Raxxon Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Object of the Game
• Playing Solo
• Dead of Winter Characters
• Population Cards
• Character Sheets
• Raxxon Cards
• Game Board
• Game Setup
• Day Order
• Crowd Setup
• Adjacency
  • Example: Adjacency
• Player Actions
  • Triggering Consequences
  • Choosing an Available Action
  • Performing an Action
• Game Icons and Effects
  • Example: When Flipped
• Turn Example
• End of Day
• Game End
  • Victory
  • Infection Overrun
  • Raxxon Takeover
• Clarifications
  • Order of Effects
  • Quarantine
  • Rows/Columns
  • Looking at Cards
• Solo Rules
• Effect Icons
• End of the Day Summary
• Credits

Components

// 60 population cards // 40 Raxxon cards // 6 character sheets // 1 game board // 60 action tokens // 1 Raxxon token

Object of the Game

In Raxxon, the players are a team of city leaders in a world on the cusp of the zombie apocalypse. Evacuation protocols have been activated. The federal government, strapped for resources due to the infection's spread, has paired your team with officials from Raxxon Pharmaceuticals. Raxxon's ample resources are necessary, but can they be trusted?

Players work as a team and win or lose together. To win the game, move all healthy population cards from the population to the evacuation pile before the city is overrun or Raxxon gains enough power to take over.

Playing Solo

Raxxon can be played solo. After reading the regular rules, which assume 2-4 players, read the Solo Rules section on page 10 for adjustments to the solo game.

Dead of Winter Characters

Raxxon comes with two exclusive Dead of Winter characters to be used with Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game and/or Dead of Winter: The Long Night. Each comes with a cardboard standee, Crossroads card, and character card. These components are not used while playing Raxxon.

Please note: If you haven't already done so, please visit the website www.MyRaxxon.com. On the website you will find a further mission briefing, virus outbreak updates, additional scenarios, a rules video, and opportunities to recruit new Crisis Management Unit operatives. Raxxon thanks you for, and will always remember, your compliance in this matter.

Population Cards

1. Health Status
   • Healthy (heart icon)
   • Infected (biohazard icon)
2. Population Type
3. Effect Trigger (before the arrows)
4. Effect (after the arrows)

Character Sheets

1. Character Badge
2. Action
3. Consequences
4. Action Token Space

Raxxon Cards

1. Card Title
2. Trigger
3. Option
4. Option Effects

Game Board

1. Infection Supply
2. Population Discard Pile
3. Population Draw Pile
4. Evacuation Pile
5. Uncontained Quarantine
6. Contained Quarantine
7. Triggered Raxxon Pile
8. Untriggered Raxxon Pile
9. Raxxon Draw Pile
10. Raxxon Power Track

Game Setup

1. If playing the intro level game, place the following population cards back into the game box: 5 hostile, 3 family, 2 celebrity, 4 chaotic, 4 carrier, 4 volatile.

2. Place the game board and action tokens in reach of all players.

3. Separate the healthy population cards from the infected population cards. Shuffle the infected cards and deal a number of them facedown into a pile. The number of cards dealt depends on the difficulty level the players choose, as noted in this table.

   Difficulty Chosen	Infected Cards Dealt
   Intro	9
   Regular	15
   Hard	18
   Expert	21

4. Shuffle the dealt infected cards into the healthy population cards and form a facedown population draw pile.

5. Form a facedown infection supply pile with the remaining infected cards.

6. Have each player choose a character sheet, placing it in front of them with the side matching the player count face-up. Place all unused character sheets back in the game box.

7. Shuffle the Raxxon deck and form a facedown Raxxon draw pile.

8. Mark Raxxon's power at 0 on the game board using the Raxxon token.

9. Randomly choose a first player.

Day Order

The game takes place over a series of rounds, called days. Each day contains the following phases in order:

1. Crowd Setup: Population cards are dealt into a facedown grid to form the crowd.
2. Player Actions: Players investigate cards, manipulate the crowd, and attempt to move healthy cards to the evacuation pile until the end of day is triggered.
3. End of Day: Action tokens are removed from character sheets and infected cards that are on the loose infect the population.

Crowd Setup

During crowd setup phase, create the crowd for the day by dealing cards from the population draw pile facedown into a grid. The number of cards in the grid is determined by the number of players in the game:

• 1-2 players = 9 card in crowd / 3x3 grid
• 3 players = 12 card in crowd / 3x4 grid
• 4 players = 16 card in crowd / 4x4 grid

If there are not enough cards to create a full crowd, deal out successive rows until the population draw pile runs out.

