Planet Apocalypse
Planet Apocalypse Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Game Components
- Introduction
- Summary of Play
- Victory and Defeat
- Glossary
- Dice in Planet Apocalypse
- Game Setup
- Your Hero Card
- Divine Intervention
- The Lord's Shadow
- Understanding Enemies
- Understanding Demon Lords
- Hell Time
- Your Control Panel
- Understanding Troopers
- Sequence of Play
- The Team Phase
- Hero Phase
- Enemy Phase
- Hero and Minion Death
- Game Effects
- Player Entry or Departure
- Changing Game Difficulty
- The Maps
- The Invasion Map
- The Doomgate Map
- The Launch Site Map
- The Moon Base Map
- The Dragon Back Map
- The Dragon Guts Map
- The Washington D.C. Map
- The St. Peter's Map
- The Invasion of Purgatory Map
- The Final Battle Map
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Strategies
- Demon Gate
- Rule Omega
- Credits
Game Components
"Hell is not a place you go to. You have Hell with you at all times. You carry it inside you." — BaBa/the Father (Baskin, 2015)
Core Game
- 5 Hero sheets
- 1 Control panel
- 1 Gift panel
- 1 Demon panel
- 1 Hell Time Board
- Maps: Invasion, Doomgate (on opposite sides)
- 12 Despair dice
- 6d4, 6d6, 6d8, 6d10, 6d12
- 5 Health Cap counters, 5 Health counters, 15 Toughness tokens, 58 Courage tokens, 30 Luck tokens, 6 Stunned markers, 5 Fire markers
- 1 Captain marker
- 6 Invasion tokens
- 1 Divine Intervention token
- 12 Ability Markers
- 8 Lord's Shadow tokens
- 14 Pestilence markers
- 1 Despair counter, 1 Doom counter, 1 Lord counter
- Dice tokens: 1d12, 1d10, 1d8, 1d6, 1d4 (10 of each)
- 1 Gate tile
- 65 Gift cards
- 5 Hint cards
- 28 Trooper cards (4 Special Forces, 4 Army, 6 Police, 6 Citizen Militia, 8 Volunteer)
- 4 Legion cards (Acheron, Dis, Lethe, Phlegethon)
- 1 Lord card
- 2 Fourth Circle cards (1 per minion)
- 10 Limbo minions (Larvae)
- 6 First Circle minions (Grylluses)
- 4 Second Circle minions (Fiends)
- 2 Third Circle minions (Cacodemons)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Hellhound)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Catoblepas)
- 1 Lord (Baphomet)
- 6 Heroes (L to R: Hannah, Prof. Maxwell, Tarang, Naomi, Cindrew, John Dark)
Void Pack
- 2 Hero sheets
- Maps: Moon Base, Launch Site
- 2 Heroes (L to R: Moose, Dorothy Hall)
- 2 Legion cards (Pandemonium, Styx)
- 3 Region Cards (Space, USA, Texas)
- 48 Trooper cards (8 Astronaut, 8 Cosmonaut, 4 Navy SEALs, 6 National Guard, 4 Texas Rangers, 4 US Marines, 6 Evangelicals, 8 Gang)
- 10 Gift cards
- 2 Lord cards
- 3 Fourth Circle cards (1 per minion)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Secutor)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Magdalene)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Mandrake)
- 1 Lord (Tarasque)
- 1 Lord (Stheno)
Dragon Pack
- 2 Hero sheets
- Maps: Dragon Back, Dragon Guts
- 2 Heroes (L to R: Victor, Bernice)
- 2 Legion cards (Cocytus, Tartarus)
- 3 Regions (Canada, Mexico, Great Britain)
- 26 Trooper cards (6 Mounties, 6 Federales, 6 Constabulary, 4 British Army, 4 SAS)
- 10 Gift cards
- 2 Lord cards
- 3 Fourth Circle cards (1 per minion)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Elemental)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Cendiary)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Nuckelavee)
- 1 Lord (Chthon)
- 1 Lord (Stroma)
Pack of the Pit
- 2 Hero sheets
- Maps: Washington D.C., St. Peter's
- 2 Heroes (L to R: Penrod, Amelia)
- 2 Legion cards (Gehenna, Hades)
- 3 Region Cards (France, Germany, Russia)
- 40 Trooper cards (4 KSK, 4 Bundeswehr, 6 Polizei, 2 BMP, 4 Spetsnaz, 4 Foreign Legion, 4 Paras, 6 Gendarmes, 6 Paramilitary)
- 10 Gift cards
- 2 Lord cards
- 3 Fourth Circle cards (1 per minion)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Gadarene)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Raparee)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Hortator)
- 1 Lord (Orobas)
- 1 Lord (Humbaba)
Power Pack
- 2 Hero sheets
- Maps: Purgatory, Inferno
- 2 Heroes (L to R: Dr. Hunter, Cissy)
- 2 Legion cards (Annwn, Sheol)
- 4 Regions (Japan, Israel, Australia, Brazil)
- 46 Trooper cards (8 Yakuza, 4 Self-Defense Force, 6 Magav, 4 Sayaret, 8 Hooligan, 6 Stockman, 6 Policia Militar, 4 BEPE)
- 10 Gift cards
- 1 Cyst token
- 2 Lord cards
- 3 Fourth Circle cards (1 per minion)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Bellatrix)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Philter)
- 1 Fourth Circle minion (Tardigrade)
- 1 Lord (Geryon)
- 1 Lord (Argus)
Bonus Lords
Each Bonus Lord add-on contains 1 Lord card and 1 Lord miniature:
- Lord Jabootu Add-on: 1 Lord (Jabootu)
- Lord Pulgasaur Add-on: 1 Lord (Pulgasaur)
- Lady Scylla Add-on: 1 Lord (Scylla)
- Lord Asmod Add-on: 1 Lord (Asmod)
- Lord Procrustes Add-on: 1 Lord (Procrustes)
- Great Lord Cthulhu Add-on: 1 Lord (Cthulhu), 20 Sanity tokens
- Great Lord Spider Mastermind Add-on: 1 Lord (Spider Mastermind)
- Demon Gate: 1 Demon Gate
Relic Pack
- 1 Captain figure
- 6 Scylla head figures
- 12 Invasion figures (2 different sculpts)
- 1 Tardigrade cyst
- 8 plastic Lord's Shadow markers
Dice Pack
- 6d4, 6d6, 6d8, 6d10, 6d12
Alternate Dice Pack
- 6d4, 6d6, 6d8, 6d10, 6d12
Introduction
"I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel." — Julia Ward Howe (1862)
Every holy book since the world began tells us that, one day, Hell will rise to challenge humankind. The wise governments that watch over us would be remiss if they took no steps to protect against this likelihood. They trained special occult warriors, teaching them the Father's Magic—the old blood power. They schooled these warriors in the use of weapons, martial arts, and leadership. They had them specially blessed by spiritual authorities till their very bones were magical.
Our leaders also recognized that Hell would need to issue forth through arcane gates to the otherworld, so they sought out and categorized every gate. Obscure, unknown gates they destroyed or blocked. Famous gates, such as Stonehenge, they took care to sanctify (for example, ensuring that druids held regular ceremonies) so Hell could not use them.
Hence, when Hell finally came, it issued forth through the most powerful magical access points left open: the occult warriors themselves. In a matter of seconds, every single trained elite was turned inside-out—their bone, sinew, and flesh became the new gates, and unclean chaos ravened forth.
Earth's armed forces could not withstand Hell. The sight, the sound, the smell of the demons drove us like sheep before them. The world lay ravaged. But as Hell's flames rose over our cities, the remaining humans realized that a few people could still stand against the demons, and even lead men into battle against them. These chosen few were themselves somehow still connected to the Father's Magic, because all of them had some connection, via blood, to one of the now-dead occult warriors. One had a kidney transplant from a warrior. Another had sworn blood brotherhood with a warrior when they were both just 8 years old, and that connection was kept.
Of course, the new heroes weren't specially trained or ritually blessed. They had only what they brought with them into the final battle. But perhaps this is what Heaven had planned for us—to stand upon our own feet in the end. To prove ourselves. We must hope it is enough.
Summary of Play
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." — Aldous Huxley
It is the End Times, and the hordes of Hell are invading our world. You and your friends take the role of heroes defending Earth from the influx of grotesque horrors. You build up your hero's abilities over time by adding useful weapons and gear. Destroy the Hellgate and save our world!
The game takes place in three phases, which continue in sequence till the game ends.
First is the team phase, when players act in concert to recruit new troopers and take co-operative actions, such as performing first aid or earning gifts.
Second is the hero phase, in which players take turns battling the minions of Hell. If the players win, it is almost always in this phase, as a hero finally manages to bring down the Demon Lord.
Third is the enemy phase. This is when the despair track advances, the demons attack and move, new demons spawn, and trooper ambushes strike.
Victory and Defeat
"The path to paradise begins in Hell." — Dante Alighieri
Winning
The players win when they kill the Lord in a Lord Battle. The Lord Battle is triggered when a hero enters the Lord's shadow, or vice versa. For details, please look at the Understanding Demon Lords section on page 25.
Losing
If the doom track hits 13 or the Lord's Shadow extends to the start area, the players immediately lose.
Glossary
1dX, 2dX, etc. This is the format used to describe the game dice. The first number is the number of dice. The second number is the number of faces on the die. For example, "2d6" would mean that you would roll two six-sided dice. (The scores are not added together, but individually checked.) Similarly, "1d8" means you roll a single eight-sided die. "1d6+1d4" would mean you roll one six-sider and one four-sider. You rarely total dice scores in Planet Apocalypse—each die is read separately (unless an ability states otherwise).
Ability A special effect that a hero or demon can use. All heroes start with an ability, and can gain more via certain gifts. Ability use for heroes is voluntary, but they are assumed to be in effect unless their user specifically states otherwise. Almost all demons have at least one ability, and they are almost never optional.
Ambush One or more troopers left in an area to carry out ongoing attacks against minions.
Area Each map segment is one area.
Cacodemon A Third Circle demon.
Captain The player currently in charge of group decision-making. Their decisions are final.
Circle All minions belong to a Circle, which is a rough indicator of their power and how commonly they appear. The lowest grade is Limbo (sort of a "zeroth" circle), followed by First, Second, Third, and Fourth Circle. In addition to their Circle, demons have names. For example, Limbo minions are "larvae."
Courage The game's main unit of exchange. Courage is primarily earned by killing enemies, and also appears in the courage pool when the despair track reaches or passes 1. Players can spend courage to help another hero's attack, to buy gifts, to use first aid in rooms containing demons, and to power certain abilities.
Demons Basically, all enemies except Limbo minions and Lords.
Despair Dice The custom dice that are rolled to determine how many demons of each type appear when an invasion token is resolved. As the game progresses, additional despair dice accumulate in the pool, and the game's overall challenge increases.
Despair Track This represents Hell's gradual strengthening at the expense of humankind. This counter increases each turn during the Enemy phase. When the despair track reaches or passes 1, several events occur; most notably, a new despair die and 4 more courage are added to their respective pools.
Divine Intervention Token A one-use item which can change a random (bad) result in the game. Typically used early to "mulligan" a dangerous starting situation.
Doom Track Scores points earned by the enemy. When doom reaches 13, the demons win the game.
Enemy All units in the game that oppose the players. They are subdivided into larvae (Limbo), demons (First through Fourth Circle), and Lords.
Fiend A Second Circle demon.
Fire Marker A status effect shown by a marker placed on a hero sheet. At the start of the hero's turn, they take 1 damage. A fire marker can be removed if any hero in the area (including the burning victim) gives up their attack. A hero can only have one fire marker at a time.
Gate When entering Hell Time, place the Gate in the area where the Demon Lord was taken from, to mark where it and any surviving minions return after the fight.
Gift A cool improvement to your hero, earned by spending courage.
Group Any number of minions of the same type in an area. For example, if an area contains 3 larvae (Limbo), 1 Hellhound, and Baphomet, these attack as three separate groups, as per type. If an area held 6 larvae, but no other minions, that would count as a single group.
Gryllus A First Circle demon. The lowest order of true demon.
Hell Time A special subsection of play which happens when heroes are directly confronting the Lord. This happens outside the normal boundaries of space-time.
Hero Your persona in the game. Each hero consists of a figure plus a hero sheet showing their characteristics and statistics.
Larva A Limbo entity. They behave as demons in most ways, yet are not true demons, but damned souls. They do not benefit from most legion abilities, and are your weakest opponents, though still dangerous in numbers.
Legion All demons in play belong to a particular legion named after a river or a city of Hell. The legion periodically changes. When this happens, all demons immediately switch allegiance (and legion abilities).
Lord or Lady A powerful entity who (on many maps) slowly marches toward the player start, spreading its Shadow. The Lord does not benefit from a legion's special bonus (it doesn't belong to the legion). Killing the Lord brings victory. Some Lords are female, and so are called Ladies on their info sheet. They are just as nasty and powerful. The game ends when you banish the Lord.
Lord Battle The (potentially) final fight to save humanity. It takes place outside space and time, in Hell itself.
Lord's Shadow These markers appear in areas the Lord enters, and are placed at the start in the Lord's area. They can never be removed. When a hero enters the Lord's Shadow, or when the Shadow extends to cover a hero, a Lord Battle begins.
Lord Track This represents the Lord's powering up to take action. When the Lord track counter hits 1, the Lord moves (on most maps) and spawns a Fourth Circle demon. The Lord's Shadow also extends to the newly entered area. The Lord track progresses each time the despair track reaches or passes 1.
Luck Tokens Represents heavenly favor. These can be used as a substitute for courage and also power certain gifts and abilities.
Marker These indicate player status. The pestilence and fire markers show that a hero is diseased or aflame. The captain marker indicates that the player is the team captain. The second and third ability markers are placed when the player gains access to those abilities.
Minion A general category including all enemies except for Lords. It combines larvae (Limbo minions) and demons (First, Second, Third, and Fourth Circle).
Patrol A trooper who accompanies a hero. While on Patrol, they are kept by their hero's sheet.
Pestilence Marker A status effect for which tokens are placed on a hero's sheet. When the despair track hits 1, each hero takes 1 damage per pestilence marker on their sheet. Whenever a hero heals a point of health, they can choose to remove 1 pestilence marker instead of gaining a health point. A hero can have multiple pestilence markers.
Power An alternate term for ability.
Recruit The action you take in the Team phase to gain more troopers. Typically a hero has to be in the game's start area to perform this action.
Start An area that leads to the outside world. The heroes start here, while minions march steadily toward it, trying to depart. When they succeed, doom rises.
Stun A status effect indicated by laying the affected hero or minion on its side. Stunned heroes must lose either their next attack or their next move, after which they recover.
Token These die-cut pieces stand in for something else. The game's tokens include dice tokens, which are placed in heroes' attack boxes representing their base attack, invasion tokens, which conceal incoming demons; and the courage tokens, which are usually just referred to as "courage." Tokens are also called counters.
Troopers Brave human soldiers who fight alongside the heroes and are subject to your authority. They can either be on patrol with a hero, or stationed in an area as an ambush.
Dice in Planet Apocalypse
Planet Apocalypse uses six different types of dice. One type is the special despair dice. While these are the normal cubical shape, they have special symbols, and are only used when invasion tokens release their demons. The other five dice types are in five polyhedral shapes:
| Type | Abbreviation | Type | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4-sided die | 1d4 | 10-sided die | 1d10 |
| 6-sided die | 1d6 | 12-sided die | 1d12 |
| 8-sided die | 1d8 |
Within these rules, the dice will be referred to by the above abbreviations. Thus, if it is necessary to roll two 12-sided dice, it will be written as 2d12; three 6-sided dice are referred to as 3d6; and so forth.
Dice Limits
There are no limits to attack dice. If for some reason you run out of dice tokens for your attack box, or out of dice, you may either use substitutes, or roll them more than once. There is a hard cap of 12 on the despair dice. If the despair total reaches higher than 12, don't add more to the pool. Still keep cycling the despair track for its other effects.
Game Setup
"Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." — Revelation 12:12
Map Setup
The first map you should use is the Invasion map. On the reverse of this map is the Doomgate map, which is more difficult. Various game expansions add another 8 maps, which make up a campaign of increasing challenge for players to experience.
Before you play a map, please read the section of the rules covering that map! Often, maps change details of the rules. Each does so idiosyncratically, so knowledge of the base rules is important. When no map is mentioned in the rules, it is assumed that you are playing on the Invasion map.
Each map is essentially a group of areas. One area is the start, and at least one area (usually the farthest from the start) is the area in which the Lord resides.
Place the map in the middle of the table within easy reach of the players.
Place the minion figures near the map within easy reach.
Choose a Lord, randomly or otherwise. (Some maps have multiple Lords, and you'll need to choose all of them.)
- Place the Lord sheet near the map for easy access.
- Put the Lord's figure on the map in his area, along with a Lord's Shadow token.
- Place a counter on the Lord's start health on the spot marked by the number of players.
- Place one invasion token in each map area marked on the diagram. (On most maps, this is every area except the start areas.)
This shows the setup for a normal game of the Invasion map. All areas except the start begin with an invasion token. Place the Demon Lord and a Lord's Shadow in his area.
John Dark's Tip: Minions' stats don't change with the number of heroes. Instead, you get more minions more quickly with more heroes. The Lord gets tougher with more heroes, too.
Tabletop Setup
Place the game's map, panels, and components where all players can see them.
- Place the control panel (despair, lord, and doom tracks) near the map.
- Place the doom counter on the 0 box of the doom track.
- Place the despair counter on the 1 box of the despair track.
- Place the Lord counter on the 1 box of the Lord track.
- Shuffle the legion cards, draw one randomly, and place it face up in the slot.
- Place 4 courage in the courage pool (some regions start with an empty pool).
- Place 4 despair dice in the despair pool.
- Place the gift panel within easy reach. Shuffle the gift deck and place it face-down near the gift panel.
- Draw 10 random gifts from the deck and place them, face-up, in the slots.
- The core game has 5 types of troopers, which usually vary in cost from 1 to 5. Stack all troopers of a given type together, and place the 5 stacks within easy reach of the players.
Unless you are using regions, your troopers are Volunteers, Citizen Militia, Police, Army, and Special Forces.
You may either leave other game tokens, counters, and markers in the box to be accessed at need, or pile them on the table for easier use.
Hero Setup
Each player chooses a hero and takes their hero sheet. You can select heroes randomly or simply pick your favorite. Each player sets their hero's figure on the start space and places their hero sheet in front of them. Then:
- Set a health cap counter on the health start cap value.
- Set a current health counter on the health start cap value.
- Place the starting luck tokens below the luck area.
- Place toughness tokens in the toughness area equal to the start value.
- Place a dice token in the attack area equal to the listed start value for your hero (for example, Naomi Joslyn starts with 1d6). Use tokens instead of dice, because when the dice are actually rolled, they can differ significantly from the tokens (the baseline) due to abilities, helping, and so forth.
Your Hero Card
- Image A reminder of who you are.
- Name Your hero's name, in case you forget.
- Health Track A series of boxes ranging from 0 to your maximum. Your health counter drops down the scale when you are damaged, and slides back up when you are healed. You can never have more health than the current cap on the track, and you can never have a higher cap than 10 (the human maximum, boosts past that are wasted).
- Toughness How hard you are to damage. A higher number makes you harder to injure.
- Attack Box This contains tokens indicating your number and variety of attack dice.
- Luck Your luck tokens are kept below this space. You can use luck to buy courage on a 1-for-1 basis at any time, but not vice versa.
- Courage You usually start with no courage, but when you acquire it, place it below this space.
- Start Ability Every hero begins with a unique ability. Some heroes (such as Doc Hunter) have an ongoing effect which requires no decision-making. For others (such as Naomi), the player has a choice of when to use it. A player can always choose not to apply their abilities.
- Other Abilities Each player has two abilities that are not available at game start. Once the player gains one of these abilities via a gift, they place their ability marker on this space, showing that they now have access to it.
- Flaw Every hero has a weakness. You MUST apply this weakness whenever it pertains.
- Gift Slots When you spend courage for a gift, place the card in one of these slots. You then gain that gift's ability on a permanent basis, plus whatever was printed on the gift slot under the card.
Example: If Hannah plays a Determination gift on her starting slot (Cost 6), she adds a 1d4 attack token to her attack box, as printed on her sheet. She also adds +1 to both her current health and her health cap, as per the Determination gift.
John Dark's Tip: It may be tempting to spend a luck token in exchange for courage, but the gifts that use luck are the best in the game. Don't use up your luck early without powerful reasons to do so.
Divine Intervention
"Stand back boy, this calls for Divine Intervention!" — Father McGruder (Dead Alive, 1992)
The divine intervention token is used to make a game slightly easier. It permits players to get a "redo" of one random result—basically a mulligan. Typically it is used early in the game. After it's gone, you're on your own.
Petersen Games recommends that the divine intervention token be used the first time you play Planet Apocalypse. After that, we recommend that it is only used if you lost your last game.
