Area
Areas are the locations that characters, installations and tools exist in and move through. In addition, they usually provide energy or have special abilities. They often have initial energy and restore energy abilities.
Areas are cards. They are not considered permanents and they can never be played during the game and while they have toughness, they cannot be (truly)destroyed, so they can never exist anywhere except in play.
A standard deck has 6 areas. 4 of these can be any area that shares a faction with the decks leader and the other 2 must be Wastelands. The Wasteland is an area that has very limited abilities and is used in the game to provide move space to move without providing a significant amount of extra resources. A deck normally has 2 Wastelands, but using more could make for a longer more spacious game (but that would not be "official").
Playing Areas
At the beginning of the game, the areas for the game are put into play as follows:
- Beginning with the aggressive player and progressing in turn order, each player puts an area into play neighboring another area, if an area is already in play.
- Beginning with the aggressive player and progressing in turn order, each player puts an area into play neighboring an area they control.
- Repeat step 2 until all areas have been played.
Capturing Areas
Areas, much like permanents, have Toughness, and can be damaged. However, when an area would be destroyed, the player whose action just damaged it gains control of it and removes a damage counter from it instead. This occurs even if the area is drained.