Adjacency

Cards immediately above, below, to the left or to the right of each other in the crowd are considered to be adjacent. Cards diagonal to each other are not adjacent. Cards with space between them are not adjacent. See "Example: Adjacency".

Example: Adjacency

The card labeled 1 is adjacent to all the cards labeled A. The card labeled 1 is NOT adjacent to any card labeled B. The card labeled 2 is adjacent to all the cards labeled B.

Player Actions

Once the crowd is set up, starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player may take a turn or pass. Once a player passes for any reason, her entire turn is skipped for the rest of the day.

Play continues to move clockwise around the table for those who have not passed until all players pass or until a card effect showing the end of day icon triggers. At that time, the player actions phase ends immediately and end of day begins.

When taking a turn, a player must resolve the following steps in order:

1. Trigger all her character's consequences.
2. Choose an available action on her character sheet.
3. Perform the chosen action.

Triggering Consequences

When triggering consequences a player must move from top to bottom on her character sheet, triggering the consequence above each action token. If there are no action tokens on a player's character sheet yet, no consequences trigger. If an action has more than 1 token next to it, resolve them from left to right.

Note: Do not discard action tokens after triggering their consequences; they remain there until the end of day phase or an in game effect says otherwise. A player may decide, after triggering a consequence or part of a consequence, to end the turn rather than to continue. This counts as passing.

Choosing an Available Action

The top action of each player's character sheet (always Investigate) does not require an action token and can always be chosen. Any other action is available to be chosen if there are one or more empty action token spaces next to that action. After choosing one of these actions to perform, place an action token on the leftmost empty action token space next to that action.

Note: Players do not trigger the consequence for an action token on the turn it was placed; it won't trigger until the beginning of that player's next turn.

Performing an Action

The player character sheets describe how to resolve each action. Actions include:

// Investigate: This action provides the players with information about cards in the crowd.

// Evacuate: This action moves healthy cards to the evacuation pile.

// Air Strike/Attack: These actions kill groups of cards in the crowd, sending them to the population discard pile.

// Quarantine: This action moves face-up infected cards to Raxxon's quarantine facility.

// Crowd Control: This action swaps cards in the crowd or flips cards facedown.

// Other Actions: Each character has 1 other action specific to their area of expertise.

Game Icons and Effects

Killing Cards: When population cards are killed due to a game effect, place them in the population discard pile. During the end of day phase, the population discard pile is shuffled back into the population draw pile, so killed cards are not gone forever.

Skull icon: Whenever a population card is killed, if the killed card has this icon on it, immediately resolve the effect listed after the icon, whether the card was face-up or facedown.

Virus icon: Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, the infection rate rises. Draw the top card of the infection supply and place it face-up in the population discard pile. If the infection supply is empty when this icon triggers, the players immediately lose.

Warning icon: Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, the active player draws the top card of the Raxxon draw pile and reads the trigger to see if the card resolves.

If the italic trigger applies, read the card and follow its instructions. Any choice offered by the card is made by the active player unless the card says otherwise. Resolve text effects and icon effects (at the bottom of each card) based on the result. Then place the card in the triggered Raxxon pile unless the card says otherwise.

If the italic trigger text does NOT apply, place the card in the untriggered Raxxon pile and move on. Occasionally, a card effect will instruct a player to shuffle the untriggered Raxxon pile back into the Raxxon draw pile.

Question mark icon: This icon on some actions offers a player an optional effect. If a player chooses to resolve the effect that follows this icon, draw a Raxxon card after completing that action. If the player declines to use the effect, do NOT draw a Raxxon card.

RP icon: Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, increase the Raxxon's power track by 1. When the track reaches 8, the players immediately lose.

Moon icon (End of Day icon): Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, immediately end the player actions phase and proceed to the end of day phase.

Gas mask icon: Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, immediately move a HOSTILE card from the evacuation pile to the population discard pile.

Person with plus icon: Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, draw the top card of the population draw pile without looking at it and place it facedown in the crowd. The player adding the card may choose where to place it, following these rules:

// The card must be placed adjacent to as many other cards as possible.

// If the crowd is empty, the card is placed in the middle of the table alone.

// The maximum width/height of the crowd is 6x6. A card cannot be placed that would make the crowd any wider or taller than 6 cards.

// If the population draw pile is empty, shuffle the population discard pile to form a new population draw pile. If both are empty, nothing happens.

Flip icon: Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, the active player flips a facedown card in the crowd face-up. If all cards in the crowd are already face-up, nothing happens.

