Heroes of Land, Air & Sea

Place the double-sided game board in the center, with the 1-4 player side up (or 5-6 player side with expansion). Each player chooses a faction (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, or Humans) and takes their Capital City board, placing it in front of them. Collect 20 plastic units, 6 buildings, and 2 vessels of your faction's color/logo, arranging them beside your board. Place 2 Serfs and 1 Warrior in your Courtyard area, along with 2 Action Tokens. Find your 3 Hero figures and their matching cards, placing them beside your board. Place 1 Ore, 1 Mana, and 1 Food token on the '2' space of your Resource Track. Each player collects a set of 7 Tactics Cards (numbered 1-7). Shuffle the Spell Cards into a face-down deck, leaving space for a discard pile, and each player draws 1 Spell Card. Shuffle unused Ore, Mana, and Food tokens, placing one randomly on the '4' space of the Tax Track, and the others on the '3' and '2' spaces. The youngest player takes the First Player token. Each player places their Level 1 Capital City structure on a region with a Fort outline, claiming that continent. Then, place face-down brown Exploration Tokens on each land region (except Capital Regions), with Swamp Regions getting two tokens each. In a 2-player game, place tokens on each player's continent and a randomly chosen third continent. Place face-down blue Sea Exploration Tokens on each sea region, with the central sea space getting two. Return unused tokens and factions to the box.

The goal of Heroes of Land, Air & Sea is to be the player with the most Victory Points (VP) at the end of the game. Players earn VPs by expanding their kingdom, exploring new lands, exploiting resources, and exterminating their enemies. The game continues through a series of rounds until one player achieves a specific game-ending objective, after which one final full round is played before scores are tallied.

Each round consists of three phases: Action Selection, Collection, and Round End. In the Action Selection phase, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player takes one of their two Action Tokens from their Courtyard and places it into an empty Action Slot on their Capital City board. Actions are divided into Capital Actions (left side) and Command Actions (right side). When a player takes a Capital Action, all other players can choose to 'Follow' that action if they have an empty slot for it and an available Serf in their Courtyard. Following players move a Serf to the corresponding slot and perform the action. Command Actions cannot be followed by opponents, but the active player can 'Muster' a Serf from their Courtyard to an empty Command Action slot to perform two Command Actions in a single turn. Actions are resolved immediately after being chosen.

At the end of the game, players calculate their final Victory Points. Each unit and vessel in play provides VPs as indicated on their space on the player board. Each completed building provides 1 VP, with some buildings offering bonus VPs if their abilities were unlocked. For each region you control (including seas, swamps, and deserts, but not your Capital City), you gain 1 VP. Certain revealed Exploration Tokens in controlled regions also grant VPs. Finally, you gain 1 VP for each Scribed Spell you possess. The player with the highest total VPs wins. In case of a tie, the tied player with the highest total number of resources wins. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.

The game ends immediately when any player achieves one of the four 'X' objectives: 'Explore' (all land Exploration Tokens are revealed), 'Expand' (a player has all 20 Serfs and Warriors in play), 'Exploit' (a player has built all 3 of their Towers), or 'Exterminate' (a player has destroyed an opponent's Capital City). Once an objective is met, the current round is completed, and then one final full round is played. If a Capital City is destroyed, that player is immediately eliminated, their units and structures are removed, and their score is reduced to zero. The player who destroyed the Capital City gains 5 VPs. After the final round, players proceed to the Scoring phase.