Ruling — BattleLore: Second Edition

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: BattleLore: Second Editionbg-146439-en-1e

To play BattleLore Second Edition, follow these procedures:

**Setup (General)**

1. Place the game board in the center of the game area.[1][2]

2. Each player chooses a faction: the Daqan (blue) or the Uthuk (red); if both players want the same faction, they choose randomly.[1][2]

3. Each player takes the plastic figures, unit reference cards, and deployment cards for their chosen faction and places them in their play area.[1]

4. Separate all tokens and markers by type and place them in piles to create the supply.[1][2]

5. Shuffle all command cards into a deck and place it near the game board within reach of both players.[1][2]

6. Each player takes their faction's lore and scenario cards, shuffles them into two separate decks, and places them facedown in their play area.[1]

**Setup (Learning Scenario)**

1. Place the game board in the center of the game area.[3][4]

2. Each player chooses a faction: the Daqan (blue) or the Uthuk (red); if both players want the same faction, they choose randomly.[3][4]

3. The Uthuk player is the first player and places the first player token in his play area.[3][4]

4. Shuffle all command cards into a deck and place it near the game board within reach of both players.[3][4]

5. Each player, starting with the Uthuk player, draws four command cards from the command card deck.[3][4]

6. Place two-point banner markers on the three designated hexes.[3][4]

7. Separate the VP tokens, lore tokens, and poison markers by type and place them in piles to create the supply; return all other markers and tokens to the game box.[3][4]

8. Players gather specific figures (Daqan: Viper Legion x12, Yeoman Archers x12; Uthuk: Citadel Guard x15, Blood Harvesters x15) and place them on the game board, three to a hex, as shown by the figure silhouettes.[3][4]

9. Each player takes the unit reference cards that correspond to their units on the board and places them in their play area.[3][4]

**Gameplay**

The game is played over a series of alternating turns.[5] The active player performs a Main Phase and an Upter Phase in the following order:[5]

**Main Phase**

The active player performs these steps in order:[5]

1. **Command Step**: The active player plays one command card from his hand by reading the text aloud and placing it faceup on the discard pile.[5] The player then either resolves the text on the card or orders one friendly unit anywhere on the game board.[5] To order a unit, the player points to the unit and declares it ordered; a player can only order each unit once per turn.[5] Ordered units must be within the section of the board (left, right, or center) dictated by the command card.[5]

2. **Order Step**: (Note: The Command Step includes the process of ordering units as described above).[5]

3. **Move Step**: The active player may move each ordered unit.[6] A unit can move up to its movement value as shown on its unit reference card.[6] Units must move one at a time in a sequence of the active player's choice, and a unit's movement must be completed before resolving another.[6] A unit cannot move into or through a hex occupied by another unit, and only one unit can occupy a hex at a time.[6]

4. **Attack Step**: The active player uses ordered units to attack opposing units.[5]

After the active player completes their turn, the opponent becomes the new active player.[5] Turns alternate until one player wins the game.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.14

[2] RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.14 · iMPaSSabLE tERRain · Complete Setup

[3] RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.5 · Learning Scenario Setup · Uthuk Figures · Daqan Figures

[4] RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.5

[5] RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.6 · Playing the Game · Main Phase · COMMand StEP · ORdER StEP

