HellRail: Second Perdition
HellRail: Second Perdition Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 45 Rail Cards
- 10 Circle Cards
- 4 Engine Cards
- 4 Engine Tokens
- 4 Heresy Chips
- 2 Boatman Tickets
- 1 6-sided Die
- 1 Rules Chapbook
Goal
The player who delivers the most souls of the damned to their proper Circles of Hell wins (see END OF THE LINE), and is spared bathing in lakes of fire for one more day.
Play Summary
On each turn, a player uses cards to place rail on the board, pickup passenger cars, setout passenger cars, move his or her train along the rail, and/or draw more cards. When pulling their trains into Circles (stations), players may risk using Circle Effects (diabolical powers that generally cause chaos). Players take turns until any player needs to draw a card and both the Draw Pile and Discard Pile are empty. The player that has collected the most points at the end is the winner.
Setup
- Give one Engine Card and Engine Token of matching color to each player.
- Lay the Circle Cards on the table in the following configuration.
- Place all Engine Tokens on the Gate.
- Shuffle all Rail Cards.
- Deal 3 cards to each player.
- Form Draw Pile with remaining cards.
- Put Chips and Tickets near Draw Pile.
- Roll to see who goes first.
[The booklet shows the Circle Cards laid out in a ring of numbered positions 1 to 9 with the Gate, as a diagram.]
Turn Sequence
- Draw one card from the top of the draw pile and add it to your hand. If there are no cards in the Draw Pile, Hump the Draw Pile (see HUMPING THE DRAW PILE).
- Perform as many card actions as you wish (and have cards for), in any order you wish. If you Fan the Flames, however, it must be the last action of your turn (see CARD ACTIONS - Fan the Flames).
- Pass play to the player on your left.
Card Actions
Lay New Rail - Play a card from your hand into a blank (unused) square of the table. This blank square must be adjacent to another card (Rail or Circle) already on the table. The new Rail Card may be oriented as desired.
Upgrade Rail - Play a card from your hand over top of a non-occupied Rail Card already on the table. The new Rail Card must have at least all of the rail segments of the old Rail Card. The new Rail Card must be oriented such that the all rail segments present on the new Rail Card match the orientation of corresponding rail segments on the old Rail Card.
Pickup a Car - Play a card from your hand onto your train. Your Engine Token must be at the Circle matching the Pickup Circle of the car you wish to pickup. Orient the card diagonally and overlap the last loaded car in your train (if you have no loaded cars, then overlap your Engine Card); the pictures of loaded cars should line up behind the picture of the engine, forming a representation of your train. After a car has been added to your train, it is called a "loaded car".
Setout a Car - Remove a car from (anywhere in) your train and place it face-down under your Engine Card, to be scored at game's end (see END OF THE LINE). Your Engine Token must be at the Circle matching the Setout Circle of the car you wish to setout. After a car has been setout, it is called a "delivered car".
Move - Discard a card from your hand and move your Engine Token up to a number of rail ties equal to the card's Car Value. You must not have more loaded cars than the card's Brimstone Value. You must also adhere to all rules of movement (see MOVEMENT).
Fan the Flames - Discard a card from your hand and draw a number of new cards equal to its Brimstone Value. Your turn immediately ends after drawing the new cards. Although not a required action, Fanning the Flames is the most common way for players to end their turns.
Movement
Stay On Rail Ties - Each point of movement corresponds to one black rail tie. All references to "ties" in these rules and on Circle Cards refers only to black ties; the white bone ties have no significance to the game. Your Engine Token should always be either in a Circle or on a black rail tie.
No Turning Back - When moving your Engine Token, you may follow curves, but may never reverse direction.
Entering a Circle - For the purposes of counting rail ties during movement, a Circle counts as one tie (eg to move from one Circle to an immediately diagonal Circle along a short curved rail segment requires a movement of at least 4). Entering a Circle, however, ends your current Move action no matter how many points of movement you have remaining (although you can still play more cards for movement later in your turn). Any number of Engine Tokens can occupy the same Circle. When you enter the Circle, (before you take any more card actions) you must decide whether or not to use that Circle's Effect. If so, follow the directions for the Circle Effect written on the Circle card.
Exiting a Circle - You may exit a circle in any direction that has rail.
End of Rail - If you move off or are rammed off the end of any rail (into an empty place on the table), you Derail (see DERAILING).
No Passing - An Engine Token may never pass another Engine Token on the rails. If another player's Engine Token is in your path while you are moving, you ram it (see below).
Ramming - If an opponent's Engine Token is in your path of movement, you "ram" it. Ramming an Engine Token pushes it along in front of you (without changing its orientation). Normally, when you end your move, it will be one rail tie in front of your own Engine Token.
When you come to a fork in the rail, however, you may decide to ram the opponent's Engine Token onto the rail segment you are not taking. In this case, the opponent's Engine Token will stop on the first tie of that segment, as it is no longer being rammed. You can ram opponents' Engine Tokens into Circles, but you cannot ram them out of Circles.
Derailing
Derailing occurs whenever your Engine Token moves (or is rammed by another player's Engine Token) off the edge of the game board. Circle Effect also often results in Derailing. If your train Derails, you must do all of the following, in order:
- Discard your entire hand.
- Discard all of your loaded cars (which does not include delivered cars).
- Move your Engine Token to the Gate.
- End your turn (if you derailed during your turn).
Humping the Draw Pile
Whenever any player needs to draw a card from the Draw Pile, and there are no cards left to draw, that player must shuffle the Discard Pile and turn it face down to form the new Draw Pile. It is important that the Draw Pile not be Humped from the Discard Pile until a player needs to draw a card and there are none left, but any player may count the cards in the Draw Pile at any time. If any player needs to draw a card and both the Draw Pile and the Discard Pile are empty, then the game immediately ends.
Heresy Chips
A Heresy Chip can be gained by entering Circle 6. You may only have one Heresy Chip at a time.
After an opponent has declared his or her intention to activate a Circle Effect, you may immediately discard a Heresy Chip to prevent that player from doing so.
Alternatively, if an opponent has declared that he or she will NOT activate a Circle Effect, you may discard a Heresy Chip to force that player to do so. Discarded chips should be placed back near the Draw Pile.
Note that the use of a Heresy Chip or the use of a Boatman Ticket is not part of the actual Circle Effect of Circle 1 or Circle 6. Therefore, you cannot force or prevent the use of an opponent's Heresy Chip or Boatman ticket.
Boatman Tickets
When you visit Circle 1, if you don't already have a ticket, and if one is available, you may take one of the two Boatman Tickets. Boatman Tickets are used to cross over blank spaces between Rail and/or Circle Cards.
To use your ticket:
- Declare where you will attempt to cross; the blank squares you attempt to cross must all be in a straight line.
- Roll the die.
- If the number on the die is greater than the number of spaces, you cross successfully and must stop on the first tie of the opposite card.
- If the number on the die is equal to or less than the number of spaces, you Derail (see DERAILING).
Occupied vs. Empty
A Rail Card is called "occupied" if there are any Engine Tokens on it. Conversely, if there are no Engine Tokens on a Rail Card, it is called "non-occupied". Only Engine Tokens cause a Rail Card to be called "occupied." A Rail Card is called "empty" if there are no tokens, coins or counters of any kind on the card.
Card Anatomy
Rail Cards: each Rail Card shows a Car Value, a Pickup Circle, a Setout Circle, a Brimstone Value, and rail segments. Rail segments are the black rail lines on the card (see the Rail Card diagram).
Circle Cards: each Circle Card shows a Circle Number and a Circle Effect.
Note: the booklet's own Circle Card illustration prints the Circle Effect text at a size too small to transcribe reliably from the scan. The per-circle effect wording (Circles 1 to 9 and G) is therefore not reproduced here; it appears only on the printed Circle Cards. Circle 1 and Circle 6 are referenced in the Boatman Ticket and Heresy Chip rules below.
Alternate Circle Setups
Sacrilege - The booklet shows an alternate arrangement of the Circle Cards (labelled G and 1 to 9) in a diagonal pattern across the table, as a diagram.
Devil's Advocate - Shuffle the Circles and deal them out to all players. Some players may end up with more Circles than other players. Too bad. Take turns placing Circles. When you place a Circle, it must be diagonal to a Circle already on the table.
End of the Line
When any player needs to draw a card for any reason, and both the Draw Pile and Discard Pile are empty, the game ends.
Players total their scores by adding together all of the Car Values on delivered cars, (these are the cards beneath each player's Engine Card). The player with the highest total wins. Ties are broken by totalling the Car Values of loaded cars. Any coins on the table are awarded to the winner.