If you are using the divine intervention token, give it to the starting captain. They choose if and when to use it, even when they are no longer captain.
How to Use Divine Intervention
You can spend the token (which is never regained) for one of the three following purposes:
- Change the result of a newly revealed invasion token by taking the despair dice and setting the dice to any faces you choose.
- Discard the current legion card and draw a new one.
- Discard a Fourth Circle demon at the instant it appears and randomly select a new one.
John Dark's Tip: If you have access to divine intervention, use it in the early game the moment it is needed. Later in the game, such a change never has as dramatic an effect.
The Lord's Shadow
"Keep your face to the sunshine, and you cannot see a shadow." — Helen Keller
The Lord's Shadow tokens mark the extent of the territory conquered by the Demon Lord you are facing. On many maps, the Lord moves along the map, extending the Lord's Shadow as it goes. This is shown by placing a new Lord's Shadow marker in the area the Lord enters. These extend the Lord's demesne. As the Shadow grows longer, the area available for the players to take action within becomes smaller and smaller. If the Shadow ever enters the map's start, the game immediately ends and the players lose. Hell is triumphant.
When a hero enters any area marked by the Lord's Shadow, they are dragged to Hell, Hell Time, and the Lord's Battle.
Effects of the Shadow
All ambush troopers under the Lord's Shadow instantly die without revealing invasion tokens (if any). Patrol troopers accompanying a hero remain.
When a hero enters the Lord's Shadow, they are immediately transported to Hell, placed on the Demon Lord's sheet, and begins Hell Time.
Understanding Enemies
"If I got rid of my demons, I'd lose my angels." — Tennessee Williams
You face off against a variety of enemies. These fall into the two broad categories of the Lord and its minions. Minions are categorized by their Circle, which ranges from 0 to 4.
Limbo minions are kind of like "0 Circle" enemies. These are the larvae, and are the only minions which are NOT also demons. They do not benefit from the current demonic legion abilities (exception: Hades, which mentions larvae by name). For instance, if Pandemonium is the legion, larvae do not attack outside their area. If Styx is the legion, larvae still only move 1 area in the Minions Move segment, etc.
First Circle demons are the grylluses, and are the second-most common spawn (after larvae).
Second Circle demons are the fiends.
Third Circle demons are the cacodemons, and are the rarest spawn from Invasion tokens, which is fortunate.
Fourth Circle demons spawn when the Lord marker reaches 1, and usually appear in the Lord's area (on a few maps, this is changed). There are a variety of these beings, and they act as mini-bosses who often boost or modify the map or the other minions.
The Lord is the demon ruler, who is difficult to banish, but whose elimination is your ultimate goal. As he moves, he extends his Shadow. To directly confront him, the heroes must enter his Shadow, which transports them and the Lord to Hell, where they fight him directly. Wise players will develop their heroes such that they have the best possible chance to kill the Lord when they assault. Even so, this may take more than one attempt.
Enemy Characteristics
All Enemies have an attack stat and a toughness stat. Minion stats are laid out on the demon panel.
All demons also benefit from the current legion, which is found on the control panel. When the legion switches, the minions immediately switch their ability.
- Attack This shows the dice each minion gets for an attack.
- Toughness Shown as a number or combination of numbers. To kill the minion, you must exceed that number or a combination on your dice. You must exceed all of a minion's toughness stats to kill it. Usually this is a single number, but a few extra-tough enemies require you to match two numbers to kill them.
Example: A cacodemon (Third Circle), with a toughness of 4+4, requires a result of 5 or more on each of two different dice before it is killed.
John Dark's Tip: Demons always roll 1 die per Circle. Thus, Fourth Circle Demons roll 4 dice. The Lords generally roll 6 dice, though they don't belong to a particular Circle.
Demon Legions
At any given time, exactly one legion is in effect. This boosts enemies on the map. Most legions only affect First through Fourth Circle demons, but Hades affects larvae. For example, when Pandemonium is in effect, the larvae do NOT cast spells. When Styx is in effect, the larvae still only move 1 area, not two. And so forth.
The legion never affects the Demon Lord.
The legion has a significant effect on play, and your heroes need to take steps to deal with a particular legion. For example, if it is Phlegethon, they may want to focus on gifts and abilities that help with fire!
Changing the Legion. When the doom track hits 3 or 7, discard the current legion card and draw a new one. This immediately causes all demons to adopt the new legion, and may have other effects.
In addition, players can use divine intervention to discard the current legion and draw a new one.
Legion Abilities and Invasion Tokens. Legion abilities do not apply to invasion tokens. For example, a Styx demon moves 2 areas, while an invasion token still only moves 1.
John Dark's Tip: Sometimes revealed minions share an area with an invasion token. Revealed minions still get to apply the legion ability, while the token doesn't.
Invasion Tokens
At game start, and throughout the game, invasion tokens are placed. These represent minions which the heroes or their troopers have not yet seen. In essence, the minions are "contained" within the invasion tokens. Invasion tokens move toward the start just like minions, but do not benefit from their legion.
Revealing Invasion Tokens
When an invasion token and a hero or an ambush share the same area, then the invasion token gets revealed, and the requisite number and type of enemies are placed. The invasion token is then removed from the board.
Once demons are revealed, they stay revealed—they never turn back into an invasion token.
John Dark's Tip: Instead of actually moving an invasion token into a hero's or an ambush's area, you can leave it in the previous area, and just roll the despair dice and place figures in the new area instead. It works out the same.
Spawning Demons from an Invasion Token
Roll all the despair dice in the pool, then compare your result to each of the circles.
- Place larvae (Limbo) equal to the total number of pairs rolled, regardless of type.
- Place one gryllus (First Circle) for each pair of First Circle results.
- Place one fiend (Second Circle) for each pair of Second Circle results.
- Place one cacodemon (Third Circle) for each pair of Third Circle results.
Note that this means there is always an equal number of Limbo minions accompanying the various demons (e.g., if you rolled and got 2 First Circle, 2 Second Circle, and 1 Third Circle, 2+2+1 means you also get 5 Limbo minions).
John Dark's Tip: Important—if you run out of a particular demon type, so it isn't placed, you STILL have to take the Limbo minion for that pair. See Running Out of Figures below for details.
Example One: The despair pool contains 6 dice. In the minions move phase, an invasion token advances into an area containing a hero. The token is removed, and the captain rolls the six despair dice, getting results of 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, and 3:
- Limbo—Because the captain rolled two pairs, they place 2 larvae.
- First Circle—The captain places one gryllus for the single pair of First Circle results (the third such result is ignored, since it doesn't make a matched pair).
- Second Circle—The captain places one fiend for the single pair of Second Circle results.
- Third Circle—No cacodemons are placed, as there was no paired result.
- The final result in the area is 4 larvae and 1 gryllus, plus doom advances 1 point.
Example Two: Later in the same game, the despair pool now has 8 dice, and the captain rolls for a second spawning, getting 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3:
- Limbo—Because there were 3 pairs rolled, the captain places 3 larvae.
- First Circle—The captain places two grylluses for the two pairs of First Circle results.
- Second Circle—No fiends are placed.
- Third Circle—One cacodemon is placed.
Running Out of Figures. If you do not have enough demon figures to place all the new minions for a particular invasion token, increase doom by 1 (regardless of the number of missing demons in that token).
Example: On the map are 4 Limbo, 5 First Circle, 4 Second Circle, and 2 Third Circle minions. The players resolve an invasion token, which generates 2 First Circle, 2 Second Circle, and 4 Limbo minions. Let's go through the new Demons step by step:
- Limbo: The roll resulted in 4 total pairs (regardless of type), so 4 larvae are successfully placed.
- First Circle: The invasion token generated 2 grylluses, but five figures are already in play, so only one gets added (since only 6 are in the pool). Due to this shortage of demon figures, 1 doom is added to the doom track.
- Second Circle: The invasion token generated 2 fiends, but all 4 fiends are already in play, so none are placed. However, no more doom is generated, because this invasion token has already generated 1 doom.
- Third Circle: The invasion token did not generate any cacodemons.
Fourth Circle Demons
These are especially powerful demons, spawned personally by the Lord. Unlike lesser minions, they have hit points, like a Lord or hero. It takes 4 hits to kill one (marked off on their card). When a Fourth Circle minion is killed, the hero who strikes the killing wound receives 4 courage. (If an ambush kills it, the courage goes to the pool.)
If a Fourth Circle demon exits, it increases doom by 4 instead of 1.
Many Fourth Circle demons have special abilities that trigger when they spawn, stay in effect while they are in play, and/or trigger when they die. Watch for these.
"The Philter … the brass masks it carried were chanting a hellish refrain, powering the lesser demons. And the masks on all the grylluses answered back." — Naomi Joslyn
Summary of Fourth Circle Rules. When the Lord counter reaches 1, the Lord on most maps advances one area, drops a Lord's Shadow token, and then spawns a Fourth Circle demon. Some Fourth Circle demons have an immediate effect when they spawn (check their card). During the following minions attack segment, the Fourth Circle demon (and the Lord) attacks heroes in that same area. Then, during the ensuing minions move segment, the Fourth Circle Demon advances an area along with all other minions. So at the end of the enemy phase, on most maps the Fourth Circle demon is in an area just in front of the Lord (or two areas, if Styx is the legion).
John Dark's Tip: Fourth Circle demons always affect the game in a major way, hurting all players. It's rarely a good idea to ignore or avoid them.
Understanding Demon Lords
"You keep knocking on the devil's door long enough and sooner or later someone's gonna answer you." — Four Brothers (2005)
Lords are not minions. Like Fourth Circle Demons, they have hit points (usually a LOT of hit points). When a Lord is placed on his sheet, also place his health counter on his chart at the correct spot. (Lord starting health varies with the number of heroes.)
- Toughness Shown as a number or combination of numbers. As with a hero, when an attack exceeds that number/combination on the dice, the Lord takes 1 damage. If you manage to exceed the toughness more than once, the Lord takes more damage.
Example: Jabootu has a toughness of 5. A hero manages to roll a 6 and an 8 in his attack, and scores them both on Jabootu (The hero could have assigned them to other demons in the area). Jabootu takes 2 damage.
- Attack This shows the dice the Lord uses for its attack.
- Menace All Lords have a menace ability. The menace occurs at the start of every Lord Battle.
- Ability Almost every Lord has one or more special abilities that adversely affect players.
- Health Each Lord has health points, just like heroes. Their starting health generally depends upon the number of heroes in the game.
- Reward All Lords have some way for the heroes to earn courage (and sometimes other returns) by fighting them.
John Dark's Tip: Some Lords provide heroes with special attacking choices they can make instead of attacking or retreating while in Hell Time. This doesn't change the overall situation, however.
Hell Time
The Lord Battle can be triggered in two ways.
A Hero Enters the Shadow
When a hero enters an area under the Lord's Shadow (or vice versa, as a result of the Lord's movement), time stops, and the hero is transported to Hell.
The normal game sequence stops, and the hero phase is paused until Hell Time is over. The player who entered the Shadow places their hero on the "Activating Hero" space to indicate which hero started the battle. Once all heroes depart Hell, the order of play begins again with the hero following the activating hero. If the activating hero is the last in turn order, then the game moves on to the Enemy phase.
During the Enemy phase
The other way to trigger a Lord Battle is when the Lord advances during the Lord segment (when their track hits 1) and moves onto an area containing a hero. Immediately stop play and perform the Lord Battle. This occurs after all of the events in the Despair and Lord segment, but before anything else happens in the Enemy phase.
For example, the Lord will spawn his 4th Circle Demon in the new area, but the demons in his original area will not have moved yet.
The Battle Itself
No other game events happen in Hell Time. Demons don't move. Despair doesn't advance. And heroes don't follow the normal action phase sequence—they may perform no game actions except for attacking or retreating when it is their turn. The heroes have entered a dimension beyond time and space, where Hell's rules function, instead of sane reality.
Perform the following steps, in sequence, during Hell Time:
- The player who initiated the fight places their hero on the "Activating Hero" space. If Hell Time was triggered by the Lord's movement, then no hero is placed here.
- The activating hero now selects one or more other heroes to join in the battle (all heroes in the Lord's area are required to join). If there is no activating hero, then the captain chooses who goes. All chosen heroes move to the Hell Time Tile regardless of where they were.
- Resolve any invasion token in the Lord's area. Move all minions in the Lord's area, and the Lord to the Hell Time Tile, to battle the heroes. Move the gate to the Lord's area to indicate where surviving enemies will go after the battle.
- Menace Each Lord has a menace. Follow its instructions.
- Hero Attack Each player, in normal turn sequence (starting with the captain), now chooses whether their hero will attack or retreat. Heroes can attack even if they have finished their normal action turn. Instead of an attack, a player can choose to retreat—move their hero figure to any non-Shadowed area on the map, and that hero is out of the fight for the rest of the battle.
- Enemy Attack Once all the heroes have attacked in turn, the enemies (including the Lord) counterattack. As per normal battle rules, the captain chooses whom each group attacks, from the lowest-ranked minions up to the Lord. Return to the Hero Attack step and repeat the process until every hero has left the area, is dead, or the Lord is dead. In the latter case, the players win.
Ending Hell Time
- When no heroes remain in Hell, swap the Lord and any remaining minions on the Hell Time Tile with the Gate's current position on the map (which should be in the spot the Lord left when Hell Time started). If Hell Time was triggered in the hero phase, then the game continues with the hero whose turn follows the activating hero. This is true even if the activating hero had not used all their actions—their turn ends anyway.
- If Hell Time was triggered in the enemy phase (by the Lord's movement), the game continues with the ensuing minions attack segment, followed by the minions move segment, and so on.
Example: In a four-player game, and John Dark as the captain, Amelia Azevedo moves into a Shadow area, carrying Moose Kowalsky with her (as per her Dominant Personality ability). A Lord Battle immediately begins.
Step 1: Amelia gets to pick which other heroes participate, because she is the activating player. Amelia and Moose are required, because they entered the Shadow. Amelia chooses for all heroes to be in the area, so now John Dark and Hannah Hazard (the other hero) are both in the fight.
Step 2 (Menace): The enemy is Baphomet, which means he starts off with a free attack. John Dark chooses to take it himself, and Baphomet scores 4 damage on him, which he uses 2 National Guard Troopers to absorb (so he isn't set on fire). Also present in the area are 3 larvae, 2 grylluses, and 1 fiend.
Step 3 (Hero Attack): Each hero, in normal turn sequence, gets to attack. John Dark attacks first (he's team captain, though Amelia is the start player who triggered the battle). He rolls too low to hurt Baphomet, but kills a larva. Amelia goes next, scoring 2 damage on Baphomet. Then Moose scores 1 damage on Baphomet, plus kills a larva. Hannah is last in attack rotation; she scores a 8 and chooses to damage Baphomet's wall, and gains 2 courage.
Step 4 (Enemy Counterattack): The larva is required to attack John Dark (as per his flaw), scoring 1 damage. The two grylluses attack Moose for 1 damage, and the fiend also attacks Moose, scoring 2 damage. Baphomet attacks and hits Moose (again), for 5(!) damage, forcing him to sacrifice three Volunteer troopers to avoid death, plus Moose is now on fire, and is down to 2 hit points!
The battle now goes back to the Hero Attack step. John Dark attacks first (as before), this time rolling a 1 on his one die and completely missing. He would like to use his Dark Exchange ability, but all actions except attack and retreat are invalid during a Lord Battle. Then Amelia scores 1 damage on the Lord, and kills the last larva with her other die. Moose, nervous about the amount of damage he has taken, and feeling that his attack dice (currently 2d6) are too weak, retreats, ending his participation and moving his character to an empty area, where he hopes to use first aid during the team phase. Hannah scores 2 hits on Baphomet.
The enemy strikes back. No larvae are left, so the two grylluses strike at John Dark, scoring 2 hits. The fiend hits Hannah for 2 damage. Then Baphomet strikes John Dark and scores 5 hits, forcing him to expend his remaining two troopers to block 4 damage. John is down to 1 hit point AND he is on fire!
Once again, back to the Hero Attack step. John Dark retreats on his turn to avoid dying (choosing to go to the start area, so he can recruit next turn). Amelia and Hannah, unwilling to stay alone in the Lord's area, also retreat. This ends the Lord Battle.
The end result was: Baphomet took 6 damage, his Wall took 1, and all three larvae were killed. John Dark took 4 damage and lost four National Guard troopers; Amelia was unharmed; Moose took 5 damage and lost 3 Volunteers; and Hannah took 2 damage. All in all, not too bad. It was a demon Lord, after all.
The game now continues with Moose's turn, since his turn is after Amelia's (who was the start player for the boss battle). The heroes plan to apply first aid, recruit more troopers, and head back into the Lord's area as quickly as possible to continue the struggle. John Dark reminds the other players that someone needs to extinguish his fire before his next hero turn, or he'll burn to death.
Your Control Panel
"Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell." — Karl Popper
Doom Track
Doom points accrue throughout the game. When doom reaches 13, the game ends and the heroes lose.
The doom track advances in three ways:
- When an enemy minion is in the start area during the Minions Move segment. The enemy exits, and increases doom by 1 per minion (or 4 for a Fourth Circle demon).
- If a hero is killed, add 2 doom.
- When an invasion token resolves, and not enough demon figures are in stock to fully satisfy its requirements, add 1 doom.
Doom has no other cumulative effect except that at doom 3 and doom 7, the legion changes.
Despair Track
The despair track has 6 steps, numbered 1 to 6. The despair track and despair dice progress every turn and are cyclic. The points go around the track, like a clock. Each time the track returns to 1, despair dice accumulate and the difficulty of the game increases.
Lord Track
The Lord track is tied to the despair track, but it advances on a slower cycle (like the "hour hand" to despair's "minute hand"). Both increase the game's challenge, and act as a timer—if you ignore despair and the Lord track for too long, the demons grow too mighty to handle.
When the Lord track returns to 1, the Lord moves and spawns a Fourth Circle demon, and places a new Lord's Shadow token. If the Lord (and his Shadow) enter the start area, the game immediately ends, and you lose.
Lord's Shadow markers start in the Lord's area, and are extended as he moves.
Despair Pool
This gradually accumulates despair dice throughout the game. More dice means when an invasion token is resolved, it typically results in more minions appearing.
Courage Pool
Whenever enemies are killed by an ambush, the resulting courage is added to the control panel's courage pool, where it is available for any hero's use with the captain's approval.
Legion Slot
The current legion is displayed here.
Understanding Troopers
"I am a man, and therefore have all devils in my heart." — G.K. Chesterton
Troopers are brave soldiers who accompany the heroes on their mission. When set to an ambush they can attack incoming enemies, and when on patrol with a hero they can absorb damage.
Troopers are recruited during the team phase, in the recruit segment.
Troopers are normally never eliminated except when a hero uses them to absorb damage.
No more than 4 troopers can accompany a single hero on patrol, and no more than 4 troopers can be placed in a single ambush.
All troopers in a single ambush, and all troopers in a single patrol, must be of the same kind. You cannot mix-and-match. For example, if you have Volunteers in your patrol, and want to recruit a Police officer, you will need to discard the Volunteers.
Trooper Characteristics
In general, each game has five different types of troopers, ranging in cost from 1 to 5. Each type has a limited number of cards. When all troopers of a particular type are in play, no more can be recruited. When a trooper is eliminated, its card is placed back on its stack, and can be recruited again.
Trooper characteristics are marked on their card:
- Name Trooper type. All troopers in a single patrol or ambush must be the same type.
- Absorb How much incoming damage a trooper can stop.
- Ambush The die or dice rolled by this trooper type during the ambushes fire segment.
- Special Trait A trait is usually an advantage (as with the Army), but sometimes a weakness (as with Gang members). Not all troopers have a trait.
- Cost All troopers have a cost. This must be paid with a recruit die roll (typically 1d4, only for heroes in the start area), which can be added to by paying courage (worth 1 point each).
On Patrol
When you recruit a trooper, you must pay the cost, and it is automatically placed on patrol with your hero. Example: A US Army trooper costs 4 to take on patrol.
A patrol trooper has two functions—first, you can remove one (or more) of them to absorb incoming damage from an enemy attack (i.e., they take the hit instead of you), and second, you can place them in an area with the set ambush hero action.
John Dark's Tip: The captain may not veto a hero's use of ambush troopers to soak up damage.
As an Ambush
When troopers are placed as an ambush, they shoot at incoming demons during the Enemy phase. The captain determines how their attack is applied—they work just like a hero in this regard (i.e., they roll their damage, then it is "spent" on demons as the players please).
Troopers set to ambush can still be used to absorb damage for heroes in their area.
All ambush troopers simply roll the dice total for their number. For example, two Army troopers in ambush will roll 1d6 TOTAL, not 1d6 each. Three Army troopers in ambush will roll 2d6 TOTAL. In almost every case, the ambush value for one or two troopers is the same.
