Cactus Town
Cactus Town Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal of the Game
Cactus Town is a sleepy little town in the Old West, which is about to see a whole lot of action. You take on the role of one of four parties, each having their own objectives and victory conditions. This is what you need to do to come out victorious:
- The sheriff and his deputies' goal is to take the outlaws into custody. They win immediately when 2 outlaws are in jail.
- The outlaws' goal is to plunder their hidden target buildings and escape town. They win immediately if 2 outlaws have escaped to the wilderness with plunder tokens.
- The bounty hunters' goal is to cash in on the bounty, by capturing an outlaw and securing transport means to deliver him to the district's capital. They win immediately if they have captured 1 outlaw and stolen 2 horses, in any order.
- The Can-Can dancer's goal is to get revenge on those who did her wrong. She wins immediately if she has paid off debts in 2 target buildings and won 3 duels, in any order.
Choose Sides
The following party combinations are possible, depending on player count.
With 2 players, choose the sheriff and the outlaws, with 3 players choose any of the combinations shown on setup card A, with 4 players all parties will be present. Be aware that clockwise seating order is important, so either choose parties according to how you are seated, or seat according to how you choose your parties, following the order in the setup chart.
Further 1p, 2p, 3p, 4p and 5p combinations are available through the game's expansions, as shown on setup card B.
Preparing the Game (Basic Mode)
Town Setup
Place the sheriff's office in the center of the play area. Shuffle the basic building cards (blue back) and place them face down around the sheriff's office, forming a 5x5 square. This represents Cactus Town. The outmost buildings of the 5x5 square are considered the town's edges, directly leading to the wilderness beyond. Shuffle the advanced building cards (red back) to form the target building deck.
Place the standees of your party on the starting locations indicated on the back of setup card A.
Note that the map shows a total of 7 parties. It includes the positions of the 3 parties (Dakota & Tashunka, the lone ranger, and the cowboy) of the game's current expansions and the Stampede expansion's train and corral tiles. You can find more information on the expansions using the QR code below the map.
Reveal all starting location buildings. Give the first-player token to the party shown first in your chosen party combination. Take the 4 action cards with your symbol, the die of your color, and your player aid card, and place them in your player area.
Leave the gunslinger screens, the peace pipe, reload, bullet, and trap tokens in the box; they are only used in gunslinger mode.
- Place the jail card in your player area.
- Draw 4 cards face down from the target building deck. The depicted buildings are the outlaws' plunder targets (disregard the iconography or text on the card). Place the plunder tokens in a general reserve next to the target building deck.
- Draw 1 card face down from the target building deck. The depicted building is a target to steal a horse from. Place 2 horse tokens shaded face up in your player area. Place 1 captive token in the general reserve.
- Draw 4 cards face down from the target building deck. The depicted buildings are targets for the Can-Can dancer to pay off debts. Place the 2 pay-off-debts tokens and 3 duel tokens shaded face up in your player area.
Golden Rule #1: Target Draws
When drawing from the target building deck, none of the drawn cards may represent a building your standees are standing on. Discard and redraw until you have fulfilled this condition. Shuffle discarded cards back into the deck after completing the draw.
Keep target building cards secret from your opponents until activating them.
How to Play
The game is played in rounds and stops immediately (even mid-round) when one of the players reaches their goal. Each round is played in two phases:
Planning phase: All players simultaneously choose 3 action cards from their hand and lay them face down in front of them, from left to right. You may check your cards at any time. Lay down the remaining action card in a 90 degree angle to the right of your card sequence, it may be useful later (its potential second shot value).
Action phase: The starting player flips the first action card, resolves an action on the card (if possible) and passes turn to the next player in clockwise order. Repeat passing turns in clockwise order until all players have resolved their 3 actions.
Once all action cards are resolved, the player with the first player token passes it to the next player in clockwise order. You are ready for your next round!
Pioneer's mode! After a first playthrough in the introductory programming mode described above, we recommend you try out the pioneer's mode, a real challenge. In the pioneer's mode, actions are resolved in reverse order, making each turn a real puzzle. See the Pioneer's Mode section below.
Action Cards
Each player has a private hand of 4 action cards, each featuring 1 or various action icons. When a card is revealed in the action phase, the player owning the action card chooses 1 (and only one) of the action icons and resolves it as described below. Actions can be carried out by only 1 standee, unless otherwise specified.
- This action can be carried out by up to 3 standees.
- This action can only be carried out in games with 3 or more players.
Movement Actions
Golden Rule #2: Movement & Deadlock
- Except for the initial setup, there may never be 2 standees of the same color in the same building.
- You must move all your standees from the starting building(s) with your first move action.
- Upright standees of opposing color present in the same building are considered to be in a deadlock. They cannot use the RUN action and can only be separated using the SNEAK action or as a result of a DUEL or UP-CLOSE action.
