Gamehelparcticscavengers

Objective

The player with the largest tribe (most people) at the end of the game is the winner.

Setup

Each player starts with:

• 4 refugee cards
• 3 scavenger cards
• 1 brawler card
• 1 spear card
• 1 shovel card

Playing the Game

Each round of Arctic Scavengers has three phases, played in the order shown below:

Drawing Phase

1. Discard all cards from the previous round.
2. Each player draws 5 cards from the top of their deck, shuffling the discard pile and adding it to the deck when their deck becomes exhausted.
3. Beginning with the third round, and continuing for the remainder of the game, the initiator peeks at the top card on the contested resources pile and then returns it to the pile.

Resource Gathering Phase

1. The initiator takes the first action and uses any number of cards to gather resources.
2. The initiator announces how many of her cards will remain for the skirmish.
3. Play continues with the other players, in clockwise order, and they execute steps 4 and 5.

Skirmish Phase (Round 3 and following)

1. Once all players have taken their resource gathering actions, players reveal their remaining cards for the skirmish and a winner is determined.
2. The winner of the skirmish takes the top card from the contested resources pile and adds it to their discard pile.
3. The initiator passes the initiator card to their left-hand opponent, starting a new round.

The game continues like this until the contested resource pile is depleted.

Resource Gathering

During this phase, each player plays any number of cards from their hand in order to add more resources (cards) to their deck. Gathering starts with the player that has the initiator card (lying in their play area) and play continues in clockwise order. There is no limit to the number of actions that a player can take during the resource gathering phase, although no action may be taken more than once.

Dig

The player draws one or more cards from the top of the junkyard pile. The player may choose one to place in her discard pile and returns any other cards to the bottom of the junkyard pile. The number of cards is determined by the sum of all the dig numbers displayed on the card(s) played from the player’s hand. As with other actions, draw may only be used once per round.

Draw

The player draws one or more cards from her deck, adding them to her hand. Multiple cards may be combined to draw several cards. As with other actions, draw may only be used once per round.

Hire

The hire ability is a free action (no card is needed to grant this action) in which a player takes a mercenary card from the face-up piles of cards. The player must be able to pay the cost displayed on the card. There are two currencies: food and medicine. Food is created in real-time using the hunt action (described below). Meds are provided in the form of medicine cards that must be played from the players hand in order to complete the hiring of a mercenary. Medicine cards do not require an associated person to spend. Each player may only hire one mercenary per round, and the player immediately adds the card to their discard pile.

Hunt

The hunt ability generates food during the round that can then be used as currency for hiring a single mercenary card. The amount of food generated is determined by summing all hunt abilities played from the player’s hand. The player can assign tools to the mercenaries to improve their hunt abilities.

Trash

The trash ability is a free action (no card is needed to grant this action) that allows a player to take any number of cards from their hand and add them to the junkyard supply pile. The player does not draw cards from her deck to replace these cards. The junkyard pile is shuffled any time new cards are added.

Special Actions

Some cards may grant special actions that can be used in place of or to enhance a standard action. Examples include saboteur (disarm another player’s tool) and sniper team (snipe another player’s tribe member).

Using Tools

Each player starts with two tools – a spear and a shovel. Players can find additional tools by digging in the junkyard. Tools cannot perform actions on their own (these are inanimate, objects after all). A tribe member can use a single tool that enhances the ability of the action the tribe member is performing. Using a tool does not grant a tribe member an ability that she cannot inherently perform.

Skirmish

The game begins with two rounds of resource gathering (digging in the junkyard, hunting for food, and hiring mercenaries). In the first two rounds, there is no skirmishing. This allows each player to get a solid foundation prior to skirmishing over the contested resources. The initiator card remains with the first player for rounds 1-3. Thereafter, it moves to the initiator’s left at the start of each subsequent round.

Once all the players have completed their resource gathering actions, the skirmish phase begins. All players simultaneously reveal the cards that they have saved for the skirmish. The sum of the fight values from all of a player’s cards represents the strength of that player’s attack. All rules related to tool usage also apply to tools used as weapons during the skirmish phase (see ‘Using Tools’ above). Skirmishes are resolved by starting with the initiator and having their declare any actions performed by their units (including saboteurs and sniper teams). Play then passes to the next player in clockwise order to declare actions for their units (provided that they were not sniped or disarmed by the previous player). This continues until all skirmish actions have been resolved. Then the total remaining fight values are summed and the player with the highest fight value wins. The winning player draws the top card from the contested resources supply pile and adds it to their discard pile without revealing it to the other players. When cards are played during the Resource Gathering phase, they are discarded after use. During the Skirmish Phase, all cards remain until the end of the round, even if a special power is activated (e.g. saboteur or sniper team).

Resolving ties

In the event of a tie, each player sums the number of people involved in the skirmish (this includes refugees and tribe families that may not be directly contributing to the fight score) and the player with the most people involved wins the skirmish. If players are still tied, then the skirmish is considered a deadlock. In this case, the players place the top card from the contested resources pile into the junkyard pile without looking at it. The players shuffle the junkyard and the round ends. The player with the initiator card passes it to the left to begin a new round.

2 Player Variant

• Remove two cards of each kind from the junkyard (i.e. 2 junk, 2 medkit, 2 pickaxe, etc.)
• Eliminate all contested resources peeking
• The number of tribe members a player brings to a skirmish is no longer relevant
• Skirmishes must be won by 2. If not, then it is a tie and the players place the contested resource on top of the junkyard and then shuffle the junkyard