How Troopers Absorb Damage
After a demon group attacks, if you don't want to take the damage on your hero, you can discard a trooper. Each trooper has an absorb rating—this is how much damage it can soak up. Please note that although many troopers can stop 2 or even 3 points of damage, they are still eliminated even when used to absorb just 1 or 2 points.
Example: John Dark has two US Army troopers on patrol with him. He is hit for 3 damage by a demon group. He can choose to discard both troopers to absorb all the damage (though 1 point of absorption will be wasted), or he could discard just one trooper to absorb 2 points, then take the final point himself. Or he could hang on to both troopers and take all 3 damage.
A patrol can only absorb damage for the hero who controls it. However, any hero can discard an ambush trooper in the area to avoid the damage. This works just as with a patrol trooper—use the absorb rating. This is the only way, barring special abilities, that a demon can kill an ambush trooper.
Limitations on Absorbing Damage. Troopers absorb damage ONLY from a demon attack. They do not absorb damage from a fire or pestilence marker, and they do not absorb damage inflicted by hero abilities, gifts, or flaws. They also cannot absorb any harmful effect which is not damage (such as stun). However, if a hero would gain a harmful effect by being damaged, and all the damage is absorbed, he does not take the harmful effect.
Example One: The current legion is Phlegethon. A gryllus group strikes a hero for 2 damage. If he uses troopers to absorb both points of damage, he won't be set on fire!
Example Two: When the Catoblepas first spawns, all heroes automatically take 2 pestilence markers. Troopers can't block this. However, when the Catoblepas attacks a hero, it inflicts 1 pestilence marker per hit. If the Catoblepas rolls 3 damage, but a trooper absorbs 2 points, then the hero only takes 1 damage, and only 1 pestilence marker. If troopers absorbed all 3 damage, the hero would get no pestilence markers.
Regions (Expansions)
Some expansions contain new regions. These represent geographic areas or countries, and change the available troopers. Each region has a region card to explain these changes. The US is unique, because you get choices for your troopers.
All regions give you different assortments of troopers—always five types, however. A few regions also change the starting setup. For example, Canada starts players with an extra health but no courage in the pool. If you are using a region which calls for the use of a specific trooper, and you do not have that trooper type on hand (perhaps because it comes in an expansion), you may substitute any other trooper of the same cost. For example, if you are playing the Japan region, but don't have Paramilitary, you can substitute Citizen Militia.
Sequence of Play
"The devil is not always at the poor man's door." — French proverb
TEAM PHASE
a. New Captain Segment (and new heroes spawn at the start)
b. Team Action Segment i. Recruit ii. First aid iii. Earn gift iv. Renew v. Special actions (from gifts or abilities)
HERO PHASE
a. Hero Action Segment Each player, starting with the captain, and proceeding clockwise, takes their turn. Each hero has two standard actions, and may have special actions. Each hero action may only be performed once, but can be taken in any order. i. Attack (or recover from stun, or put out a fire.) Heroes can seek help from others at this time. ii. Move (or recover from stun) iii. Set ambush iv. Special actions (from gifts or abilities)
ENEMY PHASE
a. Despair and Lord Segment Advance the despair counter 1 step per hero. If the despair counter reaches or passes 1, perform the despair cycle. If the Lord track reaches 1, perform the Lord cycle following the despair cycle.
b. Minions Attack Segment Minions attack as groups. Each group in each space attacks a single hero, chosen by the captain.
c. Minions Move Segment All minions on the start exit (on the Invasion map—other maps may have different rules), scoring 1 doom apiece.
In the rare case that an invasion token scores doom, the amount scored is always equal to the current number of despair dice.
On most maps, all on-map minions and invasion tokens move from their current area to the next area, heading towards the start. First move enemies and tokens on the area closest to the start, then work backward toward the Lord.
Reveal an invasion token that enters an area containing heroes or troopers.
d. Minion Spawn Segment Place a new invasion token in the Lord's current area. Some maps produce invasion tokens in certain areas without a Lord.
e. Ambush Segment Resolve ambushes in every area containing both ambush troopers and minions, in any desired order.
The Team Phase
"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here." — William Shakespeare
New Captain Segment
On the first turn of the game, select the first captain any way you choose (e.g., youngest player, shortest player, player with the longest beard, etc.) and give them the captain marker. If this is your first time playing Planet Apocalypse, or if you lost your last game, give that player the divine intervention token as well. (Otherwise, do not use divine intervention.)
From then on, in each new captain segment, the current captain passes the captain marker to the player on their left, who then becomes the new captain. (The original first player keeps the divine intervention token.)
John Dark's Tip: Please note that captain status goes with the player, not with the hero. If a player's hero is killed, the player remains captain.
The captain has four tasks, and occasionally others are relegated to them:
- The captain is the first player.
- The captain must approve before any player can take courage from the pool.
- In the minions attack segment, the captain determines which hero is targeted by each demon group (when there is a choice).
- In the ambush segment, the captain determines which minions are targeted by each ambush's die result.
New Heroes Spawn. If a player is joining the game late, or a player's hero has died, that player now selects a replacement hero from those not currently in the game.
The new hero begins in the start area at full health, with no gifts, and with starting courage equal to the current number of despair dice. A player only earns this courage when starting a brand-new hero. Heroes who die but are somehow resurrected or spared from death by a gift or ability do not get a courage bonus.
Team Action Segment
During this segment, heroes perform team actions together. These actions can be done in any order, but typically it is more effective for all heroes to perform the same action at the same time (thus, all heroes first aid together, and recruit together, etc.). Team actions typically also benefit other players, or are best performed in conjunction with other players. There are four standard team actions, one of which (renew) is rare.
For example, in a 3-player game, one player might perform first aid, then earn a gift, then the two players who hadn't done first aid yet exchange first aids. The limit is that each individual hero can only do a particular team action once (in the same manner that during the hero phase, each hero can only do each action once.).
i. Recruit ii. First Aid iii. Earn gift iv. Renew v. Special actions
Recruit (free, but hero must be in the start area)
All heroes in the start area may recruit. Each hero rolls 1d4, and can take up to that many points of troopers. A hero can spend courage for more points on a 1-for-1 basis.
Example One: Madeleine is in the start area. She rolls a 3 to recruit, and decides to spend 2 courage to increase her final total to 5. This lets her recruit a Special Forces trooper.
The recruiting points are used to pay for new troopers to add to your patrol. Some trooper types cost more than others, representing better training or equipment. You cannot mix and match types of troopers; all the troopers on your patrol must be of the same type. You can discard troopers from your sheet if you wish to recruit a new type.
If you spend less than your die roll, any excess is lost.
There is a limit on how many of each trooper are available. For example, the game contains only four Special Forces. If all four are in play, no more can be recruited. If one of the Special Forces dies, then another can be recruited to take its place.
Example Two: Frank, Ken, and Chris are on the start area during the recruit segment. Frank rolls 1d4 and gets a 4. He already has one Police trooper, so he takes a second one, paying 3. He loses the extra point rolled. He could have taken a cost 4 Army, but then he would have had to discard his current Police. Ken has no patrol, and rolls a 2. He takes a Police. This costs 3, so he pays for the extra point with 1 courage. Chris rolls a 4, and takes four Volunteers, each costing 1. She already has a Citizen Militia in her Patrol, so she must discard it to add the Volunteers.
First Aid (free, or 1 courage if enemies are present)
Each hero can apply first aid to one hero in his area. First aid restores 1 health (up to that player's current health cap) to the target hero (heroes can target themselves). An individual hero can benefit from multiple first aids in a segment.
A hero must pay 1 courage to use first aid if any enemies are in their area. It's free if no enemies are around.
Example: John Dark is down to 1 health, and shares an area with Hannah and Doc Hunter. One larva is also present. Doc Hunter uses first aid on John Dark, paying 1 courage (because of the larva), then Hannah does likewise. Since Doc Hunter gets an extra point from his first aids, per his ability, John's health is increased by 3. John decides not to use his own first aid, because he doesn't want to spend any courage.
Earn Gift (cost varies; always courage)
Gifts are obtained by purchasing them from the gift panel's stock of gifts during the team action phase. Gifts do not take effect until placed on your hero sheet.
Courage is the unit of exchange—always spend courage to buy a gift.
A hero can buy more than one gift during the team action segment. This is especially important for replacement heroes.
In case of a dispute about gift purchases, first remember that the captain controls the courage pool. If a player is able to buy a gift using their own personal courage, then do this in turn order.
Heroes can spend their own courage, or they can use the courage pool, or a combination thereof.
John Dark's Tip: Do not expect to earn all your possible 6 gifts in most games. Typically, the game ends when most heroes have 3 to 5 gifts. If a hero does manage to acquire all 6 gifts, typically this is because the other players have "fed" that hero, letting them use the lion's share of the courage pool.
When you buy a gift, remove the card from the gift panel and place it on your hero sheet on an available slot. Leave the card's former spot on the gift panel empty. Each gift you buy gives you two rewards—you gain both the benefit printed on the gift slot as well as the card you chose. The gift slot's benefit is always an instant one-time effect. The gift card displays the other benefit and is on top of the slot on the hero sheet.
- You may only place a gift on a start slot, or a slot connected to an already-gifted slot by an arrow.
- You can never remove a gift that's already in place, i.e., you can't change your mind.
- Some gift cards cost extra courage beyond that listed on the hero sheet. These cards state this fact prominently.
- Some gifts use luck and always are marked as such.
Example One: Hannah wants to buy the Faith gift. She currently has no gifts, so she can only place a gift in her one start slot, which is priced at 6 courage. This gift costs her 10 total courage—6 for the base slot cost, plus 4 more because of Faith's additional price.
When she places the card, she adds a 1d4 token to her attack box (as per the gift slot's text), then she adds a toughness token to her toughness box (as per Faith's text). Now that she has this gift, on future turns she also has access to her gift slots that grant her the Zeroed In or Head Shot abilities.
Example Two: Tarang buys the Wizard Eye gift. As per the card's text, he must spend 1 luck each time he uses its ability.
After a gift is purchased, leave its slot blank on the gift panel. When the Lord counter reaches 1, remaining gifts are discarded from the gift panel and a new set is drawn to fill the slots.
Hero Maximums
Regardless of gifts and bonuses, for heroes:
- The maximum possible toughness (for a human) is 5 under normal circumstances. Some demon abilities can affect this.
- The lowest possible toughness is 0.
- The maximum possible health for a hero is 10.
- No attack die can be increased past 1d12, even with helping.
Renew (cost 9)
Many gifts and a few abilities are powered by luck. The renew team action helps restore luck. All players as a group must spend 9 courage, and then the team (as a whole) gains 4 luck. If the team cannot agree how to divvy this up, the captain decides.
Special Team Actions (cost varies)
Some gifts and abilities give particular heroes new team actions.
Hero Phase
"Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult." — Anne Rice
Hero Action Segment
Summary. During the hero action segment, each player in turn (starting with the captain) takes their turn. Normally, hero actions do not cost courage.
The captain is always the first player to take their turn, after which the sequence proceeds clockwise (to the captain's left) around the table. When all players have taken a turn, the hero phase ends, and the game progresses to the enemy phase.
On their turn, a hero can take each of the following actions once, in any order: move, attack, set an ambush. In addition, some gifts or abilities provide special actions, which can also be used just once per turn.
Example: John Dark can perform his Dark Exchange ability once per turn. This is in addition to one attack and one move.
Recover from Stun and Fire
This happens during the hero action segment, but it is not so much an action as the loss of an action. A stunned player must either give up their attack or their move for this turn, after which their hero can stand back up. The hero can then continue with any remaining actions. A hero cannot give up a special action to recover from a stun.
Example: Victor Steele is stunned this turn. He recovers by giving up his attack. He can still move.
A hero can give up their attack (but not their move) to put out a fire on any hero in their area. A hero can put out their own fire, but note that fire damage happens first, before the hero takes any actions.
The Move Action
To move, pick up your hero figure and move it, one area at a time, either 1 or 2 areas. Heroes can move toward or away from the start. Note that you cannot do part of your move, then attack (or take any other action), then continue with the rest of your move. You must complete your entire move before taking any other action.
You may NOT change direction during your move—you cannot enter an area, then retreat from it.
Entering a New Area. When you enter an area that contains an invasion token, remove it and roll the despair dice to generate the demons within.
If you still have 1 area of your move left after revealing the invasion token, you can continue moving, probably revealing more enemies.
John Dark's Tip: The farther you penetrate into the enemy citadel, the tougher things get! But dawdling at the periphery doesn't necessarily help either.
The Attack Action
If you are in an area containing enemies, roll dice equal to your current attack. Compare results to the enemy units, and apply them up as you wish. Each enemy you kill typically earns you 1 courage.
Each unit has a certain toughness given as a number or a combination of numbers. Assigning a die or dice exceeding the number or numbers kills the unit (if a larva, or First, Second, or Third Circle demon) or inflicts 1 damage to it (if a hero, Fourth Circle demon, or Lord).
John Dark's Tip: For example, I have toughness 3. This means the enemy has to roll a 4 or more to hit me with a die.
A die must individually score higher than the target's toughness. Do not add dice together.
After a hero rolls their dice, the results can be applied to enemies in any way they please.
Example One: John Dark is attacking, with 2d6. The area contains 2 larvae (Limbo), 1 gryllus, and a Hellhound. His roll results in a pair of 4s. He can use one of his 4 results to kill a larva, leaving him with another 4 which can either kill the gryllus or another larva. Even though his two scores combined make 8, he cannot damage the Hellhound, because dice cannot be combined in this way.
Double Toughness
Some enemies have two numbers, and sometimes toughness can be doubled. In either case, both numbers must be met by separate dice to inflict damage. If a doubled toughness is increased or decreased by a point, change both numbers.
Example Two: Hannah Hazard rolls 1d8. So she cannot possibly kill a cacodemon (toughness 4+4). She can beat only one of its two toughness numbers.
Example Three: The players face Lord Procrustes, whose toughness is 4+4. He will only receive 1 damage for each pair of dice a hero rolls which score 5 or more on each die.
Helping Another Hero's Attack (cost 1 courage)
If another hero is in your area before you attack, you can ask that hero for help. If they agree, they spend 1 courage (their own or from the courage pool, if the captain agrees). Before you attack, you can increase one of your dice a level (for example, a 1d6 becomes a 1d8). More than one hero can help the same attack, each increasing a chosen die by a level. You can never bump up a die past 1d12, however.
You cannot help your own attack.
Example: John Dark has 2d6, and is attacking a Hellhound (toughness 4). Before he rolls, he asks for help from the two other heroes in the area. Both agree, and each spends 1 courage. Now John has a choice, since he has two "helps." He can either choose to increase his dice 1 step each, giving him 2d8, or he can spend both helps on a single die, giving him 1d6+1d10.
The Set Ambush action
Heroes with patrol troopers can place one or more in their area as an ambush. Once placed, the troopers will fire on enemies in the next ambush segment (at the end of the enemy phase).
No more than 4 troopers can be in an ambush. All troopers in an ambush must be the same type. If you place a new type of trooper in an ambush, the previous ambush is dismissed and removed from the map.
Each area can only have one group of troopers as its ambush.
Enemy Phase
"Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned." — Dick Gregory
Despair and Lord Segment
In general, despair increases every turn. If it hits or passes 1, then the Lord track also increases. If the Lord track hits 1, then the Lord is triggered to move and other events occur.
John Dark's Tip: Some of the expansions add new exciting maps to the game. These maps often change the exact results or order of events during the despair segment, and come with a special card explaining the new order. For example, in the Dragon map, the Lord doesn't move when the Lord track reaches 1.
Despair Track. Increase the despair counter by 1 per player. Despair increases faster on the track with more heroes, which makes the game more challenging.
The Despair Cycle. When the despair counter hits or passes 1, perform these tasks:
- Each hero with pestilence markers receives 1 damage per token.
- Add 1 despair die to the despair pool.
- Add 4 courage to the courage pool.
Advance the Lord counter one step on its track. If this moves it to 1, the Lord cycle triggers. It will take place next.
Lord Cycle (if the Lord counter hits 1). When the Lord track hits 1, the following events take place:
- Discard ALL cards on the gift panel and replace them with new cards, randomly drawn.
- Advance the Lord forward one area (unless otherwise specified by the map's rules), and place a Lord's Shadow in the new area. If the Lord moves into the start area, the game immediately ends, and all players lose.
- The Lord's Shadow kills all troopers in its area immediately. Keep that in mind. It means that placing an ambush where the Lord's Shadow is imminent is only situationally effective.
- As the Lord's Shadow expands, group together all minions and invasion tokens under the Shadow as if they were in the same area. Treat all areas under the Shadow as one area. During the ensuing minions move segment all minions and invasion tokens move out of the Shadow into the next area. The next invasion token to spawn does so under the Shadow.
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in the Lord's current area (pick one randomly by holding their cards facedown and holding them out for another player to select). The newly spawned Fourth Circle demon will advance in the ensuing minions move segment.
- If the Lord entered an area containing heroes, a Lord Battle begins (see the Understanding Demon Lords section on page 25 for details).
On-Map Minions and Invasion Tokens
Group Attack Sub-Segment. Enemies now attack. Go area by area, and completely finish one area before moving to the next. You can do the areas in any order, but if you choose a non-regular way you should keep track somehow of which areas have been resolved.
In each area, enemies attack in precise order, starting with Limbo minions (larvae), then First Circle (grylluses), and so forth, going on up the line. If the Lord is present, he attacks last of all.
Enemies attack in groups by type—thus all larvae (Limbo) in an area are one group. If an area has only a single minion of a particular type (always the case for the Fourth Circle demons and the Lord), that minion acts as its own group.
The captain chooses the target of each attacking group before dice are rolled. He can switch targets between groups, however.
When a hero is damaged, they can absorb that damage with their own patrol troopers or any ambush trooper in the area. When all damage is absorbed, no extra effects inflicted by that demon are applied to the hero.
Example: The current legion is Phlegethon, which sets heroes on fire when damaged. Four larvae (Limbo), one gryllus (First Circle), and two fiends (Second Circle), share an area with Moose (health 2) and Hannah (health 4) during the minions attack segment. The captain has the larvae target Hannah. The larvae roll 4 dice and score 3 hits, dropping Hannah to 1 health. Though the legion is Phlegethon, Hannah is not set on fire because larvae don't receive legion benefits. Next, the gryllus group (only one demon) attacks. The captain decrees that Moose is the target. Unfortunately, the die is a hit. Moose has his patrol Army trooper absorb the hits. The Army trooper stops both points of damage, and is eliminated. Moose isn't set on fire, since he wasn't hit. The next attack is the pair of fiends, who roll a terrifying 4d10 (2d10 each). The captain, consulting with the team, decides to have the attack strike Hannah, even though she only has 1 Health. The fiends "only" get two hits. To keep from dying, Hannah uses one of the ambush Police troopers in the area, who absorbs 3 damage—though he could have stopped an additional damage point, he is still eliminated by taking 2. Again, because the trooper stopped the damage, Hannah doesn't catch fire.
Special Cases. Usually, only enemies in areas that contain heroes need their attacks resolved. However, demons in the Pandemonium legion and some special-case demons (such as the Hellhound) can attack even when no hero is in their area.
In summary:
- If more than one hero is a potential target, the captain chooses who gets attacked. Minion groups in a particular area always attack in order from lowest Circle to highest (Lord is last). The captain can see the results of a group's attack before choosing the next victim.
- All enemies in a particular area must finish attacking before the captain chooses a new area. The captain can go through the areas in any order. Example: All the heroes are together in the same area, along with some minions. In addition, a Hellhound is in play (in a different area). The captain decides to have the Hellhound go first (with his ranged attack), figuring that this will help better determine the targets of the attacks in the heroes' area.
Move
Move all invasion tokens and revealed minions one area toward the start. Exception: Styx demons move two areas.
John Dark's Tip: It is easiest to remember who has and has not moved if you move enemies in sequence starting with those nearest to the start. Also remember to move demons who passed through the start on the Doomgate map, or to apply other special map rules.
Newly spawned Fourth Circle demons also move at this time, along with other minions or invasion tokens in their area. The Lord never moves during the minions move segment.
Minions Exit
Minions who leave the start area depart the play area on most maps (there are exceptions). Increase the doom level by 1 per exiting minion. Fourth Circle demons increase doom by 4 instead of 1.
In the rare case that an invasion token scores doom, it increases doom by 1 per despair die! Try not to let this happen!
Invasion Tokens Are Revealed
All invasion tokens that entered areas containing a hero or an ambush get revealed. Roll the current despair dice, and replace the tokens with the indicated demons.
John Dark's Tip: Of course you CAN ponderously move up all the invasion tokens, one by one, from the Lord. But since the tokens are externally identical, we usually just leave them on the map and add a new token to the front of the line. It's the same end result, and is faster to perform. Of course, we still separately move the demon figures accompanying the invasion tokens.
Minions Spawn Segment
Place a new invasion token in the Lord's current area, on most maps. Then reveal the token if heroes or ambush troopers are present.
