Incredible Expeditions: Quest for Atlantis Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Step 1: Set Up the World
• Step 2: Get Ready to Lead the Expedition
• Step 3: Pay to Be the First
• Step 4: Draw a Hand
• Turns
  • Rest Turn
  • Draw Phase
  • Encounter Turn
• Winning
• The Marooned and Lost Rule
• FAQ
• Card Types
  • Expedition Leader
  • Location
  • Crew
  • Resource
  • Encounter

Step 1: Set Up the World

• Hand one of the Starting Resource decks of 15 cards to each player and shuffle them. Each deck should have 10 Marks of Credit, and 1 each of Bribery, Supplies, Strange Tincture, Fame and Notoriety.
• Shuffle the Resource, Crew and Encounter Decks.
• Take the Port City and Drowned City of Atlantis cards out of the Location Deck and put them face up on the table. Shuffle the rest of the Locations and place 4 of them between Port City and the Drowned City of Atlantis.

This is the basic setup for a game for 2-4 players. You can, of course, lay down more Locations or change the arrangement for more challenge and options.

Step 2: Get Ready to Lead the Expedition

• Each player gets a player board to track Temporary Resources and Crew.
• Everyone chooses their character from the 4 Expedition Leaders and puts their ship on Port City.
• Take the number of Heroism tokens (amber marbles) and Skullduggery tokens (blue marbles) listed on the Expedition Leader card.

Step 3: Pay to Be the First

• Each player gets 5 Money tokens (green marbles).
• All players secretly bet any number of Money tokens (even zero) to be the first player. Whoever bets the most gets the first turn. (In the event of a tie, roll off using the dice.)
• Return all the bets back to the pool of Money tokens. Keep what you didn't bet.

Step 4: Draw a Hand

Each player draws a hand of 5 cards (or more, in Prof. Pendergast's case) from their Starting Resource deck.

Turns

There are two different ways to spend your turn. On a Rest Turn you refresh your crew and Acquire additional Crew and Resources. On an Encounter Turn you do exciting adventure stuff. On the first turn you have no Crew and a nearly-empty ship, so take a Rest Turn.

Rest Turn

• First thing to do on a Rest Turn is to Refresh your Exhausted crew by flipping them back over to the Refreshed side. (Obviously, you don't have any Exhausted Crew yet on the first turn, but keep that in mind for the next time you Rest.)
• Next, go to the Market and Acquire what you need.
• Draw up to 6 cards of any combination from the Crew and Resource decks and lay them face up on the table.
• The Resource cards in your hand have values on the upper left for the Temporary Money, Heroism and Skullduggery you get by playing the card. You can, instead, play the card to do the Ability text on the card, but may not use both.
• To Acquire a new Resource or Crew card, play Resource cards and Exhaust (flip over) Crew cards (if you have them) until you have enough Temporary Money, Heroism and Skullduggery to afford the "To Acquire" cost listed at the bottom of the card you want. All costs listed at the bottom of the card must be paid. You can also spend tokens, but it will be hard to get more, so spend them wisely.
• Newly Acquired Resource cards go into the discard pile, while new Crew cards go into the lowest-numbered available Crew Cabin on the player board.

Important Note: Just because they are fresh hires doesn't mean your new Crew gets to laze about while you do all the hard work. Put new Crew to work by Exhausting them to get the Temporary Resources you need to acquire more cards.

Another Important Note: You can Acquire Crew and Resources for other players! While you could do this to be nice, the rules recommend, while they are too busy at Port to do much about it, hiring questionable people (like a Stowaway Kid) onto their ship.

• You may Acquire up to 3 cards on your turn.
• At the end of your turn, all your Temporary Money, Heroism and Skullduggery values return to zero.

Draw Phase

As the very last step of your turn, take a Draw Phase.

• You may Sacrifice (remove from the game) up to one Resource card still in your hand.
• Discard as many cards from your hand as you like.
• Draw new Resource cards until you have a full hand of cards (5 for most players). If your Resource deck runs out, shuffle your discard pile to draw more (except while at Port City).

Go around the table taking Rest Turns until a brave player decides they are prepared to launch their ship toward the dangers ahead. (Having at least 3 Crew is recommended.)

Encounter Turn

On an Encounter Turn, you do these things:

• If you have enough defeated Encounters to meet the total on your current Location card (which, for Port City is 0) you may Venture Forth and go to a new Location closer to Atlantis. If you do not have enough defeated Encounters at your current Location, you may only Venture Forth to an adjacent Location that is no closer to Atlantis.

