Easing into Lost Legion v.

2021
The Mage Knight Board Game series consists of the base game (MKBG) plus three expansions--
Lost Legion, Krang, and Shades of Tezla. The latter two expansions are add-ons that can be com-
bined with the earlier releases after you're well acquainted with the game: there's no reason to
add them immediately. Lost Legion is different, however: it changes the base game in a few ways
and makes the whole series an even better gaming system.

Some new players will purchase the Mage Knight Board Game by itself and play it many times
before adding in any of the expansions. And this is certainly a creditable approach. When it
comes time for these players to add in the components of Lost Legion, they'll be familiar enough
with the game system to be able to figure out how best to do so.

Another approach however--and equally creditable--is to purchase Mage Knight Board Game
and Lost Legion at the same time and pool both of them together from the very start. There are
several advantages to doing so, not least of which is never having to forget old rules and learn
new ones, however minor those rule changes might be. The sticking point, though, is that new
players might be at a loss as to how best and most easily to combine both game modules. For
these players, I suggest the following incremental steps . . .

Phase One
Swap out the old material that has been updated with new replacement components:*
• 2 Artifact cards (Banner of Fear, Horn of Wrath)
• 1 Spell card (Wings of Wind/Wings of Night)
• 5 Advanced Action cards (Agility, Refreshing Walk, Blood Ritual, In Need, Magic Talent)
• 2 Regular Unit cards (Utem Guardsmen)
• 3 Elite Unit cards (Altem Guardians)
• 1 Basic Action card that has been updated (Cold Toughness)
• 4 Basic Action cards, one for each of the original heroes (recognize them by the hero's
symbol in the upper right corner. Each of these cards replaces the Basic Action card with the
same number in that hero's deck. These four new cards are Crystal Joy, Rejuvenate, Instinct,
and Mana Pull. After replacing them, each Hero will still have 16 basic action cards.)
• 4 round white Enemy tokens (Altem Mages, Altem Guardians: see the last page of the
Walkthrough booklet to identify these tokens)
• 4 rectangular Cooperative Skills (one for each hero, with white helmet symbols; and set
aside for now those skills with black helmet symbols, one for each hero--unless you're play-
ing competitive scenarios, in which case you'll use the black helmets not the white helmets)
• 1 Cooperative Skill Description card (this is an addition: it doesn't replace anything)
* - There are also some corrected items which you can ignore: these items are identical to what came in later printings of Mage Knight Board
Game--you'll only need them if you have the first printing of the base game. (These components are 4 spell cards [Demolish, Whirlwind, Energy
Flow, Space Bending], 3 site description cards, 1 tactic card [Planning], and 3 round white Enemy tokens [Amotep Gunners]--see p. 4.)

Add in the extra components: (combine them; they're identical to the base game components)
• 14 new crystal tokens (3 of each basic color, plus 1 gold and 1 black)
• 1 mana die
• 12 Wound cards
• 20 Shield tokens (5 for each hero from the base game)
Read only the following sections of the Lost Legion rulebook:
• Cooperative Skills, on p. 6 (just a third of a column of text)
• Detailed Game Concepts, pp. 9-10 (the whole two pages, although feel free to skim--or to
even skip--the full page of Examples there in the middle of it)
• Take a look at the Turn Sequence Overview diagram on p. 20
That's a little over one page of rules (and we're talking Lost Legion pages, which are half the
size of the base game pages). Leave everything else in the box.

Phase Two
Add in the WOLKHAWK character:
• There are no rule changes needed, and nothing in the rulebook to read.
• Just pull out of the box her 16 basic action cards, her 11 skill tokens, her hero card, her
skill description card, her 20 shield tokens, her 6 level tokens, her round order token, and her
figure.

Phase Three
After a few games, or whenever you feel comfortable, shuffle these items into the mix:
• 12 new Advanced Action cards (29/40 to 40/40)
• 4 new Spell cards (21/24 to 24/24)
• 8 new Artifact cards (17/24 to 24/24)
• 8 new silver Regular Unit cards (21/28 to 28/28)
• 8 new gold Elite Unit cards (21/28 to 28/28)
Read pp. 5-6 of the Lost Legion rulebook to play with these (but skip "Enemies with Multiple
Attacks", "New Enemy Token Abilities", "Reputation as a Reward", and "General Volkare").
If you're playing solo scenarios, also read "Control over the Offers" on p. 12.

Phase Four
After a little more familiarity, you can shuffle in the new map tiles and the new enemy tokens:
• 3 countryside (green) Map tiles (12, 13, 14)
• 2 non-city Core (brown) Map tiles (*9*, *10*)
• 2 Site Description cards
• 8 new green enemy tokens
• 6 new tan enemy tokens
• 6 new red enemy tokens
• 8 new gray enemy tokens
• 4 new purple enemy tokens
• 6 new white enemy tokens
• 3 new yellow hexagonal Ruins tokens
To play with these, read about the new terrain on the new site description cards, plus read pp.
4-6 of the Lost Legion rulebook (starting at the "New Rules" section) to also learn about the
traits and abilities of the new enemy tokens. Refer also to the tables on p. 20.

Phase Five
And whenever you feel up to a new strategic challenge, add in GENERAL VOLKARE.