How to play
Learn the climb
Vallelujah is a climbing game of miniature units. Field battalions, capture the fallen, and empty your army before anyone else.
Scroll to walk through the rules — each step awakens as you arrive.
The units
Banners, powers, and your army
There are 54 units: six banners (crimson, azure, forest, gold, slate, coral), each with powers 1 through 9.
At the start of a round you are dealt 9 units — that hand is your army. Units you play leave your army; units you capture come back in.
Six banners · powers 1–9
Battalions
What you can play
Every play must be a valid set: either the same banner (any mix of powers) or the same power (any mix of banners).
A single unit is always legal. A mixed jumble that matches on neither banner nor power is not.
Same banner — legal
Same power across banners also works
Strength
Battalion power is a number, not a sum
Sort each unit's power highest to lowest, then read the digits as one number. Playing a 7 and a 2 makes 72 — not 9.
Higher number wins. So 72 beats 7, and 931 beats 72. Ties do not beat — you need strictly higher power.
Digits high → low, read as one number
Your turn
Lead, beat, or take — never pass
If the arena is empty, you must lead with exactly one unit.
If it is occupied and you have a legal beat, you must play one — sitting out is illegal. If you cannot beat it, you cannot go instead.
Empty arena → lead with 1
You cannot pass
Winning a clash
Beat, then take one from the fallen
To beat, play a valid set with equal count or count + 1 and strictly higher battalion power.
Your battalion becomes active. From the army you just defeated, take exactly one unit into your hand; discard the rest. Then play continues to the next player.
Defeated army — 4 units
When you are stuck
Cannot go clears the arena
Only when the arena is occupied and you have no legal beat do you take one unit from the active battalion into your army. The rest of that battalion is discarded, the arena empties, and your turn ends.
The next player then leads with one unit. An empty arena is never “cannot go” — if it is your turn and the board is clear, you lead.
Cannot beat the 9 — take it
Example
Lead, beat, and climb
Ava leads a gold 4. Ben answers with an azure 7 (equal count, higher power) and takes the 4 into his army.
Cora then plays two forest units — 8 and 2 — for power 82. Count + 1 is allowed after a single, so the climb continues and she captures Ben's 7.
Ava leads gold 4
Example
Cannot go on a nine
Ava leads a crimson 9. Ben has nothing that can beat it — no higher single, no legal two-unit climb — so he cannot go. He takes the 9, the arena clears, and his turn ends.
Ava leads again with one unit. Taking was not a skip; it reset the board so play could continue without a pass.
Ava leads crimson 9
Rounds & match
Empty your army. First to three.
A round ends when someone empties their army. That player scores +1 for the round win; everyone else scores 0.
By default the match is first to 3 round wins (hosts can change the threshold in the lobby). Turns also have a timer — if it expires, the game auto-picks a legal action for you.
Empty your army to claim the round