Quick Rules

The essential rules you need to understand a CalTac match and start playing.

The essentials

Build your battlefield, manage your Energy, choose when to attack, and use fast actions at the right moment.

Goal

  • Each player starts at 30 Main Health.
  • Use cards and attacks to reduce your opponent's Main Health to zero.
  • Main Health can rise, but normally cannot go above 40.

Opening

  • Each player brings a deck and draws 4 cards.
  • You get one chance to replace any number of opening cards.
  • A setup roll decides who is the first attacker.

Rounds

  • A round has Pre-Combat Main, Combat, Post-Combat Main, and end-of-round cleanup.
  • Players alternate actions and passes inside the round.
  • If both players pass while no stack is open, the round ends.

Energy

  • Main Energy refills each round and grows as the game continues.
  • When a new round begins, unspent Main Energy carries into Stored Energy up to its cap, then Main Energy refills.
  • Energy pays for cards, abilities, equipment, and fast actions.

Cards

  • Characters enter the battlefield and can fight.
  • Equipment attaches to characters and can change stats or abilities.
  • Structures stay in play and create ongoing effects.
  • Spells create one-time effects, fast responses, or special situations.

Turns and Actions

  • Slow actions usually include playing characters, equipment, structures, and slow spells.
  • A slow action ends your turn.
  • Fast actions do not end your turn by themselves and can create Stack battles.

The Stack

  • Fast actions wait on the Stack before resolving.
  • The newest Stack item resolves first.
  • If both players pass while the Stack is not empty, it starts resolving.
  • After the Stack resolves, it can still be your turn.

Combat

  • The attacker can begin combat during pre-combat main.
  • The attacker chooses attackers, then the defender chooses blockers.
  • After blockers, both players get one combat-tricks fast-action window.
  • Combat damage resolves sequentially, with some cards using an earlier damage window.

Damage and Dying

  • Damage creates wounds and can kill characters.
  • An effect that lowers Health is not damage unless it says it deals damage.
  • A character dies when lethal damage, destroy, sacrifice, or another effect moves it from the battlefield or engaged row to the graveyard.
  • Discarding a card is not dying.

Decks

  • A playable deck has exactly 40 cards.
  • A deck can include at most 4 copies of a card unless the format says otherwise.
  • A deck can include cards from up to two factions.
This is the quick version. Use the Rules Book when timing, stack, combat, tokens, or card rulings get detailed. Open Rules Book