cross-posting from the iOS boardgame thread for anyone figuring out Nightfall. Happy to answer any questions:
-You start out the game with 12 basic cards (2 copies of 6 different weak cards in each of the 6 colors actually).
-At the beginning of the game and at the end of every turn, you draw your hand up to five cards from your draw deck.
-Then you perform all of the phases in order: Combat, Chain, Claim, Cleanup.
-Combat:
Let's skip for now even though it does come first because on Turn 1 you won't have any minions in play to engage in combat.
-Chain:
Funnest part of the game! The cards you have remaining in your hand (if any) you can play to the table. Each card has a big moon -- that is the card's color -- and a little moon or two -- that is what other cards that card can chain into. So I can play a card with a big purple moon and little red and yellow moons, and then if I have any cards with big red or yellow moons I can play one of those, and so forth until I can't "chain" anymore or I don't want to. Now is where it gets even snazzier: Going clockwise from you others can join your chain following the same rules you did and adding to the stack. Just like P1, you can add as many cards as you can chain or want to chain and then once you're done you're done for that round. Then the stack is resolved starting with the last-added card.
Here's a good place to talk about the two different kinds of cards (all cards = "orders") -- Minions & Actions. Minions resolve their chain effects when they come off the stack and then go into your "in play" area to both defend (if you want) and attack at start of your turn (mandatory). Actions just resolve and go to your discard.
Two other notes: "Kickers" mean that if you chain off a card and its main color is the color of the kicker, you get that bonus event. Actions that say "Your Chain" only give you the benefit when you play them on your turn, not others' chains. (The red start guy is like this.), but they still go to your in play area no matter what if they're minions (red start guy).
-Claim:
Buy cards! You can buy cards from your private archives or from the common archives -- as many as you can afford. You pay with "influence" which you get two of for free every buy phase -- and then you can discard cards in hand to get more influence to buy better stuff. The max price I think is 4, so you can often buy a couple cards every Claim phase. Try to get some decent chains going so you don't get stuck often. Everything you buy goes to the top of your discard, which gets reshuffled whenever you run out of cards in your draw deck (which will be many times a game). So you don't get them right away, but often pretty soon.
-Cleanup:
Draw back up to 5. If you have 1 card you held onto (didn't discard for influence), you draw 4, and so forth.
-Combat:
Remember this happens at the beginning of your turn! So as described under Chain you put Minions out to fight for you. Let's say I put two dudes out that have attack 3 and health 2 on a chain phase. They survive and the turn comes all the way back to me. Now I have to send them out to attack others. I get to choose which opponent they attack. Attack is simple -- send a guy out and the target has to decide whether to block (with his in-play minions) or eat the damage. Every point of damage that gets through gives a wound card, and of course person with the fewest wound cards at end of game wins. Then attackers get discarded (attackers never take damage). Blockers get discarded if their health goes to 0, or stick around if not.
Game ends when the wound pile has run out.
hth!