[6] RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.6 · MOvE StEP

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 87 ms · ask 7093 ms · total 7182 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7182 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "BattleLore Second Edition is played over a series of turns. The active player is the player currently taking his turn. Each turn is divided into two phases that the active player performs in the following order: Main Phase Upkeep Phase After the active player completes his turn, his opponent becomes", "headingPath": "Playing the Game · Main Phase · COMMand StEP · ORdER StEP", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.046875, "snippet": "Complete Setup The setup for BattleLore Second Edition is not only a process of gathering and placing game components, but also a strategic exercise in building the battlefield and constructing and deploying an army of units. Before playing each game, players perform the following steps instead of t", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.046147, "snippet": "Learning Scenario Setup To set up the learning scenario, follow these steps: 1. Place Game Board: Place the game board in the center of the game area. 2. Choose Faction: Each player chooses a faction; either the Daqan (blue) or the Uthuk (red). If both players wish to control the same faction, playe", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045695, "snippet": "To set up the learning scenario, follow these steps: Place Game Board: Place the game board in the center of the game area. Choose Faction: Each player chooses a faction; either the Daqan (blue) or the Uthuk (red). If both players wish to control the same faction, players choose factions randomly (n", "headingPath": "Learning Scenario Setup · Uthuk Figures · Daqan Figures", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.045002, "snippet": "14 The setup for BattleLore Second Edition is not only a process of gathering and placing game components, but also a strategic exercise in building the battlefield and constructing and deploying an army of units. Before playing each game, players perform the following steps instead of those found o", "headingPath": "iMPaSSabLE tERRain · Complete Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.044796, "snippet": "Draw, Reveal, and Resolve Scenario Cards: Each player draws three scenario cards from his scenario deck, chooses one, and returns all other scenario cards to the game box. Then, both players simultaneously reveal and resolve their chosen scenario cards (see 'Resolving Scenario Cards' to the right). ", "headingPath": "Complete Setup · Scenario building · Resolving Scenario Cards · REad SCEnaRiO CaRd tExt", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Each scenario card has an initiative indicator containing both a letter and number. The player who revealed the scenario card with an initiative letter that is alphabetically first is the first player and takes the first turn when the game begins. If both players revealed a scenario card with the sa", "headingPath": "dEtERMinE FiRSt PLaYER · PLaCE tERRain tiLES and bannER MaRkERS · PLaCE FORdS · Mustering an army · deployment Cards · Mustering Units", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029462, "snippet": "BattleLore Second Edition is a tactical game for two players set in the vibrant Runebound universe. Players command either the noble Daqan Lords or the bloodthirsty Uthuk Y'llan on the war-torn battlefields of Terrinoth. Players customize the battlefield, muster their armies, and secretly deploy the", "headingPath": "Game Overview · Using this Rulebook · Unit Overview · Unit Example · For Your First Game · Faction Symbols", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "iMPaSSabLE tERRain · Complete Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Learning Scenario Setup · Uthuk Figures · Daqan Figures", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Playing the Game · Main Phase · COMMand StEP · ORdER StEP", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "MOvE StEP", "sharpsignalDocId": 500}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 500 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 500 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.89513 of 2813 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 14:57

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Playing the Game · Main Phase · COMMand StEP · ORdER StEP	p.6	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.14	0.046875 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.5	0.046147 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Learning Scenario Setup · Uthuk Figures · Daqan Figures	p.5	0.045695 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	iMPaSSabLE tERRain · Complete Setup	p.14	0.045002 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Complete Setup · Scenario building · Resolving Scenario Cards · REad SCEnaRiO CaRd tExt	p.15	0.044796 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	dEtERMinE FiRSt PLaYER · PLaCE tERRain tiLES and bannER MaRkERS · PLaCE FORdS · Mustering an army · deployment Cards · Mustering Units	p.16	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Game Overview · Using this Rulebook · Unit Overview · Unit Example · For Your First Game · Faction Symbols	p.4	0.029462 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 39 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Playing the Game · Main Phase · COMMand StEP · ORdER StEP	p.6	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.14	#2	0.046875 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	iMPaSSabLE tERRain · Complete Setup	p.14	#5	0.045002 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.11	#15	0.026481 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Learning Scenario Setup · Uthuk Figures · Daqan Figures	p.5	#4	0.045695 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Game Overview · Using this Rulebook · Unit Overview · Unit Example · For Your First Game · Faction Symbols	p.4	#8	0.029462 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	MOvE StEP	p.6	#19	0.014493 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.5	#3	0.046147 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.14	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	iMPaSSabLE tERRain · Complete Setup	p.14	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Learning Scenario Setup · Uthuk Figures · Daqan Figures	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)		p.5	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	Playing the Game · Main Phase · COMMand StEP · ORdER StEP	p.6	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK BattleLore: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 500)	MOvE StEP	p.6	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 87 ms · first delta 2991 ms · total 7182 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 87 ms · ask 7093 ms · gateway work 7182 ms · total 7182 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3602
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 853
tok/sec: 205.6 tok/sec — 853 output tokens in 4.149 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 1s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 431), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.