Salvation Road
Salvation Road Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Play of the Game
During the game, the characters will be moving between locations near their compound to gather resources.
They will have limited information early, but can use equipment or trade for information at some locations to discover more about the journey ahead of them, represented by Road Cards they will need to overcome.
As they search the locations for resources, their activity will attract more and more attention from the marauders. These barbaric enemies, or the environment itself, will often wound the characters. The marauders will also be working to destroy the compound.
The characters must balance using resources to deal with these threats, and saving resources for travelling to win the game.
Component Details
16 Character Cards – These cards represent the heroes and survivors the players control in the game.
- Portrait.
- Name: in blue for heroes, red for survivors.
- Character ability: for heroes this will be a beneficial ability. For survivors it will be a weakness.
- Health circles: each character has between 4 and 7 health circles. These circles can hold a resource token or a wound token, but never both at the same time.
11 Location Cards – These cards represent nearby locations where characters can search for and gather resources. Three are "recon locations" (with a symbol in the upper left corner), one of which is used in every game.
- Picture/location supply: searched resources are placed here to form the "location supply."
- Threat track: as characters search, they increase the threat of the location (move the threat token to the right).
- Location name and ability: each location has an ability that can be used by a character at the location. Location abilities may only be used once per round.
16 Apocalypse Cards – These are divided into 4 types: death, famine, pestilence, and war.
- Type and name.
- Marauder reinforcement.
- Apocalypse effect.
- Flavor text.
- Prevention requirements.
One card is drawn near the end of each round, revealing an obstacle that the characters must confront. The players lose if they are unable to travel when these cards run out.
16 Character Standees – These are used to represent the current location of each character.
16 Activation Markers – These tokens are placed on top of a Character Card when the matching character has taken his or her actions for the round.
1 Game Board – The board depicts the compound and surrounding areas in which the game takes place.
12 Search Cards – One of these cards is drawn when characters search for new resources to randomly determine which are found at a given location.
12 Road Cards – These cards determine the obstacles the characters will face on their journey to Salvation. They start on the "unexplored" side, showing only the types of resources needed. When explored, they are flipped to show the exact resource cost.
36 Wound Tokens – Several damaging effects in the game inflict these double-sided tokens. They generally come into play "unrevealed," with a black background and red wound face-up. When flipped, they reveal a variety of injuries and wound effects.
13 Marauder Tokens – These are placed on the fence around the compound by Apocalypse Cards, marking the increasing size of the gang of marauders raiding nearby. Bike tokens are placed first. Only when they run out are buggy tokens placed, signaling that the marauders could conquer the compound soon.
5 Threat Tokens – These are used to mark the increasing danger at each Location Card, making it more likely that characters will face a marauder attack.
6 Threat Dice – These dice (four blue and two red) are rolled to determine when marauders attack at locations, and how many wound tokens they inflict on the characters. They are also used to determine success with fight and rest actions.
1 First Player Marker – This is used to mark the first player in the current game round.
5 Location Use Markers – These are placed on Location Cards when their ability has been used for a round, and are flipped over when a location is overrun.
60 Resource Tokens – These markers represent the resources characters will use during the game. Any resource could be required to fulfill the costs of Road Cards or the toll. Their other uses are detailed below:
- Food – Food is used to prevent the negative effects of famine Apocalypse Cards. One token can be shared by up to three characters sharing a location. One can also be used to give a character an extra action for a round.
- Ammo – Ammo can be used to shoot the marauders near the compound, buying the characters more time to gather resources. It can also be used to try to prevent wounds dealt during a marauder attack.
- Med – Meds can be used to heal wound tokens on characters. They can also be used to prevent the effects of a pestilence Apocalypse Card for up to three characters sharing a location.
- Fuel – Fuel is mainly used to pay the costs of Road Cards at the end of the game, since every Road Card requires at least some fuel. It can also be used to drive up to two characters to a location.
1 Truck Token – Players at the compound may store resources on the truck in preparation for travelling to Salvation at the end of the game. Groups of three resources may be represented with one Resource Token in the "3X" spot of the truck.
Game Setup
Setup for 2-4 players (rules for solo and 5-8 players are covered under Alternate Player Counts below):
- Lay out the Game Board.
