Solo and Cooperative Play

Whether you're embarking on a solo adventure or teaming up with friends, this section provides the rules and guidelines for playing Heroes of Hex against the game itself.

Solo Play

When playing solo or cooperatively, the core rules are unchanged. Players still alternate Turns, activating one unit at a time, rolling their Fate Roll, spending Action Points, and resolving combat with opposed rolls. The only difference is that one side of the table is the enemy, run by the players using the rules below.

The players usually take the first Turn, except when the scenario states otherwise. From then on, a player Turn and an Enemy Turn alternate, exactly as two opponents would.

Many Scenarios establish specific rules, check the Scenario Rules section of the scenario's description.

Cooperative Play

Scenarios can be played cooperatively. Each player controls one or more heroes from the shared team.

Cooperative play uses the same continuous alternating activation as a normal match: the table simply alternates one Hero activation, then one Enemy Turn, regardless of how many players are at the table.

Hero → Enemy → Hero → Enemy → Hero → Enemy → …

On each Hero turn, the players should decide together which Hero takes the Turn, choosing freely based on their strategy from the pool of not-yet-activated Heroes. There's no impediment to a player taking two or more turns in a row if it's in the best interest of the group.

There are also no limits to the number or distribution of Heroes that each player controls. One can control as many as they want and the group agrees to. The only requirement is that you stick to the Heroes you control throughout the entire game, and that the total number of Heroes matches the scenario description.

Once all the Heroes have taken their Turn, all the Activation markers are removed from the board, just as in the regular match.

Playing as a Dungeon Master

With multiple players, one can take the role of Dungeon Master (DM). The DM narrates the adventure and runs the enemies: rolling the Activation die, moving them, and choosing targets (still following the rules of the keywords). The DM should keep the game fair and enjoyable for everyone.

Enemies

Each enemy uses the same profile as a hero Class: its attack and defense pools, Vitality, and Movement:

Field	Meaning
ATK / SP ATK	Dice rolled when the enemy makes an Attack / Special Attack.
DEF / SP DEF	Dice rolled when the enemy defends against an Attack / Special Attack.
VIT	The enemy's Vitality. It is defeated when its Wounds exceed this value.
Move	How many spaces the enemy can travel when an action tells it to move.

An enemy has no routine of its own: the action it performs is written on the row of the scenario's Activation Table that activated it.

Enemies do not gain or spend HEX and do not use Activation markers: which enemy acts each Turn is decided by the scenario's Activation Table, so the same enemy can be activated on consecutive Turns.

The Enemy Turn

On each Enemy Turn, follow these steps:

1. Roll 1D6 and consult the scenario's Activation Table. The result tells you which enemy or group of enemies activates this Turn.
2. Activate the indicated enemy (or each enemy in the indicated group, one at a time). Each one performs the action described on that Activation Table entry.
3. Mind any Scenario Effects that may have been triggered by the activation.

If the rolled result matches no enemy on the board (for example, all enemies of that type are already defeated), the Enemy Turn is skipped.

Activating an Enemy

The action an enemy performs is defined by the Activation Table entry that activated it — the activation die decides both who acts and what they do. An action is normally a movement toward a target followed by an attack.

Choosing the target. Every action needs a target, and a single rule decides it:

• If the entry defines no target, the enemy targets the nearest hero.
• If the entry uses a movement keyword (below), that keyword defines both the target and how the enemy approaches it.
• If the entry names a specific target (e.g. "the Treasure Keeper"), use that target.

Whenever two or more targets are equally valid, the controlling player chooses — guided by the Dark Rule:

When undefined, the enemy always selects the target that lets it best fulfill its action and cause the most harm to the players.

Keywords:

• Engage X: Move up to X spaces toward the nearest hero by the shortest path, stopping as soon as it reaches melee (an adjacent space).
• Prey X: Move up to X spaces toward the Weakest hero — the hero with the most Wounds (closest to defeat). Break ties by nearest, then by the Dark Rule.
• Distance X (a–b): Move up to X spaces to keep its distance from the nearest hero between a and b spaces: move closer if it is too far, move away if it is too close. Used by ranged enemies to kite.

If an action cannot be carried out (no valid target, blocked path, already in position), perform as much of it as possible and ignore the rest.

Enemy Combat

Combat is resolved with full opposed rolls, identical to a normal fight. An enemy is also defeated when its Wounds exceed its Vitality.