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Dune Imperium is bloody marvellous. I love the mix of deck building and worker placement. What I really adore though is deciding which battles to get involved in, which factions to side with and trying to eke out as many points as you can. Points are scarce and the tug of war for them, on many fronts, is a puzzle I love to get stuck into. So I was excited to play Dune Imperium Immortality.
Immortality adds new cards, new systems, a new deck and a few other tasty things to boot. Let me tell you how to play. With this being the second expansion for Dune Imperium, I am assuming you know the base game rules enough to be looking to beef it up with an expansion or two.
The Setup
The first job is to shuffle the thirty new Imperium cards into your Imperium deck. After that grab the new Tleilax board and place it alongside the main board, placing two spice on the fourth space of the Tleilaxu track. Each player takes the two new discs of their colour placing one on the Tleilaxu track and one on the start of the research track.
Your next task is to take the new Tleixu deck, give that a shuffle, create a two-card purchase row and separate the ‘Reclaimed Forces’ card next to them, making a row of three. Included in this expansion is a new overly tile that covers one of the min board spaces, place the new tile over the ‘Research Station’ spot on the board. This gives you a new ability that ties into the Tleilax research track.
Give each player a new Familly Atomics token and replace the two ‘Dune, the Desert Planet’ cards in everyone's starting decks with two ‘Experimentation’ cards. Mix in the fifteen new Intrigue cards into the Intrigue deck, add the thirteen new House Hagal cards if you play single-player and you are off to the races, or space, or Arakkis, or somewhere.
The Bene Tleilax Board
The Immortality board tracks your relationship with the mysterious, shadowy Tleilaxu in two ways. The research track and the Tleilaxu track. (I have said Tleilax a lot in this article and it's not an easy word to type, haha)
The research track is a simple one, whenever you trigger the research icon, from either a card or board effect you move your disc one space forward. Normally you have two choices and whichever space you move into, you gain the effect in that space. There are also two highlighted columns on the research track that if you reach them earn you one and then two Genetic Markers, these give you bigger bonuses and even power up some card effects.
The Tleilaxu track works in a similar vein, every time you activate the Tleilaxu icon, which looks like a golden beetle you can move your disc one space forward. Then yes you guessed it, you take the reward on the space you moved into. This track has a victory point on it though and we all know how hard they are to come by in this game.
The Tleilaxu Deck
The unique creations of the Bene Tleilax are shown within the new cards you can acquire in the new separate deck we set up earlier. These cards are very similar to the Imperium cards but they are purchased with a new currency, Specimens. Each time you activate the Specimen icon, which looks like a bright green cube, you can add one of your soldiers to the Axolotl tanks and when you take your reveal turn you can use them to buy one of the three revealed Tleilaxu cards, one of which stays there forever to just be used over and over.
These cards provide wild effects, combo with your other cards and affect both the new tracks. They also, most of the time have a purchase effect, giving you an instant bonus for nabbing one. At any time, if you please you are able to move soldiers from these tanks back to your board if you need to draft them into a quick battle. Good times!
Grafting & Family Atomics
Some of the new cards in this expansion have a new banner just above the Agent box, it states the word ‘Graft’ and it can cause some unique effects. When you play one of these cards you must play it, in a pair with another card. This pair of cards can be used to send your agent to any space requiring a symbol on either card and both agent boxes on the cards are activated. There are also a few unique effects that really maximize this new system creating some sweet combos in the process.
The new Family Atomics token, which every player got in the setup, allows, once per game, each player to completely refresh the Imperium row. With such a large deck now this allows people to freshen things up and perhaps draw into a card they require. It's a nice addition that will get you out of a pinch when required.
Main Changes To The Base Game
Along with all these new bells and whistles Immortality makes a few basic changes to take all the new features into account. If you play with both this expansion, the Rise of Ix expansion and want to play the Epic Game Mode, they recommend the following change. Instead of replacing one of your starting deck cards with the ‘Control the Spice’ card you have it in your discard pile instead.
Also, with Immortality adding a few new systems, the developers recommend going to eleven points. Or for a four-player game, start at zero and play to 10. This gives you longer to try out new combos, watch each other experiment and build Tleilaxu-fueled creations.
On the solo side of things there are new House Hagal cards that allow AI players to use the new features and even refresh the new Tleilaxu row of cards. I played Dune Imperium with both expansions against two AI players today using the app and it was a very smooth experience indeed.
Go And Have A Play!
I hope this quick guide has given you a bit of insight into how to play the new expansion and what features it offers. I certainly enjoyed it, it adds enough stuff to make the game fresh without too much extra rules overhead. Right, I am off to gather some Spice, later space traders!
That concludes our guide on how to play Dune: Imperium Immortality. Did this help you? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames.