This is a documentation for Board Game Arena: play board games online !
Gamehelpnirds
Welcome to Nirds VS Gnomes !
It's a cooperative game, all players fight together against Gnomes. All players have (usually) two gnomes in front of them but they can attack any gnome on the table. On the other hand, at the end of each round, the Gnomes will attack only their own player. They usually cause player to lose lives. Each player starts with 3 lives, if your life counter falls to zero, you die, all players lose. At the end of each round, new gnomes arrive; if the gnome deck is empty, you win.
Trading phase
Unless a gnome prevents you from trading, all players may trade their dice freely. On this BGA adaptation, you have to send a request to the player who has a die you want, and this player must accept (except in turn-based games where the response can be automatic). At this phase, using the same trading system, the players also decide who will be the first player. You can place your dice on cards or "lock dice", this doesn't really affect the gameplay, but indicates to other players that you don't want to trade locked dice.
Once everyone has passed, it's Action phase !
Action phase
Using your Attack cards (green), you can roll matching die (or dice) to try to knock out gnomes before the end of the round. In this BGA adaptation, you need to place dice on the Attack card before activating it. You can also spend your unused dice to recruit new nirds and build your army up !
Gnome phase
All remaining gnomes (if any) attack their respective player, causing them to lose lives. If a player has no remaining lives, the game ends and the players lose. If not, all players receive new gnomes to have 2 gnomes in front of them again. And a new round begins.
Tactic cards (orange)
As they knock out Gnomes, the players will receive tactics cards. Tactics cards can (usually) be played at any time (even outside of your turn, even if you have passed) and they will give you extra power (i.e. Violin Concerto will knock out all Gnomes with 2 lives or less)