Dune: War for Arrakis Gameplay Overview

Actions

• Start of the Round — Prepare for the new round by drawing cards and revealing prescience cards.
• Step 1: Vehicle Placement — The Harkonnen player places vehicles (Ornithopters, Harvesters, Carryalls) based on the position of the lowest Imperium marker on the Spice Must Flow board.
• Step 2: Action Resolution — The main phase of the game. Players roll action dice, allocate them on their dashboards, then alternate taking actions. Atreides goes first. The phase ends when the Harkonnen player has used all their available actions -- the Atreides player loses any remaining actions.
• Step 3: Desert Hazards — Wormsign tokens are placed and resolved, then Coriolis Storms sweep the board. The desert strikes back.
• Step 4: Spice Harvesting — Harvesters collect spice, which determines Imperium relations. The Harkonnen player spends spice points to maintain or raise Imperium marker positions.
• End of the Round — After Spice Harvesting, perform cleanup before starting the next round.
• Action Dice: Strategy — Move 2 different legions OR attack with 1 legion. Available to both factions.
• Action Dice: Leadership — Can only be used if the affected legions contain at least 1 leader (generic or named). Move 2 different legions with a leader OR make a surprise attack with a legion with a leader.
• Action Dice: Deployment (Atreides Only) — Draw a random deployment token, look at it, and place it face-down with 1 leader (Naib or named) in an area containing a sietch token.
• Action Dice: Mentat — Draw 2 planning cards from your decks into your hand.
• Action Dice: House (Atreides) — Use this as any action die result of your choice. This is the Atreides-specific House action.
• Action Dice: House (Harkonnen) — Replace 2 regular units with 2 elite units OR place 2 vehicles of your choice on the board.
• Movement — Moving Legions (groups of units and leaders) across the board.
• Combat — Battles occur when a Legion moves into an area containing enemy units. The battle is fought in a series of combat rounds.
• Deployment Tokens — Atreides deployment tokens represent hidden units. They are a key part of the Atreides guerrilla warfare strategy.
• Scouting (Harkonnen) — The Harkonnen player can use Ornithopters to scout areas, revealing hidden Atreides deployments and sietches.
• Prescience — The Atreides player's prescience score is tracked using 3 markers: Kwisatz Haderach (green), Sand Dwellers (yellow), and Jihad (red). The prescience markers advance on the track whenever certain conditions are met.
• Named Leader Special Actions — Each named leader card is associated with a special action die result. Place a named leader card that enters play face-up on your dashboard, on the action box with the corresponding action symbol.