Gamehelpmechanimals

• Designer: François Berdeaux

• Illustrator: Apolline Étienne

• Graphic design: Alexis Vanmeerbeeck

• Proofreading: Marie Nicot

• BGA adaptation: Florent Le Maire

Introduction

You are a robotic animal taking part in a legendary race. Dropped on an unknown land, you must reach the last Beacon. To get there, you must thwart your opponents' attacks, take advantage of the terrains you explore and make the most of your equipment.

Goal of the game

Cross every Beacon tile in order and be the first to reach the last Beacon tile.

Overview

Your Mechanimal can:

• explore,

• move,

• use its equipment.

Each of these actions requires an Energy token. At the start of each turn, you can only discard two or three of them.

Manage your temperature carefully to avoid overheating!

Components

• 70 double-sided Terrain tiles: Ruins (24), Desert (22), Forest (24), Magma (24), Mountain (22), Repair Bubble (24)

• 6 Mechanimal boards (Discovery side / Expert side)

• 6 Mechanimal standees with bases

• 50 Energy tokens

• 4 Beacon tiles*15 Beacon tokens

• 24 Equipment cards

• 27 Expert Equipment cards

• 3 player aids

• 1 rulebook

Key concepts

Energy tokens

• Red Energy tokens are placed on your Mechanimal board.*Green Energy tokens are placed on your Equipment cards.

Mechanimal board

Each Mechanimal board has two sides:

• Discovery (front): for your first games.*Expert (back): for the advanced mode (see the Expert variant).

The board shows:

• slots for red Energy tokens,*an overheating area,

• slots for Equipment cards, each tied to a category.

Equipment cards

Each card has three areas:*Identity: name, illustration and category.

• Cost: the slot(s) for green Energy tokens.

• Effect: what happens when the card is activated.

Notes:

• Some effects require your Mechanimal to stand on a specific terrain.

• A card (except a Weapon) can be activated several times in the same turn as long as its cost area is completely empty.

• Only one card may be placed on each slot.

Card categories

Category	Effect
Skills	Represent your knowledge of the terrains.
Engines	Grant moves.
Armour	Provides protection.
Affinities	Remove Energy tokens thanks to certain terrains.
Legs	Grant moves depending on the terrain.
Weapons	Hinder opponents within range. Usable at most once per turn.

Setup for your first game

This setup uses the Discovery rules and only 2 Beacons: it is the recommended way to learn the game. Once you know the rules, see the Expert variant and the Number of Beacons section for longer games.

On BGA, create the table with these options: Game mode: Discovery, Number of Beacons: 2 and Beacon distance: Close.

Choose the first player at random.

Terrain tiles

• Shuffle the Terrain tiles and form two draw piles within everyone's reach.

• Place as many Terrain tiles as there are players in the middle of the table to form the starting line.

Mechanimal boards

Each player takes a Mechanimal board and places it in front of them, Discovery side up.

Mechanimal standees

• Each player takes the standee matching their board.*The last player places their standee on one of the starting line tiles, followed counter-clockwise by the other players.

Energy tokens and Beacon tokens

Put the Energy tokens and the Beacon tokens in a shared supply within everyone's reach.

Beacon tiles

• Place Beacons 1 and 2 on either side of the starting line, roughly 4 tiles away.

• Put Beacons 3 and 4 back in the box.

Equipment cards

• Put the Expert Equipment cards back in the box.

• Shuffle the remaining Equipment cards.

• Each player draws 3 cards face down matching the colour of the equipment icons on their Mechanimal board, then places them face up on the dedicated slots.*Put the remaining Equipment cards back in the box.

Turn sequence

In clockwise order, each player carries out these two phases:

Phase 1: Cooling

Remove 3 Energy tokens (green and/or red) from your Mechanimal board and/or your Equipment cards.

Overheating: if a token sits in your overheating area, remove only 2 Energy tokens (green and/or red).

Phase 2: Actions

You may take as many actions as you like, in any order, as long as you can place Energy tokens (taken from the supply) on free slots. You must fully complete an action before starting another one.

