Menhirs dans le Brouillard
Menhirs dans le Brouillard Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Preparation
Build the board by randomly placing 7 Menhirs (standing stones) and 23 forest tiles.
One player sits at the North side of the board, the other at the South side.
Subsequently, cover the 7 Menhirs with fog.
Finally, place the Round Marker next to the board on the side of the start player, with the right round number facing the board.
Make sure to rotate the Marker every round, so the current round faces the board.
In this example the player on the South side is the start player.
The Round Marker
We advise you to make use of the Round Marker. The game then has a maximum of 12 rounds. Each round, each player has one turn, beginning with the turn of player one and ending with the turn of player two.
On the marker it says what happens in each round. In Rounds 1 and 2, both players place the remaining fog tiles. Starting from Round 3, the players start moving the fog (see Moving the Fog).
In Round 7 (during the turn of player 2) the clearing phase begins: from now on, players take one fog tile away at the end of their turn. This can never be the fog tile that uncovers the last Menhir, because that would be too easy.
Source note: the English sheet places the start of the clearing phase in Round 7, as printed. The Dutch sheet states that clearing starts from Round 8 ("not already at the end of Round 7, as the marker shows"). The English text is transcribed as printed; the Dutch correction is recorded here and not applied.
Game Goal
The goal is to clear all Menhirs of fog, by moving the fog. As soon as this happens, the game is finished. However, it is not a cooperative game. Only the player uncovering the last Menhir(s) wins.
Moving the Fog
Translated from the Dutch sheet ("Regels voor het verplaatsen van Mist"). The English sheet says the rules for moving are on the game board.
- Each turn, choose one fog cluster you want to move, and move it one position in one of the directions N, NE, SE, S, SW or NW. Say out loud beforehand what you are going to do. A single loose fog tile is also called a cluster.
- You always move the fog cluster as a whole. Only if a cluster consists of 6 or more tiles may it be split. Each newly created part must, at all times, consist of at least 3 fog tiles.
- You may not undo your opponent's last action by sliding exactly the same cluster back to exactly the same place (*).
- A fog tile may never leave the hexagon part of the board.
(*) This also applies if, after sliding back, you would take a tile away from the cluster. And it also applies if, after your opponent's move, the cluster merged into a larger cluster. In that case you may slide back a larger or smaller cluster, as long as it is not exactly the same cluster. Of course the splitting rule in rule 2 must be followed. Only if your opponent shifted a cluster and then takes something away from that same cluster may it be slid back.
Note from the English sheet: a Menhir that was already uncovered can be covered again.
Ending the Game
The game is finished as soon as all Menhirs are cleared of fog by moving the fog (see Game Goal). The player who uncovers the last Menhir(s) wins.
From the Dutch sheet: If, after 12 rounds, not all Menhirs have been freed from the fog, the game also ends. In that case it is a draw and nobody has won.
Scoring System
The English sheet's scoring system is transcribed here as printed.
A scoring system is not needed, because the game is about revealing the last Menhir. But sometimes, for instance when playing a tournament, it can be convenient to be able to make a ranking of players that have won the same number of games.
The scoring system then works as follows: as soon as someone has won, look at the remaining fog tiles that are in the game. This is the score of the winner.
Fun alternative: when someone wins in the first moving round (Round 3) they score 21 instead of 11 points!
From the Dutch sheet (earlier version, March 2021), which uses a different scoring system: in principle the point is that you win, not how many points you score. If you want to keep a points count, for example when playing "Best of Three" or a small tournament, the winner's score is the number of fog tiles still in the game, tracked with the score markers. If someone manages to win in the rounds before the clearing phase, they score 11 points. After that the score quickly drops back to 2. If it is a tie, both players score 0 points. Fun variant: someone who already wins in the first moving round scores 21 points. This is Round 3, or Round 4 when playing with 5 Menhirs; the 1 on the score marker can then be used as 21.
Variant: 5 Menhirs
From the Dutch sheet only. The English sheet describes the 7-Menhir game. The Dutch sheet recommends starting with 5 Menhirs and moving to 7 later.
Setup: Turn all tiles (Forest and Menhirs) face down and shuffle them. Turn one face up and place it in column 1, position 1. (The board has 7 vertical columns. Column 1 is the column on the west side of the board. Position 1 is always the northernmost in the column.) Turn over another tile and place it in column 1, position 2, then column 1, position 3, then column 2, position 1, and so on.
The 3rd and 5th Menhir you turn over is placed face down on the board. The back of the tile shows a kind of fog/forest landscape, which is regarded as Forest for the rest of the game.
Turn structure: Each round, each player has one turn. In Rounds 1 and 2 both players place the remaining fog tiles. (With 5 Menhirs, fog is also placed in Round 3.) From Round 3 or 4 (with 5 Menhirs), through Round 7, players move the fog. The clearing phase starts from Round 8 (not already at the end of Round 7 as the marker shows), when players remove one fog tile from the board at the end of their turn. This may never be a tile that uncovers the last Menhir.