Nemesis
Nemesis Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Overview
Nemesis is not a cooperative game — while players can and should cooperate to a degree, each has their own secret Objective, and other players achieving their goals is irrelevant to your victory. To win, a player must (1) fulfill their chosen Objective and (2) survive — either by hibernating in the Hibernatorium with the ship functioning and jumping to Earth, or by evacuating in an Escape Pod. A game may have multiple winners, one winner, or none.
Setup (Summary)
- Randomly place face-down Room tiles ("1" and "2") on their matching board slots, then place a face-down Exploration token on each. Place face-down Coordinates cards, the Destination marker on "B", Escape Pod tokens (locked), and two shuffled face-down Engine tokens on each Engine slot.
- Set up the Intruder bag with a starting number of Adult Intruder tokens plus 1 per player; place the Intruder board with 5 Egg tokens and 3 face-down random Weakness cards.
- Shuffle and place decks: Items (3 colors), Event, Intruder Attack, Contamination, Serious Wound, and Craft Item. Place the Time marker on the green space of the Time Track.
- Deal each player a Help card (draft order), an Inventory holder, and one Corporate and one Personal Objective (kept secret). Draft Characters; each takes their Character board, miniature (in the Hibernatorium), shuffled Action deck, starting Weapon (with Ammo), and 2 Quest Items.
Flow of the Game
Each turn has two phases: I. Player Phase and II. Event Phase.
I. Player Phase
- Draw Action Cards: all players draw until they have 5 cards in hand. (If your Action deck is empty, shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck.)
- First Player Token: the holder passes it to the left (not on the first turn).
- Player Rounds: starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player performs a round of 2 Actions (or passes). Rounds continue as long as at least one player has not passed. A player who performs only 1 Action, or takes none, must pass; a passed player takes no further Actions that phase and may discard any number of cards. (Ending a round in a Room with Fire always costs 1 Light Wound.)
II. Event Phase
Resolve in order: 4. Time Track (advance the Time marker 1 space; also the Self-Destruct marker if active) → 5. Intruder Attack (each Intruder in Combat attacks its Character) → 6. Fire Damage (each Intruder in a Room with Fire suffers 1 Injury) → 7. Resolve Event Card (Intruder movement per the card's symbol/number, then the card's effect) → 8. Intruder Bag Development (draw 1 token: Larva→add Adult; Creeper→add Breeder; Adult/Breeder→all players Noise roll; Queen→Encounter in the Nest or add an Egg; Blank→add an Adult) → 9. End of the Turn.
Critical Gameplay Moments
- First Encounter: When the first Intruder appears, each player immediately chooses which of their two Objectives to keep (the other is removed face down, unseen). From then on you have one secret Objective.
- First Dead Character: All Escape Pods are automatically unlocked. The first dead player may play as the Intruder (advanced mode).
- Hibernation chambers open when the Time Track reaches a blue space (Characters cannot hibernate before then). Self-destruct becomes critical when its track reaches a yellow space (Escape Pods unlock and the sequence can no longer be stopped).
Actions
During each round, a player performs Actions from four groups: Basic Actions, Action cards, Item cards, and Room tiles.
Action Cost: each Action shows a Cost — the number of additional Action cards you must discard from your hand to perform it. (Performing an Action from an Action card means discarding that card plus its Cost.) Contamination cards are not Action cards and cannot be discarded to pay Costs. Some Actions are marked In Combat only or Out of Combat only (a Character is in Combat if an Intruder is in their Room; Eggs don't count).
Basic Actions (always available):
- Movement — move to a neighboring Room (then resolve exploration/Noise).
- Careful Movement — like Movement, but instead of a Noise roll, place a Noise marker in a chosen connected Corridor (not usable if all connected Corridors already have Noise markers, or if in Combat).
- Shoot — attack an Intruder in your Room with a Weapon in hand, discarding 1 Ammo.
- Melee Attack — attack an Intruder in your Room with bare hands (first draw 1 Contamination card).
- Pick Up Heavy Object — pick up a Character Corpse, Intruder Carcass, or Intruder Egg in your Room.
- Trade — exchange Item cards and Objects with Characters in your Room (Ammo cannot be traded).
- Craft Item — discard 2 Item cards with matching blue Craft icons to gain the corresponding Crafted Item.
Movement, Exploration, and Noise
Characters and Intruders occupy only Rooms; Corridors connect Rooms but nothing stops in them. Two Rooms are neighboring if joined by one Corridor (Closed Doors block this). After entering a Room: reveal it and its Exploration token if unexplored; then, if the Room is empty (no Characters or Intruders), perform a Noise roll. (No Noise roll if someone — Character or Intruder — is already in the entered Room.)
