How To Play Flesh And Blood - Rules & Tips For Beginners

Flesh and Blood Setup

Your game board should always look like the reference provided by Legend Story Studios.

• Place your hero card face-up on the table - your hero card will never leave play
• Place any weapon and equipment cards you choose from your inventory face-up next to your hero (up to two weapons and one equipment card of each kind) - weapons and equipment may be destroyed during play.
• Shuffle the rest of your deck.
• Set your hero’s life to their starting value
• Decide on the starting player randomly
• Draw a number of cards equal to your hero’s intellect

Now, you’re ready to play Flesh and Blood!

Flesh and Blood Turn Structure & Phases

Action Phase

At the start of your Action Phase, you gain one action point. Playing any card or using any ability that includes the word "Action" in its text costs one action point. Some actions can have a "Go Again" effect, which allows you to perform an extra action within a single turn.

Unused action points do not carry over to subsequent turns. Actions can include:

• Using your weapon
• Using your hero's ability
• Using an action card

To play a card, you must spend its resource cost. You gain resources by pitching cards from your hand. When you pitch a card, you place it face-up in your pitch zone and gain resource points equal to its pitch value.

If you pitch a card, you must use the resource points it generates - you can’t just pitch a card for no reason.

Your action phase might involve:

• Combat

If your action was an attack, place the card into the combat zone. Check the core attack value, as well as any abilities & effects that might add to it, and let your opponent know how much damage you are about to deal.

Your opponent can then defend by placing any number of cards from their hand into the combat zone, as long as those cards have a defense value.

Throughout the game, you need to balance defending yourself with ensuring you have enough cards for your own attack turn.

• Reactions

After your opponent defends, you can continue by using attack reactions. The opponent can then play defense reactions. This back-and-forth exchange continues until both players decide they no longer want to play any reactions.

• Damage

To calculate damage, add the attack values and subtract the defense value. The result is how much damage your opponent will take.

• Chain Links

Sometimes, you might make multiple attacks in a turn, for example, by using a "Go Again" action. If that happens, you have created a chain link. Chain links might be referenced by specific effects and abilities on cards.

End Phase

The End Phase concludes the turn. Take the following actions before passing your turn:

• First, any cards currently in the Pitch Zone are placed at the bottom of your deck in any order.
• You may add one card from your hand to your Arsenal if your Arsenal is currently empty. (Note: Your Arsenal is a single card kept face-down on the table and is not considered part of your hand. Because it is not part of your hand, a card in your Arsenal cannot be pitched for resource points or used to defend, unless it is specifically a defense reaction. However, you can play the card from your Arsenal on your turn by spending its action cost as normal.)
• Finally, draw cards equal to your hero's intellect.
• Now, it is your opponent’s turn.

Flesh and Blood will be familiar if you’ve played MTG or a similar competitive card game. Two players (or more, depending on the format) construct their deck and get into a game, with the goal to whittle down their opponent’s health.

Still, several aspects of Flesh and Blood set it apart from its TCG competitors:

• More strategy involved – Unlike some other games such as Magic: The Gathering, Flesh and Blood has less randomness involved, allowing for more strategy from the very first turn.
• Your hero can be kitted out with weapons and equipment, which can give you an extra edge against your opponent
• Ability to react to attacks and defend – your opponent’s attacks don’t just happen, you will have the opportunity to defend yourself against them. Once again, this gives space to more strategic thinking - do you pitch that card for resource, or do you keep it to potentially defend yourself?
• Unique card resource system – unlike other TCGs, you don’t automatically start your turn with a number of resources. You will need to pitch cards to gain the resources you need to create a meaningful strategy. Cards can be used as both resources and attacks, leading to more strategic turns and gameplay.

The best way to learn how to play Flesh and Blood is… well, by playing it! While reading the basics beforehand certainly helps, nothing compares to seeing the game in the flesh and figuring out how everything fits together.

At Thistle Tavern, you can find everything you need to get started on your FaB adventure, from Armory decks to single cards and even game mats with official art. But not just that - we organise regular meet-ups where people can come test out their decks, or even loan out decks to give this game a try. Why not come for a visit?