- Shuffle the Road Cards. Place the deck on the left side of the board with the "unexplored" side face-up, showing a picture of a road. Take the top Road Card from the deck, and place it, "unexplored" side up, on the roadmap at the top of the board.
- Shuffle the Hero and Survivor Cards separately. Have each player draw two Character Cards, one hero and one survivor. Place extra heroes and survivors back in the game box.
- Players place their Character Cards in front of them. Each player should also take the matching standees and Activation Markers, placing the Activation Markers next to the matching Character Cards and the standees on the compound in the lower left of the board.
- Divide the Resource Tokens and Wound Tokens into pools, placing Fuel Tokens on the keys, Food Tokens on the crackers, Med Tokens on the gauze, Ammo Tokens on the bullets, and Wound Tokens (black "unrevealed" side face-up) on the newspaper.
- Take the number of bike and buggy Marauder Tokens indicated on the chart at the bottom center of the board for the number of players in the game. Place these Marauder Tokens in a pool to the left of the fence. The remaining two Marauder Tokens may be returned to the box.
- Remove the three "recon locations" (Location Cards with a symbol) from the Location Card deck and put them to the side. Shuffle the remaining eight Location Cards. Without looking at them, draw a number of Location Cards equal to the number of players in the game. Add one randomly drawn recon location to these cards. Place the rest of the Location Cards back in the game box. Shuffle these three to five cards together, and place them facedown on the board.
- Place Threat Tokens and Location Use Markers to the side of the board, one of each for each Location Card in the game.
- Shuffle the Search Cards facedown, and place the deck to the right of the board.
- Shuffle the Apocalypse Cards. Remove five cards from the deck without looking at them and return them to the game box. Put the remaining deck of cards on the right side of the board.
- Place the Truck Token on the left side of the compound. To represent the group's starting resources, place one Food Token on the truck.
- Determine a first player through any method. Give him or her the First Player Marker and the Threat Dice.
Table Secrecy
Cards and tokens must remain facedown except when indicated in the rules.
Players may not look at the other side of Wound Tokens, unless a card effect reveals them.
Resource Tokens on Location Cards, on Character Cards, and on the truck are open information.
Victory and Defeat
The players lose if any of the following are true:
- The final Marauder Token is placed on the fence.
- Both characters controlled by a single player are defeated.
- The players draw the last Apocalypse Card from the deck, and are not able to travel during the refresh phase of the round.
- The players attempt to travel, but don't have enough resources to pay road and/or toll costs.
The players win if both of the following are true:
- All remaining characters are in the compound during the refresh phase and decide to travel.
- The characters have enough resources to pay the costs of all Road Cards and the toll.
Game Round Overview
- Action Phase – In clockwise order, starting with the first player, players take turns activating a single character they control. That character performs two actions, and may perform one free transfer action. This continues until all characters have acted.
- Threat Phase – One or more Threat Dice are rolled for each occupied location, potentially causing wounds to the characters located there.
- Apocalypse Phase – An Apocalypse Card is drawn and resolved, and Marauder Tokens are added to the fence.
- Refresh Phase – Players clean up and prepare for the next round. Characters may travel to end the game.
Action Phase
Starting with the first player, and continuing clockwise, each player chooses ONE of their characters who has not yet been activated. This character is the "active character." They may perform two actions, and one free transfer. After resolving their actions, they place their Activation Marker on their Character Card.
One character must resolve his actions fully before another may begin his activation. A character may perform the same action multiple times.
Once a player has activated all of the characters under his control, skip that player's turn until all players have activated all of their characters. When all characters have activated, proceed to the threat phase.
Basic Actions
Move – Move the Character Standee of the active character to any Location that does not already contain three characters (the compound is exempt from this limit).
If a character moves to a facedown Location Card, flip the card over, and place a Threat Token on the leftmost space of the threat track. Then, draw a Search Card from the deck, and place the indicated resource tokens on the Location Card's picture. This is the "location supply." Discard the Search Card. Note that placing these resource tokens does not count as a search action.
Gather – Take one resource token from the location supply, and place it on the active character's Character Card on a health circle that does not contain a Wound Token. If the character has no open circles, they must first drop a resource into the location supply.
Search – Increase the threat of the Location Card by moving the Threat Token one space to the right. Draw a Search Card, adding the indicated resources to the location supply, and then discard the drawn card. If every Search Card is in the discard pile, shuffle them into a new Search Card deck.
