Ruling — Hammer of the Scots

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Hammer of the Scotsbg-3685-en-1e

The objective of the game is to control a majority of nobles when the game ends.[1] The game is played in a series of years, which can consist of 1-5 Game Turns.[1]

**Setup and Yearly Start**

1. At the beginning of each year, all cards are shuffled and five are dealt face-down to each player.[2]

2. Players may examine their cards.[2]

**Game Turn Sequence**

Each Game Turn consists of three phases played in the following sequence:

1. **Card Phase**:

* Both players play one card face-down.[2][1]

* Cards are revealed; the higher card determines Player 1 for that turn (English player wins ties).[2][1]

* Event cards are resolved first; the player of an Event card is Player 1.[2] If both players play an Event card, both are resolved (English player first).[2]

* Players must play a card but can choose to do nothing if desired.[2]

2. **Move Phase**:

* Player 1 moves first, then Player and 2.[1]

* Move Cards allow one, two, or three Group moves according to card value.[2]

* A player may move as many Groups as the card played.[2]

* Blocks may move to one or more areas within their Move Rating, but must stop when entering an enemy-occupied area or crossing a red border.[2][1]

* A maximum of six blocks can cross a Green border and two can cross a Red border per Movement Phase.[2]

* Blocks crossing a red border must stop.[2]

* Blocks only move once per Game Turn, except to retreat or regroup.[2]

3. **Battle Phase**:

* Battles occur when enemy blocks are located in the same area.[1]

* Battles are fought one by one in a sequence determined by Player 1.[1]

**Ending the Year and Winter Turn**

A game year ends if both players play an Event card at the same time, or after all five cards have been played.[3] After a year ends, a Winter Turn is played in this exact order:

1. All English nobles move to their Home Areas; if the area is enemy-occupied, the noble defects to the Scots.[3]

2. All Scots nobles move to their Home Areas; if the area is enemy-occupied, the noble defects to the English.[3]

3. All blocks in England must disband.[3]

4. Specific blocks (Archers, Knights, Hobelars, etc.) disband according to specific rules.[3]

5. Players receive replacements.[1]

6. Shuffle the deck and deal five new cards to each player for the next year.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook · p.1 · INTRODUCTION · GAME TURNS · [1] Card Phase (3.0) · [2] Move Phase (4.0) · [3] Battle Phase (5.0) · · Winter turn (7.0) · …

[2] RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook · p.3 · 3.0 ThE CARDS · 3.1 CARD PLAY · 3.11 Move Cards · 3.12 Event Cards · 4.0 MOVEMENT · 4.1 INITIATIVE · …

[3] RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook · p.6 · 7.0 Wintering · 7.1 nObleS gO HOMe · 7.12 bruce & Comyn · 7.2 SCOttiSH King · 7.3 engliSH DiSbAnDing · 7.31 Knights, Archers & Hobelars · …

[4] RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook · p.6 · 7.61 French Knights · 7.62 Scottish builds · 7.63 english builds · 7.7 engliSH FeuDAl leVy · 7.8 neW CArDS

So says the rulebook. So plays the table.