Eye/target icon: After flipping a card face-up, if the flipped card has this icon on it, count the number of cards of that specific population type face-up in the crowd, including the just-flipped card. If that count matches a numbered effect on the card exactly (not more or less), resolve the effect. See "Example: When Flipped" below.

Example: When Flipped

A carrier card was just flipped face-up. There is already 1 other carrier infected card face-up in the crowd, making 2 total. Therefore, the active player must draw a Raxxon card (1). If neither carrier card is removed or flipped facedown, and 1 additional carrier card is flipped face-up, the end of day phase will immediately occur (2).

Turn Example

1. It is the beginning of Thomas Heart's turn. Today he has already used Targeted Air Strike twice (A) and Quarantine once (B), so he has 3 action tokens on his character sheet. He can choose to either trigger all of his consequences, or pass. If he passes, his turn is skipped for the rest of the day.

2. He decides to move forward with his turn. He adds a card to the crowd (A), adds another card to the crowd (B), flips a card face-up (C), and draws a Raxxon card (D). The action tokens do not go away after being resolved – they'll trigger again next turn.

3. For his action, he places an action token on the leftmost open action token space next to Aggressive Crowd Control (A) and performs that action to swap the position of the Healthy Innocent crowd card (B) with the Infected Volatile crowd card (C).

4. He does not trigger the consequence next to the Crowd Control action at this time. That consequence will trigger before his next turn if he does not pass, along with the other consequences he triggered earlier this turn.

End of Day

Once all players have passed or the moon (End of Day) icon triggers, resolve the following steps in order:

1. The Crowd: Flip all remaining cards in the crowd face-up. (Do not trigger any eye/target effects at this time.)

2. The Infection Spreads: Count the total number of infected cards in the crowd and in the uncontained quarantine. Trigger the virus icon that many times, up to a maximum of 4.

   In this example, there are a total of 4 infected cards in the crowd and uncontained quarantine. So 4 cards would be moved from the infection supply and placed face up in the population discard pile.

3. The Population: Move all cards from the crowd and uncontained quarantine to the population discard pile, then shuffle the population discard pile into the population draw pile.

4. Ongoing Containment: Move all cards in the contained quarantine to the uncontained quarantine.

5. Clear Character Sheets: All players clear all action tokens from their character sheets.

In this example, Thomas Heart had 4 action tokens on his character sheet. All of these are removed during the end of day phase.

Once the end of day phase has been resolved, continue on to the next day. The player to the left of the most recent active player becomes the first player in the new day.

Game End

The game can end in 3 ways:

Victory

As soon as every healthy card is in the evacuation pile (20 for an intro game, 30 on other difficulty levels), the group immediately wins! Players may count the evacuation pile at any time to know how many more cards they need to evacuate to win.

Infection Overrun

If the virus icon triggers but there are no cards in the infection supply, the infected overrun the city before the population can escape and the group immediately loses.

Raxxon Takeover

If Raxxon's power reaches 8, Raxxon takes over the city before the population can escape and the group immediately loses.

Clarifications

Order of Effects

Any time multiple game effects trigger simultaneously (for example, if several healthy cards are killed at the same time), the active player may choose in which order to resolve the effects.

Quarantine

When moving cards into or out of contained and uncontained quarantine, a player may move cards in whatever order she chooses; the position within these doesn't matter.

Rows/Columns

A row or column means every card in 1 line of the crowd. This could include non-adjacent cards together, if there is a space in the row/column, and it could refer a single card, if that card is the only one in that row/column.

Looking at Cards

All card piles may be counted at any time. The population draw pile, infection supply, and Raxxon draw pile should be facedown. All other card piles are placed face-up and may be looked through at any time.

Solo Rules

Raxxon can be played solo! Play with the following adjustments:

// Choose 1 character to use at the beginning of each day. The character may be different or the same each day.

// Instead of the day ending when you pass, the day ends after you pass twice. After passing the first time, clear all action tokens from your character sheet.

// For KD James' Raxxon Funding action, you may use the question mark ability without drawing a Raxxon card.

Effect Icons

Skull icon: When a population card with this icon is killed, whether face-up or facedown, trigger the effect listed after this icon.

Eye/target icon: When a population card with this icon is flipped face-up in the crowd, if the total number of the card's type ("Hostile," "Chaotic," etc.) matches a numbered effect on the card exactly, resolve that effect.