If the Threat Token reaches the space with the skull, the location is now "overrun."
Overrun Locations – When a location is overrun, flip a Location Use Marker to its "overrun" side and place it over the location card ability text to indicate that the ability can no longer be used for the rest of the game. When a character searches at an overrun location, do not move the Threat Token. Draw a Search Card, but only add ONE resource (of the player's choice) from those listed on the Search Card to the location supply. Characters may move to and gather from an overrun location as normal.
Heal – Discard a Med Token from the active character. Choose a character at this location (the active character may choose himself). Discard three unrevealed Wound Tokens, OR one revealed Wound Token from the chosen character.
Transfer – The active character may make one free transfer per round, before or after an action. The active character may give one resource to a character at their location. If at the compound, they may instead transfer as many resources as they like to the truck, or take one resource from the truck. If a receiving character has no open health circles, they must drop a different resource.
Delay and Recover – When a character is "delayed" by an effect, their Character Standee is laid on its side. A delayed character must spend their next available action to recover, standing their Standee back up. If an already delayed character is delayed again, they instead take one wound.
Compound-Only Actions
Fight – Remove a Marauder Token from the fence. Buggies must always be removed first. Then roll red Threat Dice, one if the active character is a hero (blue name), two if a survivor (red name). The active character takes Wound Tokens equal to the wounds shown on the die or dice.
Shoot – Discard an Ammo Token. Remove three Marauder Tokens from the fence, removing buggies first.
Rest – Roll one red Threat Die. The active character may remove a number of unrevealed Wound Tokens equal to the number of wounds shown on the die.
Special Actions and Abilities
Character Abilities – Each hero has a positive ability, and each survivor has a negative ability. Many hero abilities require the hero to spend an action, and most are usable only once per round.
Location Abilities – Each location has a helpful ability. Some require a character to spend an action. Other location abilities require a character to end their activation on the location. Once a character ends their activation they may not discard food for an extra action, or fuel to drive, although they may be driven by another character discarding a Fuel Token.
Note that actions from character and location abilities cannot be combined. For example, if Kai uses her "Eagle Eye" ability at the Scrapyard, she does not also benefit from the Scrapyard's ability.
All location abilities may be used once per round. To mark this, move a Location Use Marker on top of the location's ability text when the location is used.
Recon Locations – Like other locations, these may only be used once per round. When a character "scouts," draw a card from the bottom of the Road Card deck and place it on the roadmap. Road Cards may not be scouted once the number of cards indicated on the board (number of players + 1) has been reached.
When an action "explores," flip an "unexplored" Road Card on the roadmap to its green side, revealing the exact resources needed to overcome the obstacle.
Extra Actions
Food – A character may discard a Food Token, before or after resolving an action. The character gains one extra action for the round. This may be done once per character per round.
Fuel – A character may discard one Fuel Token before or after resolving an action to immediately drive to a different location. They may drive one other character sharing their location to the same destination. This is not a move action and ignores character abilities related to movement. This may be done once per character per round.
Dropping Resources
If a character gathers or takes a wound when they have no open health circles, or if an effect forces a character to "drop" a resource, place it on the location supply, or on the truck if they are in the compound.
Example Action Phase
It's the beginning of a round. Player 1 controls Carl Murphy at St. Joseph's Hospital and Rosa Villanueva at the compound. Player 2 controls Rashid Amir, also at the Hospital, and Jose Berrios (who is delayed) at the Satellite Station.
Player 1 activates Carl. For his first action, he gathers one Fuel Token from the location supply. Carl next uses his free transfer to give this Fuel Token to Rashid, who shares his location. For his second action, Carl uses his character ability "Commanding Influence" to move to the Satellite Station. His ability allows him to order Jose to take an action. Jose must recover, since he is delayed.
Carl has completed his two actions, so he places his Activation Marker on his Character Card. It is player 2's turn to activate a character.
Player 2 chooses to activate Jose Berrios. For his first action he uses the location ability of the Satellite Station. Jose can either choose to scout or explore, and he chooses to scout, taking one wound.
Jose now resolves the scout action. He draws a Road Card from the bottom of the deck, adding it to the roadmap. Jose sees that the players will need more food and fuel to reach Salvation! Juan places the Location Use Marker on the bottom of the Location Card.
