Queenz: To Bee or Not to Bee Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Setup
• How to Play
  • Taking New Orchid Tokens
  • Filling One Field
  • Queens – Special Ability
  • Refresh the Garden / New Fields
• End of the Game / Final Scoring
• Black Orchids Variant
• Credits

Game Components

• 1 Main Board (the Garden), marked with a Red Arrow and Orchid Spots, plus a Gardener Track
• 1 Gardener Pawn
• 4 Diversified Production Tokens (value 4-5-6-10)
• 20 Honey Pots (1 set of 5 pots per player)
• 1 Scoring Track
• 4 Scoring Tokens
• 4 Player Boards, each with a Personal Supply and a Honey Production Track
• 12 Hives (3 per player)
• 3 Black Orchid Tokens (see Black Orchids Variant)
• 24 Field Tiles (2 copies of each of the 12 different shapes)
• 125 Orchid Tokens (25 in each color)
• 4 Queenz promotional tokens, to share with your family and friends!

Setup

1. Place the Garden in the middle of the table.
2. Shuffle all 125 Orchid Tokens face down to form a draw pile. Leave the 3 Black Orchid Tokens aside for your first games. Once you're familiar with the game, check the Black Orchids Variant. Then, fill the Garden with Orchid Tokens drawn at random, placing 1 (face up) Orchid per space. The Orchid Draw Pile should be placed close to the board.
3. Form a pile with the "Diversified Production" Token, with the "10" token on the top, then the 6, 5, and 4.
4. Shuffle all 24 Field Tiles to form a draw pile. Draw the first 5 Tiles and place them next to the board. These Tiles are available for the players.
5. Each player takes 1 Player Board, 3 Hives and 1 set of 5 Honey Pots.
6. Place the Scoring Track next to the Garden and place each player's Scoring Token on "0".
7. Determine the first player as you wish. The player that sits on their right places the Gardener Pawn in front of the row/column of their choice.

How to Play

Players take their turns clockwise.

On your turn, you can

• EITHER take new Orchid Tokens and place them in your Supply;
• OR fill one Field using Orchid Tokens and/or Hives from your Supply.

Taking New Orchid Tokens

You can only take Orchid Tokens from the row/column of the Gardener. You cannot take more Orchid Tokens than you have room in your Supply.

You may take 1, 2 or 3 Orchid Tokens, according to the following rules:

• If you take only ONE token, you can choose any token (with or without bees);
• If you take TWO tokens, none of them must have bees, and they may be either of the same color or of different colors;
• If you take THREE tokens, none of them must have bees, and they must all be of a different color.

Example: Lucy may either take any single token, or take 2 tokens without any bees, either of the same color or of different colors. She can also take 3 tokens of different colors without any bees.

Place the chosen tokens in your Supply, then move the Gardener clockwise. The Gardener takes as many steps as the number of Orchid Tokens that you took.

Note: if you take a token with a lone bee on it, it is a Queen! – see Queens below.

Example: Lucy finally decides to take 2 yellow tokens and place these tokens in her Supply. The Gardener moves two steps forward.

Filling One Field

Instead of taking Orchid Tokens, you may fill one of the available Fields with Orchid Tokens from your Supply and/or Hives.

You must place either one Orchid Token from your Supply or a Hive Token on each space of the Field that you want to fill.

1. Choose one available Field from the middle of the table. If this is your first Field, place it in front of you. Otherwise, you must place it so that it is adjacent to one of your existing Fields.
2. Fill all spaces of your Field using Orchid Tokens from your Supply and/or Hives if needed. You may not leave empty spaces.
3. Each honey color that you produce is worth Victory Points. If you just created or enlarged an area containing at least two Orchid Tokens of the same color, then you produce Honey and score points:
   • Score 1 VP for each Orchid Token of that area;
   • If it's the first time that you produce this Honey color, take the matching Honey Pot Token and place it on your Honey Production Track. (Do not score points for Hives and Bees at this step. Their bonus will be scored at the end of the game).