A. Activate an Equipment card

1. Pay the cost: fill the whole cost area with the number of green tokens shown, plus any additional cost.

Possible costs:

• free permanent effect;*2 green tokens;

• 1 green token + discard an Equipment card;*1 green token + 1 red token placed on your Mechanimal board.

Note: to activate the card again, its cost area must first be completely emptied.

2. Apply the effect: effects are described in the Icons section. A card cannot apply its effect to itself.

B. Explore

1. Pay the cost: place 1 red Energy token on your Mechanimal board.

2. Explore: take the top tile of either draw pile and place it touching your current terrain or touching a terrain adjacent to yours.

You may flip the drawn tile, but you must then place it on the revealed side.

C. Move

1. Pay the cost: place 1 red Energy token on your Mechanimal board.

2. Move: move your Mechanimal to a free adjacent terrain, then apply the terrain effect, if any.

Note: you can neither stop on nor pass through a tile occupied by another Mechanimal.

Example turn

The Lion Mechanimal, on its turn:

Cooling phase: removes 3 Energy tokens since it is not overheating (2 red tokens from its board and 1 green token from one of its cards).

Action phase:

1. Explores a Magma (1 red on the board).#Explores a Desert (1 red on the board).

1. Moves onto the Magma (2 red on the board: 1 for the move + 1 for the terrain penalty).

1. Uses its All-terrain Grapples (1 green on the card) to gain a move and remove a red token from its board.

Terrain tiles

A Terrain tile's effect is resolved as soon as a Mechanimal arrives on it or passes through it.

Note: the starting line terrains give neither bonus nor penalty when you place your standee at the start of the game.

Terrain	Effect
Forest	No effect.
Ruins	No effect.
Desert	No effect.
Repair Bubble	Bonus: remove 1 green Energy token from one of your cards. In Expert mode, you may instead take a card from the river (see the Expert variant).
Magma	Penalty: place 1 red Energy token on your Mechanimal board.
Mountain	Penalty: place 2 red Energy tokens on your Mechanimal board.

Range and attacks

Range

Range is always counted over terrains that have already been explored and placed. Range is a maximum distance: every shorter distance is valid.

Attack

Once per turn, you may target a Mechanimal within range and apply your Weapon's effect.

Attack rules:

• Whenever there is a choice to make, the attacker decides.

• A red Energy token cannot be placed in the overheating area while other slots are free.

• A Mechanimal moved by a Weapon takes neither the bonus nor the penalty of the terrain it lands on.

• Your Weapons cannot target your own Mechanimal or the terrain it stands on.

• Mechanimals that have not started the race yet are protected from every kind of interaction.

Beacon tiles

===Exploring a Beacon===*To connect a Beacon tile, place a terrain so that it touches the Beacon.*Then reposition the Beacon so that it is adjacent to and in line with the newly explored terrain.

Moving onto a Beacon

• No Mechanimal may stop on a Beacon.*If you end a move on a Beacon, you gain a mandatory bonus move.

• After crossing a Beacon tile, place a Beacon token on the dedicated slot of your board.

Number of Beacons

Once you are familiar with the rules, add more Beacons. Depending on the game length you want, place 2, 3 or 4 Beacons on the table. The farther they are from the starting line, the longer the game.

End of the game

The first Mechanimal to reach the last Beacon after crossing every Beacon in order wins the game.

Expert variant

Setup

• Choose a Mechanimal board and place it in front of you, Expert side up.

• Once the three starting cards have been dealt, shuffle the rest of the base deck into the Expert deck and lay out a river of three face-up cards next to the draw pile.

Principle

• Card management: each Mechanimal starts with three cards but can equip up to six.

• You cannot keep cards in hand.*If you replace an Equipment card that holds Energy tokens, those tokens are discarded along with the card.

• Power: each Mechanimal has a power it can activate once per turn for free.

Repair Bubble (Expert mode)

The Repair Bubble gains a new function. You may choose either:

• remove one green Energy token from one of your cards, or

• choose two cards from the river: one for your Mechanimal and one for the discard pile, then refill the river from the draw pile. You may also draw the top card of the draw pile if no card in the river suits you.