Before Jose resolves his second action, he discards a fuel to drive he and Carl back to the compound. Note that Carl's ability is not resolved when driving, so Carl cannot give an action to Rosa. Juan uses his free transfer action to place two food and a fuel onto the truck.
Finally, Jose takes his second action. He discards an Ammo Token to shoot the marauders, first removing the only buggy (buggies are always removed first), and then removing two bikes.
Jose's activation is over, so he places his Activation Marker on his Character Card. It is player 1's turn again, and he must activate Rosa, since Carl was already activated.
Threat Phase
The first player rolls one or more Threat Dice for each occupied Location Card to see if the marauders attack. Resolve a threat roll for each Location Card from left to right. Do not roll for the compound.
Threat Roll Steps
- Add the modifier from the Threat Token's current position on the threat track to the number of characters at the location. The current first player grabs this many Threat Dice. Always grab blue dice first, only using red dice when the blue dice run out.
- Roll the Threat Dice.
- Count up the number of wounds shown on the Threat Dice. These are the number of Wound Tokens caused by marauders at the location.
- Characters at the location may discard Ammo Tokens to fight off the marauders. Each token discarded allows the players to reroll as many Threat Dice as they like. This may be done multiple times if the characters are holding more ammo.
- Wounds from the final Threat Dice result are freely divided among characters at the location, although no character may have more total Wound Tokens than they have health circles.
- If a character is forced to place a Wound Token on a health circle with a Resource Token, that resource is dropped, and placed in the location supply.
- If a character has Wound Tokens (revealed or not) covering all of their health circles, they are defeated and removed from the game. Remove their Character Standee from the board. If a player's second character is defeated, the players immediately lose.
- After resolving the results of the threat roll, move on to the next occupied Location Card. Never roll for the compound.
Once all occupied Location Cards have had a threat roll, proceed to the apocalypse phase.
Example Threat Roll
Carl and Rosa are both at the Hospital. The Hospital's Threat Token is on the first +3 space of the threat track. Adding this +3 modifier to the number of characters at the location, the players must roll FIVE Threat Dice.
The first player first grabs the four blue Threat Dice. No blue dice remain, so he must roll a red Threat Die for his fifth die. The first player rolls his five dice. Three wounds are shown on the dice. Not a great result!
Rosa may now use her "Fearless Defender" ability. She does so, rerolling all Threat Dice showing at least one wound. Unfortunately, the roll ends up worse!
The characters could discard an ammo to reroll one or more of these dice, but they decide not to. They must now divide the four wounds between themselves. The players decide to deal two wounds to each character. Carl has to place a wound on a health circle with a Resource Token, so he drops a food in the location supply before placing the Wound Token.
Apocalypse Phase
Basic Apocalypse Card Sequence
- The first player draws the top Apocalypse Card from the deck. If its type (death, war, famine, or pestilence) matches the top card of the discard pile, the players MAY place the drawn card on top of the discard pile (without resolving it) and draw again. Note that this loses a round of the game, bringing the players closer to losing. Players may do this multiple times.
- Add the number of Marauder Tokens indicated for the number of players to the fence. Always add bikes first, only adding buggies if every bike is already on the fence. If the final Marauder Token is placed on the fence, the players lose. With a war Apocalypse Card, this loss may be preventable, as detailed below.
- Resolve the card's apocalypse effect, possibly preventing it, as detailed below.
- Proceed to the refresh phase.
If the players draw the final Apocalypse Card from the deck, they must travel this round or they lose.
It is recommended that players spread out the discard pile, so they may see how many of each type of Apocalypse Card have been drawn.
Example Apocalypse Phase
It is the beginning of the apocalypse phase, and a war Apocalypse Card is currently on top of the discard pile. An Apocalypse Card is drawn. It is another war card! Since the card type matches the top card of the discard pile, the players MAY ignore this card, and they choose to do so, placing the new war card on top of the discard pile.
They draw another Apocalypse Card, and through horrible luck it is also a war card! The players could draw again, but they choose not to, fearing they will run out of Apocalypse Cards and lose the game. The new war card is resolved and placed on top of the discard pile.
Apocalypse Card Details
Death – Death Apocalypse Cards cause a variety of negative effects to every character outside of the compound.
Prevention – Characters in the compound ignore the apocalypse effects of Death Cards.