To Venture Forth:

1. Place all your defeated Encounters into the Encounter discard pile.
2. Move your ship to an adjacent Location.
3. Flip over the Location if it hasn't been discovered yet.
4. Perform any actions described by the text on the Location card.
5. Then Face the first Encounter at the new Location. You must always Face the first Encounter at a Location after Venturing Forth.

To Face an Encounter:

1. Flip over the top card of the Encounter Deck.
2. Read the text on the card and follow any instructions which start with "Upon Facing...".
3. Each Encounter will have up to three values listed in the center of the card. This is the difficulty of the Encounter. You must raise enough Heroism (temporary or tokens) to meet any Heroism difficulty listed and raise enough Skullduggery to meet any Skullduggery difficulty listed. Any difficulty listed on a Half-Heroism/Half-Skullduggery symbol must be met with EITHER Heroism OR Skullduggery ENTIRELY. You may not meet part of the cost with Heroism and the rest with Skullduggery.
4. To defeat the Encounter, meet its cost by removing tokens, playing Resource cards from your hand and Exhausting Crew in the same manner as you would when acquiring new Resource or Crew cards.
5. If you cannot meet the difficulty of the Encounter, it is Undefeated. Roll a die. The Crew in the number cabin you rolled is Lost. If there is no Crew in that cabin, continue rolling until you get the number of an occupied cabin. Place that Crew under your Expedition Leader card. (Since there is always the chance that Lost or Sacrificed Crew can come back, it is important to keep track of them.)
6. Follow any instructions on the Encounter card which indicate what to do "If defeated" or "If Undefeated," whichever the case may be.
7. Return all Temporary Totals back to zero after facing an Encounter.

• You may choose to face more Encounters on your turn or Venture Forth again.
• End your turn with a Draw Phase, the same as when taking a Rest Turn. If your Resource Deck runs out, shuffle the Discard pile to draw more cards.

Winning

The winner of Incredible Expeditions is the first player to defeat both Encounters at the last Location, the Drowned City of Atlantis.

The Marooned and Lost Rule

In the competitive game, if ever you have less than 3 capable Crew (that is, Crew that are neither Cursed nor Lost) at a Location beyond Port City, you may, on your next turn, draw random Crew from the discard pile until you have a total of 3 Capable Crew.

FAQ

Can the Pilot's ability ignore Location text that says "When entering..."? Yes. Exhaust the Pilot as the first thing you do when entering a new Location to ignore the text there.

Card Types

Expedition Leader

Each player will begin the game with one Expedition Leader card, chosen at random, and you will keep this Expedition Leader for the entire game.

• At the top of the card is your Expedition Leader's name.
• On the right side of the card are your character's abilities that they can use throughout the game.
• On the bottom of the card is a quote from your character.
• Along the left side of the card are your character's starting resources: Money tokens as shown on the coin pile, Heroism tokens as shown on the white cross, and Skullduggery tokens shown on the black skull.

Location

Locations are the areas of the world you will explore throughout the game.

• At the top of the card is the name of this Location.
• In a bubble on the lower-right is the number of Encounters you will have to face to move past this Location; a higher number means the location is more dangerous.
• At the bottom of the card are any other special rules affecting this location.

Crew

You will buy Crew cards throughout the game to man your ship, and they will ultimately face the dangerous Encounters at each Location.

• On the left side of the card are three bubbles showing how valuable this Crew member is to your ship; when you Exhaust a crew member they will give you money, heroism, and skullduggery equal to their icons.
• In the middle of the card is the role of this crew member, and a box with any special abilities they possess.
• At the bottom of the card are the costs to Acquire this Crew member.

Resource

Resources are extra things you've acquired along the way, to help your Crew out or to hinder an opponent on their voyage.

• They are laid out much like Crew cards: on the left are the number of money, heroism, and skullduggery tokens you get for using this card to purchase more cards.
• In the middle of the card is the name of the Resource, and a box indicating the other special abilities of this resource.
• At the bottom of the card are the costs to purchase it: money, heroism, skullduggery or some combination of these.

Encounter

Encounters are the dangerous things awaiting you at each Location, which your Crew must bravely face on the path to Atlantis.

• At the top of the card is the name of this Encounter.
• In the middle of the card, in 1 to 3 bubbles, is the Difficulty of this Encounter; you need to muster this many points to defeat it.
• At the bottom of the card is a box indicating what Type of encounter this is (Mechanical, Supernatural, or Creature for example), and any special rules pertaining to this Encounter.