Planning a Dune: Imperium Hand: Agents or Reveal?

Every round you draw five cards, and every card does one of two jobs. Play it on an Agent turn and you get its Agent box, a board space, and one of your Agents is used up. Keep it and reveal it at the end, and you get its Reveal box: Persuasion to buy cards, swords to fight, and sometimes resources. The rulebook is clear that a card gives you one box or the other, never both.

New players decide one card at a time. Stronger players decide the whole hand at the start of the round. This lesson is how.

Step 1: count your Agents

You have two Agents, or three once you buy the Swordmaster, so two or three cards will go out as Agents. The rest, usually two or three, will be revealed. If you borrow the Mentat in the original game, you get one more Agent turn that round, and one fewer card to reveal.

That arithmetic is the frame for every hand. With two Agents, three cards stay for your Reveal. With three Agents, only two do.

Step 2: split the hand

Look at each card and ask which half is worth more this round.

• Strong Reveal boxes stay home. A card with big Persuasion or several swords usually earns more on your Reveal turn than on an Agent turn.
• Weak Reveal boxes go out. A card whose Reveal box is small but whose icons reach a space you need is a natural Agent.
• Cards with no Agent icons can only be revealed. They decide part of the split for you.
• Your Signet Ring goes out on an Agent turn when your Leader’s Signet ability helps this round. That is what the card is for.

Some hands are easy. Others have four cards that all want to go out. Then pick the two or three most important spaces, and let the leftover card ride to your Reveal.

Step 3: check the spaces

A planned Agent turn is only a plan if the space will still be open, and you can still pay for it.

• Costs. Can you pay now, or does another Agent turn have to come first? A visit to Secure Contract for 3 Solari, with 1 already in hand, can set up Rally Troops for 4 on your next turn.
• Blocks. Which spaces will opponents want? If two players can reach the big pile of bonus spice, the first to go there takes it.
• Order. Take the contested space first and the safe space last.

Step 4: decide how much to fight

Your Reveal pile tells you your swords. Your Agent pile tells you whether you will reach a Combat space, and how many troops you can bring. Count both before deploying a single troop. If your Reveal pile has three swords and you can deploy three troops, you are looking at 9 strength before Intrigue cards.

The midgame lesson goes deeper into reading other players’ strength. For now, know your own number at the start of the round.

When to reveal early

Agent turns are optional. The rulebook lets you take your Reveal turn while you still have Agents. That is rarely right, but it happens:

• Your remaining card is better revealed and no open space is worth it.
• You want to buy a card now, before someone else takes it from the Imperium Row. Players reveal at different times, so the Row changes during the round.

The cost is information. Once you reveal, your strength is on the Combat track for everyone to answer, and your turns are skipped for the rest of the phase.

When to hold back

The opposite is more common. Going last means you see everyone else’s strength and the board before you commit. An extra Agent turn, even a small one, keeps you in the round longer. That is one reason the third Agent from the openings lesson is worth so much.

A worked example

You hold two Agents and five cards: a card with 3 Persuasion and no icons, a card with 2 swords and a Fremen icon, your Signet Ring, a card with a Landsraad and City icon and a small Reveal box, and Dune, the Desert Planet.

• The no-icon card stays home. That is fixed.
• The two-sword card is your only path to the Fremen spaces. If you need water, it goes out. If you plan to fight, it stays.
• The Landsraad and City card is flexible and has a weak Reveal box: a strong Agent.
• Dune, the Desert Planet reaches the desert for spice.

One clean plan: the Landsraad card to the space you most need, the desert card second, and reveal the rest. Another: if the Conflict is worth fighting, send the desert card to Hagga Basin with troops, and keep the swords home.

Both are fine. Playing without a plan is the mistake.

The habit

Say it in your head at round start: “These go out, these stay.” Our piece on deck-building games explains why the best decks are built with this split in mind, and the beginner mistakes lesson has the rules slips to watch for while you practice.