Ambush Segment
The final step of the enemy phase is to use your ambushes to thin their numbers and thus earn courage. Resolve the ambush in each area that contains both ambush troopers and enemies. If an area lacks either, no ambush takes place there.
John Dark's Tip: You don't have to resolve an ambush that has no chance of taking effect. You can let the troopers just lie low. You might also want to do this (for instance) if you have Gang troopers in an ambush and don't want to lose them, or if you want to save a minion for a hero to kill later on.
How to Ambush
Each ambush consists of 1 to 4 troopers, and the die roll varies with their number and type. It is printed on their card.
The number at top of the ambush attack matrix is the number of troopers in the ambush. Below that is the attack dice for the ambush as a group.
Example: An ambush by three Army troopers will roll 2d6 (not 2d6 per trooper).
Troopers attack in the same manner as heroes. Any player can roll the ambush dice. In disputes, the captain decides how to apply the ambush damage. Heroes cannot help an ambush (see Getting Help From Another Hero above).
Add 1 courage to the pool per minion killed by an ambush. If a Fourth Circle demon is killed, add 4 courage into the pool instead.
John Dark's Tip: Smart players notice that there is no attack difference between 1 and 2 troopers in an ambush. It is still often worth putting 2 troopers into an ambush, so that if a trooper is killed by absorbing damage, the ambush remains active.
Example: Three US Army troopers ambush a demon force that includes both larvae (Limbo) and grylluses (First Circle). The troopers roll 2d6 and score 2 and 4. The captain uses the 2 to kill a larva, and can use the 4 to either kill a second larva or a gryllus. Whatever the captain's choice they'll add 2 courage to the pool, because the ambush killed two foes.
John Dark's Tip: Courage in the pool is better than courage on your hero's sheet. Proper use of troopers is the difference between winning and losing.
"When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes." — Dylan Thomas
Hero and Minion Death
When a hero's health reaches 0, they die. Follow these steps:
- Increase the doom track by 2.
- Discard all that hero's gifts and courage.
- Choose a new hero to enter play in the next recruit segment.
Most minions do not have health. Instead, when an ambush or a hero scores sufficient results to exceed that minion's toughness, it is immediately killed. When a hero kills a demon, they gain 1 courage. If an ambush kills a minion, the resulting courage goes to the courage pool on the control panel.
Fourth Circle demons and Lords have health, just like heroes. Exceeding their toughness inflicts 1 damage. Just as with a hero, you can exceed these enemies' toughness multiple times to inflict more damage.
Example: Stroma's toughness is 4+4—each pair of 5s or higher you roll when targeting her inflicts 1 damage.
Game Effects
Stun
When a hero is stunned, either lay the hero figure on its side or take a Stun marker on the hero sheet.
A stunned hero has to give up either their attack or move on their next turn, but can then carry out the rest of the turn without any issues.
Fire
Some demons set heroes on fire. This is represented by a fire marker placed on the hero sheet.
- A hero who is on fire takes 1 damage at the start of their turn—before they can extinguish the fire! This means a burning hero with 1 health is certain to die unless someone extinguishes the fire before their turn.
- Any hero in the same area can skip their attack to remove a fire marker from a victim.
- A hero can only have one fire marker at a time. Additional ones are ignored.
Pestilence
Some enemies place pestilence markers, representing diabolic disease, acid, or venom.
- A hero can accumulate multiple pestilence markers.
- Each point cured by the first aid action or another similar effect can either heal 1 damage, or be used to discard 1 pestilence marker.
- When the despair track hits or passes 1, all players with pestilence markers take 1 damage per marker.
Player Entry or Departure
Unlike most games, players can join or leave a game of Planet Apocalypse in the middle of the game without messing up play (much). Here's how to do it!
Joining a Game
If a player wants to join a game after it has begun, go through the following steps: The new player starts play in the next recruit segment. The new hero starts with courage equal to the number of despair dice.
- From now on, the despair track increases faster, because you have a new player.
- Increase the health of the Lord, according to the new player count. Example: it is a 4-player game against Lord Baphomet. He started with 15 health, but has lost 6 to the players, so is down to 9. A new player joins the game. Baphomet starts with 18 health in a 5-player game, which is 3 more than in a 4-player game, so his health is increased by 3 to account for the new hero. Now his health is 12.
Leaving a Game
Sad but true, sometimes emergencies or previous appointments call players away from the table. When this happens in Planet Apocalypse, simply hand the player's hero over to another player, who now controls two heroes.
Changing Game Difficulty
"Only in the darkest nights stars shine more brightly." — Azrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib
Planet Apocalypse includes several methods of increasing game difficulty, which you can mix and match to your satisfaction. The game has three levels of increased difficulty: Hard, Nightmare, and Hellish.
If you use two Hard modifiers, count it as a Nightmare level. Two Nightmare modifiers make a Hellish.
Example: A jaded play group decides to start with 6 despair dice in the pool (Nightmare) and also to use the Miniboss (also Nightmare). Their game is now Hellish.
HARD: Secret Lord Identity. Instead of choosing the Lord(s) before the game starts, leave him off the map. Choose the Lord, and then place his figure, using a random method the first time that Lord's Shadow is entered.
NIGHTMARE: Enraged Lord. Start the Lord with health as if there were one more player on your team. For example, you would start Baphomet with 15 health in a 3-player game. (You cannot use this in a 5-player game.)
HARD/NIGHTMARE/HELLISH: Increased Despair Pool. You can adjust difficulty by adding despair dice to the starting despair pool. The more you add, the tougher the game. Our rating is:
- Hard: Start with 5 despair dice.
- Nightmare: Start with 6 despair dice.
- Hellish: Start with 7 despair dice.
NIGHTMARE/HELLISH: Moving On Up. You can also adjust difficulty by starting the Lord one area closer to the start. Place Lord's Shadow markers in the area behind the Lord as well as in his area. For Hellish difficulty, you could start the Lord two spaces closer to your start, but Petersen Games does not recommend more than this.
Please note that this method of increasing difficulty does not apply to maps on which the Lord does not move (such as the Dragon map or Purgatory).
NIGHTMARE: The Miniboss. Begin with a Fourth Circle demon in the Lord's area.
The Maps
The Invasion Map
"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." — Victor Hugo
The Invasion map is the plain vanilla map, with no real surprises. It gives you the full game experience. The minions move through the arrows, headed for the start, and depart. The Lord follows them at a slower pace, controlled by the Lord track.
The Invasion map. The first map you'll encounter!
The Doomgate Map
"Instead of simply launching an invasion of our world, this time the demons are doing some kind of ritual, moving in a special way, almost like a dance. We have to break up the pattern, or clearly all Hell will break loose." — Hannah Hazard
In general, the Doomgate map operates similarly to the Invasion map. Its despair and Lord segments are identical. However, the minions don't depart the map—instead, they return to the Lord's original area upon leaving the start area, and keep moving around in a circle.
The Doomgate map. Demons at the start skip through the Doomgate and go to the Lord's starting area, then keep circling rather than leaving the game.
Doomgate Rule Differences
Start and Gate. The start area and the Lord's Shadow are considered adjacent for all purposes. When a hero moves directly from the start to the Lord's Shadow, this does NOT increase doom, though it does send him to Hell Time.
Minions Move Segment. A minion leaving the start area returns to the Lord's original area. This adds to doom normally, as if the minion had exited. In other words, "exiting" demons do NOT vanish, but instead cycle around the map until killed. The game ends with a player loss if the Lord reaches the Start area as in a normal game.
Demons and Invasion Tokens. Because of the nature of this map, demons and invasion tokens often share areas. If an invasion token is revealed, previously revealed demons in the area immediately group as appropriate.
The Launch Site Map
"It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak." — Eric Hoffer
The Launch Site map has a ring of 6 areas, numbered 1-6, encircling the central Lord's location. The Lord does not move on this map, nor does he extend his Shadow. This is cold comfort, as it turns out.
Area 1 is the start area.
The Launch Site layout. The numbered areas are critical to understanding this map.
Setup
Heroes begin at the start. This is also where they can recruit new troopers.
When selecting your region, replace the cost 3 and cost 4 troopers with Cosmonauts and Astronauts. The cost 1, 2, and 5 troopers don't change (in Russia, the cost 2, 5, and 6 troopers remain instead.)
Banned Legions
If the Styx or Acheron legion is drawn, discard it and draw a new one.
Hero Movement
A hero can only move to the Lord's area from an area completely empty of minions.
Lord Segment
When the Lord counter hits 1:
- Discard and replace all gifts.
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in the Lord's area.
- Score doom equal to the highest-numbered area that contains any minions. For example, if areas 1, 5, and 6 have no minions, and areas 2, 3, and 4 contain minions, then score 4 doom (because area 4 is the highest-numbered area with minions). Please note that doom is scored in the Lord segment, BEFORE minions move or exit the central Lord's area.
John Dark's Tip: You need to predict where demons are going to be, and target them in advance, balancing this with the random movement of newly-spawned invasion tokens. At least the Lord is easy to reach.
Minion Movement
A band of enemies that exits the Lord's area rolls 1d6 to determine which area they enter. Once in the outer ring, minions move clockwise.
The Moon Base Map
"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning." — C. S. Lewis
The Moon Base map is in the Void expansion. This map has two Gates, and two paths leading away from the Gates, labeled the White Railgun and the Blue Railgun, plus two starts, which are called airlocks. There are some important exceptions to the rules.
Setup
Start with an invasion token in each space on the White Railgun, except the airlock. Start with two invasion tokens in each space on the Blue Railgun, including the airlock.
There are two Gates on the map: White Gate and Blue Gate. Place the Demon Lord in the White Railgun Gate area.
Heroes start in the White Airlock.
Recruit Segment
Only space troopers (Cosmonauts and Astronauts) are available to recruit. A hero can discard their entire recruit die roll in exchange for 1 courage.
Space Troopers. Space troopers have a special ability costing 1 courage. Any hero can spend this courage, and does not need to be in the space troopers' area when doing so.
An ambush Astronaut can move to any area when 1 courage is spent. The hero spending the courage can choose to move only part of the ambush when doing this. If moved to an area containing Cosmonauts, the latter are discarded. Remember, the limit is still only 4 troopers per area.
When Heroes Move
Heroes can move between airlocks as if adjacent. Airlocks aren't adjacent for any other purpose.
The Blue Gate produces 2 invasion markers each time the Lord's cycle triggers. A hero can move directly from the Blue Gate area to the White Gate area (this enters Hell Time of course.).
When Enemies Move
Enemies are always either on the White Railgun or the Blue Railgun. White Railgun enemies move and spawn normally, and head down the White Railgun toward the White Airlock.
Blue Railgun enemies only spawn and move when the Lord marker hits 1—but two tokens spawn. They still attack normally, every minions attack segment, if heroes are in their area. They move down the Blue Railgun towards the Blue Airlock. Minions can exit from either airlock start area and score doom in the usual fashion.
Lord Segment
When the Lord counter hits 1:
- Discard and replace all gifts.
- Move the Lord into the next White Railgun area, and place his Shadow there.
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in the Lord's area. It advances down the White path in the ensuing minions move segment.
- Advance Blue path enemies and invasion tokens. This is the only time Blue path enemies move.
- Spawn two Blue path invasion tokens in the Blue Gate area.
John Dark's Tip: On this map, it's possible for an invasion token to exit. Watch out, because this is a big doom loss.
Invasion Tokens Spawn
On this map, invasion tokens spawn from Gates, not directly from the Lord.
When two invasion tokens are revealed, resolve each token separately. However, the enemies that appear group together normally. Example: On the first turn of the game, a hero moves to the Blue Airlock. The two invasion tokens resolve, rolling 4 despair dice each. The first token has a First Circle demon (and a larva). The second token has a First and a Second Circle demon, plus two larvae. The end result is three larvae, two First Circle demons, and one Second Circle demon in the area. The larvae and First Circle demons then group.
John Dark's Tip: The Blue path is generally not as threatening because of its slow rate of advance, but you do need to send a hero or two there once in a while to clear out enemies. Placing troopers there can be useful—they can shoot up the Blue path enemies for several turns in a row, earning courage and thinning the horde.
The Moon Base map's layout. Note that it has two starts as well as two Gates.
The Dragon Back Map
"He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you." — Friedrich Nietzsche
The Dragon Back map is in the Dragon expansion. This map displays the body of the Hell Dragon, a miles-long monster which is destroying the surface world. The heroes are airdropped onto the back of the dragon, upon which stands an unholy citadel.
The Dragon Back map initial setup. Note the two Lords and two types of invasion tokens.
Setup
The start area for the heroes is the Cathedral. Only here can they recruit.
Minions Move Segment
Minions follow the arrows to the Cathedral, where they resolve (whether or not humans are present), and accumulate.
Gadarene special rules. If a Gadarene appears, affected heroes and troopers always move toward the Head, unless that Lord has already been defeated—in which case they move toward the Tail.
Hindbody Invasion Tokens. Invasion tokens on the hindbody (Hips, Tail) only resolve into Limbo minions.
Example: Seven despair dice are rolled to resolve a hindbody invasion token just as it enters the Cathedral. The dice resolve as what would normally result in one First circle, two Second Circle, and three Limbo minions, but because it is a hindbody token, it instead produces only the three Limbo minions.
John Dark's Tip: You don't lose the instant every organ is filled with demons—you have a minimum of a 1-turn grace period to empty any one organ, so hop to it!
Scoring Doom
At the very start of the enemy phase, score 1 doom per minion (4 for a Fourth Circle demon) in the Cathedral.
Lords
Lesser Lord. The Lord on the tail is a Lesser Lord. It has only 1/3 normal health (round fractions up). It functions otherwise as a normal Lord.
Twin Lords. When a Lord is banished, it stops spawning minions, and its Shadow is removed. New Fourth Circle demons thenceforth spawn in the remaining Lord's area.
Lord Segment
When the Lord counter hits 1:
- Discard and replace all gifts.
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in one of the two Lords' areas (captain's choice).
- Lords do not move or extend their Shadow.
The Dragon Guts Map
"Ghost: My hour is almost come, when I to sulfurous and tormenting flames must render up myself." — William Shakespeare
The Dragon Guts map is contained in the Dragon expansion. This map shows the interior of the Hell Dragon, a huge automaton which is inhabited and controlled by demons. The heroes enter the dragon's mouth, and work their way through the monster, before finally killing the Demon Lord in the beast's brain.
Demons do not move on this map, including the Demon Lord. The demons simply stay in the areas they are placed until they are killed. Except for hero death, doom is only scored during the Lord segment.
The Dragon Guts map initial setup. Note the starting Fourth Circle demon.
Setup
Heroes start in the Mouth, which is also the start area.
Place a Fourth Circle demon in the Heart. Resolve any spawn effects of this demon.
Place an invasion token in each organ except the Mouth.
Place the Lord in the Brain.
Place a Lord's Shadow token in the Brain.
Special Rules
If the Styx or Acheron legion is drawn, discard it and draw a new one. If the Gadarene is drawn, discard it, and select a new Fourth Circle demon.
Invasion tokens do not spawn in the normal fashion, but only appear when the despair track reaches or passes 1.
Despair Segment
When the despair track hits 1, spawn an invasion token in any empty organ of the captain's choice (including the Mouth). This is the only time that new invasion tokens spawn. If the Brain area has no invasion token (even if minions are present), always spawn the new invasion token here during the spawn segment.
If no organ is empty, and thus the new invasion token cannot be placed, the players immediately lose the game.
Lord Segment
When the Lord counter hits 1:
- Discard and replace all gifts.
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in the organ where the newly spawned invasion token was placed in the preceding despair segment.
- Score 1 doom per organ that contains any First through Fourth Circle demons or an invasion token (larvae don't count).
The Washington D.C. Map
"The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil." — Pope Francis
Hell cannot claim victory until it has seized control over the most powerful (and one of the most religious) nations on Earth. That's right, the United States of America. A Lord has taken up residence in the Washington Monument, and seeks control over all other symbols of rule.
The Washington D.C. map.
Setup
Heroes may start in the Capitol, the White House, or the Pentagon. Place three invasion tokens at the Washington Monument (with the Lord). Place 1 invasion token on each other non-start area.
Recruiting
Heroes can recruit in any of the three start areas.
Hero Movement
The Capitol, White House, and Pentagon are all considered adjacent for purposes of player movement, thanks to the DC beltway. They are not adjacent for any other purpose.
Minions Movement
Minions revealed in the Lord's area never move. Invasion tokens DO move, and leave the Lord's area—each token moves down one of the map's three paths. Thus, minions may accumulate in the Lord's area over time. Minions may exit the map from any of the three start areas and score doom in the usual fashion.
Invasion Tokens Spawn
New invasion tokens only appear when the Lord track reaches 1. They move every turn, however. This creates "pulses" of movement after the earliest part of the game.
Lord Segment
When the Lord counter hits 1:
- Discard and replace all gifts.
- Spawn three invasion tokens in the Washington Monument. One token moves into the first area of each track during the ensuing minions move segment.
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in one corner of the Washington Monument (chosen by the captain).
- If the Lord has no minions inside his area, spawn another invasion token there, and immediately resolve it (exposing the minions).
John Dark's Tip: The three routes are a big pain on this map, plus you must try to time your attack on the Lord when he doesn't have four(!) invasion tokens present. If the Lord accumulates too many minions you may need to make preemptive strikes on the Washington Monument to thin them out before your real assault.
The St. Peter's Map
"Be sober, be vigilant; for your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." — St. Peter
Now Hell is attacking the holiest place in all Christendom (similar attacks are doubtless happening in Mecca, Lumbini, etc). This map is contained in the Pack of the Pit.
The St. Peter's map. Note that it starts with 3 Demon Lords, two of which are Lesser Lords.
Setup
Heroes start at the Vatican, which is also the start area.
Place a Lord at each of the three Lord areas. Set up three Lord sheets.
Lord 1 and Lord 2 are Lesser Lords. They start with 1/3 of the normal health (round fractions up). They are otherwise unchanged.
The Three Tracks
The demons are subdivided into three tracks, numbered 1, 2, and 3. Invasion tokens and minions only move and spawn while their Lord is "active." Only the lowest-numbered Lord (initially, Lord 1) is active at a time.
At the start of the game, only Lord 1's invasion tokens move and spawn. The rest sit idly—though they do fight normally if a hero enters their area.
Once a Demon Lord is killed, the lowest-numbered remaining Demon Lord becomes the new active Lord. Example: The heroes kill Lord 1. Now Lord 2 activates and his track begins to move and spawn demons. If the heroes had killed Lord 2 first, Lord 1 would remain the active Lord.
When an active Lord is killed, he won't spawn any new demons. However, any remaining demons on his track stay active, and continue to move. When a Lord is killed, remove his Shadow tokens. Example: The heroes bypass a room of demons, and strike at Lord 1, killing him. Now Lord 2 is the active Lord, but Lord 1's demons keep moving toward the Vatican.
Lord Segment
When the Lord counter hits 1:
- Discard and replace all gifts.
- The lowest-numbered surviving Lord moves one area down its track and spawns a Lord's Shadow token in the new area (the other Lords stay idle).
- Spawn a Fourth Circle demon in the active Lord's area. (It moves during the ensuing minions move segment.)
Spawning Demons
Demons only spawn in the active Lord's area.
Winning the Game
You must kill all three Demon Lords to win. If any Lord reaches the Vatican, you lose.
John Dark's Tip: Early on, enter each of the tracks, so their invasion tokens are spawned while despair is still low. When you return after killing a Lord, they will be easier to deal with.
The Invasion of Purgatory Map
"I'm not sure we got here in time … but does time even matter here?" — Moose Kowalski
Hell attacks the mystical mountain of Purgatory, aiming directly at Paradise, and from thence to Heaven itself.
The Invasion of Purgatory Map, thick with Demon Lords.
Setup
Heroes start on Earth, which is also the start area.
Set a Lord in each step of Purgatory (except Paradise) and in Hell, each with its own Lord's Shadow.
All Lords except the one in Hell are "Lesser Lords." Give them 1/3 normal health (round fractions up).
Hero Movement
Heroes can move from Earth to any level of Purgatory, or from a level of Purgatory to an adjacent Level (or back to Earth).
Heroes cannot enter Hell until all Lords in Purgatory are banished.
Minion Notes
Minions spawn in Hell (not in the Lesser Lords' areas).
When a Lesser Lord is killed, remove his Shadow.
Lord Segment
None of the Lords move. A Fourth Circle demon spawns in Hell when the Lord counter hits 1 (and moves up through Purgatory the ensuing minions move segment). When minions exit Paradise, doom is scored.
John Dark's Tip: This is a Lord-fest. You have two advantages helping you in this struggle. First, Earth is a safe haven—enemies never enter it. Second, Lords provide lots of Courage via their reward—take advantage of this. Think about a strategy to overcome the Lords you face.
