Gorynich Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal of the Game
• Set Up
• Gameplay
• Action Cards
  • Basic Maneuvers
• Example of a Round
• The End of the Game

Components

• 1 central tile with a terem
• 4 double-sided playing boards with paths
• 1 first player token
• 10 knight tokens
• 1 Zmei Gorynich token
• 11 plastic stands for knights and Zmei Gorynich tokens
• 7 sets of action cards with different backs (6 cards in each)
• 12 movement cards (6 knight cards and 6 Zmei Gorynich cards)
• 9 double-sided maneuver tiles (3 tiles with basic maneuvers and 6 tiles with advanced maneuvers)
• 2 special effects tokens
• 4 Speech tokens
• 1 30-second hourglass

Goal of the Game

All together send Gorynich to stop the knights, who are getting closer and closer to the terem. Your aim is to burn all the knights and protect the princess.

Set Up

Before your first game carefully punch out all cardboard elements and insert the knight and Zmei Gorynich tokens into plastic stands.

1. Place the central tile with the terem and the princess in the middle of the table. For your first game take 4 boards, turn them side without rivers and tunnels up and place around the central tile with the terem. You have to make a square playing board. Different positioning of the boards with respect to each other makes your games diverse. Be careful: all the paths that the knights follow must continuously lead to the terem, and the starting points of the knights must be located on the edges of the playing board. (Other sides of the boards are explained in the advanced rules.)

2. Take the Gorynich token and as many knights tokens as indicated in the table:

   • 3 players - 5 knights
   • 4 players - 7 knights
   • 5 players - 9 knights
   • 6 or 7 players - 10 knights

   Place all knight tokens randomly on different starting points along the edges of the playing board. Put the Gorynich token on any of the four squares near the terem on the central tile.

3. Give each player one set of 6 action cards: 4 different "Move" cards with arrows, 1 "Fire" card and 1 "Maneuver" card. Read more about action cards on page 5.

4. Take 3 basic maneuver tiles (with a star in the corner) and place them next to the playing board, sides with the Zmei symbols visible. Read about maneuvers on page 5.

5. Divide the movement cards into two piles (knights cards with silver backs and Zmei Gorynich cards with red ones) and shuffle them separately.

6. Take as many Speech tokens as indicated in the table below:

   • 3 players - 1 token
   • 4 players - 2 tokens
   • 5 or 6 players - 3 tokens
   • 7 players - 4 tokens

Gameplay

You can't discuss your actions during the game! The first player can only point at the knight (or knights) they plan to attack, without saying a word. However, if this is one of your first games or you are playing with children, you can use speech tokens to discuss your actions for the current round. At the beginning of the round the first player can discard one speech token and flip the hourglass - you will have 30 seconds to discuss your actions.

The game consists of rounds, each round the players take turns performing the following actions:

1. The player with the first player's token opens one movement card from each stack: one for the knights and one for Zmei Gorynich.

   • The knight movement card shows how many steps the knights will move along their paths this round. Immediately move each knight token as many squares toward the terem as indicated on the card. Watch out: if a knight reaches the terem, you lose!
   • The Zmei Gorynich movement card shows the maximum possible number of squares Zmei can move each time a player resolves a "Move" card this round. You can move Zmei Gorynich less squares than specified on the card, but Zmei is bound to make at least one step. If the card shows a negative number, then Zmei must fly in the opposite direction (for example, look at the set-up picture: to fly in the direction of the red arrow, play the card with the blue arrow). But be careful, if Zmei moves beyond the edges of the board, the game is over!

2. The first player silently points at one or more knights that he or she proposes to attack or approach in this round.

3. Then all players select one of their action cards and place it face down in front of them. The players will reveal the cards in clockwise order, starting with the first player. The players have three types of actions available at the beginning of the game: Move (4 cards), Fire (1 card), and Maneuver (1 card). For more information about the effects of the cards, see overleaf.

