Dune: War for Arrakis Setup Guide

Setup Steps

1. Board setup: Assemble the two game board sections and place the Spice Must Flow board nearby.
2. Place Sietches: Place the 8 Sietch Settlement tokens face down on their designated board positions. Only the Atreides player may inspect their hidden side at any time.
3. Place stations: Place the 6 Ecological Testing Stations face down on their designated board positions. Their hidden side is secret to all players and is only revealed if an Atreides legion enters the area.
4. Supremacy marker: Place the Supremacy marker on the 0 space of the Supremacy Track.
5. Prescience markers: Place the 3 Prescience markers on the 0 space of the Prescience Track: Kwisatz Haderach (green), Sand Dwellers (yellow), and Jihad (red).
6. Imperium markers: The Harkonnen player places the Spice Must Flow board next to the Giedi Prime dashboard, lining up the 3 Imperium markers to the highest step.
7. Player dashboards: Each player takes their Player Dashboard and places all named leader cards (marked as in play at the start) on the action boxes matching their action symbols. Set aside named leaders not starting in play. Place generic leader cards and figures (Naib and Bashar) nearby, keeping named leader figures and cards face down.
8. Shuffle planning decks: Each player shuffles their two Planning card decks (House deck and Ally deck) separately and places them face down. Each player then draws 2 Planning cards (1 from each deck) into their hand. Planning cards in hand are kept hidden from opponents unless a card or rule effect states otherwise.
9. Prescience deck: Shuffle all 16 prescience cards into a face-down deck. Draw 3 prescience cards and place them face up next to the deck.
10. Draw objective: The Atreides player shuffles the 6 Secret Objective cards, draws 1 (setting aside the remaining 5 unseen), and keeps it hidden from the Harkonnen player for the entire game.
11. Place Harkonnen settlements: Place the 6 Harkonnen settlement tokens (Arrakeen, Carthag, and 4 Pyon Villages) on the indicated areas. Their rank can be inspected at any time by all players.
12. Deploy Harkonnen forces: Place 2 sets of Harkonnen starting deployment tokens and randomly place 1 token of each type face-down in each area containing a Harkonnen settlement. Flip them face-up and replace with the corresponding Harkonnen figures.

Player-count adjustments and additional steps available in the interactive app.