Two Robots
Two Robots Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Objective
In Two Robots, you take on the role of one of the five Salvagers. Your objective is to claim Rennova as your own. To do this, you can do one of two things. First, you may build Two Robots: one to keep up the fight and the other to maintain the factory to build more troops.
Second, you can defeat all other Salvagers in battle with your Active Robot and Rennova will be yours.
Components
- Action deck, which contains Robot Parts, Attack cards and Defense cards.
- Active Robot pile.
- Salvagers.
- Powers.
Setup
- Each player picks a Salvager.
- Hand each player their three Power cards.
- Each player makes room in front of them for their play area, known as their Factory.
- Shuffle the Action deck and Active Robot pile. Remove Scattershot and/or Precision Strike from the Active Robot pile if needed based on the number of players.
Sample Game Setup
Pacemaker (top) vs. Apocalypse (bottom). Peacemaker used 1 Power and has 3 Health. Apocalypse used 1 Power and has 2 Health.
Note: the printed caption reads "Pacemaker (top)"; the Salvager on the card is named Peacemaker, as in the second sentence of the caption.
Turn Order
The game plays either clockwise or counter-clockwise, since robots don't do things the same way as humans. Turn order is determined by the numbers on the back of each Salvager card. The smaller number always goes first.
This will vary based on the number of players. For example, if Scavenger and Apocalypse are the only two players, Scavenger would go first.
Turn Overview
- Draw Phase: Draw three cards from the Action deck. You start with zero in hand.
- Play Phase: Play up to three Action cards.
- Event Phase: Choose either option A or B.
- A. Sacrifice two Parts to use a Power card and flip it (each Power is once per game).
- B. Sacrifice one Part to deploy an Active Robot in your Factory and reveal a card.
- Cleanup Phase: Discard down to seven cards in your hand which is the hand limit.
How to Build a Robot
The play area in front of you is called your Factory. This is where your robots are built! Playing a Robot Part card is considered one of your three Actions during the Play Phase. If you match a set of four unique Parts, based on the same Energy type, you have successfully built a robot! A complete robot is also known as an Active Robot, which means you can now directly deal damage to your opponents!
Note: Hybrid Part cards have two different Energy types. Core Part cards only have one Energy type.
Example of an Active Robot. Note that the order of the cards does not matter.
Energy Stacks
Players play their Part cards on top of each other in five distinct Stacks inside their Factory, one Stack for each of the five Energy types: Chemical, Electrical, Mechanical, Nuclear, and Solar. They cannot play Part cards inside an enemy Factory.
Stacking Part Cards
- If you start a Stack with a Hybrid Part card that doesn't match any of your other Stacks, it will not have a color locked in until you play a second Part card on top with a matching Energy type.
- A player cannot have more than one Stack of the same Energy type.
- Stacks have no height or card limit.
Example: Liz has a Stack with a Chemical Part card on top of a Chemical/Solar Hybrid Part card. This means this is a Chemical Energy Stack. If she tries to start a new Stack with another Chemical/Solar Part card, that new Stack automatically becomes a Solar Stack.
Duplicate Parts
The Stack to the left is a Chemical Stack. Since this player decided to play another ARMS Part card, they should place it horizontally so that it is easy for everyone to see. These can be helpful to have during the Event Phase.
Attack / Defense Cards
Attack and Defense cards can only be played if you meet the requirement for the minimum number of unique Stacks. The number of Stacks required to play the card is the gold number at the top left of the card. After playing any Attack or Defense card, place it in the discard pile.
Note: A Hybrid sitting alone in a Stack still counts as a unique Stack, even though the player may not have chosen the Energy type of the Stack yet. Oftentimes you will have to make the difficult decision of whether to create a new Stack so you can play more Attack and Defense cards, OR continue stacking and building your robots.
Attack Cards
Some Attack cards allow you to destroy Part cards based on their Energy type. These parts can be inside any Factory, anywhere, within any Stack, and only need to match one of the Energies if it is a Hybrid Part card. When using them, you must destroy exactly two Part cards.
