Ruling — Warhammer 40,000: Conquest

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Warhammer 40,000: Conquestbg-156776-en-1e

To play Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, follow these procedures:

Setup

1. Select warlords and decks: Each player selects a deck and places their warlord side up in their "headquarters" (HQ).[1][2]

2. Shuffle decks: Each player shuffles their deck and places it in their HQ next to their warlord.[1][2]

3. Set planets: Shuffle 10 planet cards and deal 7 facedown in a line between players; remove the remaining 3 cards from the game.[1][2]

4. Determine initiative: Randomly determine which player starts with the initiative token and place it in front of them.[1][2]

5. Reveal planets: The player with the initiative token turns the first 5 planets faceup (starting from the far left) and leaves 2 facedown, then places the first planet token on the planet furthest to their left.[1][2]

6. Take command dials: Each player takes one command dial and places it in front of them.[1][2]

7. Prepare token bank: Place all token units, resource tokens, and damage tokens in a reachable token bank.[1][2]

8. Draw starting hand: Each player draws cards equal to their warlord's starting hand size value; a player may take one mulligan if they dislike their hand.[1][2]

9. Collect starting resources: Each player takes resources from the token bank equal to their warlord's starting resource value and places them in their resource pool.[1][2]

Game Structure

The game is played over a number of rounds, with each round consisting of four phases in order:[3]

1. Deploy

2. Command

3. Combat

4. Headquarters

Phase 1: Deploy

1. Starting with the player with the initiative, players alternate taking deployment turns.[3]

2. On a deployment turn, a player may deploy one card from their hand by paying its resource cost (transferring tokens from their resource pool to the token bank).[3]

3. Alternatively, a player may use one action ability on a card or pass.[3]

4. When a player passes, they can take no more deployment turns this phase; the opponent continues until they also pass.[3]

5. Deployment rules by card type:

* Army units must be placed on his/her side of the table at one of the faceup planets.[3]

* Attachment cards must be attached to another card, game element, or game area as specified.[3]

* Support cards must be placed in the headquarters area.[3]

* Event cards are not deployed; they are played by paying their cost, resolving their ability, and then placing them in the discard pile.[3]

Phase 3: Combat

1. Battles are fought at the first planet, and at any subsequent planet where at least one warlord is present.[4]

2. Battles proceed in order down the line of planets, starting with the first planet.[4]

3. In a battle, players use units at a planet to attack the opponent's units at that same planet.[4]

4. The goal of a battle is to be the only player with units remaining at that planet.[4]

5. Winning a battle:

* At the first planet: The winner may choose to resolve the planet's Battle ability; the winner also wins the planet and places it in their victory display; surviving units move to the HQ; the first planet token is placed in the area just vacated.[5]

* If a battle at the first planet ends with no units from either player, neither player wins the planet and it is removed from the game.[5]

* At any other planet: The winner's warlord (if committed) returns to the HQ; the planet remains in play, and other surviving units remain at the planet.[5]

Winning the Game

* A player wins the game instantly if they have 3 different planets that share a common type in their victory display.[5]

* A player may also win by confronting and defeating the enemy warlord.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook · p.5

[2] RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook · p.5 · II: Setup

[3] RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook · p.6

[4] RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook · p.9 · Phase 3: Combat

[5] RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook · p.11 · Winning a Battle

Question closed. Friendships intact.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 81 ms · ask 6521 ms · total 6605 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6605 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.048139, "snippet": "This Learn to Play book is written as an introduction to Warhammer 40,000: Conquest for new players. It should be used as a guide while learning and playing the first game. The end of this book also contains the rules for customizing original decks. The complete rules of play can be found in the Rul", "headingPath": "The Living Card Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.045772, "snippet": "When a player wins a battle at a planet, he may first choose to resolve that planet's Battle ability if he desires. When a player wins a battle at the first planet , he also wins that planet, and places it in his victory display. His surviving units at that planet are then placed in his headquarters", "headingPath": "Winning a Battle", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045476, "snippet": "5 ii: sEtup To setup a game of Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, players resolve the following steps, in order: 1) Select warlords and decks. Each player selects a deck to play. Each player places his warlord on the table in front of him, hale side up, in an area that is called his “headquarters” (HQ). 2)", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.045455, "snippet": "The headquarters phase represents a chance for the warlords to regroup their forces at their respective headquarters, resupply with vital resources, and reassess the state of the conflict. It offers a respite for the weary armies before the next stage of the campaign. During the headquarters phase, ", "headingPath": "Phase 4: Headquarters · What's Next?", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.044237, "snippet": "To setup a game of Warhammer 40,000: Conquest , players resolve the following steps, in order: Select warlords and decks. Each player selects a deck to play. Each player places his warlord on the table in front of him, hale side up, in an area that is called his 'headquarters' (HQ). Shuffle decks. E", "headingPath": "II: Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "During a battle, a player has the initiative if his warlord is present at the planet at the beginning of the battle. If both warlords are present at the beginning of the battle, or if no warlords are present at the beginning of the battle, the player with the initiative token has the initiative duri", "headingPath": "Fighting a Battle", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The combat phase represents the direct clash of armies on the field of battle. It is the most tactical aspect of the game, and the phase in which the players may directly engage one another's forces and vie for supremacy. During the combat phase, a battle is fought: E E at the first planet, and E E ", "headingPath": "Phase 3: Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "During this step, the players resolve a command struggle at each faceup planet. A command struggle represents a strategic battle for resources and influence at each of these planets. Starting with the first planet and proceeding in order down the line of faceup planets, resolve each planet's command", "headingPath": "Step 2: Command Struggles", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "II: Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Phase 3: Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Winning a Battle", "sharpsignalDocId": 1132}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1132 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1132 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90498 of 2989 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 6, 2026 13:19 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	The Living Card Game	p.2	0.048139 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Winning a Battle	p.11	0.045772 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)		p.5	0.045476 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Phase 4: Headquarters · What's Next?	p.13	0.045455 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	II: Setup	p.5	0.044237 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Fighting a Battle	p.9	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Phase 3: Combat	p.9	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Step 2: Command Struggles	p.7	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 37 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)		p.5	#3	0.045476 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Winning a Battle	p.11	#2	0.045772 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Game Round Example · IV: Deck Customization EVENT 5 · Why Build a Custom Deck? attacked unit.	p.15	#9	0.029274 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)		p.6	#12	0.028986 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)		p.5	#17	0.025712 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Phase 3: Combat	p.9	#7	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	The Living Card Game	p.2	#1	0.048139 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	II: Setup	p.5	#5	0.044237 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)		p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	II: Setup	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Phase 3: Combat	p.9	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Warhammer 40,000: Conquest — Rulebook (corpus doc 1132)	Winning a Battle	p.11	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 81 ms · first delta 2042 ms · total 6605 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 81 ms · ask 6521 ms · gateway work 6605 ms · total 6605 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3870
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 897
tok/sec: 201.0 tok/sec — 897 output tokens in 4.462 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 13s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 3s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1062), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.