- We're stealing worm eggs and dodging mandibles.
That's right!
It's "Terror Below" from Renegade Game Studios.
(upbeat music)
This monster hunting, hat packing strategy game
pits two to five desert folk
against the weapons of Remote Massacre,
government experiments gone wrong and let loose
in the rubble-strewn canyons of Nevada.
Setup begins with the game board placed center.
Place the five location tiles on their spaces,
marked with a bull skull.
The government facility, motel,
general store, state police and hospital.
Separately shuffle and place the bounty deck,
vehicle deck, weapon deck and item deck.
Take the worm cards and set aside
the four starting worm cards denoted with a black border.
Shuffle the remainder to form the worm deck
and place it near the bottom of the board.
Place the three target tokens
in the worm card slots on the Terror Zone of the board.
Place all the tokens and pieces nearby
along with the worm standees.
Then draw and reveal four cards from the bounty deck
along the top row of the board.
This is known as the Bounty Line.
Next, each player receives a pawn and player aid
with the matching vehicle icon,
along with one randomly drawn item card,
one weapon card and three vehicle cards.
The item and weapon cards remain hidden from other players
but the vehicle cards form the player's hand.
The hand size limit is three cards.
Finally, shuffle the 16 character cards
and deal three to each player
who then selects one character to be their leader,
placing the other two underneath in any order.
Now, it's time to place the worms.
Worm cards include an egg color,
worm type, starting coordinates, attack pattern grid,
health and card limit.
To set up the starting worms,
resolve each one at a time,
placing an egg of the color type
on the starting coordinates.
Next, place rubble in each of the shaded spaces
displayed on the attack pattern grid.
There's a max of two rubble per space.
One caveat.
Eggs and rubble cannot be placed on locations.
If an egg would be placed on a location,
roll the coordinate dice and place the egg
in the rolled result instead.
After resolving the four starting worm cards,
draw and resolve additional worm cards from the worm deck,
depending on the number of players,
one worm for three players,
two worms for four players,
three worms for five players.
Finally, draw a worm from the worm deck
and place it face up at the leftmost terror slot
and place the matching numbered target token on the board
in the coordinates listed.
Do this for all three slots in the Terror Zone.
The player who most recently defeated a worm in combat
is the starting player.
Starting with the last player
and proceeding counterclockwise,
everyone places their pawn on the location of their choice.
Pawns cannot share spaces.
Gameplay occurs in turns,
starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise.
Turns consist of four steps.
Play a vehicle card, perform actions,
refill hand, check for worm attack.
First up, play a vehicle card allows the active player
to place a vehicle card face up from their hand
to one of the worms in the three terror slots.
Each worm's card limit on the bottom right
represents the maximum number of cards
that can be played on that worm.
Resolve the played card by first distracting the worm.
Move the matching terror token of the selected worm
along the grid as indicated
on the bottom of the vehicle card,
resolving the icons from left to right.
Skip any icons that would move the worm off the grid.
Next, perform actions allows the player
to take a number of actions equal to the action points
on the top of the chosen vehicle card.
Each action takes one point.
Actions include move,
which allows a player to move their pawn
one space orthogonally.
A pawn may not move into a space containing rubble.
They may move through or into a space
with another player's pawn
but they may not end their movement in that space.
Ramp allows a player to jump
over an adjacent pawn of another player,
provided there's an open space
to land orthogonally from the jumped pawn.
Remove allows the player to take one rubble
from a space orthogonally adjacent to their pawn
and place it on their leader card.
Once a leader collects three rubble,
they immediately discard them to the general supply
and may take a reward of one item or one weapon card
from the respective deck.
Pickup allows the player to take all the eggs
in their current space and place them on their leader.
There's no limit to how many eggs
a leader may carry
but taking this action ends the player's action phase
so save it for the end.
Deliver allows the player to deliver one egg
in their possession to a location
where their pawn currently resides.
Delivered eggs award the player one victory point.
Discard the egg to the supply and take the point.
However, if an egg delivery fulfills
one of the face up bounty cards on the Bounty Line
or possibly a hidden bounty card in the player's hand,
they score more points.
Instead of taking the one victory point token,
they take the bounty card
and place it under their leader card.
Refill the Bounty Line if needed.
Additionally, the location where the delivery occurs
also grants a bonus depending on the spot.
After resolving the actions,
the played vehicle card's ability resolves.
Follow the instructions on the center of the card.
Cards with high numbers of actions have negative abilities
while low numbered cards have positive abilities.
The player then refills their hand
back up to three vehicle cards.
Before play passes to the next player,
check for a worm attack.
If the card limit on any of the worms
in the Terror Zone has been reached the worm attacks.
Resolve the attack in the following way.
First, check if there are any face down cards on that worm.
Flip them and resolve just their distraction step,
moving the terror token as indicated.
Then, place an egg matching the color of the attacking worm
on the space where the target token is now located.
Place one rubble on each of the shaded spaces
on the attack grid and remember,
a maximum of two rubble per space.
Discard the worm card and draw a new one to replace it,
moving the terror token to the new coordinates.
After resolving, if any player's pawn
is in a space where rubble or eggs were placed this turn,
they must battle the worm.
Any players caught in the worm's path of destruction
may use their item or weapon cards to fight the beast.
In reverse turn order, starting with the battling player
who last took a turn,
each person uses their cards,
attempting to deal damage equal to or exceeding
the health total on the worm's card.
If they succeeded, all players are safe.
The player that dealt the killing blow
receives credit for the kill and one victory point token.
Or if there's a bounty related to killing a worm type,
they may cash that in instead.
If the players cannot defeat the worm,
the leader of any player caught in the attack dies.
Drop all rubble and eggs they're carrying
onto their current space.
Any active weapons are discarded.
Remove the player's pawn from the board
and flip the leader to their deceased side,
then choose a new leader from the remaining characters.
On their next turn, the player's pawn will spawn
at an unoccupied location of their choosing
and then performs their turn as normal.
If a player ever loses all three of their characters,
they're eliminated.
Gameplay continues until one player
reaches 20 victory points to win the game!
Once you've got a handle on these mechanics,
you can try the canyon side of the game board
which includes special movement rules for jumping the gap
and more desert for players to roam.
And that's "Terror Below."
I'm Becca Scott and you can watch me and my friends
play this game and other awesome games on
(screams)
(upbeat music)