Aliens: Bug Hunt Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Setup
  • Pre-Mission Checklist
• Begin the Game
• Player Turn Sequence
  • Movement
  • Actions
• Shooting
  • Ready and Depleted
  • Finishing the Player Turn
• The Xenomorph Phase
  • 1. The Xenomorphs Attack
  • 2. The Xenomorphs Move
  • 3. The Xenomorphs Spawn
• How to Place Wounds
• Complex Overrun
• Missions and Objectives
• Winning the Game
• Losing the Game
• Adjusting Game Difficulty
• Duty Roster

Game Setup

Here's how to set up the game. Take a look at the components, and then follow the Pre-Mission checklist below.

Pre-Mission Checklist

1. Distribute the Character Cards. Each player will have 2 Grunts and one random Named Character Card (each Named Character will have a special ability). Return the rest of the Character Cards to the box.

2. Each player will have a Player Board. Players will place their Character cards onto the three slots on their Player Board in the Ready position (Ready is showing). The rightmost slot is the Point Man (Beware the Point Man will generally take Wounds first!).

3. Place the large APC tile with the Sector Row numbers pointing towards the middle of the playing area.

4. Each player's Squad miniature begins on the APC tile on the Sector 3 entrance. Each miniature should have a colored base ring that corresponds with their Player Board.

5. Take 3 random Mission Cards to be used in the game. Place them face up near the play area. These cards will give the platoon special abilities once you begin placing Objective Tokens on them. Put any unused Mission Cards back in the box

6. Take the Phase Cards and build the Phase Deck.

   Here's how.

   • Find each player's 3 Phase Cards, corresponding to the color of that player's Player Board.
   • Add the single Lt. Command Card.
   • Take the number of Xenomorph Phase Cards equal to the number of players in the game and shuffle them in with the Player Phase and Lt. Command Cards. The Phase Deck is now ready. Keep the remaining Xenomorph Phase Cards handy, you will need them during the game.

7. Mix up the Location Tiles face down and place them in a single stack near the playing area.

8. Mix up the Wound Tokens and place them face up (as shown), and near the playing area.

9. Put the Breach Tokens in a pile near the playing area.

10. Shuffle the Tracking Cards to form the Tracking Deck and place it face-down near the playing area.

11. Place the Xenomorph Dice in a pile next to the playing area. You'll be placing them on the board during the game as instructed.

12. Place the Hive Counter on the first space of the Hive Track on the APC tile.

    Note: This space has a Xenomorph Phase icon. So during setup, resolve Xenomorph Phase (see The Xenomorph Phase on page 8). Since there are no Xenomorphs on the board at this time, you can skip both the Xenomorphs Attack (step 1) and the Xenomorphs Move (step 2) and go straight to Xenomorphs Spawn (step 3).

    Your Set up is complete. You're ready for duty!

Begin the Game

Turns in Aliens: Bug Hunt are governed by the Phase Deck.

The game begins once the top card of the Phase Deck is played. There are 3 different types of cards that will prompt the players on what to do.

1. If the card played is a Player Phase Card that player takes a turn. Proceed to Player Turn Sequence.

2. If the card played is the Lt. Command Phase Card, the players decide which player will take that turn. Proceed to Player Turn Sequence.

3. If the card played is a Xenomorph Phase Card advance the Hive Counter 1 space along the Hive Track. This may interrupt the turn if the Hive Counter lands on a space with a special icon (see below). If the Hive Counter leaves the last space of the track, the Hive Track resets back to the first space. (Don't forget the first space also has a Xenomorph icon!)

   • Xenomorph icon: Proceed to the Xenomorph Phase.
   • "GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!" icon: Add another Xenomorph Phase Card to the Phase Deck discard pile.

Note: Once a card from the Phase Deck is played, the current player's turn ends no matter what. When there are no more cards in the Phase Deck, just take the cards in the Phase Deck discard pile, shuffle them together, and continue.

Trust your fellow Marines and your USCM training. Now get moving Marines, play that first Phase Card!

Player Turn Sequence

During their turn each player will do these two simple steps.

1. Movement - The player may spend up to 3 Movement Points each turn to move their Squad.

2. Action – The player may perform one of the following actions:

   • Shoot
   • Capture an Objective
   • Breach a Barrier
   • Reload

The Player Turn Sequence and Player Actions are printed on each of the Player Boards for easy reference.

Movement

A Squad can spend up to 3 Movement Points (MP's). It costs 1 MP to exit a Location Tile, or 2 MPs if the squad is exiting through a barrier (this does not breach the barrier).

If a Squad is moving into an empty complex space that has no Location Tile, that Squad draws a new tile, places it there, and their movement ends.