🔧 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 161 ms · ask 5015 ms · total 5178 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5178 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 8, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "The preferred method to establish sides for a Tourney is for all players to secretly bid one of E1, E2, E3, S1, S2, or S3. Bids to play the English (E#) are for the number of years they will play with King Edward face-up in the Draw Pool, not eligible to be drawn, but still counting toward feudal le", "headingPath": "TOURNAMENT PLAY · CREDITS", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "The game has twenty (20) move and five (5) event cards. At the beginning of each year , all the cards are shuffled and five are dealt out face-down to each player. Players may then examine their cards. Both players start a Game Turn by playing one card face-down. The cards are then revealed and the ", "headingPath": "3.0 ThE CARDS · 3.1 CARD PLAY · 3.11 Move Cards · 3.12 Event Cards · 4.0 MOVEMENT · 4.1 INITIATIVE · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "Hammer of the Scots is a game of the Scottish Wars of Independence. One player plays the Scots, the other, the English. The object is to control a majority of nobles when a game ends. There are two scenarios, Braveheart (1297-1305) and The Bruce (1306-1314). Each can be played as a separate game. Th", "headingPath": "INTRODUCTION · GAME TURNS · [1] Card Phase (3.0) · [2] Move Phase (4.0) · [3] Battle Phase (5.0) · · Winter turn (7.0) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.045956, "snippet": "This game starts as per Braveheart scenario and is played until one player achieves victory. Extend game years beyond 1314 if necessary. rEmEmbEr: Edward I cannot winter in Scotland in 1306 and becomes Edward II in 1307. The object of the game is to control a majority of Nobles at the end of the sce", "headingPath": "8.3 CAMPAIGN GAME · 9.0 VICTORY · 9.1 Sudden Death · Declaration of arbroath, april 6, 1320", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045928, "snippet": "The Scots do not have a King block at the start of play. Once per game the Scots may crown a king. There are three candidates for the throne: Bruce, Comyn, and Balliol. If a Scottish King is crowned and later killed in battle, the English win a sudden death victory (9.1). To crown either Bruce or Co", "headingPath": "6.2 SCOTTISh kINGS · 6.21 Bruce or Comyn · 6.22 king Balliol", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.044337, "snippet": "If the Scots control 8+ nobles, add the French knights to the Scottish Draw Pool. Once drawn, the block remains in play until eliminated (5.8). Each RP is used to either: Draw one block from the pool and deploy in the same area at strength 1. Build one step on one existing block in the same area. RP", "headingPath": "7.61 French Knights · 7.62 Scottish builds · 7.63 english builds · 7.7 engliSH FeuDAl leVy · 7.8 neW CArDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Battles are fought one by one after all movement is completed. Each battle must be completed before fighting the next battle. Player 1 determines which battle is fought first before examining any enemy blocks. Reveal blocks by tipping them forward to maintain current strength . After that battle is ", "headingPath": "5.1 BATTLE SEQUENCE · 5.2 CELTIC UNITY · 5.3 COMBAT ROUNDS · 5.31 Combat Turns · 5.32 Combat Reserves", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Reserve blocks may not fire, retreat, or take hits in Round 1. Reserves are revealed at the beginning of Round 2 or remain hidden if the battle is over. Reserves arrive even if all other friendly blocks have been eliminated. Thereafter they take normal Combat Turns. notE: Battlefield Control changes", "headingPath": "hAMMER OF ThE SCOTS TM · 5.33 Battle Reinforcements · 5.4 COMBAT RESOLUTION · 5.41 Battle hits · 5.5 RETREATING", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "INTRODUCTION · GAME TURNS · [1] Card Phase (3.0) · [2] Move Phase (4.0) · [3] Battle Phase (5.0) · · Winter turn (7.0) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3.0 ThE CARDS · 3.1 CARD PLAY · 3.11 Move Cards · 3.12 Event Cards · 4.0 MOVEMENT · 4.1 INITIATIVE · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "7.0 Wintering · 7.1 nObleS gO HOMe · 7.12 bruce & Comyn · 7.2 SCOttiSH King · 7.3 engliSH DiSbAnDing · 7.31 Knights, Archers & Hobelars · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "7.61 French Knights · 7.62 Scottish builds · 7.63 english builds · 7.7 engliSH FeuDAl leVy · 7.8 neW CArDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 719}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 719 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 719 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 0.88608 of 1861 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 26, 2026 01:41 UTC