Team variant

Setup

Place 4 Beacons as you see fit. The farther they are, the longer the game.

Principle

• Form teams of 2 Mechanimals (2 teams with 4 players, 3 teams with 6).

• Both Mechanimals of a team play their turn at the same time and may consult each other.

• Beacons may be reached in any order.

Goal

Be the first team to collect 4 different Beacons, in any order.

5 or 6 player variant

Setup

Spread 4 Beacons roughly three terrains away from the starting line.

Principle

Beacons may be reached in any order.

Goal

Be the first to collect 3 different Beacons, in any order.

Effect icons

Energy

• Remove 1 red Energy token from your Mechanimal board.

• Remove 1 green Energy token from one of your Equipment cards.

• Place 1 red Energy token on your Mechanimal board.

• Place 1 green Energy token on one of your Equipment cards.

• Place either 1 red Energy token on your Mechanimal board or 1 green Energy token on one of your Equipment cards.

===Movement===*Take as many Move actions as the number of arrows shown. ===Skills===*Explore 1 terrain.

• Gain a move if your Mechanimal stands on a terrain adjacent to another terrain of the same type.

• You may flip the drawn Terrain tile and choose either side.*Place 1 red Energy token on a free terrain. The next player who passes through it must place it on their board.

• Draw two cards from the river: one for your Mechanimal and one for the discard pile.

Affinities

• If your Mechanimal stands on Magma, remove 2 red Energy tokens and 1 green one.

• If your Mechanimal stands on Magma or a Mountain, gain a move and remove 1 red Energy token from your board.

• If your Mechanimal stands on a Desert, gain 2 moves.

Weapons

• Apply the effect to an opponent within range.

• Discard 1 Equipment card.

• Remove a Terrain tile from the game. If a Mechanimal stands on that terrain, you must move it to a free adjacent terrain of your choice, without applying any terrain bonus or penalty; otherwise you cannot remove the terrain. Isolated groups of terrains may be created.

===Armour===*You are protected from the effect targeting you.

• If you stand on a Ruins tile, your Mechanimal and the terrain are protected from every effect.

• You may end your move (after paying its cost) on the same terrain as another Mechanimal. That Mechanimal is then placed on the terrain you just left. You cannot move a protected opponent.

Reminder

You cannot pass through an occupied terrain.

Detailed card descriptions

A detailed description of every Equipment card, with its illustration and effect, is available on the designer's website: Mechanimals - card descriptions.

Notes on the BGA adaptation

The online version follows the rules above, with these practical differences:

• Map: the terrains are placed on a fixed hexagonal grid. The starting line is a vertical column of tiles, one per player, and the Beacons are placed automatically at setup. The "Beacon distance" table option sets how far they are (short, medium or long game).

• Beacons: every Beacon can be crossed, but only the next one in order counts. You cannot end your turn on a Beacon: the bonus move is mandatory. Reaching the last Beacon ends the game immediately.

• Discovery mode: each player starts with 1 Equipment card drawn from the base deck among the categories of their Mechanimal board. The base deck has 19 cards: 3 Weapons (Terraforming, Pyroblaster, Magnetic Ray), 2 Engines (Impulse Engine, Nano Particles), 3 Stealth Armours (free, protect you on their terrain), 3 Skills (Geological Affinity, Prescience, Exploration), 4 Biotic Links and 4 Legs (All-terrain Grapples, Sand, Jungle and Ruins Legs).

• Expert mode: each player starts with 3 cards (one per category of their board) and can equip up to 6. The river shows 3 face-up cards; the draw pile is face down. Each Mechanimal has a power usable once per turn for free.

• Overheating: a move is forbidden if its total cost (move + terrain penalty) exceeds the free slots on your board.

• Cooling: at the start of your turn, click the tokens you want to remove (3, or 2 if a token sits in the overheating area).

• Team variant (4 or 6 players): teams are paired alternately in table order (1+3 and 2+4; 1+4, 2+5 and 3+6), so teammates never play back to back. The team wins as soon as it has collected the 4 Beacons in any order.

• 5-6 players: 4 Beacons are placed and the first player to collect 3 different Beacons, in any order, wins.