Wormlord Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• Overview & Goal of the Game
• Playing the Game
  • Starting the Game
  • Conquest
  • Rules of Knots and Supply
• Base
• Headquarters
• Victory
• Variants
  • Playing in Teams
  • Limiting Time
• Alternate Maps

Setup

Place the gameboard in the middle of the table: arrange 49 tiles in a square, according to the player count and the map chosen, then fix them in place by surrounding them with border pieces, secured by connectors. Ideally, each player should sit at a different side of the table. Each player places their strings in front of them, unknotted, as well as their headquarters. These are your supply.

Player count: 2-4. Playing time: 20 minutes. Age: 6+.

Remarks

Some tile faces depict an impassable area of land, which means that nothing can be placed on them.

There are other maps at the end of the rulebook (see Alternate Maps below).

Contents

• 60 earthworms (strings: 15 pink, 15 blue, 15 yellow, 15 brown).
• 4 headquarters (cubes: 1 pink, 1 blue, 1 yellow, 1 brown).
• 1 modular gameboard, composed from:
  • 8 border pieces,
  • 8 connectors,
  • 52 double-sided tiles.
• 1 rulebook.

The rulebook shows 2-player, 3-player and 4-player setup diagrams; these are layouts of the board and are not reproduced here.

Overview & Goal of the Game

Wormlord is a competitive game, which you play simultaneously, with no turns. You are trying to conquer spaces by placing knots. You can repel your opponents by unknotting their strings and thereby returning the strings to them. The victory condition is to conquer three Objective spaces.

Playing the Game

Starting the Game

1. Everyone does this simultaneously: take one of your strings into your hands, one end in each hand, and extend both arms toward the middle of the table. Everyone counts down together: "3, 2, 1," then shout, "NOW!" That's the signal to start playing.
2. Knot your string, then place it on a space adjacent to your base. From now on, you have access to new spaces, where you can place new knots: you will be able to place in spaces adjacent to the space with your first knot, as well as those adjacent to your base. Now take a new string from your supply, knot it, then place it on a valid space, and so on.

Conquest

There are two actions you can perform:

• A. Conquer an empty space.
• B. Conquer by liberating a space occupied by an enemy knot.

Everyone does whichever action they like, which could be the same several times consecutively, or different, as quickly as possible, never waiting.

IMPORTANT: You are not allowed to wait. Everyone must always play as quickly as possible, in a best-of-your-abilities, good faith effort.

A. Conquering an empty space

1. Take a string from your supply.
2. Make a knot in this string.
3. Place this knot on an empty space adjacent to a space you already occupy.

B. Conquering by liberating a space occupied by an enemy knot

1. Take a string from your supply.
2. Make a knot in this string.
3. Place this knot on a space that is occupied by an enemy knot and adjacent to a space you already occupy, and take the enemy knot into your hand.
4. Untie it.
5. Throw it into its owner's supply, on the table in front of them.

Rules of Knots and Supply

IMPORTANT: You are never allowed to make a knot tight. Knots must always be untiable without any effort.

• You can only ever have one string in your hands.
• Your supply can only contain your own unknotted strings.
• Each space can only contain one knot at a time. When you conquer a space occupied by an enemy knot, you place your own knot and immediately retrieve the enemy knot.
• You cannot prepare knots for later use. Each knot you tie must immediately be placed on the board.
• You cannot untie your own knots on the board.
• Always place the knot in the middle of the space. The position of the knot defines which space has been conquered; the ends of the string don't count for this. They can drape over other spaces, but it is ideal to avoid doing so.
• If you have no more strings in your supply, you must wait until an opponent returns one by untying one of your knots on the board.

Remark

In Wormlord, the term adjacent means only orthogonally adjacent; diagonals do not count.

Base

Each of you has a space with your color on the board: this is your base. It counts as a space that permanently belongs to you and cannot by any means be taken from you. Your base cannot ever be occupied; not by knots and not by headquarters, no matter what color they are.

Headquarters

Each of you has a headquarters. Once you place it in a space occupied by your own knot, that space becomes indisputably yours, and remains yours as long as your headquarters is there.

You can move your headquarters at any time. You cannot move an enemy headquarters.

You cannot place a headquarters on an Objective space or on a base.

Your headquarters is an essential element of the game. Victory depends on using it well.

Victory

The first player to win 2 rounds wins the game.

Variants

Playing in Teams

Wormlord can be played in two-person teams, allowing up to 8 players (4 teams) to play.

In this variant, the two players on a team each hold a different end of the same string. To make their knot, each must only use one hand for the entire operation, and cannot switch hands.

Either team member can put the knot in play. If you are liberating a space occupied by an enemy knot, the player who places your knot must also pick up the enemy knot. As with tying knots, each teammate must use only one hand for the entire operation of untying the enemy knot.

Teammates can talk as much as they wish and can move their headquarters as often as they like.

Player count for this variant: 4, 6 or 8.

Limiting Time

You can set a time limit for each round. To do this, simply use a timer. We suggest 3 minutes, but you can set the duration however you like.

If nobody has conquered 3 Objective spaces before the end of the game, the player who occupies the most spaces wins, with Objective spaces counting double. If there is a tie, play again.

Alternate Maps

The rulebook provides six alternate map layouts. Each is a grid of tiles with pre-placed headquarters, impassable tiles and Objective spaces; the layouts are diagrams and are not reproduced here. Map names and player counts, as printed:

• Duel (2-player)
• Crossfire (2-player)
• Mountain King (3-player)
• Bermuda Triangle (3-player)
• Into the Woods (4-player)
• Musical Chairs (4-player)