How to Play Small World Board Game Rules

2. Conquering regions

• Your Race tokens are used to conquer Regions of the map
• Victory coins are earned when Regions are conquered

First Conquest

• When you deploy a Race on the map for the first time, you must
  enter it by conquering one of its border Regions:
  • (i.e. a Region adjacent to the edge of the board or
  • one whose shore is on a Sea adjacent to the edge of the board, even if the Sea is occupied by a Seafaring Race).

Conquering a Region

To conquer a Region, you must have available to deploy:

• 2 Race tokens + 1 additional Race token for each Encampment,
  Fortress, Mountain, or Troll’s Lair marker,+ 1 additional Race token
  for each Lost Tribe or other player’s Race token already present in
  the Region.
• Seas and Lakes cannot usually be conquered

Upon conquering a Region, you must:

• deploy the Race tokens you used to conquer this Region inside its borders on the map
• These tokens must remain in this Region until you reorganize your troops at the end of this turn
• Regardless of a Race and/or Special Power benefit, you must always have at least one Race token available to initiate a new Conquest

Enemy Loss and Withdrawals

• Permanently discard one Race token back into the Storage tray;
• Keep the other Race tokens in hand, and redeploy them in any other Region(s) still occupied by his race (if any) as the final action of the current player’s turn.

The Region(s) in which the remaining Race tokens, if any, redeploy do not have to be adjacent or contiguous to the Region(s) they fled from.

If all of a player’s Regions were attacked this turn, leaving him with some Race tokens in hand but none on the board, he may redeploy these as if he was doing a First Conquest, on his next turn.

When a Region defended by a single token is conquered, the defending token is discarded. This will usually be the case if the defending token is a Lost Tribe or when the defending token belongs to a Race In Decline 

Note:
A player may choose to conquer a Region occupied by his own In Decline token,,if he wishes to: He will lose that token, but might gain access to a Region that is more profitable for his new Active Race tokens to occupy. Mountains are immovable, and remain in place to provide defense for their new conqueror.

Following Conquests

The active player can repeat this process to conquer as many new Regions as he wishes during his turn, provided he has enough Race tokens left to accomplish these successive conquests.

Each of the newly conquered Regions must be adjacent to (i.e. sharing a border with) a Region already occupied by his active Race tokens, unless permitted otherwise by his Race and Special Power combo

Final Conquest Attempt/Reinforcement
Die Roll

During the final conquest attempt of your turn, you may
find yourself with not enough Race tokens left to conquer another Region outright.

If you have at least one unused Race token, you may attempt one final conquest for your turn by selecting a Region that you would normally be 3 or less Race tokens short to conquer.

Once you select the region, roll the Reinforcement Die once. You must select this region before rolling the die.

This Region does not have to be the weakest one available for attack either, provided it could still be conquered with a lucky die roll.

If the sum of the die rolled, combined with the Race token(s) left in your possession, is high enough to conquer the Region, you may deploy your remaining Race token(s) there.

Otherwise, you deploy the remaining token(s) in one of the Regions you already occupied prior. Your conquests for the turn end immediately thereafter.

Troop Redeployment

Once your conquests for the turn have ended:

• you freely redeploy your Race tokens on the board, moving
  them from one Region to any other Region occupied by your race
  (not necessarily just an adjacent or contiguous Region)
• at least one Race token must remain in each Region under your
  control

Scoring victory points

With the turn complete:

• for each Region occupied by your Race tokens, receive 1 coin from the Victory stash
• you may also collect additional Victory coins as a result of his Race and/or Special Power benefit.

As the game progresses, you will likely have some tokens from another race. These tokens are the remnants of an earlier race you chose to put In Decline previously.

The Regions these In Decline tokens occupy also each contribute 1 Victory coin; However, Race banner and Special Power benefits no longer contribute any bonus coins, unless explicitly stated otherwise by the Race or Special Power benefit.

Players keep their Victory coins stacked together, their value hidden from other players at all times; final scores are not revealed until the end of the game.

If necessary, a player may request change from the Victory stash for his coins at any time

You can make no conquests during the turn your race goes into decline; your turn ends immediately after scoring!

You gain 1 Victory coin for each Region your newly In Decline tokens occupy, but unless stated otherwise, you score no Victory coins from your now In Decline Race banner power or discarded Special Power benefits.

On your next turn, you will select a new Race and Special Power combo from among those now available. You follow the same rules used during the first turn of the game. The only difference, but it’s a sizeable one, is that you will now likely collect Victory coins from your new race as well as from left-over tokens of his now In Decline race, during the Scoring Victory coins phase of your turn.

In the unlikely event there are not enough Special Power badges left in the Special Powers stack to keep putting new Race and Special Power combos on the table, shuffle previously discarded Special Power badges into a new stack.