RUN / RUN ALL
Move 1 / all of your standees up to 1 building space, orthogonally. Reveal the building card you end on, even for standees you decided not to move this turn. If you are prevented from carrying out the RUN action because of deadlock, do NOT reveal the building card.
An outlaw carrying a plunder token can use the RUN action to escape to the wilderness if they are alone in one of the town's edge buildings. Place the outlaw with its plunder token in your player area to indicate the partial completion of your objective. Only 1 outlaw may escape to the wilderness at a time.
SNEAK / SNEAK ALL
Move 1 / all of your standees up to 1 building space, orthogonally. Do NOT reveal the building card you move to. You may SNEAK out of a building, even if another standee is present, thereby overcoming deadlock.
Note: the SNEAK action does NOT enable an outlaw to escape to the wilderness. (There is nothing to hide behind out in the desert!)
DANCE THE CAN-CAN (Can-Can dancer)
Move up to 1 space, diagonally. Reveal the building you end on. You may ignore deadlock with your dance.
Duel Action
DUEL
Choose one building with at least 2 upright standees, including your own. For each upright standee, its owner rolls a die. Players may add the second shot value displayed on their unplayed action card to the die roll. They can improve their duelling odds by setting aside the highest value card in the planning phase.
To use the second shot value, flip the unplayed action card face up; you may only use it once per round. In the gunslinger mode, players may have additional tokens to modify their roll result (see the Gunslinger Mode section). Resolve these tokens before deciding whether to use your second shot.
Players may use their second shot value at any time, including as a reaction to other players having used their respective second shots.
When no more player wants to use their second shot, the highest modified roll result wins. In case of a tie for highest modified result, the player whose card initiated the duel wins. If the owner of the duel card is not among the tied players (this may be the case in multi-player shootouts), the tied players repeat rolling the dice until the tie is broken.
Then apply the duel outcome to the loser(s). There are two possible outcomes, stun and push. Sheriff/deputies, bounty hunters and the Can-Can dancer are always pushed; the outlaws are always stunned.
STUN
A character may be stunned. Represent this by laying the standee on its side. Stunned standees are not dead, but cannot do any action except RECOVER. They cannot take part in a duel, nor are they considered for deadlock.
PUSH
A character may be pushed. The duel winner may move the losing standee up to 3 building spaces. Each move is in an orthogonal direction and consecutive moves do not have to follow a straight line. The pushed standee reveals the building space it ends in. Moving through buildings with other standees is possible in this case, but ending in one with a standee of the same color is not.
Other Duel Implications
A losing bounty hunter releases a captive outlaw if they are carrying one. The released outlaw appears upright in the location of the duel or on an orthogonally adjacent location, chosen by the winner of the duel. Do not reveal that building. Return the captive token to the general reserve.
Each time the Can-Can dancer wins a duel (just taking part is not enough), flip a duel token in her player area to the colored (completed) face.
Special Actions
JAIL AN OUTLAW
If in the same building, one sheriff/deputy may JAIL a stunned outlaw by moving the standee (and plunder token, if any) on the jail card.
PLUNDER
One of the outlaws may PLUNDER when in one of their target buildings, even if an opposing standee is present. Flip the respective target card, show it to the other players, and discard it. Then take a plunder token from the general reserve and place it below the outlaw standee. It will move together with the standee until the end of the game, in stunned or upright state, and even in captivity. Each outlaw may only have 1 plunder token.
RECOVER
Recover 1 stunned outlaw by returning the standee upright.
CAPTURE
If in the same building, one bounty hunter may CAPTURE a stunned outlaw by moving the standee (and plunder token, if any) to their player area. Take the captive token from the general reserve and place it under the bounty hunter standee. The bounty hunters may only have 1 captive outlaw at a time.
RELEASE A PRISONER
A bounty hunter present in the sheriff's office may RELEASE a prisoner from jail. Place the outlaw standee, together with any plunder token it carried, on the sheriff's office, upright.
STEAL A HORSE
One of the bounty hunters may STEAL A HORSE if standing in a target building, even if an opposing standee is present. Flip the respective target card, show it to the other players, and discard it. Flip a horse token in your player area to the colored (completed) face to indicate the partial completion of your objective.
DRAW 1 TARGET BUILDING
Draw 1 card from the target building deck, following Golden Rule #1: Target Draws.
UP-CLOSE
Move an opposing standee from an orthogonally adjacent building to your own. This may overcome deadlock in the other building. Reveal the building you are standing on.
PAY OFF DEBTS
Pay off debts, if present in a target building. Flip the respective target card, show it to the other players, and discard it. Flip a pay-off-debts token in your player area to the colored (completed) face to indicate the partial completion of your objective.