Exploration tokens set the Room's Item count and may trigger a special effect: Silence (nothing), Danger, Slime, Fire, Malfunction, or Doors.
Noise roll: roll a Noise die. On 1–4, place a Noise marker in the connected Corridor of that number (a Corridor holds at most 1 Noise marker — if it already has one, resolve an Encounter instead). On Danger, pull any Intruder from a neighboring Room into this Room, or (if none) place Noise markers in all connected Corridors. On Silence, nothing happens (but a Character with a Slime marker treats Silence as Danger).
Technical Corridors let Intruders move around the ship; Characters normally cannot use them. Markers: Noise (for the Noise rule), Slime (turns Silence into Danger), Fire (wounds Characters ending their round there, injures Intruders, and can explode the ship if the 8-marker pool runs out), Malfunction (disables a Room's Action; the ship loses integrity if its pool runs out). Door tokens mark Corridors as Closed (block movement) or Destroyed (passable, cannot be re-closed).
Encounter and Combat
An Encounter occurs when an Intruder appears in a Character's Room (drawn from the Intruder bag). To resolve: discard all Noise markers from connected Corridors; draw 1 Intruder token; place the matching Intruder miniature; then compare the token's number with the Action cards in the player's hand — if fewer, a Surprise Attack occurs (draw and resolve an Intruder Attack card). A Blank token places Noise markers instead. Entering a Room that already holds an Intruder is not an Encounter — they are immediately in Combat.
Combat: whenever a Character and Intruder share a Room they are in Combat. A Character may attack or Escape on their round; Intruders attack during the Event Phase.
- Shoot: choose a Weapon and target, discard 1 Ammo, roll the Combat die. Results range from a miss to dealing 1–2 Injuries (some results only injure certain Intruder types; Weapons may modify this).
- Melee Attack: draw 1 Contamination card, roll the Combat die. A miss deals your Character 1 Serious Wound; hits deal 1 Injury.
- Escape: perform a Movement Action out of the Room, but first resolve an Intruder Attack (one per Intruder). If you survive, you complete the move.
Intruder Injuries and Death
When an Intruder suffers Injuries, place Injury markers on its base, then check its endurance:
- Larva/Egg: 1 Injury kills it.
- Creeper/Adult: draw 1 Intruder Attack card; if its "blood" value ≤ current Injuries, the Intruder is killed (leaving an Intruder Carcass); otherwise it survives.
- Breeder/Queen: draw 2 cards and add their blood values.
Retreat: if a Retreat arrow appears in a drawn card's blood icon, the Intruder flees (draw an Event card and move it accordingly).
Intruder Attack: happens on a Surprise Attack, the Event Phase Intruder Attack step, or a Character's Escape. Target the Character with the fewest Action cards in the Room. Draw an Intruder Attack card; if its symbol matches the attacker, resolve its effect. A Larva's attack (Infest) instead places the Larva on the target's Character board and gives them a Contamination card.
Contamination, Wounds, and Death
Contamination cards are placed on top of your Action discard pile. They clog your hand (cannot pay Costs) and secretly may be INFECTED. Scanning a Contamination card (via certain Actions/Rooms/Items) reveals whether it says INFECTED: if so, place a Larva on your board (a second Larva kills the Character, placing a Creeper where they died).
Wounds: a Light Wound places/advances a marker on the Light Wound Track; a third Light Wound becomes a Serious Wound. A Serious Wound draws a Serious Wound card with an ongoing effect. A Character with 3 Serious Wounds who suffers any further Wound is instantly killed, leaving a Character Corpse and dropping their Heavy Objects. Wounds can be Dressed (flip a Serious Wound to ignore its effect) or Healed via Items/Room Actions.
Intruder Weakness cards: the 3 face-down Weaknesses are discovered by researching the corresponding Object (Character Corpse, Intruder Egg, Intruder Carcass) in the Laboratory, giving all players a small advantage.
End of the Game
The game ends when: the Time marker or Self-Destruct marker reaches its final red space (the ship jumps or explodes, killing all non-hibernating Characters — and the ship's explosion also kills all Intruders); a 9th Fire or Malfunction marker would be placed (the ship is destroyed); or the last active Character leaves the ship (dies, hibernates, or escapes).
Victory Check (for each surviving Character):
- Engines Check: reveal the Engine tokens; if 2 or 3 are Damaged, the ship explodes and all hibernating Characters (and Intruders) die.
- Coordinates Check: if the ship isn't headed to Earth (or Mars for the Quarantine Objective), hibernating Characters die.
- Contamination Check: each survivor Scans their Contamination cards; an INFECTED card can kill the Character via a shuffle-and-draw check (a Larva on the board forces this).
- Objective Check: each still-alive Character reveals and checks whether their chosen Objective was met.
A player wins only if their Character survived and their Objective was fulfilled.