Manhattan Project: War Machine Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Components
• Player Setup
• Playing the Game
• On Your Turn
  • 1.) Roll Action Dice
  • Action Dice Overview
  • 2.) Take Global Actions
  • Global Actions Overview
  • Resource Limits
  • 3.) Activate Structures
  • Structures Overview
  • 4.) Clean Up and Check for End of the Round
• Final Scoring
• Win Condition
• Solo Mode

Objective

Earn victory points by producing and storing military goods in your warehouse, building structures, completing your government grants goal, expanding your companies infrastructure, and cleaning up any pollution that you create.

The most effective way to feed the war machine is to deploy the right combination of workers, build structures that interact well with one another, and generate and use energy effeciently.

Components

• 1 Game Board
• 1 Round Marker
• 60 Structure Tiles (20 each)
• 24 Pollution Tokens
• 12 Company Cards
• 12 Government Grant Cards
• 20 Action Dice
• 4 Cargo Tiles (Player Boards)
• 8 Cargo Extension Tiles (2 Per Player)
• 4 Warehouse Boards (1 Per player)
• 8 Warehouse Extension Tiles (2 Per Player)
• 4 Structure Boards (1 Per player)
• 12 Structure Extension Tiles (3 Per Player)
• 20 Resource Markers (2 x Purple, 1 Red, 1 Yellow and 1 White per player)

Player Setup

1. Take a warehouse board and a structure board and place them faceup in front of you.
2. Place your truck tile and truck extension tiles above your warehouse board so their non upgraded sides are visible.
3. Take 3 action dice and place them on your truck tile. It doesn't matter which die face is facing up.
4. Place your warehouse extension tiles to the right of your warehouse board unupgraded sides faceup.
5. Place your structure extension tiles to the right of your structure board so their non upgraded sides are faceup.
6. Shuffle the company cards and the government grant cards and deal 2 of each facedown to each player. Return any extra cards to the game box.
7. Select one company card and one charter card to keep, and return the 2 cards you did not choose to the box.
8. Place your nation card faceup near your structure board and your charter card facedown in front of you.
9. The most experienced gamer will be the starting player and the player to their left will be next in turn order.
10. Use your resource markers to set your starting resources on your warehouse as follows:

• Player 1: 2 coins, 1 food, 1 steel
• Player 2: 1 coin, 1 food, 1 steel
• Player 3: 1 coin, 1 food
• Player 4: 1 coin

11. Place one of your VP markers on the 0 space on your warehouse and set aside the other VP marker for now.
12. Return any unused player components to the game box.

Playing the Game

The game is played in a number of rounds (4/5/6) depending on the number of players (4/3/2). During each round, beginning with the starting player and proceeding to the left, players take turns until the game ends.

On Your Turn

You must perform the following steps in order: 1.) Roll Action Dice, 2.) Take Global Actions, 3.) Activate Structures, and 4.) Clean up and check for end of round.

1.) Roll Action Dice

Pick up and roll all of the action dice on your cargo tiles. You may roll the dice up to 3 times, but before you re-roll each time, you must keep (and not re-roll) at least one die result. When you roll, place any die results that you want to keep on your cargo tiles. Continue rolling your dice until you have either decided to keep all of your die results or you have rolled a total of 3 times.

Once per turn, you may use the special ability of your cargo tile to convert any 2 dice into the result of your choice, removing one of the dice from your cargo tiles.

Take a pollution token for each nuclear power die that is on your cargo tile after you are done rolling and optionally using your cargo tile's ability. Place the tokens near your warehouse with the nuclear conamination side faceup.

Die faces: energy, nuclear power, and three worker types (wrench, top hat, star).

Action Dice Overview

• Energy: Used to take energy global actions and activate your structure cards that already container a worker.
• Nuclear Power: Allows you to take any worker global action, activate your structure and government grant cards, and counts as a wild worker.
• Workers (wrench, top hat, star): Used to take worker global actions and activate your structure cards of the matching type.

2.) Take Global Actions

Take a die from one of your cargo tiles and place it on a valid action space on the game board. Workers can only be placed on the district location with a matching action type. You must place at least one worker die on a location before you place any energy dice there. Nuclear power dice can be placed in any location and are treated the same as a worker at that location.

When you place a worker die on a location, select one action space at that location and perform its worker action. After you resolve the action, your opponents may perform an energy action at the same location your die is on in turn order. It does not have to be the same type of action that you performed.