Each tile has only one entrance, marked by a bright light. When a new tile is placed, the entrance is always placed next to the exit of the last tile the Squad was in. If there were Xenomorphs in the empty complex space, they are placed on the new tile.

• A Location Tile may contain Hive and/or Objective icons.
• If a Squad enters a new Location Tile and it has an Objective icon, place an Objective Token there.
• If a Squad enters a new Location Tile and it has a Hive icon, place the proper number of Xenomorph Dice there indicated by the number on the Hive icon.

Normally, a Squad cannot exit a tile that contains Xenomorphs. The exceptions to this rule are:

• If their tile contains another Squad.
• If the Squad moves to a tile containing another Squad, through a passage that doesn't have a barrier.

Finally, Squads may move to or from the APC tile, but only through Sector 3.

The Complex grid is 5 tiles wide and 6 tiles long. Players cannot exit the Complex grid.

Actions

Once the Squad has moved (or not moved), it may take one of the following actions:

• Shoot: See below for the procedure for fighting the Xenomorphs.
• Capture an Objective: If your tile has an Objective Token on it, remove it and place it on any Mission Card.
• Breach a Barrier: Choose a barrier in your tile and place a Breach Token over it. It no longer counts as a barrier. If a tile is later placed on the other side of that breach, it remains breached even if the new tile indicates a barrier on that side.
• Reload: Ready all of your depleted Characters.

Shooting

Whenever a player takes the Shoot Action follow the steps below.

1. To shoot the player may deplete any number of their ready Characters in their squad and add up their total Firepower. This is the total number of Xenomorphs that may be targeted with the attack.

   a. Players must target (roll) Xenomorphs in their tile first.

   b. Any remaining Firepower may also be used to target Xenomorphs in adjacent tiles, as long as there are no barriers between the Squad and those tiles. Xenomorphs in an adjacent empty complex space (not on a Location tile) cannot be targeted.

   c. Players may only target an individual Xenomorph Die once, so any extra Firepower is wasted.

2. Roll the Xenomorph Dice in the Squad's tile first. Each Xenomorph that rolls a blank face is killed! Return them to the Xenomorph Dice pool. Xenomorphs that rolled a xenomorph-head face or claw-marks face survive.

Furthermore, the Squad takes 1 Wound (face up) for each xenomorph-head face you rolled. One of the Characters that fired must take the Wound. Repeat this until all the Wounds have been distributed.

3. Now roll any Xenomorphs that are being targeted in adjacent tiles. As before, Xenomorphs that rolled a blank face are killed and returned to the Xenomorph pool.

Xenomorphs that rolled a xenomorph-head face or claw-marks face survive and move into the firing Squad's tile. The Squad takes no Wounds for rolling a xenomorph-head face.

Note: Squads can shoot from the APC tile, but only to the first tile of Sector 3. This is resolved just like any other attack, but any surviving Xenomorphs escape instead of moving to the APC tile.

Ready and Depleted

When a Character shoots, or becomes depleted for some other reason, move it down on its Player Board so it covers the "READY" text and reveals the "DEPLETED" text. Depleted Characters cannot do anything that requires depleting them until the player has done the "reload" action. When this happens, each depleted Character in that Squad is moved up to cover the "DEPLETED" text, so the word "READY" is clearly visible.

Finishing the Player Turn

Once a player has moved and resolved their Squad's action, their turn ends. Play the next card in the Phase Deck.

The Xenomorph Phase

Whenever a Xenomorph Phase occurs, you must resolve each of the following 3 steps in order.

1. The Xenomorphs Attack

• When the Xenomorphs attack each Squad's Point Man takes 1 Wound for each Xenomorph in their tile. See the How to Place Wounds section. If there is more than one Squad in a tile, those players decide how to distribute the Wounds.

2. The Xenomorphs Move

• Each Xenomorph that isn't in a Location Tile containing a Squad moves to another tile/space. (Xenomorphs can move freely though barriers.)
• If they are adjacent to a Squad, they move into that tile. If they are adjacent to two or more Squads, the players decide which of those tiles they move into. (The players can choose to move some into both).
• If they are not adjacent to any tiles containing Squads, they move one tile/space closer to the APC tile.
• If they move onto the APC tile, they escape and are removed from the game and returned to the box. Unlike Squads, the Xenomorphs can exit through any sector row. If any Xenomorphs escape, move the Hive Counter 1 space along the Hive Track. It doesn't matter how many escape, you just move the counter 1 space for each escape.

3. The Xenomorphs Spawn

• Play the top card of the Tracking Deck. Each Tracking Card has 5 Sectors corresponding to the 5 Sectors on the APC tile. Each "Blip" represents a Xenomorph Die that must be deployed in that Sector.