Frozen Stacks
The Ice Blast card allows you to freeze enemy Stacks, preventing that player from adding Part cards to it or sacrificing Parts from it to trigger Events (see Page 9). Also, if that Stack contained enough Parts to complete an Active Robot, that Active Robot cannot be deployed. However, frozen Stacks still count towards:
- Meeting the Stack requirements of Attack and Defense cards.
- Completing Two Robots to win the game.
Note: Part cards in a frozen Stack are still vulnerable to Attack cards played by anyone.
Example: Alyssa has three Stacks in her Factory, including the frozen Nuclear Stack shown above. Her opponent has a Nuclear Stack with only one Part card that she wishes to destroy. Alyssa plays Nuclear Explosion and destroys it along with her own Nuclear HEAD.
Defense Cards
Homing Missiles can be played when an enemy is attempting to mess with the Robot Parts in your Factory using an Attack card. You cannot use it to prevent a player from playing Robot Part cards, and it cannot be used to counter Sentry Gunship.
Homing Missiles can be played when it is not your turn. If your opponent also has a Homing Missiles card, they can use it to cancel your Homing Missiles. Unless you counter that one and so on so forth, It will only count as an action for the player taking their turn.
Sentry Gunship cancels any Event card during an opponent's Event Phase, played out of turn. This applies to both Power cards and Active Robot cards. Sentry Gunship cannot be interrupted by any other Defense card.
The Event Phase
After the Draw Phase and Play Phase comes the Event Phase, you have two options to trigger one of two types of Event cards, A or B:
A. Use (flip over) one of your Power Cards. Sacrifice two Part cards from your Factory to activate one of your three Power cards. Once you activate it, flip it over. You may only use each of these cards once per game. If it is canceled by a Sentry Gunship, it still gets used up and flipped over.
Note: A Power card that is flipped over still counts towards your Salvager's Health! You must remove one of these Power cards from the game each time you suffer damage dealt from other players.
B. If you have an Active Robot in your Factory, reveal an Active Robot Card. Sacrifice one Part card from your Factory to reveal a random card from the Active Robot pile. Reshuffle the Active Robot pile after your Event Phase is over.
Note: The Part card you sacrifice can come from anywhere in your Factory -- even from your Active Robot! This would dismantle your Active Robot and you would have to build it up again.
Cleanup Phase
Discard down to the hand limit of seven cards.
Special Abilities
Each Salvager also comes with a Special ability which appears on the bottom of the Salvager card. It will always denote which Phase of the game it can be used.
Some abilities require you to give up an Action in the Play Phase or even discard cards from your hand, while others are passive.
Variations
Two Robots also works with five players.
With four players, create teams and play 2v2.
Add a house rule for completing a perfectly uniform robot, e.g. collecting the exact four Part cards for the Electrical/Nuclear Hybrid.
Add a house rule for five Stacks in a Factory.
For a simpler game, play without Special Abilities or Power cards and only use the Action deck.
Clarifications
When stealing a Hybrid Part card with Space Pod, you may change its Energy type as it enters your Factory.
Cold Fusion and Balance apply to all players including Apocalypse or Peacemaker, respectively. In the case of a tie, all players in the tie suffer one damage.
If Apocalypse activates Meltdown, players who do not have any cards in their hand may still choose to discard "nothing" and not suffer one damage.
When Samurai uses his Special Ability Katana or uses his Shogun Power card, the Active Robot pile is not reshuffled in-between.
If any card that affects multiple players is canceled, it affects neither player. This applies also to Scattershot, where you cannot choose to affect one opponent.
If Apocalypse has two Stacks of three unique Part cards and either Stack is frozen, they may not trigger their Special Ability.
If Peacemaker builds two Active Robots, and one of is [sic: "one of them"] with the Orb, they may draw two Active Robot cards.
Number of cards in hand and the discard pile are public information.