I fogrot to get a pic of the box. So here is a stock cover photo. The box, is a basic ticket to ride like box. And it's easily the biggest knock I have about the components. It's unacceptable to have an empty box with no insert in a game with like 500 cards. It also means it shipped with the cards in wrap, loose in the box. So I'm sure plenty of people will have dinged up cards. Nightfall, thunderstone, legendary, something like their inserts should have been done here. Box isn't tall enough to do the cards sideways with the board. So just terrible.The beautiful board. Looks a little faded near the bottom, but that's just my camera flash. This is a wonderful board with well thought out tracks and iconography. To make playing the game as smooth as possible, without having to consult charts or remembering total strength and things like that. The other side is not pictured, is a 4p map. Which looks very similarly but with just 2 lanes.Tokens that popular the board. The minion markers. Camps tokens, that can be conquered to have mercenaries work for you for a turn. Tokens for some tracks, and finally some tokens that identify the lanes (there is a desert, forest and volcano lane). I'm not sure why these are not just printed on the board. I'm assuming there is card effects that can remove them. As minions do have to stop on them.Solo tokens and tower tokens on the right, money on the left. You will use money to buy items for your hero during the game.Each player gets some stuff. Defense Towers, 2 for each lane (the other players defense towers is a different mold). You get some monster tokens, these are used for bidding to conquer monsters. Some spell tokens, you can pick 2 before the game. They give you powerful one time effects. A threaten token. And 5 tokens to keep track of hero xp.There are 50 heroes in the game!!! There are 5 types (identifiable by color) Fighter, Mage, Marksman, Jungler (think assassin) and Support. Each player's team will be made up of 1 of each type.The heroes are broken down by 2 types, Laner Heroes and Ganker Heroes. Laner Heroes fight in specific lanes . Fighters fight in the desert lane, Mages the Forest lane, and Marksman the Volcano lane. Ganker Heroes, can be used in any lane. But once used in a lane they can't be used in another. There is a way to pull a Laner Hero off a lane and use them as a Ganker for a turn.Each Hero is made up of 5 cards. A normal ability and an ultimate ability. With 5 heroes, that's 25 cards that help make up your deck.A closer look. Top left identifies what the Hero is. Directly below that, is it's Farming ability. There is a phase you can give up cards to get stuff. Either 1 gold or 1 card (pictured) or 2 gold or 2 cards. When you farm with a hero, they also gain an xp. Thematically they are going around fighting opponent's minions on the board. The number in the middle is how much influence they add in a challenge. Remember, the higher side pushes the minion marker towards their opponent. Finally they have an ability on them that can do all sorts of things.Each hero has a token that goes with them. They go on the board to show if they are in the lane, or ganker. Also used to show if they are exhausted or not (you can't hero cards of exhausted heros). This was my idea for sorting them, but I couldn't get it to fit back in the box. I will certainly have to come up with something.With so many heroes, you might be thinking picking the ones you want could take forever. Thankfully, the game has these draft cards (like how deck builders have them). You can either play by letting players draw 2 of each type of hero and pick one, or you can do an open draft. These draft cards are phenomenal. Not only do they help with setup, but they actually tell you what the heroes are good at, while picking. Awesome stuff. At the bottom you see what items these heroes can equip.Each player gets a deck of items. They can buy items for their heroes throughout the game. Each hero can only have 1 item, so you need to make tough decisions.Items can be upgraded. The little black icon, is an ability that goes off the first time that a hero card is resolved in a challenge (of the one using the item of course).There are also action cards and mana cards. You basically pick 15 of these to go with your 25 hero cards, to make up your deck. There is some deckbuilding rules with these. But with 15 action cards, I plan to just include 1 of each while learning the game. It's worth noting the game comes with enough cards for 2 players to have full options with these cards. Which is pretty awesome of them. No FFG nonsense.These are the monster cards. You can acquire them during the game (turns 4 and 7) via bidding. You bid cards. If you win, the monster has a reward and it goes into your hand to be used.For whatever reason (I think they said for variety), they changed the rules for these right before production. I hate the changes. Thankfully, nothing stopping me from playing the original, more thematic way.These are the bosses (and little boards to organize your hero items). The new rules, you either play with the monsters or the bosses. And when you win a boss, you pick which one you want. This is a baffling change. We will be playing the thematic way, a monster on turn 4, a boss on turn 7. The boss will be revealed at the beginning of the game, so players can consider their abilities a head of time. If you've ever played heroes of the storm, it's sort of how the different maps let you know whats going on at the beginning of the game. Anyways, boss boards give you a unique power in each lane for the round.This is the round tracker, game is played over 10 rounds. 4 and 7 is the monster phase. 6 the camps respawn. 8 & 9 super minions come out, which basically means the minions move x2. Round 10 is super duper minions and the minion marker moves x3.Turn flow is pretty easy.Farming PhaseBacking PhaseCombat PhaseFarming and Backing is done in turn order. Combat phase is back and forth.During the Farming phase is when you discard cards for their farming rewards, or for an ability stated on the card. Each hero can only farm once. And they gain an xp when they do. XP is kept on this track. And gives all cards of that hero an influence bonus when level 2 and 3 is reached. Jungler cards can be discarded to loot a mercenary camp. Camps give +1 to both adjacent lanes on all assault cards played during combat. Finally, players can purchase and upgrade items using gold. As much as they want. They can sell unwanted items for 1/2 rounded down.Backing Phase is when you can pull back heroes. Both players always have access to these 2 cards. Roaming allows you to move the laner hero out of the lane and use them and their cards as if they were a ganker hero for the turn. Your opponent gets to move the minion towards your base. No combat takes place. Free Lane is played if you still want a challenge there, but cannot or do not want to play a laner card.Combat Phase is in 2 parts. Deployment is when you will player laner cards face down on the board. Either of that laner hero, or action laner card which basically work as a generic. Then all cards are flipped face up.Challenge Phase, going back and forth you pick a lane to have a challenge. When a challenge is picked, the active cards activate (including that hero's item). Then going back and forth with your opponent, you have 4 available options.- Play a Ganker card of a hero not currently in the challenge and resolve it's effects.- Play the OTHER card of a hero in the challenge. Their item will not go off again. And then you must exhaust that hero.- This action can only be taken once per challenge (total, not per player). You get +1 influence, your opponent gets to draw a card and you become threatened. Threatened makes it more likely for your heroes to die.- Both players must pass consecutively for the challenge to end. When it does, all participating heroes become exhausted.Winner of the challenge is the side with most influence. They move the minion market up. The minion always skips blank spaces, but stops everywhere else. If he is at an opponents tower and moves past it, it destroys the tower. You get 1 gold or 1 card for destroying a tower. And it creates a blank space there. Winning side's participating heroes all gain 1 xp. Finally losing side may have participating heroes die. Each white skull you are at or pass kills an opposing hero (their choice). If they are threatened, you use the red skulls instead. Dead heroes leave play. They come back into play next round exhausted.End of turn, players discard if they are over 5 cards. Then they draw 2.