• To deploy the Xenomorphs to a Sector, start with the Location Tile closest to the APC tile that has a Hive Icon in that sector. Place the number of Xenomorphs into that tile equal to the Hive number, then repeat this process with all the Hives in that Sector.

• If you still have any Xenomorphs left after filling up the Hives, place them in the closest empty space to the APC tile in that Sector that doesn't contain a Location Tile. If the Sector row is filled, place the Xenomorphs in the last tile in that sector.

• Repeat this process for each Sector that has "Blips" in it on the Tracking Card (see example below).

• Some Tracking Cards have card text. After all the Xenomorphs have been deployed simply follow the instructions on the card.

How to Place Wounds

When a Character takes a Wound, put a Wound token on its card face up (as shown) without looking at the other side.

• The maximum number of Wounds a Character can have is equal to the Character's Armor number on the Character Card.
• Once a Character has that many Wounds, whenever it takes another Wound, flip one of its Wound Tokens over.
  • If you reveal a blank circle, the Character lives.
  • If a KIA is revealed, the Character is killed and removed from the game. Shift the remaining Characters on the Player Board to the right. Each Squad must always have a Point Man.
• If a Character has its maximum number of Wound Counters, and they are all flipped but none show a KIA, the Character is killed the next time it takes a Wound.

Complex Overrun

If you must place Xenomorphs and cannot because they have all escaped or have been placed in the complex, the complex has been overrun by the Xenomorph horde and you must abort the mission. The game ends. You've lost!

Once the Xenomorph Phase effects are resolved, play the next Phase Card.

Missions and Objectives

Each game, you will have 3 different Mission Cards to complete. To complete a Mission, there must be 3 Objective Tokens placed on it. You cannot put more than 3 Tokens on a Mission Card.

Whenever a player discovers a Location Tile with an Objective, place an Objective Token on it. Whenever a player takes the "Capture an Objective" action, the players decide which Mission Card to place it on.

Objective Tokens have two sides. When the token is placed on the Mission Card, make sure it's face up.

Each Mission has an ability. To activate that ability, you must flip one of its Objective Tokens face down. If the Mission has no tokens showing face up, then it cannot be used. Mission abilities always tell you when they can be activated, so keep them in mind!

Winning the Game

Once each Mission has 3 Objective Tokens on it, each Squad must exit the complex from Sector 3. Once each Squad is on the APC tile, the game ends and the players win!

Losing the Game

The game ends immediately in a loss if any of the following events occur:

• Additional Xenomorph Dice must be placed but cannot.
• Any Squad has lost all three of its Characters
• The Tracking Deck runs out of cards.
• An additional Xenomorph Phasing Card has to be added to the Phase Deck but cannot.

Adjusting Game Difficulty

Afraid of bugs? Try these to make the game a little easier:

• Replace a Grunt with a Named Character card.
• Skip the Xenomorph Spawn Step during game set up.

Think you're a bad-ass? Try these for a greater challenge:

• Add one or more Xenomorph Phase cards in the Phase Deck to begin the game.
• Play an additional Xenomorph Spawn Step during game set up.

Duty Roster

Game Design: Ryan Miller Brand Manager: Travis Rhea Associate Brand Manager: Corrine Deng Director of Game Development: Bubby Johanson Associate Product Manager: Rob Ford Graphic Design: Krista Timberlake Copy Editor/Writer: Anders Mattson Art Direction: Samantha Padilla Box Art: Vinz el Tabanas Game Art: Caio Cacau, Daniel Reneau, Vinz el Tabanas Miniatures: Jacob Anderson, Julio Elizondo Project Managers: Louise Bateman, Tonya Lashley Director of Creative Services: Mike Eggleston VP of Production and Logistics: Suzanne Lombardi President, Upper Deck Company: Jason Masherah Playtesters: Zachary Apps, Eden Avery, Ryan Carroll, Corrine Deng, Julio Elizondo, Rob Ford, Michelle Fricke, Roland Garcia, Ryan Garcia, Cassie Hailey, Christina Hamill, Cori Herrera, Vanessa Jasso, Kevin Jimenez, Bubby Johanson, Bree Klusmeyer, Taylor Litonjua, Anders Mattson, Tyler Mayes, Morten Mikkelstuen, Robert Miller, Shirley Miller, Darren Nielsen, Samantha Padilla, Jackie Palmer, Paula Perkins, Susan Quigley, Randy Reyes, Travis Rhea, Matt Rogers, Nicolas Rogers, Teresa Rowlee, Nicole Ruman, Mark Shaunessy, Katie Thompson, Krista Timberlake, Ted Tronson, Steve Warner, Amanda Wolf, Jennifer Wu