   If a player wants to skip his or her turn this round, he or she tells other players of his or her decision and takes all previously played cards (if any) back into the hand.

4. Starting with the first player, each player in turn flips the selected action card and applies its effect. The played cards remain in a row in front of the player face up. Thus, the number of available actions decreases each turn.

5. When all players have had their turn, pass the first player token to the next player clockwise. If a player has no cards at the end of a round, he or she takes all action cards from the row back into the hand. After that a new round begins. If the movement decks are empty, reshuffle discards to create new decks.

Action Cards

The effect of an action card is applied as soon as the player reveals it.

Move: move Zmei Gorynich in the direction of the selected arrow. Move at least one square and no more squares than indicated on the Zmei's movement card. As Zmei can fly, he ignores bushes and paths and moves along the board regardless of them. If the number on the Zmei movement card is positive, move him in the direction of the colored arrow on the Move card. If the number is negative, move Zmei in the opposite direction. Zmei can stand on the same square with knights.

Fire: burn everything that is on the square where Zmei Gorynich stands. Remove the burnt knights from the board.

Watch out: if you play this card while standing on one of the four squares of the terem, you burn the terem along with the princess and you immediately lose!

Maneuver: select one of three available maneuvers and apply its effect.

Maneuvers are triggered as soon as the player who played the Maneuver card has chosen one of the tiles. All maneuver tiles are double-sided: on one side is a maneuver of Zmei Gorynich, and on the other side - the counter-maneuver of the knights. After applying Zmei Gorynich's maneuver, flip the tile - the knights' counter-maneuver is immediately applied as well. After that, flip the maneuver tile back to the side of Zmei Gorynich so that other players can use it on their turns.

All maneuvers are divided into basic and advanced ones (read about them in the "Advanced game rules"). We recommend using basic maneuvers in the first games.

Basic Maneuvers

Maneuver of Zmei Gorynich	Counter-maneuver of the knights
Fireball: burn everything on a square directly (not diagonally) adjacent to Zmei Gorynich. Be careful not to burn the terem!	March: all knights immediately move forward one square.
Multi-colored arrow: move Zmei Gorynich in any direction, as if you have played any Move action card.	Discard: each player discards a card from their hand (choose a card and place it face up in the row of the played cards). The effect of a discarded card is not applied.
The Princess calls!: Zmei Gorynich immediately returns to any square of the terem.	Protection from fire: the knights are protected from fire until the end of the current round. Flip the card to the Zmei Gorynich's side only at the end of the round.

Example of a Round

Alex, Anna, Paul and Lena play together. Alex, the first player of this round, reveals two movement cards: knights move 2 spaces, Zmei Gorynich moves 3. Players move all knights two squares forward. Alex points at a knight he suggests to attack this round, and all players choose one card each that they want to play on their turn. However, Paul decides to skip his turn in this round and takes all previously played cards. Alex, the first player, reveals his card: the red arrow. He takes Zmei Gorynich's token and moves it two squares to the right - Gorynich is now on the same square as the knight. Anna, the second player, flips her card - "Fire" - Gorynich burns the knight, and his token is removed from the board. Since Paul, the third player, skips his turn, Lena goes next: she chose the yellow arrow and decides to go to the maximum number of squares - three squares up. The round ends, and Alex passes the first player's token to Anna.

The End of the Game

Speedily a tale is spun, with less speed the game is done. Have your efforts paid off?

The game ends in several cases:

You win if:

• Zmei Gorynich burned all of the knights.

And the princess and Zmei Gorynich lived happily ever after... Until more knights came for the riches.

You lose if:

• at least one knight reached the terem,
• Gorynich moves beyond the edges of the board,
• Gorynich burnes the terem along with the princess.

If you have already played many games and feel confident in your skills, you can play without speech tokens, use the advanced sides of the playing board and apply new maneuvers. Are you intrigued? Find out more in the advanced rules!