards and a full fresh hand.

7. First player. The losing player determines who plays first.

8. All other states of the game remain unchanged.

Act transitions are irreversible (§3.3). A player who wins their second Act wins the game (§15), so a game runs two or three Acts; if one player wins Acts I and II, Act III is not played.

9.6 Visibility#

Story Points are public, and so is every Storyline on the Map: which Chapter is active, which Characters are Bound and Partnered, and which Reversal path is live. Because Story Points are counted from the board at the end of an Act (§15.1) rather than accumulated during it, any player may work out any other player's standing at any time.

9.7 Sideboard#

Sideboards may contain up to 15 cards and players do not have to have a sideboard:

  • All cards in the sideboard must be legal (ex. the board cannot contain cards from factions that player cannot legally play).
  • A player can add as many cards as they want to their deck from their sideboard, but they cannot sideboard out more cards than the number of cards the sideboard contained at the beginning of the game.