Keltis Card - Rules of the card game
Objective of the game
The aim of the game is to score more points than your opponent by:
- laying series of cards in ascending or descending order
- collecting wishing stones
Points are shown in white on black: -3
Player's turn
Every player starts with 8 cards in hand.
Most player's turn are very simple:
- Play a card
- Draw a card
But players will sometimes play and draw two cards.
How to play a card?
You can play a card in two ways:
- by laying it down on a path. The card will stay there for the rest of the game.
- OR by discarding it on the matching discard pile. The card may be picked later by either player.
How to lay a card?
Laying a card on a path must be done in ascending order or descending order.
Each individual path can go up or go down but this order cannot change during the game.
You are allowed to put several cards of the same value on a path.
So, these two series are valid examples:
- 0-5-5-5-6-7-9-10
- 7-7-4-4-3-1
Discarding a card
If you do not want to lay a card on a path, you can discard one instead.
There is one discard pile per path/color.
Drawing a card
Once you have played a card, you must draw another one:
- from the main deck
- OR from any discard pile
You can not draw a card that you have discarded in the same turn!
Special action: collecting a stone
You can discard two cards to collect a stone. These two cards must have the same value.
There is one stone for each value between 1 and 9. And it can only be collected once.
After collecting, you draw two cards instead of one.
Special cards: point cards
Point cards are grey:
- they can be laid on any color series if their value is the same as the previous card. A grey 6 can be laid on a blue 6.
- OR they can be laid (in any order) on the grey path for one point.
Special cards: end cards
End cards have a symbol on them and no value.
They can be laid on their color path at any time.
The path is then terminated. Only a second end card can be laid on it.
End of the game
The game ends when:
- there are no more cards in the deck
- OR 5 paths (out of 10) are terminated
Each player is then allowed to play two more cards (without drawing any more card). Collecting a wishing stone is not allowed.
The player with most points wins the game. If both players have the same number, it is a draw.
Card distribution
In each color, there are:
- ONE 0,1,2,8,9,10 card
- TWO 3,4,5,6,7 cards
- TWO end cards
There are also 11 point cards (grey from 0 to 10).
That makes a total of 101 cards.
30 cards are randomly removed from the deck before each game.
Scoring
Points are scored in three ways:
- Color paths: the longer, the better
- Wishing stones: the more, the better
- Grey path: 1 point per point card
Click on the icon in the game panel to get more info about the scoring of color paths and wishing stones!
Tips
You do not need to start all 5 paths. A path will cost you points if you do not manage to have at least four cards on it.
Do not forget to collect wishing stones! They are a good source of points.
Credits
We would like to thank Reiner Knizia for giving us the opportunity to offer Keltis Card on Happy Meeple.