Outlaw Last Resort Action
The following action is only allowed in games with 3+ players including outlaws, sheriff, and bounty hunters. It may be activated only if all outlaw standees are off the map (1 escaped, 1 jailed, and 1 captive).
BREAK FREE
An outlaw character manages to escape from jail or from bounty hunter captivity. Roll your die. On 1-3, choose the outlaw in jail, on 4-6 the outlaw in captivity. Place the character on the sheriff's office or on the location of the bounty hunter carrying the captive bandit token, depending on where they escaped from. If breaking free from a bounty hunter, return the captive bandit token to the reserve.
Pioneer's Mode
Once you have mastered the actions of the various parties, we suggest you spice up the game with an additional challenge and play it like the author does: with reverse programming.
Planning phase (clockwise): The player holding the first player token places one of the action cards from their hand face down on the table. Then the next player places one of their action cards face down on top of the previously laid-down card. Repeat this step until each player has played 3 cards to form the face-down action stack. The unplayed action card remains face down in the player area.
Action phase (counterclockwise): Starting with the card on top of the action stack, the action cards are flipped, one by one, and one of their actions is immediately resolved by the respective player who played the card. If a card's actions are not playable, disregard it and flip the next card.
Beware! The order of actions in the action phase is reverse to the placing order in the planning phase. This also means that the player with the first player token goes last in the action phase. Do you accept the challenge?
Cactus Variant
You can play with the cactus variant to add another layer of fun to the game. You can combine this variant with any mode, other variant, or expansion of the game. It automatically forms part of the gunslinger mode.
Place the cactus standee next to the board at the beginning of the game.
Each time a standee enters a building with the cactus symbol, the player owning the standee moves the cactus from its current position to an unoccupied building space, whether that building is revealed or not.
The cactus is a blocking element: you may neither enter nor pass through a building with the cactus on it, neither voluntarily nor unvoluntarily.
Gunslinger Mode
Game Setup
Use the setup instructions from the basic mode, but use the advanced building cards (red back) for the 5x5 town layout, and the basic building cards (blue back) to form the target building deck. Place the peace pipe, bullet, reload, and trap tokens in the general reserve next to the target building deck. Give a gunslinger screen to each player.
Special Building Effects
In the gunslinger mode, some buildings will have special effects, as described at the bottom of each card. Application of these effects is mandatory. Some of the effects have a condition:
- REVEAL: the player revealing the building applies the effect once.
- ENTER: apply (if possible) the effect each time a standee ends their movement on the building card, including the first time a player reveals it. It does not matter what type of movement is used (RUN, SNEAK, DANCE, push, etc), and a single standee may leave and re-enter a building in a later turn to apply the effect again.
In a duel, or as a result of a building effect, standees may get pushed and reveal/enter new buildings. The pushed standee is considered to be revealing/entering and applies the relevant effect.
Note:
- During game setup some buildings are revealed to place standees in their starting position. The standees may not apply the buildings' effects at this moment; they are not considered "revealing/entering" at game start.
- Disregard the icons next to the buildings' names. They are used in connection with additional buildings from expansions and promotions, including Kickstarter content. Check Second Gate Games' online shop for availability of extra content for the game.
Some buildings provide tokens. Each time a standee ends its movement in a building showing a token, its owner may take the respective token from the reserve (if available) and hide it behind their gunslinger screen. There are only 4 tokens of each kind and they are archived after use, i.e. they do not return to the general reserve.
You may have a maximum of 6 tokens at a time. If you are eligible to take a 7th token on a building, you may archive one of your current tokens to take a new one.
Ace Up Your Sleeve
In a duel, players are allowed to use dueling tokens (peace pipe, bullet, reload) as surprise items. After a duel location is declared, each dueling player secretly selects tokens (maximum 1 of each kind) and hides them in their outstretched fist. All players open their fists simultaneously to reveal the tokens (if any) and apply their effect.
Special Effects (Gunslinger Mode)
- Peace pipe — when used at a duel: the party showing the peace pipe does not take part in the duel. Archive the token. If there is no duel because of this, all revealed dueling tokens are archived anyway.
- Bullet — when used at a duel: +1 to your roll result. Archive the token.
- Reload — when used at a duel: you may re-roll your die once. Archive the token.
- Trap — when used after the movement of an opponent: cancel the movement of a single opponent standee, including involuntary movements (for example a pushed standee). Archive the token.
- Cactus building action — on entering a building showing this effect: move the cactus to a new unoccupied location.
- Run building action — on revealing a building showing this effect: carry out a RUN action with any of your standees.
- Opponent run building action — on revealing a building showing this effect: carry out a RUN action with an opponent's standee.
- Sneak building action — on revealing a building showing this effect: carry out a SNEAK action with any of your standees.