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How to play King of Tokyo Rules if you hate rulebooks

I hate rulebooks and compiled this straight to the point condensed How to Play King of Tokyo Rules Guide to get your game started fast and skip the rulebook.

Players: 2 to 6 | Game duration from: 20 mins | Game Complexity: EASY How to play King of Tokyo rules in simple steps King of Tokyo rules pdf / rulebook

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What is the goal of King of Tokyo?

Players play as monsters, robots, and aliens who battle to become the King of Tokyo. Players roll various dice to battle each other and fight to control Tokyo.

King of Tokyo Game Setup

Player choose their monsters and set LIFE POINTS and VICTORY to 10.

Place the Tokyo gameboard in the center of the table.
Shuffle the cards to form a deck.Deal the first 3 cards face up and place them next to the board.
Place the black dice in the center of the table.
Set the green dice aside
.Form a pool of energy cubes.

Use only Tokyo City for 2 to 4 players.
For 5 to 6 players, use both Tokyo City and Bay.
Board

Step-by-step How to Play King of Tokyo

The game plays clockwise.
Each player rolls 6 black dice.
The player with most smash icons showing on dice goes first. When tied, players roll until one player has the greatest number of smash dice .
A turn proceeds as follows: Roll Dice, Resolve Dice, Enter Tokyo, Buy Power Cards and End of turn.

Roll Dice

At the start of your turn, roll the dice up to 3 times. You can stop rolling at any time.

1st Roll of Dice:

Roll 6 black dice.
Roll 1 or 2 green dice if you have a Power Card that allows you to roll green dice.

2nd Roll of Dice:

For the dice that give you the results you like, set them aside.
Roll only the dice you don’t like.

3rd Roll of Dice:

Re-roll any dice whose results you don’t like or have set aside.

Resolve the Dice

After the third roll, resolve the dice based on the results.

Enter Tokyo

If no one is in Tokyo, you must enter and place your Monster in Tokyo City.
You can only leave Tokyo when you lose Life Points from a Smash dice result rolled by another player/Monster.
No monster/player starts in Tokyo, so the first player must enter Tokyo City during this phase.

5 to 6 Players Rule:

If Tokyo City is occupied but Tokyo Bay is empty, you must enter Tokyo Bay.
Tokyo Bay and Tokyo City are considered “in Tokyo” and have the same effects.
Once the game has 4 or fewer players, you must leave Tokyo Bay immediately.
If Tokyo City is empty, you move there from Tokyo Bay.

Buy Power Cards

You may buy 1 or more of the 3 face-up cards with your Energy Cubes.
The card indicates the cost of Energy.
Replace bought cards immediately from the top of the deck.
New cards are immediately available for purchase.
Spend 2 Energy Cubes to discard and change all 3 face-up cards.

Types of Power Cards:

Keep: Keep cards face up in front of you until the end of the game.
Discard: Resolve cards immediately and then discard them.

Tokens Used with Certain Power Cards:

Smoke, Mimic, Shrink, and Poison tokens are used with certain Power Cards.
Find out more details about these specific Power Cards in the game rules or instructions.

End of Turn

Some card effects are resolved during this step.
It is the end of your turn, hand the dice to the player on your left.

Winning King of Tokyo

The game ends at the end of a round when a Monster reaches 20 VICTORY POINTS. Monster with 20 VICTORY POINTS is the winner.

King of Tokyo Turn actions

Victory Points

If you roll three-of-a-kind of 1, 2, or 3, gain as many Victory Points as the number. Each additional die rolled of the same face, gives you 1 additional Victory point.

Energy

Gain 1 Energy from the pool for each energy icon rolled and place them in your reserve and keep them for spending later.

Attack

Monsters who are not in same place as you lose 1 Life Point for each smash icon rolled:
- If you are in Tokyo City or Tokyo Bay, all Monsters outside lose health
- If you are outside of Tokyo, all monsters in Tokyo City and Tokyo Bay lose health
Monsters who lose health and are in Tokyo (Bay or City) can decide to stay or leave
Each claw result on the dice causes loss of 1 Life Point
If a player/Monster loses his last Life Point, the player is eliminated

No Player/Monster starts the game in Tokyo. The Monster who plays 1st does not cause Monsters to lose life points he gets a dice result

You can only choose to leave when you lose Life Points from a Smash dice throw. You can’t leave if you lose Life Points from Power Cards do not

Heal

When outside Tokyo, you gain 1 Life Point for each Heart rolled
If you are inside, you can’t gain Life Points from dice rolls. You can only gain Life Points from Power Cards.

Life points cannot exceed 10.

Effects of being in Tokyo

You gain 1 Victory Point when entering Tokyo
You gain 2 Victory Points when you start your turn in Tokyo
You cannot gain Life Points from rolling the heart icon on your dice roll
You can still use Power cards to gain Life Points
When smashing, all Monsters outside of Tokyo lose life points when you roll the smash icon
The Monsters outside of Tokyo cause all Monsters in Tokyo to lose life points when they roll the claw icon

Power Cards

Opportunist

If there are 2 Opportunist in play, the 1st Monster clockwise whose turn it is get 1st chance to buy newly revealed cards

Fire Breathing

Monsters of players seated to your left and right each lose 1 Life Point.

Metamorph

Discarding your Keep cards happens in the End of Turn step. You get back full cost of card as printed.

Mimic

Copies effects of a card as if it had just been played. If the copied card is discarded, Mimic no longer has an effect and you take back associated token. You can place it on another Keep card at start of next turn (before rolling dice) by spending 1 energy cube

Poison Spit and Shrink Ray

Poison and Shrink tokens stay even if their associated cards ard discarded. You cannot remove tokens while in Tokyo. You must be outside of Tokyo to use Heart icon dice rolls to remove tokens.