Rise of Ix and Epic Mode: Dune: Imperium at the WBC

The World Boardgaming Championships plays the original Dune: Imperium with the Rise of Ix expansion, and its Final uses Rise of Ix’s Epic mode. If that is your goal, you need to know Rise of Ix well. Every rule here comes from the Rise of Ix rulebook.

What goes on the table

• A CHOAM board overlay that covers the original Landsraad and CHOAM sections, adding new spaces and a Shipping track.
• The Ix board, with 18 tech tiles in three stacks of six, the top of each face up.
• New cards: 35 Imperium cards, 17 Intrigue cards, 6 Leaders, and 4 Conflict cards.
• For each player: two dreadnoughts and a Freighter.

Tech tiles

Tech tiles are permanent abilities you buy with spice. The only way to get one is the Acquire Tech icon, on a board space, card, or the Shipping track. Choose a face-up tile, pay its spice cost, and it is yours for the game.

Two things lower the price, never below 0:

• Tech discounts printed on some Acquire Tech icons, 1 or 2 spice.
• Negotiators. The Tech Negotiation icon lets you place a troop from your supply on Ix. When you next acquire tech, return any number for 1 spice off each.

Strategy: a tile that pays every round is worth most when bought early, just like the Swordmaster. Negotiators look cheap, but each is a troop you are not fighting with. And tiles are public: when a rival buys one, the next tile in that stack flips, so watch what you are revealing for the player after you.

The Shipping track

Your Freighter climbs the Shipping track one step per Freighter icon. When you choose to recall it to the bottom, you collect the reward for its space and every space below:

1. First space: Dividends, 5 Solari for you and 1 for each opponent, or 2 spice.
2. Second space: recruit two troops and gain one Influence with any Faction.
3. Top space: Acquire Tech with a 2 spice discount.

Interstellar Shipping, which needs 2 Spacing Guild Influence, moves your Freighter twice, so it can climb and cash out in one visit. Smuggling gives 1 Solari and one move.

Strategy: the track rewards patience. A Freighter cashed at the top pays all three rewards at once. But troops recruited from the track can be deployed only if you are on a Combat space that turn, so plan where your Agent goes.

Dreadnoughts

Dreadnoughts are the biggest change to Conflicts.

• Strong: 3 strength each. With a dreadnought in the Conflict you have strength even with no troops, your swords count, and you may play Combat Intrigue.
• Durable: they do not return to your supply after Combat. If you lose, they go back to your garrison.
• Controlling: if you win with a dreadnought in the Conflict, you must place one on Arrakeen, Carthag, or Imperial Basin, covering any Control marker there, until the end of the next Combat phase.

You may have only two. The Dreadnought space costs 3 Solari and lets you commission one, acquire tech, or both.

Strategy: a dreadnought is a troop that keeps coming back. Two dreadnoughts in your garrison are a standing threat of 6 strength on any Combat-space visit. At a four-player table, everyone’s ceiling rises, so count dreadnoughts first when you read a Conflict.

Infiltration and other icons

Some Rise of Ix cards have infiltration Agent icons. They let you send an Agent to a space with that icon even if an enemy Agent is there. That weakens blocking, so a block in Rise of Ix is only safe if nobody holds an infiltrating card for that icon.

Unload Reveal boxes also trigger when the card is discarded or trashed, and the Discard icon is often the cost of an effect.

Epic mode

Epic mode is the WBC Final format. Its setup changes:

• Play to 12 Victory Points, not 10.
• No Conflict I card. Five Conflict II cards sit on five Conflict III cards.
• Starting decks change: each player replaces one Dune, the Desert Planet with Control the Spice.
• Everyone draws an Intrigue card and starts with 5 troops in the garrison, not 3.

So the first round is already a Conflict II fight, every player has troops and a card to use, and there are five big Conflicts at the end instead of four. Opening Conflicts matter more, and saving everything for the end is riskier.

The WBC’s Family Atomics rule

The WBC preview applies a Family Atomics rule to every Heat and round, even when a table plays the base game alone. The Family Atomics token is described in the Immortality rulebook: once per game, on your turn, spend it to clear the whole Imperium Row and deal five new cards.

Strategy: a refresh is best used when the Row is full of cards that help your rivals and nothing that helps you, or late, when you have Persuasion and the Row offers no points.

Practice with exactly this setup. The practice plan in Level 5 builds it into a weekly routine.