Les taxis de la Marne Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set up
• Gameplay
  • Taxi Arrival
  • Player's Action Phase
    • Option 1: Mobilize the troops
    • Option 2: Move the Officer
    • Option 3: Trading cards
    • Option 4: Load and send Taxi
  • Bonus Actions
• Events
• End of Game

Components

• 24 Taxi cards
• 27 Soldier cards
• 4 Place des Invalides cards
• 7 Taxi tokens
• 2 Officer tokens

Set up

• Create the game board, using the 4 Place des Invalides cards.
• Place the officer tokens on two places (of the same colour) on the board. You can chose the colour.
• Place the 7 Taxi tokens in the middle of the board.
• Shuffle the Taxi cards and place them face down on the table. This is the Taxi pile.
• Shuffle the Soldier cards. Deal 10 Soldier cards to the players, one at a time. With 3 or 4 players, some players will have more cards than others. Players place their Soldier cards face up in their play area. (For Solo play: 5 cards in your play area, 5 in the reserve.)
• The rest of the Soldier cards forms the Soldier pile. Place these cards face down. Leave room for a Soldiers discard pile.
• The hairiest player goes first.

Gameplay

Players play in turns, clockwise. Each turn consists of two phases: The Taxi Arrival phase and Players Action Phase.

Taxi Arrival

Take the top Taxi card from the Taxi pile, and add it to the game board, at the indicated street.

If this place is already occupied by another taxi, place it on the next available street, anti-clockwise (same sense of a French roundabout). Place a Taxi token on every taxi that you had to pass to get to the next available street (including your original indicated street). A Taxi can never have more than one Taxi token.

Taxi cards show the minimum number of Soldiers it can carry.

Some cards will have symbols on them. These symbols represent events. These events happen immediately after adding the taxi, and effects last the whole round. For an explanation of events, see below.

If a player cannot add a Taxi to the game board (all places are occupied, or the Taxi pile is empty), the game ends. See "End of Game".

Player's Action Phase

After the Taxi Arrival Phase, a player gets to take three actions out of a choice of four. They can take these actions in whatever order they want. They can take the same action twice.

Option 1: Mobilize the troops

Take the top card from the Soldiers pile, and add it to your game. If the Soldiers pile is empty, shuffle the discard pile to create a new Soldiers pile.

At the end of your turn, you may not have more than five Soldier cards in play. Discard as many as necessary to get your number of Soldier cards down to five. You can chose which cards you want to discard. Add them to the discard pile.

Option 2: Move the Officer

Move the Officer token one space on the game board. The sense does not matter: you can move your Officer clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Option 3: Trading cards

Trade one of the cards in your play area with one of the cards in another player's play area. Solo play: trade with reserve.

Option 4: Load and send Taxi

Three conditions have to be met to Load and Send a Taxi:

1. There has to be an Officer token on the corresponding space (street).
2. Load the right amount of Soldiers in the Taxi (minimum number is indicated on the Taxi card, but add one if there's a Taxi token on the card). Play Soldier Cards from your play area to the Taxi.
3. The Soldiers have to have the same colour as the space (street). Grey soldier cards can be played on any street.

If the three conditions are met, discard the Soldiers cards. Set the Taxi card aside: these are the Taxis you have sent to Marne successfully, and will determine how well you've done in the game.

Bonus Actions

Some Soldier cards do not contain soldiers, but indicate Bonus actions instead. Players can play Bonus actions anytime during their turn, provided they discard the Bonus action from their play area to the Soldiers discard pile. This Bonus action does not count towards one of the three actions a player can take. Bonus actions are described on the card.

Events

• No Bonus Actions during this turn.
• Players are not allowed to speak during this turn. In case of SOLO play: you can't trade cards.
• Immediately discard one card from your Play Area.
• Immediate add another Taxi.

End of Game

The game ends in one of two ways: During the Taxi Arrival phase either there is no space available to add another Taxi to the game board, or there are no Taxi cards available in the Taxi pile.

In both cases, take the Taxi cards that were sent successfully and add up the numbers indicated on the cards (the minimum number of soldiers that could have used the Taxi).

• 1-39: The Dark Night. Your soldiers fell asleep while waiting for their taxis.
• 40-45: Traffic Jam. The Taxi drivers are showing signs of impatience.
• 46-48: Well done. Tonight, thanks to you, most Taxis were sent off to Marne.
• 59-51: The Spectacle. The citizens of Paris have gathered to see this spectacular sight. (Printed "59-51" in the source; the range between 48 and 52 is presumably 49-51, but this is not stated.)
• 52-54: A Night to Remember. People will remember this night for a long time.
• 55+ points: You've written History!