The Final Battle Map
"They say it's better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. But what if your only choice is to serve in Hell? What then?" — David Prior (AM 1200)
Hell pulls out all the stops. Thwarted again and again by the heroes, it is time to empty the malebolges and send everything to the surface in the most horrendous and important struggle since the original War in Heaven.
The Final Battle map. It has 3 paths, spawns 3 invasion tokens at a time, but "only" has one Demon Lord.
Setup
Heroes start in the outer ring, which is also the start area. Note that this gigantic area encircles the map.
Invasion tokens appear in threes—one in each path of the central area. Keep them separate.
John Dark's Tip: The biggest problem in the Final Battle is the huge number of invasion tokens you need to deal with. We recommend placing a strong ambush in the outer ring, but this won't be enough, as 3 tokens may spawn here at once.
Special Movement
Heroes move along the dark arrows, from the outer ring directly toward the Gate area, or back.
Enemies and invasion tokens move along the pale arrows, spiraling out. In this area, humans and demonic forces do not follow the same connections!
Minions in the outer ring group together. When they exit the map doom is scored in the usual fashion.
Spawning Invasion Tokens
On this map, three invasion tokens spawn in the central area. In the ensuing minions move segment, one token moves into the first area of each path. There are three such paths as indicated by the pale arrows (i.e., the token spawned for Path 3 moves down the areas named Path 3). These paths spiral outward from the center.
If a hero enters the central area, all invasion tokens present are resolved (and the hero enters Hell Time). The enemies from all invasion tokens then group together. After the Lord Battle, they remain grouped, and move down Path 1. If this happens, the other two paths will have an "empty slot" in their sequence of invasion tokens. Invasion tokens continue to spawn in the central area after the Lord moves (not the Lord's area).
To clarify, all revealed minions in the central area move down Path 1. Invasion tokens spawn in the corners of the central area, and move down their own path.
Lord Segment
Unchanged. The Lord moves down Path 1.
The Fourth Circle demon appears in the Lord's area, and moves ahead of him, down Path 1.
Frequently Asked Questions
"Don't leave yet—there's a demon around that corner!" — Doom computer game
General Game Rules
Q. If my hero is giving up their attack for some benefit, and another benefit is available, can it count for all? For example, if Hannah Hazard has Zeroed In, and is also stunned, does giving up her move count for both tasks? A. Yes. Also, a hero who is both on fire and stunned can remove both effects by giving up his attack.
Q. Can a player who can attack into another area split their attack between their own area and another? A. Yes. If a player rolls enough hits, they can be split between three or more areas. For example, if a player using Wizard Eye rolled a pair of 4s, they could kill a gryllus (First Circle) across the map, as well as one in their same area if he wanted. You never have to choose ahead of time in which area you apply the dice.
Q. If my hero is saved from death by Pray for a Miracle, what happens to fire, stun, and/or pestilence markers? A. You keep them.
Q. Do I HAVE to use a particular ability or gift? A. No. You must always use a relevant flaw when it applies though.
Q. If a hero with two actions is stunned, can they add an action, then give it up for stun recovery or fire extinguish or whatever? A. Yes. For example, Penrod could use his Brawler ability to spend 1 Health to get an extra attack, then spend that extra attack on stun recovery. Or a hero with Arcane Attack could spend 1 Luck for an extra attack, then give it up to extinguish a fire.
Q. Does an ambush HAVE to fire? For example if it contains Gang members? A. No. The captain chooses whether or not it fires. Unless the Mandrake is in play, in which case it MUST fire if any heroes are in the area.
Q. When using the Astronaut special ability (from the Void expansion), what happens if I move an Astronaut ambush to an area that already contains an ambush? A. If the target area contains non-Astronauts, they are discarded. If it contains Astronauts, then combine the two ambushes, and discard any Astronauts beyond 4. You cannot use the Astronaut ability to move into an area containing the Lord's Shadow.
Q. Can I upgrade just some Paramilitary in a group but not all? A. Only if you are Professor Maxwell, and they are your own patrol troopers.
Q. On some maps, it's possible to have two or more invasion tokens in a single area. When these resolve, if both invasion tokens are missing units, because of a shortage of figures, how much doom is lost? A. A maximum of 1 doom is scored per invasion token for a figure shortage. Example: You are playing The Final Battle, and both cacodemons (Third Circle) are already in play. You enter the central area, where there are 3 invasion tokens. All three tokens are resolved to include at least one cacodemon, but none are available, so the players add 3 doom. At least they didn't have to fight all those cacodemons!
Heroes
Q. When Dr. Hunter uses Autopsy to kill a larva, does this cost him 1 courage (since it substitutes for his first aid)? A. No. It does earn 1 courage for killing the larva, though.
Q. When Dr. Hunter uses a Stimpack, does it trigger before or after fire damage? Also, can he use more than one Stimpack at the same time? A. Before fire damage, and he can use as many as he likes at once. He just has to do it at the start of a player's turn. This includes a player's turn in Hell Time.
Q. Can Hannah Hazard combine her Zeroed In ability with Rapid Fire? A. Yes, but as per the Zeroed In description, she has to use Zeroed In first. Hence, if she uses Zeroed In to increase a die to 1d10, then uses Rapid Fire to split it into 2d6, she cannot use Zeroed In a second time to increase her resulting d6s to d8s! She only gets one bite at the apple.
Q. Does Professor Maxwell take damage from Arthritis if he is moved by Amelia's Dominant Personality ability, or by the Seal of Solomon gift? A. No and no. Arthritis only applies on his own turn.
Q. If Tarang "kills" one of the Pulgasaur's stages, one of Geryon's bodies, or one of Scylla's heads, does his Silat ability let him kill another demon in the area? A. No, since the Demon Lord is not really dead. He could do it if his attack actually killed the Demon Lord though. Of course, this would only matter if it wasn't the last Demon Lord on the map.
Q. Can Cindrew use her Fidget, Fetch! ability if all gift slots are filled? A. No.
Q. When Brevet Rank is used, if Victor Steele has Stragglers, what happens? A. He rolls 1d4 to recruit, instead of 1d4 minus 1.
Q. I notice that Victor's Poor Planning weakness is worse for him when there are fewer players. Is this intentional? A. Think of it as a side effect. Feel free to take it into consideration.
Q. If all Dorothy does is help or first aid (in a demon-infested area), does she need to take the 1 courage required from the pool? A. Yes. Of course, if she uses luck to substitute for courage, it can come from her luck pool instead.
Q. If Moose uses his move to discard a stun, can he benefit from his Charge ability? A. Of course not!
Q. Can Amelia "drop off" a hero she is dragging along with her Dominant Personality? A. No—her companion has to travel the full move with her.
Q. If Bernice is at 1 health, and takes a gift, what happens to her? A. She dies, since her current health drops by 1. Don't do this.
Q. Can Bernice use Legal Expert to give the captain marker to herself? A. Certainly.
Q. Can Penrod refuse to use a rolled attack to kill a larva? A. Certainly. Any hero can refuse to use their rolled attack for any reason.
Gifts
Q. Am I ever required to use a particular gift? A. No. For example, you won't want to use Lieutenant while the Mandrake is in play.
Q. Can a hero combine
Q. Can I use The Abyss Peers Back to benefit another hero besides my own? A. No.
Q. Defiance lets me reroll any dice that result in a 1, but Naomi Joslyn's Focus ability lets her simply replace a die roll of 1 with the max possible. Can I combine these? A. Yes, because Naomi's Focus only affects one of her dice, while Defiance can affect the rest. Still, probably Naomi should let someone else take this gift who can use its full benefits.
Q. If I have Fire Team and spend 1 luck for my patrol to shoot as an ambush, but the area I'm in already has an ambush present, how is this done? A. It's easy. You simply carry out two ambushes in a row, in either order. For example, say a single Volunteer is in ambush, and you have four Volunteers on patrol. First one of the two groups would fire (say the ambush, rolling 1d6), then the other (the Patrol Volunteers remain, rolling 1d10).
Q. What counts as "self-inflicted damage" for Schadenfreude? A. Damage that the player chooses to take due to their own ability or gift (such as Cissy's Occult Interest, or the Silver Bullet gift).
Q. May I use Brigadier to create an ambush where there wasn't one? A. Yes.
Q. If my health cap is at 10 (the maximum), what happens if I take a gift for "+1 to cap and current health"? A. The cap stays at 10, but you do get the +1 to your current health. Pick a more useful gift.
Q. If I have Heart of Platinum, and a hero takes the Hope or Charity gift, do I get an extra luck? A. No, because neither Hope nor Charity have a luck icon in the top right-hand corner.
Enemies
Q. Do Invasion tokens benefit from legion abilities—such as Styx? A. No. Demons never use special abilities while "inside" an invasion token. Use this fact strategically, as when placing ambushes (which reveal invasion tokens).
Q. When the Cocytus legion is active, heroes take 1 damage each time they kill a demon. Can this be absorbed by troopers? A. Yes.
Q. Does the Tardigrade cyst token count as an enemy? A. No. And it cannot be attacked.
Q. When the Mandrake is in play, can I use an ambush trooper to absorb damage from its own Ambush? A. Yes.
Q. When Nuckelavee spawns, each player places 1 toughness on its card, to be returned when it dies. If a hero dies after giving up toughness, what happens to the toughness they give up? A. It stays on the card. When Nuckelavee finally dies, each hero gets back a toughness counter, even if they are a replacement hero who did not give up their own toughness!
Q. Can I use the courage pool to pay for Geryon's menace? A. Yes.
Q. When Stheno is banished, heroes return to their original toughness, applying gifts that affect toughness. What about toughness enhancements printed on a hero sheet (for example, Moose's cost 12 gift slot)? Do these count? A. Yes. These would count as part of your earned gifts.
Q. What happens if we run out of toughness markers to track Stheno's Petrifaction effect? Or Cthon's attack counters? Or other such items? A. Use any marker to substitute, or write the current total down.
Q. If Dorothy Hall is battling Stheno, and transfers some of her damage to another hero, does fossilization affect her because this damage was absorbed by someone else? A. No, because it was still absorbed by a hero, not a trooper.
Q. Can any gift or ability free a player trapped by Stroma? A. No. Her victim is doomed unless she dies first.
Q. If Victor Steele with his Leadership ability shares an area with a patrol Gendarme trooper, does the latter absorb 3 courage or 1 courage, as per his note? A. The Gendarme absorbs 3 courage. Victor's ability supersedes the card text.
Strategies
Heroes
AMELIA AZEVEDO
Amelia's pretty good. Attack 1d8, starting luck 4. Unfortunately, she only has a toughness of 1, so that's not so hot. Basically she can dish it out, but not really take it. At least her health of 7 lets her get hit a few times before she has to resort to first aid.
Her starting ability is really great—it lets her bring another hero along with her when she moves. (She cannot drop or pick up her "carried" hero as she moves.) This is good not only for carrying heroes back out of the firing line so they can be safe, but can also be used to take one along to give you help in an attack.
Her other abilities are Emergency Care and Veteran. The first lets her remove stun, fire, and pestilence markers in her area. The second lets her inflict extra damage on the dreaded Fourth Circle demons. Basically, if she does any damage to one, she adds +1 more. This is handy, but she can't get it for a while into the game.
Her weakness is that troopers absorb 1 less damage on her behalf. This means that the basic troopers such as Gang or Volunteers are absolutely valueless as damage blocks. And even good soldiers like the National Guard or Canadian Mounties only block half as much.
She has another "ability" built into her tech tree. Namely, her starting gift slot costs 0, so she can kick off the game with an immediate gift. Of course if she picks a gift with a bonus cost (such as Angelic Wrath), she has to pay the bonus, but that's usually only 2 courage (rarely 4).
Except for her starting 0 cost gift (which is "no effect"), all of her gifts heal every other player for 1 point. Of course sometimes players are full health so they don't appreciate it, but it's there. She also gets to add 1d6 to her attack, and also boost an attack die by 1 step, so by game end, if she gets no attack-enhancing gifts, she'll have 2d8 or 1d10+1d6 for her attack. Her final gift is kind of weak—all it does is add +1 health to the other heroes, but it's really just there in case she needs a little something extra near the game end. As I've explained elsewhere, it's quite common for a PA hero to not earn all 6 gifts before the game ends.
In play, she is an eggshell with a hammer. She can't use troopers to block damage—at least not effectively—and her meager toughness means she is quite vulnerable when alone. At least she can haul someone along with her. Also, because of her abilities and tendency to hop from place to place to heal stun, fire, etc. she is frequently on the front lines, so you have to watch to see she doesn't take too much damage.
She needs to rely heavily on first aid to keep her fit. It's a good thing her attack is good, because she usually has a fair supply of courage to use for this purpose. Also, thanks to the fact that her gifts heal the other heroes, they are generally willing to let her use the courage pool to buy them, so she is rarely gift-starved.
BERNICE KUCHLER
Bernice starts out pretty great, with 10 hit points, Attack 1d6, toughness 2, and luck 1 as well. But those 10 hit points are incredible.
Her start ability is Legal Expert, which means if she is captain, she doesn't have to give it to the next person in rotation when she is done. She can give it to anyone—even herself, which means she can stay captain forever.
Her next ability (this is always her next) is Teamwork. When she helps or is helped, the help can give an extra 1d6 instead of a die boost. This means comparatively early in the game, she can enable other players to roll 2 dice in combat.
Her last ability is Death with Honor, which is also her signature feature. This lets her add 4d12 to her attack, then place all her courage in the pool (so it's not lost). Finally, she dies after the attack, but this costs no doom. This death cannot be canceled by any gift or ability. It's actually not that trivial to achieve Death with Honor, and is usually her last or second-to-last ability. You have to plan ahead to use it to the best ability.
Her weakness is that she can't use the courage pool for anything except paying for gifts. But usually you don't want to steal from the pool for her gifts, because she isn't going to be around forever, and that courage is lost. On the other hand, you wouldn't mind her using the pool when she helps (particularly with her great help bonus), but she can't.
Bernice has a terrific tech tree. Two of her upgrades let her bump up an attack dice by a level, and one of them adds 1d12 to her attack. Her final attack (if she takes no gifts changing this), is 1d10+1d12—probably the best of any hero. She also has a really useful gift which lets her divide up 10 courage among the other players (and this only costs her 8 courage, so is always a net profit).
CINDREW PUTORIOUS
Cindrew's starting attack is 1d4, which is terrible. Her toughness is 2 and starting luck 3, both average. Her health is 6, which is pretty good.
She has the starting ability of Fidget, Fetch! This is a team phase ability, which lets her draw a card from the top of the gift card deck and place it in an empty slot on the gift panel. In a normal game, as players earn gift cards, the gift panel gradually gets denuded, and their options more and more limited, as they've already cherry-picked the most relevant gifts.
Many times I've seen players decide to forgo picking a gift because the whole lot was about to be discarded (this happens when the Lord track is triggered, which happens every 4-5 turns in a 4 player game) and they wanted new options. With Cindrew, you don't have to make this hard choice, since the gift panel stays generally fresh. Also, when the Lord track triggers, the entirety of the gift panel assortment is normally discarded. But with Cindrew in play, you can choose up to two cards to keep so they remain available.
Her two earned abilities are both combat-oriented—one is Fidget, Dance!, which means enemies inflict less damage when they attack her. The other is Fidget, Sic! which she can use to reduce enemy toughness versus any hero's attack (by paying courage). This is super useful when trying to knock out a powerful fourth circle demon, but is good at other times too.
Her flaw is a Short Attention Span, which means she MUST move every turn. She can never stay put. Sometimes this is really annoying, but that's the nature of ferrets (and their owners).
When Cindrew is around, all the players have access to a slightly better gift assortment, which of course helps them throughout the game. Her tech tree has two interesting features.
First, every single gift on her tech tree increases another hero's health permanently by 1. She is thus a boost to all other players. Unfortunately, her own abilities are somewhat weaker than average—three of her gifts ONLY boost other people, and don't help her at all!
Her other tech tree feature is that five of her six slots are Start options, meaning she has more choices than any other player when it comes to her advancement.
Her tech tree is quite basic, even puny, otherwise. Three of her gifts only boost other players' health, and the remaining three get the two earned abilities and add 1d6 to her attack. So unless she finds gifts that boost her damage, her final attack is a mere 1d6+1d4, which is far from deadly. On the other hand, she can use her Fidgit, Sic! ability to kill enemies even with this weak attack, with enough investment in courage.
CISSY SALEM
Cissy has a puny 1d4 attack, an average toughness and starting luck (2 and 3, respectively), and a decent health of 6.
Her start ability is Occult Interest, which lets her pay health instead of courage for her gifts. This is extremely useful, particularly if she is within 1-2 points of a gift's cost. It means she gets to use that gift a whole turn earlier, which can really make the difference at times.
Her whole character is built around self-martyrdom, in which she is able to gain usefulness as she pushes herself, hurting her health and bringing her down, but also bringing her up psychologically and spiritually. Think of it as the modern equivalent to a flagellant—the mental discipline and spiritual strength from suffering turned to good.
She has Good with Gloom as her first obtained ability. This lets her help other players by paying health instead of courage, and again, this is good in a pinch. When another player absolutely can use a die increase, Cissy can do it even when her courage is spent.
Her other ability takes a while to get—and is usually her last (but not always). This is Angst. This is exceedingly handy before the final battle with the boss, but is also good at other times. It lets her permanently reduce her health cap by 1, then she heals up to her new full health. For example, say her health cap is currently 8, but her health is only 1 (not unusual). By using Angst, she drops her health cap to 7, but then rises up to 7. Probably in the late game, she would normally never expect to be able to reach her health cap again, so this is a terrific bonus.
Her weakness is that, as a goth, she is hardly a leadership figure. Her uninspiring nature means that when she recruits, she rolls 2d4 and has to choose the lower of the two rolls, so generally she is stuck with a lowly Volunteer or Citizen Militia.
Cissy has an excellent tech tree. One upgrade increases an attack die, and another gives her 1d10. Thus if she takes no attack gifts, her final attack is either 1d12+1d4 or 1d10+1d6 which is quite respectable. She also has two gifts which increase her health and health cap—in preparation for late-game use of Angst. The fact that she gets exactly two such boosts is not coincidental—if she gets both, she'll have a health cap of 8. Then, using Angst once, she'll have a remaining health of 7. This means that she can survive one round of the Lord's attack without trooper support, because the Lords (except for Chthon) only roll 6 dice. That ensures that the players can weather one whole round without taking any chances.
DOC HUNTER
Doc Hunter's starting attack is 1d6, toughness is 2, and health is 5, all average. He is the only hero who starts with 0 luck.
His start ability is useful, but perhaps not a surprise—he is a healer, so his first aid restores 1 extra health to the target. There are several healing-oriented gifts in the gift deck, and it is often wiser not to give these to Doc Hunter. For example, one such card is Medikit, which also gives +1 health per first aid.
If you give this to Doc Hunter, then of course he will heal 3 points each time. But if you give it to someone else instead, then they can heal 2 points as well as Doc Hunter, which is a total of 4 health! Of course, if you expect to be paying courage when you use first aid (because of an enemy's presence), then the good doctor is a bargain.
One of the doctor's earned abilities is Stimpacks, which lets him spend 1 luck to instantly heal 1 damage on another hero, or add +1 to that hero's move. This is obviously an expensive price for the healing, so why is it so great? Well, because he can use it at practically any time. This includes while fighting the Lord, so he is just about the only way you can heal up a point or two while facing one. That's not trivial. The +1 Move is less common, but sometimes it is really critical, when a hero absolutely has to get to a particular area, or to a particular demon, or to launch a Lord attack.
His other ability is Autopsy—it lets him give up his first aid during the team phase to kill a Limbo minion (automatically) instead. Remember that if a Limbo minion is in his area, it would cost him 1 courage to use first aid. This way, he can GAIN a courage instead, which is nice.
The Doctor's flaw is the aforementioned Addiction. If he has 2 or more courage at the start of his hero turn, he has to discard one. This means he has trouble saving up for a big purchase, and tends to look for ways to spend it all before his turn (during the team phase, or when helping other players). It's also an incentive for him to use first aid even when it costs courage. For example, imagine he has 2 courage in the team phase. He can use first aid, spending 1 courage (we're assuming demons are in his area, which is often the case), and drop his courage to 1. Now he won't lose it, plus someone (possibly himself) got healed 2 points.
Obviously he can keep the other players' health up, but there are more subtleties to his nature.
First, every single gift on his tech tree gives him 1 luck, except one. That one gives him 3 luck. So though he starts with none, it builds up rapidly over time. He generally doesn't want to buy luck-using gifts though, because Stimpacks is his main way to apply that luck.
He gains 1d6 attack on the tech tree, plus 1 die boost, so his final total (not counting possible gifts that boost his combat) is 1d8+1d6, which is quite respectable. He can also gain 1 toughness—with such a good attack and toughness (and his Autopsy power), this means you want him right in the front lines. Of course he can heal you there too, but you want and need his battle oomph! So he is not a boring healer sitting in the rear like my former World of Warcraft healer—he is a real combat asset. The healing is a nice perk, though.