Energy dice can be placed on any action space, as long as there is at least one worker die already present at that location. Select an action space of the matching type and perform its energy action. Your opponents do not get to perform an action in this case.

You cannot place more than 3 dice in the same location.

Global Actions Overview

Produce (Finance, Mine, Chemistry): Gain the depicted resources by sliding the corresponding marker on your warehouse board to the right. Worker actions have a bigger payout than energy actions.

Trade (Trade, Expand, Supplies, Ammo): Spend the resources displayed to the left of the arrow to gain those displayed to the right. Worker actions have a higher conversion rate and can be activated more often than energy actions.

Build: Select a structure card to build by spending the resource cost shown above the card. Add the card to the leftmost space of the corresponding row in your structure board. Worker actions give you a discount on the cost of cards at the worker's location or allow you to select a structure at a different location at an increased cost. Energy actions allow you to select a structure at the location where the energy die is and do not offer a discount or cost increase.

Cargo: Spend the depicted resources to flip one of your pollution tokens to its cleaned-up side. You cannot take this action if you do not have any pollution tokens, or if all of your tokens are showing their cleaned-up side.

Clean-up (Trucks): Spend the resources displayed to flip one of your cargo tiles to its upgraded side. You can upgrade your starting cargo tile to improve its ability, or a cargo extension tile to gain a new action die. If you gain a new die, immediately roll it and add it to the cargo extension tile that you just upgraded. It can be used to take a global action this turn. You cannot take this action if you do not have any non upgraded cargo tiles.

Expand: Spend the resources shown to flip one of your warehouse or structure extensions tiles to its upgraded side. You must flip the first warehouse extension tile first before you upgrade the second extension.

Resource Limits

The number of resources that you can store in your warehouse is limited. Once your resource marker is at its maximum value, you cannot gain more of that resource. Upgrading your warehouse by flipping its extension tiles increases the maximum resource capacity.

3.) Activate Structures

Return all of the dice you placed on the game board to your structure board. Place your worker dice on spaces matching their type, and place energy dice at any available location already container a worker. You can place nuclear power dice on any available space, including on your government grant card to activate your ability.

You can activate your structure tiles in any order as long as you satisfy the activation condition show on the card. When you activate a structure, resolve the ability shown on the tile and then rotate the tile as a reminder that it has been activated this round. Dice used to activate structures are not spent and may be used to resolve more than one structure at their location.

Structures Overview

• Single Activation: Requires 1 die to activate and can only be activates once.
• Multiple Workers: Requires at least 2 dice at the location to be activated, and can only be activated once.
• Game End: Cannot be activated, they provide points for you at the end of the game.
• Multiple Activations: Requires at least 1 die to activate and may be activated as many times as shown.
• Zones: Give resources depending on the number of structure cards on the where the zone is located.

4.) Clean Up and Check for End of the Round

Return all of your dice to the cargo tiles and rotate any structures that you activated during your turn back to their original position. If you are the last player to take a turn this round, advance the round marker on the game board to the next round. If the round marker is already on the last round, proceed to Final scoring. Otherwise, the player to your left will now take their turn.

Final Scoring

Add the number of VP for resources remaining in your warehouse, the VP values of Game End structures and extensions that you constructed, and the VP on your government contract card if you managed to achieve its condition. Add 1 VP for each pollution token that you managed to flip to the cleaned-up side, and subtract 1 VP for each token that remains on the nuclear contamination side.

Win Condition

The player with the highest total number of VPs has managed to contribute to the nation's war efforts the most and is declared the winner! In the case of a tie, the tied player who has the most total resources remaining wins. If there is still a tie, both players celebrate their victory, or they can play a follow-up game to decide who the true victor is!

Solo Mode

You can enjoy a game of Manhattan Project: War Machine by yourself. This is a good way to practice the game, hone your skills, or try to beat your high score.

Set everything up in the same manner as for the regular game, with the following exception: return the nation and charter cards to the box and instead choose one of the 12 "Game End" structure cards. You can select one at random (if you accept this challenge!), or pick one that you want. Place the card as a starting structure on the corresponding space on your structure board.

Play through 6 game rounds as normal, advancing the round marker at the end of your turn. You don't have to worry about other players taking energy actions during your worker actions. Of course, that means you will not be doing so yourself during their turns. Try to plan ahead your moves to make the best use of your actions.

At the end of the game, add up your score as normal, but skip checking for the condition of the achievement tile. If you managed to get at least 50 VP, you win! For an even greater challenge, see if you can reach 65 VP or more and not have any pollution tokens on the nuclear contamination side at game end.