War – When a War Apocalypse Card is drawn, many Marauder Tokens are added to the fence, and each character at the compound must take a wound. If a buggy is on the fence, the marauders are ready for a full-scale assault and the players are in danger of losing from a War Card. Plan accordingly.
Prevention – Characters at the compound can choose to take a second wound. For each character that does so, the War Card adds one fewer marauder.
Example War Resolution: A War Card is drawn in a 2-player game, with seven out of eleven Marauder Tokens on the fence. Carl Murphy is standing at the compound, so he takes one wound automatically. The card adds four Marauder Tokens in a 2-player game. This will place the final four Marauder Tokens (all buggies) on the fence, exactly enough to cause the players to lose. Carl chooses to take a second wound, preventing the fourth marauder from being added, and saving the compound for a round.
Pestilence – Pestilence Cards force characters that have unrevealed Wound Tokens to reveal the indicated number of tokens (or as many as they have available if fewer), flipping them over. Then, depending on the Pestilence Card drawn, they will either resolve the wound effects of the tokens just revealed, or of ALL of their revealed Wound Tokens.
Prevention – A character can discard one Med Token to ignore the apocalypse effects of a Pestilence Card for up to three characters at their location.
Example Pestilence Resolution: Rosa and Juan are together at a location, and both have Wound Tokens. Juan also has a Med Token. Carl is at a different location, and has one unrevealed wound, a revealed sprained ankle, and no Med Token. The players draw the Pestilence Card "Infection," which causes them to reveal one Wound Token and then resolve ALL of their revealed wounds. Juan decides to discard his Med Token to allow both he and Rosa (who shares his location) to ignore the Pestilence Card. They do not reveal any Wound Tokens, and they do not resolve any revealed wounds. Carl does not have a Med Token, so he has to reveal one of his Wound Tokens. He reveals a sprained wrist. The Pestilence Card says to resolve ALL of Carl's revealed wounds. His previously revealed sprained ankle causes him to be delayed. He cannot drop a resource, so he ignores the sprained wrist.
Famine – Famine Cards cause very harsh effects to every character on the board.
Prevention – A character with a Food Token may discard it to ignore the apocalypse effects of a Famine Card for up to three characters at their location.
Example Famine Resolution: Carl and Rashid share a location. Rosa is alone. Carl and Rosa both have Food Tokens. The players draw the Famine Card "Starvation," which will cause each character to take two wounds if they don't eat. Carl discards his Food Token. This allows both he and Rashid to eat, so neither takes any wounds. The players need food for the Road Cards, so Rosa chooses not to eat the Food Token she has. She takes two wounds.
Refresh Phase
Take all Activation Markers and move them below their Character Cards.
Take all Location Use Markers on Location Cards and move them to the side of the board.
The players may decide to travel with the truck to Salvation, triggering the endgame. All living characters must be at the compound to do so. See the Travel section below for more details.
If the players decide not to travel, the first player passes the First Player Marker to his left.
If the final Apocalypse Card has been drawn, the players must travel or they lose.
Start a new round, beginning with the action phase.
Travel
If the players choose to travel during the refresh phase of a round, follow these steps. All living characters must be at the compound to travel:
- Transfer all Resource Tokens from Character Cards to the truck.
- Beginning with the leftmost Road Card, pay the cost of each Road Card by discarding the indicated Resource Tokens from the truck.
- If a Road Card has not been explored, flip it over before paying its cost.
- If the number of Road Cards on the roadmap is fewer than the number of players plus one, draw additional Road Cards from the bottom of the deck, explore them, and pay their cost until the full number of Road Cards has been overcome.
- If at any point the characters are unable to pay the Resource Tokens to meet the cost of a Road Card, they lose.
- If the players are able to pay enough Resource Tokens to overcome every Road Card, they reach the gates of Salvation and must pay a toll to enter. Shuffle the Search Card discard pile back into the deck.
- Draw a Search Card. Choose either the left or the right resource type, discarding one or two Resource Tokens as indicated from the truck.
- In a three or four-player game, continue drawing and paying for Search Cards, until the number of Search Cards indicated on the "Salvation" space on the roadmap have been resolved.
If the characters can pay the Resource Token(s) required for the toll, they are allowed into Salvation and they win. If not, they are tragically turned away and they lose.