He is a good example of my design theory that there is no reason support characters have to be dull. I want to put them right into the firing line!
DOROTHY HALL
Dorothy Hall has a puny starting toughness of 1, and low health of 4. Her attack is an average 1d6, but she does have 7 luck. When she's alone, she is quite vulnerable to demons. However, she is rarely alone, thanks to her abilities.
Her core one, Spunky, is that she generates 1 courage apiece for each of 2 other heroes in her area in the team phase. I've seen players frequently plan out their move so they will be accompanying Dorothy in this phase. It's good that she gives them courage, because her weakness of Unsophisticated states that she can only spend from the courage pool herself, until it is empty.
Dorothy's other abilities are Winsome, which lets her transfer damage from herself to someone else in the area and Inner Strength, which lets her Help an ally more than once (still costs 1 courage per help attempt). Her damage transfer is particularly useful in a Lord battle, where normally the decision is made by who can take 6 damage all at once. But with Dorothy, she need only take 1 point, and then can hand the rest over to another player, whoever can take it. This is a huge benefit in these fights. On the other hand, if you have Dorothy take the hits, there is the drawback that with her toughness of 1, you tend to take slightly more damage.
Dorothy's tech tree can get her an additional 1d6 attack, and later on, raise an attack token by a step. She also has no less than three gift slots that increase her health cap by 1, so eventually she can have 7 health, which is nice. She also has a gift that lets her divide 5 luck among the other players.
Because she is vulnerable, yet attractive to other heroes, she tends to slightly increase the damage inflicted on the rest of the party. But the courage boost she gets the party, plus her ability to help multiple times in a round more than make up for this.
Other players are always happy when Dorothy joins the party. And with her attack of 1d6, eventually raising to 1d8+1d6, she is a definite asset.
HANNAH HAZARD
Hannah's starting attack is 1d6, with a toughness of 2, starting luck of 6 (!), and a mere 4 health. That health is bad, and keeps her off the front lines, but her extra luck means she is encouraged to take luck-using gifts, with the extra power and oomph they offer.
Hannah starts with the Sighted-In ability, which lets her attack demons in adjacent areas. This is even better than it sounds, because as always in Planet Apocalypse, a hero rolls their dice before assigning targets. This means that she rolls her attack, then chooses which area she's going to kill demons in. If she is rolling 2 or more dice, she can kill demons in two different areas with a single attack!
Her earned abilities are Head Shot and Zeroed In. Head Shot lets her add the results of two dice into a single total—this basically makes her super effective against demons who have high toughness, such as Fiends and certain Lords and Fourth Circle demons. Zeroed In lets her increase ALL her attack dice by a step if she doesn't move. So this is super handy as well, but does tend to make her a sitting duck for enemies.
Her weakness is that she cannot have more than a single patrol trooper with her at a time. This means she can't make up for her low health by bulking up on troopers. She has to be careful about hand-to-hand combat. Like a sniper I suppose. So she is kind of an eggshell with a hammer. She can dish it out, but she can't take it.
Hannah tends to station herself somewhere interesting, and then start gunning down the enemies until she is finally forced to shift her position due to an encroaching horde.
Her ability (with Head Shot) to dispatch Fiends almost at will makes her incredibly useful in the late game. However, she needs protection, and her best positioning is in an area that has a large ambush, so if she is attacked, she can use the ambush troopers to absorb her hits. She can't set up a good ambush on her own, not only because she has to recruit her troopers one at a time, but also because she tends to sit immobile in an area, instead of running around and trying to recruit. This means she has to rely on the rest of the team to set up a good "sniper perch" for her.
Hannah's tech tree only adds 1d4 to her attack (every tech tree adds 1 die to the hero, but it's different dice for different heroes), but it has two options that boost an attack die by a level. Of course, her Head Shot ability means she doesn't necessarily need huge dice anyway, plus her high starting luck means she is a good candidate for a great luck-using gift such as Frag Grenades or Wizard Eye. (In fact, Frag Grenades almost seems custom made for Hannah. If it shows up, get it!)
JOHN DARK
At first John Dark may seem weak, with a 1d4 attack and only 4 health. At least he has toughness 3, which helps him to survive the Limbo minion attacks. His occult powers, however, make him a force to reckon with. John's starting Familiar Spirit ability helps make up for his low starting health—when he kills a minion, this ability lets him choose to bump up his health, instead of taking courage.
His Dark Exchange ability lets him instantly kill a Second or Third Circle demon in his area as an action. This is amazingly handy in the early game, when these demons are particularly difficult challenges. Of course he also earns courage for killing them, and since Dark Exchange doesn't count as an attack, he also gets to attack that turn!
However, it comes at a price—he has to increase the Despair track by 2-3 points (an amount equal to the demon's circle). He also can't use Dark Exchange if it would increase the despair track past 6. Increasing despair is a pretty serious thing to do, but in the early game it is often worthwhile. In the late game, you may be able to kill fiends and cacodemons without resort to this ability, so its utility diminishes.
His other power is Forfeit Soul, which lets him bump up the despair track by 1 to add 1d10 to his attack. Again, he can't increase despair beyond 6. But this more than makes up for his weak 1d4 attack! Now, simply by increasing despair, he can roll 1d4+1d10, plus he can harvest health from killed demons.
His weakness is Hellbound: the lowest circle of minions in an area must target John when they attack. Often this is just limbo minions, but we've seen many a game where all the demons but one particularly nasty one were knocked out of an area, and then that one remaining minion, a cacodemon or perhaps even a Fourth Circle, was required to attack John Dark! That can really hurt.
John is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, his occult powers make him a demon-killing machine. On the other hand, the despair track rockets skyward when he is on your team, using those same powers. You'll find the Fourth Circles coming sooner, and the general struggle gets stiffer. So he needs to stay mindful of this—if John just uses his powers every chance he gets, the team will get stomped by the demons over time. But if he uses them appropriately and when necessary, he is an extremely potent hero. As you'd expect, he is one of the most popular heroes to play, but when someone picks him, often the other players groan knowingly, and eye him suspiciously. Which seems appropriate for one of John Dark's background and powers.
John Dark's tech tree is fairly conventional. He eventually adds 1d6 to his attack, and also gets two die token boosts, so after he's achieved these his attack could be 1d4+1d10 or 1d8+1d6, which is pretty respectable. His final upgrade (rarely, but sometimes, achieved) adds 2 to his health cap.
MOOSE KOWALSKI
Moose has toughness 2, attack 1d6, and health 8. These aren't exceptional (except for his health).
Moose has the simple and excellent ability of Headstrong, which lets him generate 1 free courage every team phase. This adds up after a while. His first additional ability is Charge. This lets him add 1d10 to his attack if he moves before he attacks. Since it's the first item on his tech tree, and only costs 3 courage, he often starts off by taking it, if he can talk the other players into letting him. His final ability is All-Out, which he can't get until late in the game. On the other hand, that's when it's good—because it means a Lord's toughness is 2 less versus his attacks. This makes him extremely handy in the lord fights, obviously.
Moose's awesome abilities are counterbalanced by his weakness of Overconfident—this forces the team to add 1 additional despair each despair segment. It's a good thing Moose's abilities can be so good, because this is in fact a really terrible drawback, and players who are unprepared for it will be overwhelmed in short order.
Moose has the simplest "tech tree" in the game—a straight path with no branches. Since his start ability is Charge, and only costs 3 courage, and he actually earns 1 courage in the first team phase, he pretty much always gets this in the first or second turn. From then on, if he can arrange his move/attack sequence properly, he will add 1d10 more to his attacks. Thus he is usually the first player who has 2 dice available, and he is often the first one who has a shot at taking down Second Circle demons without help.
The remainder of his tech tree gets him a 1d4 attack token (mostly useful only to kill Limbo minions for extra courage), increases one of his attack dice, and ups his toughness twice. His dice are actually underwhelming, with a maximum value of 2d6 or 1d8+1d4, but remember that he usually gets 1d10 added to the total.
He needs to keep on the move, using his massive health to survive entering areas with lots of enemies, and crashing into the demons each turn. He is a straightforward combat tank, but because of the nature of his tech tree & abilities, you do need to plan his moves ahead of time.
NAOMI JOSLYN
Naomi's starting attack is 1d6, with a toughness of 2, starting luck of 4, and 6 health. So far, pretty average. However, Naomi has the Nimble ability, which lets her move 1 area during the team phase. This is incredibly useful, though it may not initially sound like it. But consider these awesome uses:
- If she's in the start area, she can recruit, then use Nimble to move a space away. Then in her hero turn, she can fight demons in that area, and return to the Start, so she can recruit again next turn.
- She can move three spaces per turn thus taking the fight to the boss when he's otherwise too far off.
- She can move to an empty spot, so her first aid is free.
Her earned abilities are Focus and Otherworld Vision. Focus lets her flip any attack die roll of "1" to its maximum level. Which means she always kills a Limbo minion when she attacks. Otherworld Vision is "only" useful in a Lord Battle—it represents her scarred demon eye, and adds 1d8 to her attack during Hell Time.
Her weakness is that she cannot use first aid on herself, because she is so obsessed with vengeance. This tends to weaken her over time of course, but also forces her to depend on other heroes. Usually the way it's done is she keeps fighting until her health is frighteningly low, then she shrieks for help from the other heroes.
Naomi is a fun hero, because her Nimble ability makes her super flexible, her Focus ability is plain awesome, and her Otherworld Vision helps to remind everyone that they need to peck away at the boss from time to time. Her mobility means she is good at placing ambushes in awkward spots, too.
Naomi's tech tree starts off with a bang, immediately bumping up her attack die to a 1d8. The rest of her options add her abilities, +1 toughness, and another 1d6 attack. Her ultimate tech tree slot lets her discard a despair die from the pool, and also caps the despair pool at 11 instead of 12. As with most "ultimate slots" it's not necessarily that amazing, but usually is just a place to drop one final gift you lust after.
PENROD WALLENSTEIN
Penrod Wallenstein is amazing at first, with 1d10 attack, toughness 3, and a health of 7. His luck is only 2, but you can't have everything.
Even his weakness isn't so bad. He only earns courage equal to the circle of the highest-rank demon he kills in an attack. Of course, if all he kills is a Larva, he gets 0 courage. If he kills a first circle demon, he gets 1 courage. But, if he kills 2 or more first circle demons, he still only gets 1 courage. On the other hand, if he manages to kill a second or third circle demon, he gets 2 or 3 courage, respectively, and with his 1d10 starting attack, it's not that hard to pull off.
Penrod's abilities are also quite solid. His starting ability is Inspirational, which lets him roll 1d6 when he recruits (instead of a mere 1d4), so he always has a good supply of troopers, and he can sometimes (a third of the time) roll high enough to recruit a Special Forces without spending courage. This last is nice because Penrod, thanks to his weakness, doesn't accumulate courage at a fast pace.
His other abilities are Just a Distraction, which lets him gain courage when stunned, on fire, or infected with pestilence. Of course not every map has these problems, so this ability can be skipped in the tech tree. His other ability is Brawler, which lets him spend 1 health to get a second attack each turn. Since his attack is so excellent, this is a fabulous ability. Too bad it's extremely expensive to acquire.
He has just about the worst tech tree for gifts of any player—in fact, he is wholly front-loaded in terms of abilities. Three of his "gifts" are listed as No Effect, meaning all he gets from them is the gift card! One does add 1d6 to his attack, and the other two are for his abilities.
This gives him a kind of double whammy, because when players are looking over gifts to take, they often decide to let someone besides Penrod take the gift, because Penrod may not have that extra little bump up. So he gets less courage in the first place, has weaker gift rewards, and socially other players tend to skip him in gaining gifts. At least with a strong personality you can minimize the social issue, and Penrod's strength is so great it may make up for his slow advancement.
Penrod isn't really for new players, because he can give them a wrong idea of how the game works. They will feel like they're not making progress. And they're not, but this is all part of the way Penrod works. He is still a great warrior and boost to the party.
PROFESSOR MAXWELL
Professor Maxwell certainly is unimpressive to start with—an attack of 1d4, toughness 2, and health of 5. He does get 7 starting luck. His real talents kick in later.
Professor Maxwell's Old-School Discipline ability lets him control and recruit patrol troopers of more than one kind—something no other hero can do. He still has to lay down ambushes in which all the troopers are the same, but he can drop off ambushes more than once during his turn. For example, say he has 2 Volunteers and a Cop on patrol with him. He could drop off one volunteer before he moves, then move two areas, dropping off another Volunteer en route, then leave the Cop in his final area.
In fact, the reason he starts with 7 luck isn't just so he can use luck-based gifts. It's so he can spend it as courage in his early recruits, thus starting off with a bang.
His two earned abilities are Ballistics and Mentor, both of which are highly useful and enable him to kill enemies even despite his puny attack. Ballistics lets him spend courage to help an ambush's attack. Again, no one else can do this. And Mentor is amazing—it lets him help another player's attack even when he's not in the same area! He can use it to help an ambush in another area, too, if he has Ballistics. He may want to save his large supply of starting luck to use as courage for helping, because of this. Or since he is able to ensure lots of courage in the pool thanks to his application of trooper ambushes, he could just use that.
Professor Maxwell's flaw is Arthritis. If he moves more than 1 area on his turn, he takes damage. So usually he wants to move along at a snail's pace. This also means that he may want to stay near the start area, where he can recruit. But if he doesn't foray further, then he can't use his ambushes to full value. It's a puzzlement, and sets up Maxwell's basic paradox. Which is of course what makes him fun to play.
Professor Maxwell mostly relies on courage in the pool, gained by ambushes, to earn abilities and move forward. His health and toughness aren't too amazing, so he should try to carry a trooper or two around with him to soak up damage. Fortunately, his tech tree is particularly useful in this regard.
Maxwell's tech tree is composed of two separate three-step tracks. One track is super cheap (the first purchase is only 3 courage!) and gives him 4 cost worth of troopers right off the bat. It's not uncommon for Maxwell to take this at the start of the game, using the courage in the pool to pay for it. This means he starts play with 4 cost of troopers, plus his 1d4 roll for his starting recruit, meaning he has at least 5 points, enough for a Special Forces should he want it. Of course, he also has that fat pool of luck to draw from and bump it up a bit if necessary.
Because of his Old School Discipline ability, one option might be to take a Special Forces along with a couple of Volunteers, and use the latter to soak up damage for him. Then place the Special Forces where he can do the most good, planning to reinforce him later.
Two of his tech tree slots give him more patrol troopers (respectively 8 and 10 points of them!) which usually are taken in the mid-to-late game, when you really need that boost—you may be going up against the demon lord by that time, and need a bunch of cops to soak up those hits! To Serve and Protect, folks.
TARANG
Tarang's starting attack is 1d6. Toughness is 2 and starting luck 3, all average. Health is 6, nothing too amazing, but certainly enough to let him stand in the front lines.
Tarang starts with the Gratitude ability, which enables him to gain 1 extra boost when anyone helps his attack. In Planet Apocalypse, you roll dice for your attack, and try to exceed a target's toughness. If a hero is in the same area with another hero, when he attacks, that second hero can spend 1 courage to "help." Tarang may only have 1d6, but because of his ongoing Gratitude ability, if just one hero helps him, he bumps up to 1d10 right away—that's enough to give him a good shot at killing even Fiends (toughness 6).
This is a good ability, but of course to use it, you need to get that help in the first place, which means you need to (A) be in the same area as another hero and (B) that hero has to be willing and able to spare 1 courage to bump up your attack.
Tarang's other two abilities are Prayer and Silat. Prayer lets Tarang "regenerate" one point of health each turn for free, in addition to any first aid he receives. Silat is an excellent combat weapon—if Tarang kills a demon with his attack, then he can kill another demon (of a lower circle) present.
Tarang's flaw is Cowardice. He cannot enter an area with a mighty Third or Fourth Circle demon unless another hero is already present. Sometimes this means he can't move to a necessary destination, because a high-level demon blocks his path. This gets more and more important as the game progresses.
Tarang is a tough combat warrior, who absolutely has to lean on other players to achieve success. His Gratitude bonus and Cowardice flaw both demand the cooperation of other players, or he will be crippled in play.
Tarang's tech tree is interesting because his two Start options each give him one of his abilities, meaning they are front-loaded. So his first decision quite often is whether to go for defense (Prayer) or offense (Silat), and this depends on the makeup of the team more than anything else. If the other players are mostly support oriented, he should go for Silat. If they are also combat effective, he should get Prayer.
His growth tree also adds 1d6 to his attack and boosts a die by a step (thus, without getting a combat gift, he can end up with 1d8+1d6, which is respectable). He also has a toughness boost available to him, plus a gift which "only" gives him 4 luck.
Tarang is a good all-around hero, though his dependency on other heroes means you'll want to keep an eye on the other players' activities. He's no lone wolf.
VICTOR STEELE
Victor is average at the start, with an attack of 1d6, toughness 2, health 5, luck 3.
His start ability lets him absorb damage with someone else's patrol troopers. This is of course only handy when that other hero is in his area (and has troopers). So it may not seem that amazing, but it is actually really useful. It means, for example, if you are being hit by a dangerous enemy, you can absorb with troopers from 2 or more allies—thus spreading the loss more evenly. It's really good against a Lord, because Victor can basically take all the hits, using others' troopers. Even if each other player only has 1-2 troopers, Victor can use them to protect himself.
His two earned abilities (which take a while to get—he can't access them early in the game) are Leadership and Stragglers, both of which involve troopers. Leadership causes troopers in his area to absorb damage equal to their cost. In some cases this makes no difference, but in others it can greatly increase their protective value. For example, an Army trooper normally blocks 2 damage. But with Leadership he will block 4! On the other hand, a Policeman remains unchanged.
His Stragglers ability is handy because it permits him to recruit troopers even if he's not in the player start area. However, it is slightly inferior to the normal recruit, so when convenient, that's preferred.
Victor Steele's flaw scales oddly. It represents his less-than-stellar ability to create strategy, and says that when he is captain, he cannot move at all. Obviously this ability takes effect more often in a game with fewer players, since he is captain more often. But one or more players are likelier to have troopers in a game with more heroes, which means this disability is more crippling in those cases. Also, Victor always seems to be immobilized on just the turn you needed him to move.
Other heroes want to be in Victor's area, because not only can they protect him with their troopers, he makes those troopers tougher with Leadership. Also, he almost always has troopers along with him, thanks to his Stragglers ability. Of course early in the game this has not kicked in yet, so he is just another hero for a while.
His cheapest gift gives every hero a cost 1 trooper, if they don't have one. This means you need to plan ahead to take the most advantage of this. You'll want all the heroes to plant their troopers as ambushes the first turn. Then the second turn, Victor gives everyone their free trooper—which also means all the heroes have the same trooper type, so they should plant them into one big ambush! His second-cheapest gift lets him place four cost 2 troopers into an ambush-free area, which also requires some planning.
He gains 1d8 attack on the tech tree, and a toughness, so he is a decent fighter, if not amazing. His extra attack die only costs 8 courage, and is a Start option so he can get it pretty early (again, with some planning).
In fact this is Victor's paradox. His Poor Planning weakness and tech tree force his player to carefully plan ahead.
Demons
LIMBO—THE LARVA
The Limbo minions are technically not demons, but damned souls. They are a sort of "zeroth" circle entity. They are puny and easy to kill, with a toughness of a mere 1. Their attack is weak too, only rolling 1d6. This means they can only injure a hero with toughness 3 half the time. However, the Larvae come in large numbers, and typically half the enemies in every spawning are Larvae.
FIRST CIRCLE—THE GRYLLUS
The word "Gryllus" is medieval in origin (originally Latin), and refers to a type of demon popularized in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and others. These demons are basically a head with a pair of feet attached, and often little else. They are often highly decorated. In our version, the Gryllus are the most "civilized" of the demon types, and think of themselves as aristocracy. They wear a fake porcelain head on top of their own head to increase their stature, and have fancy late-medieval clothing, including shoes with pointed tips.
Of course all this is ironic because they are one of the weakest enemies in the game, and players rarely fear them. All demons (except the Larvae) roll 1 die per circle, so the Gryllus only rolls 1 die, but it is 1d10, which is pretty fearsome. This means in a group of demons, you typically expect to take 1 damage per Gryllus, though occasionally a bad roll costs them a hit. Remember that most heroes are only toughness 2 or even less.
With a toughness of 3, the Gryllus is easy to kill, though players don't really feel confident about killing them till they are rolling at least 1d8.
SECOND CIRCLE—THE FIEND
This is the creature that most obviously looks like the traditional demon, with horns, tail, standing erect, and so forth. It carries a strange bony contraption, which we have named a "skeletoy." Remember—nothing is dead in Hell, which means the skeletoy is alive too!
Fiends are scary, rolling 2d10 in the attack and with a fearsome toughness of 6. This means you can't kill a Fiend without at least 1d8 attack, and even if you're up to 1d12, it is always a happy surprise when you kill one. A serious enemy.
