Groups

A group is the fundamental game piece. It's the main unit you see on the board. Most of your game play consists of moving your groups around.

Group Rules

Groups and Sprites

Minions and Groups

Group Types

Joining Groups

Entering Structures

Groups and Sprites.

• A group on the board always occupies 1 square.
• A group on the board is drawn as a sprite.
  • A monster group's sprite shows the type of the monster.
  • A red or blue recruit group's sprite shows its owner's nation (regardless of the nations of the recruits in the group).
  • A neutral recruit group's sprite shows the nation of the first recruit in the group.

Minions and Groups.

• A group can contain a maximum of 8 minions.
• A group must contain at least 1 minion. When a group becomes empty, it “dies”, and is removed from the game. Some spells react to this.
• Every minion always belongs to a group.
• Whenever a new minion is created in an empty square, a new group is automatically created for it.

Group Types. A group's type is determined by the type of the minions it contains.

• There are 3 types of groups in Sanctum.
• Recruit group. A group containing only recruits (archers and/or swordsmen) is a recruit group.
• Monster group. A group containing only monsters is a monster group.
• Minion group. Any group is a minion group (or simply “group” for short). Recruit groups and monster groups are special cases of minion group.
• A group never contains both recruits and monsters.

Joining Groups. Recruit groups can join each other by moving into the same square. This tends to greatly increase their combat power. Large groups of recruits become the strongest units in the game, easily able to kill even the strongest monsters.

• Joining rules. Two groups may join with each other if:
  • They are both recruit groups.
  • They are friendly to each other (both red or both blue).
  • They are both player-controlled.
  • They don't exceed the maximum group size.
• Some spells prevent groups from joining.
• Bots can't join. A computer-controlled recruit group never joins other groups. Some spells can cause your recruit groups to become computer-controlled, even though they remain friendly. Some spells can create neutral recruit groups, which are computer-controlled.
• Training is joining. When you train new recruits in a structure that already has a group, your new recruits automatically join that group. Spells that prevent groups from joining will also prevent this kind of training.
• Can't unjoin. There is no way to unjoin a group. Once a group joins, its members must stay together. Some spells can remove one minion from a group.
• Monsters can't join. Monster groups never join each other, unless explicitly stated in the monsters' card text. Some monsters can join with other monster groups of the same type.

Entering Structures.

• Only player-controlled recruit groups can enter and capture structures. Some spells prevent recruit groups from entering structures.
• Computer-controlled recruit groups never enter structures. Unclear whether they can return from off the board into a structure. Unclear whether a structure can move under them.
• Monster groups never enter structures. They cannot return from off the board into a structure.
• You win the game by capturing the enemy Sanctum, which is a structure. It follows that only a recruit group can win the game. Monster groups can never win the game by themselves!