As soon as you place the last Honey Pot Token from your set on your Honey Production Track, filling it completely, take the "Diversified Production" Token from the top of the pile.

If you're the first player to do so, that token will give you 10 extra points at the end of the game. The second player to achieve this objective will score 6 points, the third one 5 points, and the last one 4 points. If you don't manage to place your 5 Honey Pots on your track, you score 0 point.

Example: Mary just bloomed her first Field. She scores 4 VP and produces 2 different honey colors. On a later turn, she adds a second Field. She scores 8 VP and produces a third honey color. For her third Field, she scores 8 extra VP. As she's the first player to produce the 5 Honey colors, she gets the first "Diversified Production" Token that will score 10 extra VP at the end of the game! Note that white and yellow do not score for the third field, as they were neither created nor enlarged by new flowers when this Field was added.

Queens – Special Ability

Some Orchid Tokens come with 1, 2 or 3 bees. As explained before, when you take an Orchid Token with bees, you cannot take any other Orchid Token in the same turn. However Orchid Tokens with 1 single bee are special tokens: the bee is... a Queen! That Queen gives you a special ability.

When you take an Orchid Token with 1 queen, place it in your Supply. You may now immediately choose to swap that Orchid Token with any other Orchid Token from your bloomed Fields. You don't get any Victory Point when swapping tokens! That ability is optional, but if you don't do it immediately, you won't be allowed to do it later.

Example: Jerome takes the pink Orchid Token and its queen. He can decide to leave it in his Supply or swap it with any other Orchid Token from his Fields. He decides to swap it with a Blue Orchid Token. He doesn't score points yet though, even if he created an area that contains at least two pink orchids.

Refresh the Garden / New Fields

When you take Orchid Tokens, or when you take a Field among the available Fields, do not replace them immediately. Wait for one of the following situations to happen:

• The Gardener stops in front of an empty row/column:
  • The player that moved the Gardener receives 1 VP;
  • Refill that row with Orchid Tokens taken from the draw pile. Place them face up on the board.
• A player takes the last available Field:
  • That player receives 1 VP;
  • Draw 5 new Fields. They immediately become available.
• The Gardener crosses the red arrow at the corner of the Main Board.
  • The player that moved the Gardener receives 1 VP.
  • Refill all empty spaces with Orchid Tokens taken from the draw pile. Place them face up on the board.
  • Draw new Fields to have a total of 5 available Fields.

End of the Game / Final Scoring

When a player blooms their 5th Field, each other player plays a last turn.

On that last turn, each player may either Take new Orchid Tokens or Fill one Field as usual. However, for this last turn, you may leave empty spaces in your Field if you are short of Orchid Tokens or Hives.

This is the only occasion where you're allowed to bloom a Field even if you cannot fill all of its spaces.

Points are scored normally for this last turn.

Players then score extra points for their Hives. Each Hive scores 1 VP for each bee on the 8 spaces surrounding it. If a bee is connected to several Hives, then it scores for all of these Hives. Count each Hive separately, then add up all of your points.

If you have a "Diversified Production" token, add its value to your Final Score (Bloomed Fields + Hive Points + Diversified Production).

Example: In this example, the Hives score 22 points (8+10+4).

The player with the highest score wins! If there is a tie, the player with the most bees wins.

Black Orchids Variant

• Shuffle the Black Orchids with the regular Orchids face down at game start.
• If there is a Black Orchid in the Gardener's row or column, and if you want to take it, then you can only take this Black Orchid (and nothing else).
• In that case, discard it immediately, then reveal 3 Orchids from the draw pile.
• Choose 1 or 2 Orchids (even with bees) and place them in your Supply (you cannot pick a Black Orchid on this occasion). Discard and reshuffle the Orchids that you didn't pick.
• In any case, move the Gardener one step forward.

Credits

Game Design: Bruno Cathala & Johannes Goupy Illustrations and Graphic Design: Vincent Dutrait Typography Consultant: Quentin Schmerber Producer: Kevin Kichan Kim Translations: Antoine Prono (Transludis)

© 2019 Mandoo Games