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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	TOURNAMENT PLAY · CREDITS	p.8	0.048916 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	3.0 ThE CARDS · 3.1 CARD PLAY · 3.11 Move Cards · 3.12 Event Cards · 4.0 MOVEMENT · 4.1 INITIATIVE · …	p.3	0.048652 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	INTRODUCTION · GAME TURNS · [1] Card Phase (3.0) · [2] Move Phase (4.0) · [3] Battle Phase (5.0) · · Winter turn (7.0) · …	p.1	0.046642 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	8.3 CAMPAIGN GAME · 9.0 VICTORY · 9.1 Sudden Death · Declaration of arbroath, april 6, 1320	p.8	0.045956 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	6.2 SCOTTISh kINGS · 6.21 Bruce or Comyn · 6.22 king Balliol	p.5	0.045928 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	7.61 French Knights · 7.62 Scottish builds · 7.63 english builds · 7.7 engliSH FeuDAl leVy · 7.8 neW CArDS	p.6	0.044337 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	5.1 BATTLE SEQUENCE · 5.2 CELTIC UNITY · 5.3 COMBAT ROUNDS · 5.31 Combat Turns · 5.32 Combat Reserves	p.4	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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	hAMMER OF ThE SCOTS TM · 5.33 Battle Reinforcements · 5.4 COMBAT RESOLUTION · 5.41 Battle hits · 5.5 RETREATING	p.4	0.029851 (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 24 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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	3.0 ThE CARDS · 3.1 CARD PLAY · 3.11 Move Cards · 3.12 Event Cards · 4.0 MOVEMENT · 4.1 INITIATIVE · …	p.3	#2	0.048652 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	TOURNAMENT PLAY · CREDITS	p.8	#1	0.048916 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	INTRODUCTION · GAME TURNS · [1] Card Phase (3.0) · [2] Move Phase (4.0) · [3] Battle Phase (5.0) · · Winter turn (7.0) · …	p.1	#3	0.046642 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	6.2 SCOTTISh kINGS · 6.21 Bruce or Comyn · 6.22 king Balliol	p.5	#5	0.045928 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	8.3 CAMPAIGN GAME · 9.0 VICTORY · 9.1 Sudden Death · Declaration of arbroath, april 6, 1320	p.8	#4	0.045956 (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 Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	7.61 French Knights · 7.62 Scottish builds · 7.63 english builds · 7.7 engliSH FeuDAl leVy · 7.8 neW CArDS	p.6	#6	0.044337 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	4.4 ANGLO-SCOTTISh BORDER · 4.5 AREA CONTROL · 4.6 PINNING · 4.7 nOrSe MOVeMent · Border Movement Example · Card Play	p.3	#9	0.02967 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	7.0 Wintering · 7.1 nObleS gO HOMe · 7.12 bruce & Comyn · 7.2 SCOttiSH King · 7.3 engliSH DiSbAnDing · 7.31 Knights, Archers & Hobelars · …	p.6	#11	0.028139 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	INTRODUCTION · GAME TURNS · [1] Card Phase (3.0) · [2] Move Phase (4.0) · [3] Battle Phase (5.0) · · Winter turn (7.0) · …	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	3.0 ThE CARDS · 3.1 CARD PLAY · 3.11 Move Cards · 3.12 Event Cards · 4.0 MOVEMENT · 4.1 INITIATIVE · …	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	7.0 Wintering · 7.1 nObleS gO HOMe · 7.12 bruce & Comyn · 7.2 SCOttiSH King · 7.3 engliSH DiSbAnDing · 7.31 Knights, Archers & Hobelars · …	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Hammer of the Scots — Rulebook (corpus doc 719)	7.61 French Knights · 7.62 Scottish builds · 7.63 english builds · 7.7 engliSH FeuDAl leVy · 7.8 neW CArDS	p.6	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 161 ms · first delta 2153 ms · total 5178 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 161 ms · ask 5015 ms · gateway work 5178 ms · total 5178 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3861
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 599
tok/sec: 201.8 tok/sec — 599 output tokens in 2.969 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 55s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child): schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 60h, checked 1s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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 653), 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.