Person with plus icon: Add a card from the population draw pile facedown to the crowd adjacent to as many cards as possible. Maximum crowd size is 6x6. Re-shuffle the population discard pile if the draw pile is empty.

Flip icon: Flip a facedown card in the crowd face-up.

Virus icon: Add the top card of the infection supply to the population discard pile.

Warning icon: Draw a Raxxon card.

Question mark icon: Draw a Raxxon card ONLY IF you choose to resolve the specified effect after this icon. Draw the card after completing the effect.

RP icon: Increase Raxxon's power.

Gas mask icon: Move a HOSTILE card from the evacuation pile to the population draw pile.

Moon icon: Immediately proceed to the end of day phase.

See page 7 for more information on game icons and effects.

End of the Day Summary

1. The Crowd

   Flip all remaining cards in the crowd face-up. Do not trigger any eye/target effects at this time.

2. The Infection Spreads

   Count total infected cards in the crowd and uncontained quarantine. Trigger the virus icon that many times (max = 4).

3. The Population

   Shuffle the crowd, uncontained quarantine and population discard pile all into the population draw pile.

4. Ongoing Containment

   Move all cards in the contained quarantine to the uncontained quarantine.

5. Clear Character Sheets

   Clear all action tokens from all character sheets.

See page 9 for more information on the end of day phase.

Credits

Game Designer: J. Arthur Ellis

Producer: Colby Dauch

Managing Graphic Designer: David Richards

Graphic Designer: Kendall Wilkerson

Art Directors: David Richards, Isaac Vega

Illustrator: Fernanda Suarez

Lead Playtester: Gordon Helle

Playtesters: Damian Baeslack, Frank Balog, Kamila Bartnik, Will Bentley, Jeffrey "Game Breaker" Berman, Julius Besser, Katie Wharton Boes, Robert Boes, Hanna Brady, Domenico Bruce, Christina Brunelle, Jim Casale, Brodi Chase, Jordan Chase, Joshua Chase, Nathan Chase, Robert Childers, Adam Cirone, John F Clikeman, Nick Conley, Colleen Cook, Mike Cook, Aidan Cox, Cameron Crawford, Jaron Drake, Michael Drake, Joe C. Ellis, Andy Englund, Derek Fox, Tina Fox, Peter Frantz, Nathan Fritz, Zachary Fry, Carl Gannon, Will Grier, Larry Hachtel, Peter Halferty, Caden Hall, Hannah Helle, Paul Helle, Nafmi Sanichar van Herwijnen, Jonathan Hobson, Michael Hoffmann, Zak Honess, Aaron Hudkins, Darrel Hutchins, Larry Lemley Jr., Jake Jurbank, Matt Kaminsky, Shannon Kelley, Caleb Kester, David Kiker, Daniel Kimberlin, Benjamin Klas, Matias Korman, Mitsuyo Kurosawa, Joseph Soonsin Lee, Alexandre Limoges, Emerson Matsuuchi, David John Meyer, Gabriel Meyer, Keith Miller, Mike Miller, Bob Misenheimer, Jill Mohler, Aaron Morhart, Alicia Morhart, Ellio Mourinho, Anne Muenks, Nathan Muenks, Aaron Nord, Seth E Oakman, Caty Petersilge, Chris Plumlee, Brock Kevin Poulsen, Justin Price, Łukasz Przybylak, Joseph Reissmann, Terry Ross, Marcin Ruta, KL Sanchez, Jake Schwartfigure, Valerie Schwartfigure, Deeann Sevits, Dick Sevits, Kaitlyn Sevits, Pat Sevits, Raymond "Playtest Machine" Sevits, Ryan Shirley, Ryan Standlee, Nathan Stephens, Simon 'Nightwing' Stephens, Will Stevens, Michael Street, Ian Swain, Sam Swain, Donovon Thakur, Stephen Christopher Thomas, Alice Tran, Brian Truran, Andrew Turpin, Alexander Wachter, Jay Walker, Joshua Warren, Teage Watson, Nathan Wells, Benjamin Witham, Jeffrey Wolfe, Laura Wolfe, Ron Wood, Michael Woode, Maxwell Wynter

© 2017 Plaid Hat Games. Raxxon, Dead of Winter, Plaid Hat Games, and the Plaid Hat Games logo are trademarks of Plaid Hat Games. Plaid Hat Games is a division of Asmodee North America, Inc. 1995 W County Rd B2, Roseville, MN 55113. 651-639-1905. Actual components may vary from those shown. Made in China. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT A TOY. NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY PERSONS 13 YEARS OF AGE OR YOUNGER.