THIRD CIRCLE—THE CACODEMON
Truly terrifying, the Cacodemon is raw, naked chaos. Unlike the Gryllus, it cares nothing about personality or interaction, as is clear from its appearance. It is horror incarnate.
The Cacodemon poses a real problem to the players. Not only does it roll 3d10, enough to half kill many heroes, but it actually has a double toughness of 4+4. This means to kill it, you must roll at least two dice, and each die must score a total of 5 or more. At game start, heroes only have one die, so these are totally invulnerable to a normal attack then.
Even when players are near their peak strength they are always walking on eggshells when a Cacodemon is around, and they never take it lightly.
FOURTH-CIRCLE DEMONS
The Bellatrix
The Bellatrix is a fearsome force—a female soldier, as is obvious from her name. Her model shows Hell's attempt to mimic human norms. The Bellatrix can simply be avoided, if you're willing to take the 4-doom hit when she escapes. And you might want to consider this, because she has a toughness of 5, which is nontrivial, plus she rolls 4d12 in battle.
The real issue with the Bellatrix is that her Berserkergang ability means her attack is scored against all heroes in her area. This is quite a predicament for the heroes, because the usual way you knock out a Fourth Circle demon is by ganging up on them. But if you gang up on the Bellatrix, you are falling into her trap, unless you think you can kill her in a single round, before she gets her attack off.
Unfortunately, with a toughness of 5, this isn't so likely. Even a 1d8 attack hits her less than half the time, and then she has 4 health. And of course, there are other enemies in her chamber.
The Catoblepas
The Catoblepas is the bringer of death and plague. If you look at its miniature, it seems to be slumping and falling apart, or possibly being created, as it moves. Its anatomy is odd—looking more like a torture rack than a beast. It is a terrifying sight.
When it spawns, all heroes acquire two pestilence tokens. When it attacks, its target acquires 1 pestilence token for each damage he takes. So pestilence is the theme here.
The Catoblepas has a doubled toughness, like the Cacodemon. Fortunately, it's only 2+2, so not hard to overcome. However, this does mean an attacker needs at least two dice to harm the beast (not everyone has two dice, particularly in the early-to-mid game). Its attack is "only" 4d8—it mostly relies on the pestilence to hurt the players.
Usually when the Catoblepas spawns, there is a turn or two in which the players have to avoid heavy fighting, because all their healing must go to cleansing their pestilence. It's a real worry. And if you aren't able to knock out the Catoblepas in a single round, someone is going to get hit by it for 2-4 more pestilence.
The Cendiary
When the Cendiary spawns, every hero catches fire, regardless of his location. Furthermore, should you be so bold as to attack the Cendiary in a group, when it attacks every hero in its area catches fire again.
With toughness 5 and attack 4d12, the Cendiary is a fairly tough enemy. It's also one you can try to avoid. Fire isn't the worst status effect (that would be Stun), but it's certainly not a walk in the park.
The Elemental
The Elemental's most cogent ability is that it blurs the images of the demons, making them harder for the heroes to see and target. In game terms, this means that the hero has to designate his target before he rolls his attack dice.
Normally, Planet Apocalypse lets you pick your victim after your dice are rolled, which is really useful. If you roll a 4 and a 2 on two dice, for instance, you can use the 4 to kill a First Circle demon, and the 2 to take out a Limbo minion. But if the Elemental is in play, you have to pick first. If you picked First Circle enemies, then that 2 you rolled was useless. If you picked Limbo minions, then the 4 you rolled is underperforming. If there is only one demon in a room, the Elemental's effect is harmless, but the demon numbers tend to increase with its presence.
One mitigating feature—this "blinding" effect does not stop ambushes, only heroes. So you can lean on troopers during this time.
The Elemetal has toughness 5 and 4d10 attack. Of course, if you want to hit him, you have to designate this before you roll.
The Gadarene
The Gadarene's special effect only happens when it spawns, but the effects echo on. Basically, every hero and every ambush has to move two areas towards the Lord. Ambushes that enter Hell Time are killed. If a hero enters Hell Time, a Lord battle starts.
This totally messes up the player's ambush structure, and leaves all the areas near the exit vacant besides. It's a serious problem. Often players are forced to "use up" carefully set ambushes to absorb damage, rather than let them be overrun by the lord and killed.
He's pretty tough, with a toughness 6 and an attack of 4d12. So players may want to avoid him, taking the 4-doom hit. This is a particularly easy choice because the Gadarene has no ongoing effect (unlike the Hellhound) nor does he have a needed reward (unlike the Nuckelavee). Of course 4 doom is nothing to sneer at, but at least you're not forced into the fight, as you are with so many other demons.
The Hellhound
The Hellhound has an "average" attack of 4d10—nothing you'll want to endure. Its special power is dire. Basically, if no hero is in the Hellhound's area, it attacks anyway, targeting any hero in any area, chosen by the team captain.
This means that hiding away from it won't work. It's going to keep attacking you no matter what. So you may as well try to kill it. Luckily, its fairly low defense of 4 means you have a good shot at killing it though it might take you 2-3 turns, depending on dice luck, hero advancement, and the like.
The Hortator
The Hortator causes every demon group to add 1 die to their attack. Thus, a group of four Limbo minions will roll 5d6 instead of 4d6; a lone Second Circle demon will roll 3d10 instead of 2d10; and so forth. At least the demons aren't harder to kill—they just do more damage. Unfortunately, this is one of the few Fourth Circle demons whose effect does include the Lord—so most lords will now roll 7 dice instead of 6.
The Hortator takes a while to take down, with a toughness of 3+3. His attack is weak, only 4d8, but he doesn't really need a strong attack—his bonus benefits all the other demons on the map instead. If your heroes are mean enough that you typically expect to kill all the demons in an area before they can attack, you needn't sweat the Hortator.
The Magdalene
The Magdalene has two effects. First, when she spawns, six Larvae are immediately placed in her area. Second, she cannot be damaged so long as any Larvae remain with her. Remember also that fourth circle demons spawn in the same area as an invasion token, which will always spawn even more Larvae, so she is well-armored at first. It's fortunate that Larvae are comparatively easy to kill. Still, this killing takes time.
The Magdalene has a toughness of 4, which is not too amazing, and her attack is a weak-ish 4d8. Her real threat is that you cannot ignore her area, thanks to the horde of Larvae which, if they exit the map, will probably cost you the game. Of course this threat can be reduced somewhat by means of ambushes (which are excellent at killing Larvae).
The real question is if you can kill off the Larvae fast enough to be able to then kill the Magdalene—typically it takes several attacks to kill a Fourth Circle demon, and you won't be able to attack her at all until the Larvae are wiped out. With all those Larvae, it will take quite some time to mop them up.
The Mandrake
When the Mandrake spawns, it actually increases your ambushes—every ambush with less than 4 troopers (the maximum possible) gets a new trooper. Even empty areas get 1 trooper. This may sound good—at first.
But while the Mandrake is in play, its spawn mimics the heroes, and fools the troopers. The result is that all ambushes target heroes instead of demons. If you've built up a powerful ambush sequence, this can be lethal. Of course, as always, you can use troopers (even ambush troopers) to absorb damage. When the Mandrake is around, this often leads to you getting shot by an ambush, then having someone from that same ambush sacrifice himself to intercept the damage. It seems crazy and paradoxical, but that is the nature of hell.
The Mandrake has a doubled toughness of 2+2, so he is fairly easy to kill, but unlike the similarly tough Catoblepas, you can't depend on even the strongest ambush to hurt him. You have to kill him yourself. He also has a pretty decent attack of 4d10.
Quite often by the end of the Mandrake's reign of terror, you have used up many of your ambush troopers absorbing damage, and of course you dare not lay down any new ambushes. This latter makes it quite important to stop the Mandrake, if you can.
The Nuckelavee
The Nuckelavee is one of the most detested Fourth Circle demons, because when it spawns every player has to take one of his toughness counters and place it on the Nuckelavee's card. That's right—he indefinitely lowers your toughness. There is a way to get it back though—if you can kill the Nuckelavee, everyone gets their point of toughness returned. This of course makes the Nuckelavee a really critical target for the team.
The Nuckelavee has toughness 5, which is not good, but at least its attack is weak, at only 4d6—tied with the Philter for lowest. On the other hand, since everyone fighting it is down 1 toughness, perhaps it doesn't need so much of an attack. This is one demon you cannot afford to ignore.
The Philter
While the Philter is in play, all the enemies have 1 extra toughness. Thus, the Limbo minions are 2 instead of 1. The First Circles are 4 instead of 3, and so forth. This adds a little more grit to the battle, and it can be pretty bad at times. For example, say you are attacking a Second Circle minion with a 1d8 attack (not uncommon). With the Philter in play, you move from a 25 percent chance of killing the fiend to a mere 12.5 percent chance. Half as much!
The Philter itself isn't very dangerous, with a doubled toughness of 2+2 and a meager 4d6 attack. The doubled toughness means it is going probably take a couple of turns to kill him, which means you won't be able to stop the other demons on the map while he's around—at least not too effectively.
Once you kill him, the other demons are that much closer to the exit, and you are under the gun for time and effort.
The Raparee
The Raparee is sort of a companion horror to the Nuckelavee, except instead of stealing toughness, he steals courage. When the Raparee spawns, all the courage that every player has, plus all the courage in the courage pool, is placed on the Raparee's card. This can be a lot of courage. You can get the courage back by killing the Raparee. Of course, if it escapes the map, the courage is gone forever.
The Raparee's menace is rather conditional. If you've been saving up courage for a big purchase, he is really nasty. If you've been living hand-to-mouth, not so much.
Like the Nuckelavee, you usually can't afford to ignore the Raparee. The team needs that courage. His toughness of 5 isn't encouraging, but at least his attack is only 4d8, which is far from the worst among Fourth Circle demons.
The Secutor
When the Secutor spawns, one ambush trooper in every area is killed. So if you have not built up much of an ambush structure (as in the early game), or if your ambush structure is degraded (as in the late game), he is not as dangerous. But in the mid-game this is obviously bad for you. Perhaps not as bad as some other demons, but it must be combined with the Secutor's combat prowess.
The Secutor is another one of those demons with a doubled toughness of 2+2, which means he has to be beaten down over time. His attack is a lethal 4d12, and his battle rage means that you cannot absorb any of this damage with troopers. It's this last that really makes him deadly.
Basically, his doubled toughness means when you go to attack him, you won't be able to kill him in a single round (sometimes you can pull this off with the Hellhound, for instance), and then he's going to thwack you with 4d12 that you can't stop. This is enough to kill a weaker hero, such as John Dark or Hannah (unless they luck out with their toughness), and will debilitate even a strong hero.
Worse, since Fourth Circle demons don't spawn in a vacuum, this means that the other demons in the area may be able to hurt you, so the Secutor is just finishing you off.
The Tardigrade
The Tardigrade's toughness is a mediocre 4, and its attack a comparatively puny 4d8. Not really too fearsome at all. Of course, like all Fourth circle demons, it still has 4 health, so it takes a little while to knock out. But any dedicated party, even in the early game, should be able to handle one.
The problem comes after it is killed. You see, it transforms into a cyst. This cyst is a cardboard counter in the basic game. Later, when we announce and show the already-intimated upgrade set of plastic counters, there is also a plastic cyst. The cyst is completely invulnerable, but does nothing. You can't attack it, and it doesn't attack you. It doesn't even interfere with your first aid attempts (any other demonic presence forces you to spend courage when you do first aid in the area).
But the next time a Fourth Circle demon spawns, the cyst opens up again and the Tardigrade reappears. The problem then becomes the fact that you are facing not just whatever other Fourth Circle demon is in play, but that damn Tardigrade again.
You can't ignore it, because if it manages to exit the map, you'll lose 4 doom. If you focus on killing it, then you lose precious time and effort needed to kill the OTHER Fourth Circle demon that is on the map. It presents a knotty strategic conundrum. And of course even if you do manage to kill it again, then it just becomes another cyst. You can never eliminate it.
In theory, if a game lasted long enough, the Tardigrade would always make it to the exit and escape eventually. In practice, the game usually ends well before this moment, either because the players in desperation manage to kill the demon lord and win, or because in their efforts to block the Tardigrade and other demons they are overwhelmed and defeated.
The Tardigrade is in it for the long haul.
Lords
LORD BAPHOMET
The core game's Lord is Baphomet. Unlike some other co-op games, you'll want to attack the lord several times during the course of the game. If you wait till the end, then gang up on Baphomet (or any Lord), you'll simply lose. They are just too tough to take out in a single fight. This lord is basically a giant goat skull attached to a wall. Well, there's more to it than that, but this is the basic situation. All lords have what is called a menace and a reward.
The menace triggers when the heroes enter Hell Time to fight the Lord. Baphomet's menace is that he gets an immediate attack. Since he starts off rolling 6d12, that's not trivial, and you'll want to have some troopers along to soak up that damage.
Baphomet's reward is that you can earn courage if you damage his Wall. Baphomet's Wall is part of his setup. When a hero rolls attack dice, he can either hit the Wall or Baphomet itself. Destroying the Wall isn't strictly necessary. It is, however, helpful, for two reasons.
First, there's that reward courage. It's always nice to earn courage—if only because you can use that courage to help other players later on in the battle, giving them a better chance to hit the lord.
Second, if you manage to destroy the wall, then Baphomet's attack drops from 6d12 to 6d8, which is far more survivable.
Baphomet is fairly tough—a 6 (the same as a Fiend), which means some heroes may not be able to hurt him unless they get help. Another problem with Baphomet is that if you are injured by him, you get set on fire.
Fortunately, while you are fighting the Lord, time doesn't pass, so your fire markers won't actually cause any damage. But if you are forced to retreat, you'll need to spend time extinguishing the flames of course.
Baphomet, as you'd expect, is one of the easier Demon Lords, because he's the basic core game Lord. "Easy" is relative, and he is still hard to beat, and if you succeed, you should feel proud of yourself.
LADY SCYLLA
Yet another ancient Greek-themed creature. Scylla is a multi-headed horror, with a central womanly body from which serpentine forms emanate.
Battling Scylla. Scylla's menace does nothing when you first enter her area—you see, it "merely" regrows two of of her six heads. She has a toughness of 5 for her body, and 4 for her heads, so the heads are comparatively easy to knock out—a single hit kills one!
However, each time you kill one of her heads, every hero takes 1 pestilence marker. This does nothing while you're fighting her, but when you leave, you'll pay the price. Basically it typically takes several rounds to get rid of the pestilence, during which the demon horde keeps advancing. You can't do a quick first aid-recruit-return cycle as is possible with some Demon Lords.
Each head inflicts 1d12 damage, and after her attack, she rolls 1d6—if the roll exceeds her current heads, she regrows one. She does give the hero a courage each time a head is killed. She has a lot of health—the same number as Jabootu, or 18 versus 4 players.
LORD ASMOD
Asmod's menace is to force all the players to roll 1d12 apiece. Whoever rolls the highest falls under Asmod's power, and fights on the demon's behalf. If you're lucky enough to roll a tie, no one falls under the Asmod's control.
Asmod has an attack of 6d10, toughness 6, and 20 hit points for 4 players. This is about average for a Lord, but his ability to take over a player makes up the difference.
Normally, in each round of combat a hero gets to choose whether he retreats or stays to fight. A hero under Asmod's control retains enough self-will to be able to retreat instead of fighting. Of course this loses his services for the rest of the battle. And each turn, that 1d12 is rolled again so someone else might be controlled. If you're lucky, it's someone with a comparatively weak attack.
The controlled hero must attack the other heroes. His target is chosen by the captain. He still attacks during his turn in the hero part of the turn. When the demons attack, the captain can still have them target the controlled hero. Asmod obviously, is not loyal to his slaves.
Asmod becomes one of the tougher lords due to this. It's easy to see why. Imagine a 4-player game. Each turn, only 3 players get to attack Asmod. Plus Asmod has an extra attack coming in from one of those heroes. Even though a hero's attack is generally much weaker than a demon's, it is still nothing to sneer at.
Asmod's difficulty, however, changes with the number of players. In a 3-player game, he is far more dangerous than in a 5-player game. Three players are much less likely to roll a tie (and thus avoid Asmod's power), for one thing. Also when they fall victim, it's a third of their number instead of a fifth. I decided that players are smart enough to figure this out for themselves. And even in a 5-player game, Asmod is no pushover. But if you manage to beat him with two or three players, you should feel even more proud than when you do it with a full team push.
LORD CHTHON
Chthon is based on gaining power over time. He has a toughness of 5, and his attack starts at 6d12! His menace is to add a 1d4 token to his attack box, or else raise an existing die token in that box by 1 level.
For each damage you inflict on Chthon, you must either add another 1d4 to his attack box, or bump up a die by a level. Chthon cannot have more than 4 dice of any one type (except d12s), so eventually you are forced to increase the die size. Unsurprisingly, he has a lot of hit points so he can really bump up those attack numbers.
Battling Chthon. Let's just look at the raw math.
First attack: The heroes enter Chthon's area and hit him for 10 damage over a number of rounds before they feel obliged to leave. Chthon's attack at this point is probably something like 3d4+4d6+6d12. Chthon is down to 20 HP now.
Second attack: The heroes go after Chthon and hit him for another 10 damage. Now Chthon's attack is something like 4d4+4d6+3d8+6d12. But he only has 10 HP left.
Third attack: The issue now is every attack is adding a d8 or even a d10 to the Lord's attack, so the heroes simply can't survive very long at a time. Perhaps only one round.
LORD GERYON
Geryon is composed of three separate heroes, all doctors. Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, and another Dr. Howard.
Geryon's Menace is simple enough—to enter its Hell Time, you must simply pay its threefold price—1 luck, 1 courage, and 1 health. A hero without courage and/or luck must pay health instead.
The Three Bodies. Geryon's three bodies each have their own health total, which are not equal. The first Dr. Howard has the most health, followed by Dr. Fine, and the second Dr. Howard has the lowest health.
While Geryon does not attack three times (only once), the effect of the attack differs with which bodies are surviving. If the first Dr. Howard is alive, then an injured hero loses 1 luck. If Dr. Fine is alive, then the victim loses 1 extra health. If the second Dr. Howard survives, an injured hero loses 1 courage. As with Geryon's menace, a hero who is out of luck or courage loses health instead. Over time this can really add up.
Of course Geryon has a reward too—a hero earns 1 courage per point of damage he inflicts on a Howard (though not Dr. Fine; hurting him must be its own reward).
Fighting Geryon. One of the issues fighting Geryon is that because of his three bodies, he has a LOT of health. For example, in a 4-player game, Lord Tarasque has 15 health. But Lord Geryon has the equivalent of 29 health! Of course, you can kill Geryon's bodies one by one, but this doesn't decrease his 6d10 damage a bit—it just costs one of his bonus attacks (draining luck, courage, or extra health).
Really the only silver lining in Geryon's miasmic cloud is that you can earn a lot of courage while fighting him, at least if you are targeting the Howards. This courage can be used after you flee, to buy gifts, or to help your friends while they are whaling away at the lord.
LORD HUMBABA
Lord Humbaba's Menace gives the players pestilence equal to their number. Of course, they could (and often do) divide this up 1 per player, but sometimes it's wise for one hero to accept an extra pestilence or two to spare one of the others. Humbaba's attack is a doozy—while only 6d8, it hits all heroes equally. Plus, each hero so hit takes 1 additional damage per pestilence.
Humbaba is toughness 5 (not too bad) and has 20 hit points versus 4 players, which is tough, but not unthinkably so. His real threat is the huge amount of damage he pumps out, forcing players to evacuate before they may wish to.
Battling Humbaba. With most Lords, it's possible for a hero to go up to fight even if he's wounded. After all, some other hero can intercept the hits for you, and you can simply participate by attacking and helping others with their attacks. When those other heroes have lost their health cushion, you simply retreat, having lost nothing.
Or, you can rotate who's getting hit between rounds. This enables four heroes, each at a good health level, to stay for four rounds (possibly more) before they need to evacuate—each hero taking one attack from the Lord in turn. So you may be able to beat down that Lord a few points with four rounds.
But with Humbaba, everyone gets attacked every time. So if you are low in health, you simply don't want to enter his room. He could kill you. So Humbaba often only has to face a subset of the heroes, and they can't stay nearly as long—no rotation of attacks is possible.
The only solution is you need to attack Humbaba more often than other lords, but you can't stay as long. And after that attack, everyone has pestilence which you need to cure. Plus you're taking more damage while in Humbaba's room because the pestilence adds to your damage. It's bad.
Adding injury to insult, Humbaba's reward only gives you courage after you retreat. On the plus side, you probably won't need an influx of courage in Humbaba's area, since you won't stay long enough to use it all up.
LORD JABOOTU
Jabootu's menace is what makes him terrible in the game. When you enter Jabootu's chamber, all heroes immediately "shrink" one of their attack die tokens by a step. Thus, you'd trade in a 1d6 for a 1d4. That's horrible, and it can happen every time you enter hell to fight Jabootu. Fortunately, you do have a way to help mitigate this later on.
