How to Teach Dune: Imperium

Dune: Imperium has a reputation as a heavy game, and its board does look busy: four Factions, a Landsraad, a city, a desert, and a pile of tokens. Our game weight guide puts it in the medium band, and that is the right frame for a teach. The rules are not long. They are just unfamiliar, because the game mixes a deck builder with worker placement.

The fix is to teach the two kinds of turns with a real card, then start. Here is a script in the order you would say it. Print the Dune: Imperium teach sheet and put it where everyone can read it.

Before anyone sits down

Set up completely, so the teach starts with the game ready. Conflict deck built, Imperium Row dealt, three troops in each garrison, cubes at the bottom of every Influence track.

Hand out Leaders with one icon after their names. The rulebook recommends them for a first game: Paul Atreides, Glossu “The Beast” Rabban, Earl Memnon Thorvald, and Count Ilban Richese. Ask each player to read their own Leader once. Do not explain all four out loud.

Teaching Uprising? Leave the CHOAM contracts in the box for the first game, as the Uprising rulebook and Dire Wolf’s contracts diary both recommend. Without the module, the contract icon simply pays 2 Solari.

Minute 1: the goal

Say: “We are Great Houses fighting for Dune. You score Victory Points by winning Conflicts, gaining Influence with four Factions, and buying a few special cards. When someone reaches 10, the game ends at the end of that round. Most points wins.”

Minutes 2 and 3: one card, two halves

Hold up a card from the Imperium Row and point as you talk.

• “These icons at the top left say where this card can send an Agent.”
• “This top box is what it does when you play it as an Agent.”
• “This bottom box is what it does if you keep it and reveal it at the end of the round.”
• “This number is what it costs to buy.”

Then the line that makes the game click: “Each round you get five cards. Some you play to send Agents. The rest you reveal at the end to buy cards and fight. Every card does one job or the other, never both.”

Minutes 4 and 5: one Agent turn, out loud

Take a real turn. The rulebook’s own example works: play Dune, the Desert Planet to send an Agent to Imperial Basin and take its spice.

1. “I play a card and send an Agent to an empty space with a matching icon.”
2. “I pay the space’s cost, if it has one.”
3. “I get the space’s reward and the card’s Agent box.”
4. “If it is a Faction space, I move up one on that Faction’s track.”

Then name the worker placement rule: “One Agent per space. Once I am here, nobody else can come here this round.”

Minutes 6 and 7: troops and the Conflict

Point at the Conflict card. “Every round there is a fight. These are the prizes: first place, second place.”

• “Troops go to your garrison when you recruit them.”
• “They only go into the fight when you send an Agent to a space with crossed swords. Then you can send in any troops you just recruited, plus up to two from your garrison.”
• “Each troop is 2 strength. Swords on the cards you reveal add 1 each, but only if you have at least one troop in the fight.”

Stop. Ask: “Questions on Agents or troops?”

Minute 8: the Reveal turn

“When your Agents are out, you reveal the rest of your hand. Add up the Persuasion and buy cards. They go to your discard pile and show up later. Add up your swords. Then you are done for the round.”

Minute 9: Influence

Point at the four tracks. “Two steps up a Faction’s track is a Victory Point. The first to four takes that Faction’s Alliance token, worth another point, until someone climbs past them.”

Minute 10: start, and teach the rest live

Say: “First player goes. Everyone gets two Agents. We will learn the rest as it happens.” Then play.

Teach these when they come up:

• Intrigue cards. When someone draws one, explain the three timings: Plot on your turn, Combat in the fight, Endgame at the end.
• Bonus spice. At the first Makers phase, show the spice piling up on empty desert spaces.
• Swordmaster and High Council. When someone has 8 Solari, point at the Swordmaster. At 5, the High Council.
• Ties in combat. The first time it happens: nobody wins, and each tied player takes second.

What to leave out

• Every board space. Players can read them. Point out the Board Space Guide instead.
• Other players’ Leader abilities. Each player knows their own.
• Tiebreakers and Endgame Intrigue. Mention them in the last round.

Teaching Uprising instead

The script works as is. Add two short pieces when they matter:

• Spies, when someone first visits Espionage: “A Spy watches the spaces connected to its post. Later you can bring it home to go where another Agent already is, or to draw a card.”
• Sandworms, when someone first reaches Sietch Tabr with 2 Fremen Influence: “Take Maker Hooks, and from then on you can call worms in the desert instead of taking the base spice. A worm is 3 strength and doubles your rewards, but the Shield Wall keeps them out of fights at Arrakeen, Spice Refinery, and Imperial Basin until someone blows it up.”

Coaching during the first game

Help with the rules, not the choices. “That card can go to any Landsraad space” helps. “You should buy that” plays for them.

The most useful question in round one: “Which cards are you keeping for your Reveal?” It makes new players see both halves of their hand. If turns start to drag, our piece on analysis paralysis has gentle ways to keep a heavy game moving, and our general guide to teaching any board game pairs well with this script.