Example Travel Attempt
The only two surviving characters from a 2-player game are at the compound with 10 fuel, 3 food, 4 ammo, and 1 med (some resources are on the "3X" space, representing 3 of that resource). It is the refresh phase, and the players choose to travel.
The first Road Card has already been explored, and it is a bandit base, requiring 3 fuel and 2 ammo. The players discard these resources from the truck, making change as necessary for "3X" resources.
The second Road Card was never explored. The players flip it over, revealing rocky terrain that they will need 2 food and 3 fuel to overcome. They discard these from the truck as well.
The third Road Card was never scouted. The players draw a Road Card from the bottom of the deck, and immediately explore it. They find a breached reactor in their path, requiring their only Med Token, and their final 4 fuel to bypass.
The players have reached Salvation with 1 food and 2 ammo remaining, but they still have to pay the toll. They shuffle the Search Card discards into the deck and draw a card. The guards at Salvation require either one ammo or two food as a sign of good faith before they will let the characters in. The players must choose to pay one ammo, since they do not have two food.
In a 2-player game only one toll must be resolved, so the players win!
The Truck
A character at the compound may use a transfer action to move as many Resource Tokens as he likes from his Character Card to the truck.
Alternatively, a transfer action allows a character to take one resource from the truck.
Resources on the truck may NOT be discarded to pay any cost or perform any action. They are also unaffected by Apocalypse Cards.
Damage and Defeat
Threat rolls, Apocalypse Cards, and certain actions will cause characters to take Wound Tokens. These tokens always begin with the black unrevealed side face-up, unless otherwise indicated.
Pestilence Cards and some other effects will reveal these wounds, causing their wound effects to resolve.
Wound Tokens are placed on health circles just like Resource Tokens. If a character takes a wound and does not have an empty health circle, they must drop a resource to their location supply (or to the truck if they are at the compound) to make space for the Wound Token.
If all of a character's health circles are filled with Wound Tokens, that character is defeated and removed from the game. If a player loses their second character, the players lose.
Wound Types and Effects
- Unrevealed Wound – Wound Tokens begin on this unrevealed side. Three can be healed with a Med Token, and one to two can be removed with a rest action.
- Critical Wound – This token causes the character to immediately take a new unrevealed Wound Token.
- Sprained Ankle – This token delays the character, forcing them to spend an action to recover. If the character is already delayed, they instead take a wound.
- Sprained Wrist – This token forces the character to drop one resource, placing it in their location supply, or in the truck if on the compound. If the character has no resources, they suffer no effect.
- Painful Wound – The effect of this token depends on the character's location. Characters at a Location Card must increase the threat of their location, if able. Characters at the compound must instead add a Marauder Token to the fence (a bike, if available).
- Flesh Wound – The lucky character that reveals this gets to immediately discard it. They weren't badly hurt!
- Injury – Having one of these revealed Wound Tokens causes no additional effect.
Alternate Player Counts
Five to Eight Players
Heroic – For setup and all other game rules (except where indicated below), act as though you are playing with half the number of players, rounded up (5-6 players = 3 players; 7-8 players = 4 players). Each player starts with one hero, instead of a hero and a survivor. If you are playing with 5 or 7 players, one player will control TWO heroes. If any hero is defeated, players immediately lose.
When a Search Card is flipped over to add Resource Tokens (either because it has been moved to for the first time, or because a character performed a search action), add only ONE of each type of Resource Token.
Survival – Follow all of the rules above, except use all survivors instead of heroes, and each Search Card adds TWO of each Resource Token type.
If playing with the "Historic Maldito" Location Card, its ability adds 2 of one resource and 1 of the other as normal in the heroic version, and 3 of one resource and 2 of the other (one more than normal for each) in the survival version.
The rules for searching an overrun location are unchanged in both versions.
Solo Play
Choose to play a two, three, or four-player game. Setup the game as indicated for that number of players. Arrange the characters in survivor-hero pairs, each representing one "player." The First Player Marker starts with the leftmost "player," and is passed to the right one "player" during each refresh phase. The game is played as normal in all other ways.
Variant
Limited Communication
With this variant, a player may only talk to another player if they both control characters sharing the same location.
If a player accidentally ignores this rule, they must pick one of their characters and increase the threat of their location, or add one Marauder Token to the fence if the chosen character is at the compound.
