Discard 1, draw 1

Before placing, you may discard one Haniwa from your hand face down and draw a new one from either pile. You can do this once on a turn and no more than twice in the whole game.

Placing a Haniwa

Pick a Haniwa from your hand and put it in any empty cell of your own area. Nothing restricts where a colour can go. The cell you choose decides which Gozoku benefits (the column) and which Dogu is watching (the row).

The hidden tile

Only the first player may place one Haniwa face down, once during the game. It stays hidden until the end of the game, when it is turned face up and its dice and Dogu checks are resolved then.

Happiness dice check

If the Haniwa you placed is the same colour as the Gozoku of that column, you must raise that column's die by the power of the tile. This is not optional — you cannot decline the increase.

Example — you place a red Haniwa of power 2 in the red Gozoku's column: the red die goes up by 2.

Overeating

A die never stops at 6. If the increase would take it past 6, it keeps counting round from 1 — the Gozoku has eaten and drunk too much. A single greedy tile can wipe out a column you had been building all game.

Example — the die shows 5 and you place a power 3 Haniwa of that colour: 6, then 1, then 2. The die ends on 2.

Kofun tiles

Whenever you push a die past 6, take a Kofun tile of your choice from the stock as a reward for looking after that Gozoku. Each Kofun tile is worth 1 victory point at the end of the game, and it also carries a one-shot special effect. If the stock is empty, you take nothing.

Example — the bonus points from a Kofun tile are yours whether or not you ever use its effect.

Playing a Kofun tile

Instead of placing a Haniwa from your hand as usual, you may place a Haniwa from your hand together with a Kofun tile you have not yet used, one on top of the other, Horse side up. The stack counts as a power 2 Haniwa in the colour of the Kofun, and the dice and Dogu checks are resolved as normal. A brown Kofun has no colour and does nothing to the dice.

Do not tell your opponent which Haniwa you buried. The face-down Haniwa under the Kofun tile is not counted when powers are totalled at the end of the game. Each Kofun's special effect is used up once played, and you may enhance a placement this way at most once per turn.

Dogu check

Once the dice are settled, look at the row you played into. If it now holds four Haniwa tiles and their powers total exactly 8, the Dogu of that row wakes up: turn it face up. Activated Dogu are worth 2 points for one, 4 points for two and 8 points for all three.

The curse of the Dogu

If the four Haniwa in the row total more than 8, you are cursed. Take the Dogu of that row without activating it. At the end of the game each cursed Dogu blots out one of the Gozoku you won, cancelling that column's die score. The curse strikes your highest die first — the raw die number, not the total including the Smile bonus.

Comparing the columns

Column by column, the two areas are compared and the winning side takes that column's Happiness die as points. Three criteria are applied in order: first the total power of all Haniwa in the column; if that is tied, the power of the Haniwa matching the Gozoku's colour only; if that is tied too, the number of tiles matching the Gozoku's colour. If everything is still equal, nobody scores that column.

Example — totals of 7 against 5 give the column to the first player. On 7 against 7, only the blue Haniwa are compared in the blue Gozoku's column. If even those are equal, count how many tiles match the Gozoku's colour.

Smile bonus

In a column you have won, if all three of your Haniwa there match the Gozoku's colour, flip that Gozoku tile to its smiling face and score 2 extra points.

Solo setup

Lay the Gozoku out horizontally as usual and line up all 6 Dogu vertically. Build the two Haniwa piles and place the Kofun tiles as in the standard game. Roll all four dice to set the starting numbers, then draw 4 Haniwa.

Solo turn

Unlike the standard game, you must use up all four tiles in your hand during a single turn, resolving the dice check and the Dogu check each time you place one. Tiles must be placed in order from the bottom up. When your hand is empty, draw 4 new Haniwa and start the next turn. Over 24 tiles, your turn comes round six times.

You may use a Kofun tile once per turn. You cannot discard a tile as you would in the standard game.

Solo scoring

Kofun tiles are taken when you push a die past 6 and are worth 1 point each, as usual. Dogu have no curse in solo, and each activated Dogu is worth 2 points. The Smile bonus is worth double the value of that column's die.

In solo, a Smile bonus requires three Haniwa matching the column's colour to be connected — vertically adjacent to one another. Three matching tiles scattered anywhere in the column are not enough.

Solo ranking

60 or more: The Perfect Haniwa Crafter. 50 to 59: Master of Haniwa. 40 to 49: Veteran Haniwa Crafter. 30 to 39: Junior Haniwa Crafter. 0 to 29: Beginner Haniwa Crafter.

Colour first

Nothing changes except the way columns are compared at the end of the game. The order of priority becomes: first how many tiles match the Gozoku's colour, then the power of the tiles matching that colour, and only then the total power of the column regardless of colour. Score the Happiness dice, Dogu, Kofun tiles and Smile bonuses as usual; highest total wins.

4-player rule

The base rules stand, but players split into two teams of two and each player holds 3 tiles instead of 4. Members of both teams take turns placing Haniwa. You may show your hand to your teammate, but you can only place tiles from your own hand — so the harder hand management makes talking to your ally essential.

The "discard 1, draw 1" action is not available in the 4-player rule. As in the two-player game, the first team may play one Haniwa face down once per game. Kofun tiles are shared within a team: either player may use one on their turn, but it is one tile per team, not one per player.

2 games rule

Play two games and add the points together. It works with the standard rules or with the 4-player rule. The first game is played normally; the second one changes.

VIP Gozoku — the Gozoku whose die was highest at the end of the first game becomes a VIP for the second (if several are tied, they all do; mark them with a token or a note). Points won from a VIP are doubled on the roll of the die, while the Smile bonus stays at 2 points. A heavy first-game defeat can still be turned around — but chasing a VIP too hard means ignoring the other three nobles.

Carry over your hand — between the two games, every Haniwa placed in either area and every discarded tile goes back into the deck, and the Dogu and Kofun tiles are reset. The tiles still in your hand, however, carry over to the second game.