This menace affects your play throughout the game. It's scary to do an early strike at Jabootu, because you might cripple yourselves facing the demons in midgame. Many players feel they you must upgrade their attack, or add an extra die, before first confronting Jabootu.
Battling Jabootu. Jabootu may at first seem easier than Baphomet. After all, Jabootu's toughness is 5, and his attack is 6d10, compared to Baphomet's toughness 6 and attack of 6d12 (though you can drop Baphomet's attack later on in the battle). However, Jabootu does have more health than Baphomet, which means it takes longer to knock him down. Also, your dice suck, because you just reduced one of them by a step in his menace phase.
This means battling Jabootu takes some time. Unfortunately, time is not your friend here because of Jabootu's Deadly Tedium ability.
When Jabootu attacks, any hero who is not targeted still takes 1 damage. This means each time he rolls his 6d10, everyone takes a hit. Of course the targeted hero also takes it on the chin, typically getting hit for at least 4-5 points. But the rest of the heroes are getting worn down over time.
His reward is that each time a hero takes 3 or more damage from a single attack while fighting Jabootu, he earns a Lord's Shadow marker (this damage needn't come from Jabootu—his accompanying minions can inflict it). What good is this?
You can use the Lord's Shadow for two things. First, you can discard it to cancel Jabootu's menace. Of course, you can't do this the first time you enter Jabootu's shadow, but from then on, keep a Lord's Shadow on hand so you can re-engage the Lord without losing another die marker.
You can also discard one of Jabootu's Lord's Shadow tokens to restore 2 health and thus heal yourself during the Lord Battle. Normally healing doesn't happen in a Lord battle, so this is a big deal. Still, you'll only dare to do this if you have at least two Lord's Shadows (thus keeping one on hand to avoid Jabootu's grim menace), or if this is your final push to kill Jabootu, and you don't intend to retreat. It can give you that one extra round of survival you need to take down the Lord.
LADY STHENO
Stheno's menace is simply her attack, like Baphomet. But her attack is not that amazing—a feeble 6d8—as weak as Baphomet once his Wall is destroyed. In addition, at least at first, her attack benefits her target—each die that misses (by rolling too low) increases the victim's toughness by 1! Her toughness is equal to her attacker's toughness, which seems good at first, because most heroes only have a toughness of 1-3.
Battling Stheno. After Stheno's attack, her victim gains 1 toughness for each of Stheno's attack dice that missed. But here is the dismal problem—when a player's toughness reaches 12+, they are immediately fossilized, turn to stone, and die, regardless of how much health they have left. So with Stheno, you are not so much afraid of the damage she inflicts, as of the damage she doesn't inflict.
When you exit Stheno's area, you "get" to lower your toughness by 1. This may sound good versus Stheno, but remember not all the heroes may have been attacked by Stheno in the fight. Those heroes lose 1 toughness, too, making them weaker against other foes! This means that in most fights against Stheno, players try to stay at least 1 round per hero, so everyone gets a turn at being attacked, so the toughness loss isn't too harsh. But this also means everyone is likely damaged. Of course, clever players can figure out ways to benefit from the increased toughness versus minions, and an early dip into Stheno's pool might be handy along these lines. But eventually the time will come to pay the piper.
Stheno also has a LOT of health—almost as many as the mighty Geryon. So she's going to get a lot of misses in, petrifying heroes bit by bit. You need to decide if you are going to spread the wealth (so to speak) or focus all the death on one target.
LORD TARASQUE
The Tarasque's menace simply sets every single hero on fire. So far so good, because fire markers don't normally progress during Hell Time. But read on.
Second, the Tarasque has toughness 6 (as tough as Baphomet!), and rolls 6d10 for its attack. However, when it attacks, it also inflicts 1 damage on each hero who's on fire, including the one the Tarasque is attacking.
Battling the Tarasque. You can give up your attack when fighting the Tarasque in order to discard a Fire marker on yourself or another hero. Of course giving up an attack isn't lightly done, but there is another reason you may not want to do this—each time a hero is damaged due to fire in this battle, they gains 1 courage. So if you let yourself burn, each time the Tarasque attacks you'll get 1 courage (as well as take 1 damage). The best use of this courage is to help other heroes who are trying to kill the Tarasque, of course.
The Tarasque's Spines ability sets up your next real problem. If you inflict 2 or more damage on the Tarasque, then you take 1 damage. You are allowed to voluntarily lower the damage you inflict to avoid this, but that opens up another can of worms.
Because of the fire and the spines, heroes tend to "burn down" really quickly fighting the Tarasque. You can't usually bull your way through.
LORD ARGUS
Lord Argus's menace is to immediately place a Fiend in his area when the heroes enter. Usually there is already an invasion token, so this is really an extra Fiend, beyond whatever is rolled. It does mean you don't want to hit him for a small attack (this makes sense for some of the other lords)—you want to stick it out a bit and get some real whacks in.
Argus is toughness 6 and rolls 6d10 which are tough, but he is a demon Lord after all. His real threat is his Decree ability. This means that all minions in Argus's room combine their attacks into one big attack along with Argus, rolling all their dice in one humongous attack.
Battling Argus. Consider this—say that it's fairly early in the game, and the despair dice are up to 6. When you enter Argus's area, first he spawns a Fiend, then you have to roll the despair dice. The best possible result you could get with 6 dice is two Grylluses plus two Larvae, which is four enemies, plus that Fiend. If you don't trim back the herd before Argus attacks, someone on your team will be facing 6d10 (Argus) +2d10 (the Fiend) + 2d10 (the Grylluses) +2d6 (the Larvae) for the attack. That's potentially 12 damage, though admittedly 2-3 of the dice will probably miss. Still, that's a lethal attack in a game where most heroes are at around 4-7 health.
Of course, realistically some players will roll too low to hurt Argus, but will be able to kill a Larva or a Gryllus, so that will reduce the backfire. But not much. Also let's remember that this is if you get the best possible spawn roll, and there are only 6 despair dice.
Based on my experience, your final battle with Argus will probably be when he is rolling more like 10 despair dice, which means the minimum number of enemies you can face is eight, plus that damned Fiend. You won't be able to trim that herd back, and will need to either sacrifice a hero killed when Argus strikes, or have someone who is beefed up with lots of troopers—who will all be destroyed by Argus's attack.
More than any other Lord you have to start off trying to kill his minions instead of him, so that his counterattack can't simply eliminate a player straightaway. This is also a tough choice, because Argus has a lot of hit points, in addition to a high toughness. In a 4-player game, he has 20 health (compare to Baphomet's 15 or Jabootu's 18). There is a reason Argus has 3 crowns. He is mean, and if you defeat him you have cause to crow.
LORD OROBAS
Lord Orobas's menace is simply an immediate attack. However, he is frightening not only because he rolls 6d12, but because his toughness is an amazing 9—the highest in the game. This means even a mighty 1d12 attack only hits Orobas 25 percent of the time, and d8s and less have no chance. This is serious business. He has plenty of hit points, too, with 20 for a 4-player game.
Fortunately, Orobas's abilities and rewards are actually weaknesses, representing his haughty and condescending nature. First, his reward is that when you are Orobas's target, you earn a Lord's Shadow marker. If you take 3 or more damage, you get a second Lord's Shadow marker. (That's pretty common, because 6d12 packs a punch.)
You can spend these Lord's Shadow markers during the Lord fight, either after Orobas attacks, or when you do. If you spend the token after Orobas attacks, you increase your toughness by 3 versus that attack only. If you spend the token after you attack, you can add and roll 1d12 more per token.
Battling Orobas. Orobas quite simply is really really hard to hit. It's all about trying to hit him. The best way to do it is to save up those Lord tokens, and spend them each time you've failed to score a hit, giving you a 25 percent chance per token of hitting him. Also use lots of courage to help other players, and bring up their attacks to at least 1d12.
It's a sucker's game to use the Lord's Shadow Marker too often to avoid damage from Orobas—for one thing, usually you want to take damage, to garner more Lord's Shadow markers. But of course if the attack would otherwise kill you, or bring you too far down, it's a choice. It's really nice that you get to increase the toughness after seeing the roll., so you know if it will work of not.
Remember that Orobas's menace—his free attack—is actually beneficial in a sense, because it earns his target a Lord's Shadow marker right off the bat. I've seen players, desperate for Royal tokens, hop into Orobas's area, take the menace hit, then immediately leave, happy with their token.
LORD PROCRUSTES
When you enter Procrustes' chamber, your courage pool loses 4 courage. If the pool doesn't have enough courage, then each hero takes 1 damage per missing courage. This is such a terrible penalty that the effect is that you never dare attack Procrustes without that pool courage, except in the direst of emergencies.
Procrustes has a rather gruesome toughness of 4+4, the same as a Cacodemon (which are notoriously tough to kill). He "only" has 15 hit points versus four players, which is slightly below average, but that toughness more than makes up for it.
His attack is bizarre, and ignores toughness. Basically, after his target is chosen, he rolls 1d12 and compares it to his target's health.
If the 1d12 exceeds the victim's health, he's "too short" and takes 6 damage. Troopers can absorb this.
If the 1d12 is lower than the victim's health, he's "too tall" and his health drops to the die roll amount. Troopers cannot absorb this.
If the 1d12 is equal to the victim's health, he is "just right," and the hero gains 4 courage. Don't count on this.
A typical fight might go like this. First, Hannah, with her 4 health, is chosen as Procrustes' victim. Procrustes is likely to roll "too short" and inflict 6 damage, brutally killing her. Now she doesn't dare be chosen again, because almost any roll will now be "too short" and kill her. If you choose a high-HP hero, such as Moose, for its target, you are at risk of him rolling something really low like a 3-4 (or a 1!) and dropping the hero precipitously and shockingly.
And since it takes a lot of attacks to wear Procrustes down, he will be inflicting his horrible attacks on you constantly.
LORD PULGASAUR
The Pulgasaur goes through three stages as you battle him. In its first stage, it is toughness 3, with an attack of 6d8. The second stage is toughness 5, with an attack of 6d10. The third stage is the worst at toughness 7, and an attack of 6d12.
The Pulgasaur's menace is to force every player to roll 1d6. If you roll less than your toughness, you lose 1 toughness. Permanently. The higher your toughness, the likelier you are to lose a point. This forces you to consider when you want to attack the Pulgasaur—it is not a boss you want to attack a lot of times, because each time, your toughness might drop, which is scary.
Battling the Pulgasaur. The Pulgasaur doesn't have very many hit points—only 10 versus 4 players. The problem is when it is killed, it "grows" into the next-sized Lord. So the first stage, with 3 toughness, is pretty easy to handle. You can usually kill it in a single battle (assuming normal preparations, e.g., courage, some worthwhile gifts, trooper support). But then it turns into the second stage, and returns to full health. Ouch. Typically players simply run away after this happens, planning to return later.
The Pulgasaur's reward is excellent, though. When the first or second stage dies, all heroes gain 3 courage. Also, if the killing attack scored more damage than the Pulgasaur had health, that hero earns 1 luck per "extra" damage. This is likeliest to happen on the first stage, with its low toughness. But usually it's only 1 luck. Maybe 2 on a rare occasion. More often you exactly kill it, and score no luck. It's sort of a consolation prize if you "overkill."
LADY STROMA
Stroma's image shows her just as a gigantic pair of hands and a hungry face. Before her face (and between her hands) is a sort of a stand, like a whirlpool. This is large enough for a hero's figure to fit, and that's what it's used for.
Her toughness is 3+3, which is not unthinkably hard to overcome, but does take time. She has a lot of health (20 for four players), and since a typical hit versus her only does 1 damage, thanks to her doubled toughness, it will take many rounds to kill her. Do the math. If you have four players, each with at least 2 dice, who are lucky enough with gifts, helping, and rolls to get a hit two thirds of the time, this means that it will take 6-7 complete rounds of combat to kill her. That may not seem too bad until you see her attack.
Her Menace is simple—the captain picks a hero who is placed on Stroma's mouth-pool.
When Stroma attacks, she ignores the defender's toughness, and simply rolls 1d6. This damage is taken directly off the hero's health (though it can be absorbed by troopers, if he has any). Most heroes can last only 2 rounds—3 if they have useful troopers.
The victim hero is absolutely certain to die, unless the fight lasts long enough to kill Stroma. He cannot retreat from the battle, and must be left behind if the rest flee.
Battling Stroma. It's a problem. With most Demon Lords you can pop in for a quick strike, then exit again, lick your wounds, and return once recovered. But if you try this with Stroma, one of your heroes is certain to die every time. Unless you have a sacrificial lamb of some sort, you really don't want to do this.
Thus you are encouraged by her nature to make one big attack late in the game hoping to burn her health down faster than she is killing your heroes. Yet that is not too palatable either.
GREAT CTHULHU
Cthulhu has possibly the most challenging menace in the game. When you enter Hell Time with Cthulhu, each player chooses how many Sanity tokens he wants. For each such token, he also gets 1 courage and 1 luck. (Yes, a player can choose to accept 0 Sanity tokens).
When it's the players turn to attack, he must retreat if he has no Sanity tokens left. If he has at least 1 Sanity token however, he must discard 1 Sanity token, and then stay and attack—he cannot retreat, no matter how much he may wish to. So you have to figure out ahead of time just how long you plan to stay under Cthulhu's Shadow. The first few times you play against him, it will be a challenge to get it anywhere near right.
Next, when it is Cthulhu's turn to attack, he first rolls 1d4. This is how many times he gets to attack. Each attack can be against a different target, if the captain so desires. Oh yes, he has 6 toughness, 6d12 attack, and 25 health versus 4 players, which is all strong, but what do you expect. The real problem is the multiple attacks which are semi-randomized so you don't know how many you have in store, and the menace in which you have to decide how long to stay ahead of time.
Battling Cthulhu. I can see people thinking, "Wait, I know. I'll only ever stay 1 round in Cthulhu's shadow. That way he won't be able to wipe us out, and we can return on the next turn or so." The problem with this decision is that when you enter hell time, any invasion token in the area resolves. When you assault Cthulhu, the token is resolved. Then after you retreat, the minions who popped out of the token (less whatever minions you managed to kill) will march forward, and a new invasion token will spawn in Cthulhu's area. You really can't afford to keep popping all of these invasion tokens turn after turn without trying to clean them up, or you'll lose based just on doom lost by inability to spawn new demons.
You see, normally you want to stay 2-4 rounds in a Lord's area—the first round and part of the second are spent mopping up the invasion token, so it can't interfere. Then the rest of the second round, and all of the remainder are spent pounding on the Lord. If you never stay more than 1 round in Cthulhu's area, you'll either have to ignore the minions, or not hit Cthulhu at all.
SPIDER MASTERMIND
When you enter Hell Time, the Spider Mastermind gets a Lord's Shadow Marker.
The Spider Mastermind's toughness is 3+3, one less than a Cacodemon, and its attack is 6d8. He has more health than any other lord, including even Geryon, and has 35 health in a 4-player game. So far it is not that impressive. Here are his two threats:
First, the Spider Mastermind attacks once per Lord's Shadow marker. Since it earns one every time you attack it, this can build up if you attack it too many times. But since it has a lot of health, you'll probably need to assault it several times over the course of the game, each time giving it another Lord's Shadow marker—which never go away.
Second, if at least one of the Spider Mastermind's attack dice misses (and with an attack of 6d8, it's not unlikely), then the targeted hero gets a choice. He must either automatically retreat, right then (after taking any remaining damage), or he must choose to allow the Mastermind to heal 1 per missed attack die. So if a lot of dice miss, it's bittersweet—you don't take much damage, but you may need to run away or let the Spider Lord heal a bunch.
Your reward is unusual—if you retreat voluntarily, then you get to immediately roll 1d4 and recruit. So this usually means you want to use up your patrol troopers in the battle, so you can take advantage of this bonus.
Battling the Spider Mastermind. Its doubled toughness means you can't attack it too early. Its ever-growing attack power means you need to make as few invasions of its area as possible. Its Panic power means you don't really want to have a lot of toughness against it—it's better for you to take damage than to let it heal.
Really, its threat isn't so much that it's going to kill the players—and in fact, it is not particularly lethal. The problem is that it is really hard to kill, and it keeps healing, and eventually it can kill you, or heal heaps. In the meantime, the invasion tokens keep growing and growing and scoring doom.
Unlike some lords, when you face the Spider Mastermind, usually you lose because of doom accumulated by the minions, not because the Lord wiped you out. This makes sense, because he is a Mastermind, after all.
Good luck. This is after all a four-crown demon.
Demon Gate
What does the plastic gate model do, besides looking cool? Well most obviously, you can use it to replace the cardboard Gate tile included in the game.
When you go into a Lord battle, the Lord, the heroes, and all minions in the Lord's area are moved to the special Hell Time tile. The Gate is placed on the map, in the area the Lord came from, so after the battle, he and any surviving minions can be returned to the correct area.
Usually there is no real question about where you should return, so the Gate is sort of decorative. But sometimes you have multiple choices. Also, when you defeat a lesser Lord, that Gate model shows which area to remove the Lord's Shadow from.
Why Do the Demons Have Faces Disturbingly Everywhere?
Conceptually and artistically, the concept of demons having faces in their stomachs, butts, and elsewhere is highly medieval. We have followed this practice.
But what does it mean? Well, it shows two things. First, demons never excrete, or release anything—they only take take take. Anything ingested or absorbed by a demon is kept forever.
Second, the idea is that OUR demons were formed by transforming a human body. The demon faces formed at that time—and the resulting entity's "real" face is probably never the one on the head, where faces would rationally seem to belong. (Demons aren't rational.)
For example, consider the Secutor. It probably has some kind of rudimentary face under its armored mask, but the being's actual in-control face is probably either the one on its stomach, gripping the weight bar between its teeth, or the one sticking its tongue out on its behind. (My vote is for the behind—I think the tummy face is the human victim's original face, and it grips the bar in agony.)
Anyway, the faces aren't just for decoration and fun. I mean, they are, but there is a philosophy and an art behind them, too.
Rule Omega
The Final Question
We have sought diligently to cover all possible rules questions and to make the game as gripping and exciting as we possibly can, but we are mere mortals, and as such we are subject to error (unlike the Demon Lords portrayed in the game).
If you come across a conflict or ambiguity regarding an ability, gift, or rule, and you cannot find the answer in our FAQ (or our website's online FAQ), we recommend that the players in the game discuss the desired outcome—the owner of the game should get a bonus in the discussion (perhaps their vote counts for double). Remember that it is emphatically NOT always better to choose a result that makes the game easier for the players—in a cooperative game such as this, you will gain a much greater personal satisfaction in defeating a tough enemy than a pushover.
In the end, Planet Apocalypse is YOUR game. If you feel compelled to add house rules, do so with our blessing.
Credits
Design: Sandy Petersen
Art: Keith Thompson and Helge Balzer
Development and Playtesting: Sandy Petersen and Lincoln Petersen
Project Director and Production: Arthur Petersen
Graphic Design and Layout: Peter Gifford, Penny Amaris, and Tony Mastrangeli
Editing: Justin Hoeger
Business Management: Christine Graham
Social Media and VF Support: Pit Lanrezac
Sculpting: Valerio Carbone, Game Chain, Abhinav Chokhavatia, Ronny Firman, Shoham Leo David Charikar, LiYa, Mihail Lupu, Ron McLeroy, Martin Nikolov, Jeremy Smith, Taras Strannik, Ralph Sutter, Miranda Thomas, Tidal 4, Derran Viss, and Fabio Wasques
Playtesting: Frank Bauroth, Kyle Beasley, Sasha Bergovic, Jazcek Braden, Jonathan Cohen, David Coon, John Coon, Peter Dannenberg, Angela Fleider, Brad Gaffney, Jared and Lacey Harvey, Bryan Hehmann, Guy Hoyle, Chad Jones, Fabian Kuechler, Chris Lemens, Shovaen Patel, Spencer Petersen, Paul Slusser, and Ian Starcher.
Proofreading: Paul Baker, Jamie Bergman, Colin Berney, Joseph Bouthiette Jr., Simon Briere, Alexander Büchöl, John Card II, Benjamin Carman, Martin Covin, Ross Cowie, Hector-Xavier de Lastic, Paul Ellis, Thue Eriksen, Anthony Galyer, Keladry Goodell, Adrian Hernandez, James Kittock, Rob Klijn, Darren Lussenden, Josh Maca, Ville Mankinen, Luke Murthwaite, Ernest Ng, Rafael Polonio, Joel Poston, Don Riddle, Anthony Rubbo, Connor Sheehan, Ajay Sims, Adam Starks, and Ryan Swiers.
Special thanks to: Ameliazoth, Kent Hamilton, Debbie Petersen, Lizzie Petersen, Wendy Petersen, Gina Petersen, Banditte Petersen, the Pit of Despair, and China Taste delivery restaurant.