Term Glossary
- Action – Each character receives two actions per round. The same action may be taken multiple times.
- Active Character – The character resolving actions.
- Ammo Reroll – After seeing the results of a threat roll, characters at that location may discard Ammo Tokens to reroll any Threat Dice they choose, until they run out of ammo or wish to stop rerolling.
- Delay – When a character is delayed, their Character Standee is placed on its side. The character must spend their next available action to recover and stand up. Delayed characters can be driven by another character, but they remain delayed. If a character is already delayed, and gets delayed again, they instead take a wound.
- Discard – When a resource or Wound Token is discarded, it is returned to its corresponding pool. Revealed Wound Tokens are placed in a face-up pile near the Wound Token pool, and are only used again if the players run out of Wound Tokens during the game.
- Drop – When a resource is dropped, it is placed in the location supply if the character holding it is at a Location Card, or in the truck if the character is at the compound.
- Explore – Exploring a previously scouted Road Card flips it over to show its exact resource cost.
- Fence – This fence surrounds the compound, keeping dangerous marauders out. Apocalypse Cards, Wound Tokens, and character abilities can add Marauder Tokens to it. If the final Marauder Token is placed on the fence, the players lose the game. When a buggy is on the fence, the players are in danger of losing from a War Card.
- Health Circle – Characters have four to seven health circles on their card. Circles may hold a Resource Token OR a Wound Token. If a Wound Token or a new Resource Token would be placed in the same circle as an existing resource, that resource is dropped.
- Location – Locations include Location Cards and the compound. Each location except for the compound can only hold three characters at the same time. The compound is NOT considered a "Location Card" and does not have a location supply.
- Location Supply – Resources at a location are placed on the picture of the location, the "location supply." Resources in the supply cannot be used or discarded to pay costs unless specifically indicated by an effect.
- Occupied Location – A location with at least one character present.
- Overrun Location – A location with the Threat Token on the rightmost spot of the threat track is overrun. The location's ability cannot be used for the rest of the game, and when characters search they place only one resource in the location supply from the resources shown on the Search Card.
Quick Reference
Round Overview
- Action Phase – Each character resolves 2 actions.
- Threat Phase – Threat roll for each occupied location.
- Apocalypse Phase – Add marauders and resolve effect.
- Refresh Phase – Remove Activation and Location Use Markers. May travel if all characters at the compound.
Available Actions
- Move – Move to any location. If location card has never been flipped, place Threat Token on leftmost space and draw and resolve a free Search Card.
- Gather – Take a Resource Token from the location supply and place it on an empty health circle on your Character Card.
- Search – Move the Threat Token one space to the right. Draw a Search Card and add the indicated Resource Tokens to the location supply.
- Heal – Discard a Med Token. Discard three unrevealed Wound Tokens or one revealed Wound Token from your Character Card, or from a character sharing your location.
- Transfer (one free per round) – Transfer one Resource Token from your Character Card to another character sharing your location, or as many Resource Tokens as you like to the truck, or one Resource Token from the truck.
- Recover (only if delayed) – Stand your Character Standee back up. This action must be performed first by the delayed character.
Compound only:
- Fight – Discard a Marauder Token from the fence (buggy first), then roll 1 (hero) or 2 (survivor) red Threat Dice, taking the indicated number of wounds.
- Shoot – Discard an Ammo Token. Discard three Marauder Tokens from the fence (buggies first).
- Rest – Roll a red Threat Die. Discard the indicated number of unrevealed Wound Tokens from your Character Card.
Recon location only:
- Scout – Draw a Road Card from the bottom of the deck and add it to the roadmap.
- Explore – Flip over a Road Card that is already on the roadmap.
Resource Uses
- Food – Prevent Famine Card effects. Gain an extra action.
- Ammo – Reroll threat rolls. Perform shoot action.
- Med – Prevent Pestilence Card effects. Perform heal action.
- Fuel – Drive up to two characters. Required for all Road Cards.
Wound Types and Effects
- Unrevealed Wound
- Critical Wound – Take a new unrevealed Wound Token.
- Sprained Ankle – Delay the character.
- Sprained Wrist – Drop one resource.
- Painful Wound – Increase threat level (Location Card) or add a marauder (compound).
- Flesh Wound – Discard this wound.
- Injury