Gamehelpterroraustralis

Terror Australis

Introduction

They thought they were coming to Terra Australis — the great southern land — so why does it feel like Terror Australis instead?

But keep coming they do, expecting sandy beaches, tropical waters, and that famous Aussie nonchalance — and it is your job to keep them safe.

Between sharks, crocodiles, the world's most venemous snakes, and strict wildlife protection laws (not to mention the drop bears!), you will have your work cut out for you!

Terror Australis is a cooperative tower-defence game for 1–4 players.

Australia's famously dangerous wildlife keeps infiltrating your resort, scaring your visitors and risking your bottom line.

Players must work together to capture the invading wildlife, repair breaches to their protective barriers, and save the visitors from your unwelcome visitors.

Objective

Terror Australia is a co-operative game: players win or lose together.

Players win if they repair all 6 barriers and capture all wildlife on the board.

Players lose if any of the following conditions are met:

• Visitor attacked: any animal survives an entire round in the resort building at the center of the board
• Grounds overrun: the bag of land animals is empty when a land animal should be spawned
• Ocean overrun: the bag of ocean animals is empty when an ocean animal should be spawned

Game Chapters

Terror Australis uses a chapter system to introduce players to the game, and offer them increasing challenges as their skill level progresses. Each new chapter introduces new scenarios, difficult restrictions, stronger wildlife and more powerful abilities to meet the challenge each new chapter creates.

Although Terror Australis is best played through in order, as each new chapter builds on new rules and experience gained from mastering the previous chapter, each chapter represents a single standalone game, so players can freely move between levels as they introduce new players or seek harder challenges.

The specific rules that apply to each chapter are described at the end of this rules section.

Round Overview

The game is played over a series of rounds. Each round follows the same sequence:

1. Draw Cards
2. Spawn Animals
3. Draw & Roll Dice
4. Player Actions
5. Animal Phase
6. Round Cleanup

Draw Cards

Each player draws cards from the shared deck of Capture Cards up to the hand limit of 6 cards.

Cards in the capture deck are split into 3 levels. Cards drawn in the early rounds are easy to activate, but activating cards will become increasingly more difficult as the game progresses unless players invest sufficiently in improving their dice bags.

Spawn Animals

Animals enter the board through 6 breached barriers.

• Barriers 1-3 are in the ocean, and spawn animals from the blue Ocean bag.
• Barriers 4-6 are on land, and and spawn animals from the brown Land bag.

Each round, 1 pest per player spawns at each of the breached barriers. Barriers that have been temporarily or permanently repairs do not spawn any animals this round.

As a special step during the first round of the game, the first spawned animals advance further into the game board:

• Spiders advance 3 spaces
• Snakes and blue-ringed octopus advance 2 spaces
• Crocodiles advance 1 space
• Sharks, cassowaries and jellyfish do not advance during this phase

Draw Dice

Each player draws and rolls dice from their dice bag, based on their healthy workers:

• A healthy Wrangler contributes 1 dice
• A healthy Lifeguard contributes 2 dice
• A healthy Backpacker contributes 3 dice

If workers are attacked by wildlife, they may be sent to hospital to recover. Those workers do not contribute any dice.

If the dice bag is empty, all dice in the player's discard pile should be returned to the bag, and drawing should continue. If a player runs out of dice, they proceed with fewer dice.

Dice

Dice in Terror Australis have 3 separate properties:

• Color - red, blue, green and yellow
• Stars - 1, 2 or 3 stars drawn on the corner of each face
• Face value - the rolled value of the dice from 1-8

The value distribution for the 3 dice types are:

• 1-star dice: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 and 4
• 2-star dice: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6
• 3-star dice: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8

At the beginning of the game, players start with 8 1-star dice in their bags (2 of each color).

Each player has access to 16 additional dice that they can purchase during the game to add to their bags. These dice are arranged on their player mat at the start of the game.

Player Actions

All players perform actions simultaneously until all dice have been used, discarded, or returned to their dice bag.

The actions players can perform are:

• Purchase dice: buy the left-most dice in any row to add directly into your bag
• Skills training: increase the strength of a worker
• Repair barrier: partially repair a barrier by permanently placing a dice on it.
• Prepare capture cards: place 1 or more dice on a card
• Capture wildlife: choose an activated card to capture wildlife on the game board.
• Dice mitigation: trash a card to modify a rolled dice
• Heal worker: trash a card to move a worker from Intensive Care to the Wards

An additional action is only available in certain chapters:

• Modify capture cards: trash a card and tuck another card underneath another capture card to boost its effect

Unused dice must be either discarded or returned to the dice bag. All activated capture cards must be applied to the game board in the round they are activated.

Purchase Dice

Players can purchase stronger dice from their player mats and add them straight into their dice bag.

To purchase a dice, players may

Capture Cards

Capture cards allow workers to capture animals on the board.

To activate a card:

1. Place the required dice on the card.
2. Choose a worker to perform the action.
3. Deploy that worker to the chosen location.

There are three types of capture action.

Shoot

The worker fires in a straight line.

The worker’s strength applies to the first animal hit and decreases by 1 for each cell of distance.

Players choose the order of animals along the line.

Animals are captured if the damage they receive equals or exceeds their strength.

Spray

The worker deploys to a single cell and sprays the area.

All animals in that cell with strength equal to or lower than the worker’s strength are captured.

Fling

The worker grabs an animal and throws it into a neighbouring cell.

• The thrown animal is immediately captured.
• Animals in the landing cell take damage equal to the thrown animal’s strength.
• Animals that survive the impact become stunned for the rest of the round.

Fling cards require a minimum total dice value.

Workers may only pick up animals whose strength does not exceed their own.

Closing Gates

Each gate has a gate card with four dice slots, one for each player colour.

Each slot requires a die with a specific colour and value range.

When you place a die on a gate:

• Assign a worker to that gate.
• The gate becomes temporarily closed for the rest of the round.

Once all slots are filled, the gate becomes permanently closed and will no longer spawn animals.

Gate Substitute Tokens

Each player begins with a limited number of substitute tokens.

These allow you to place a die in another player's gate slot if the die meets the slot’s requirements.

Place one of your substitute tokens above the die to show that you filled the slot.

Each token may be used once per game.

Solo Game

In a solo game, the player may place dice in any gate slot without using substitute tokens.

Dice Mitigations

Instead of using a capture card for its action, you may discard it to apply its mitigation effect to a die.

Each die may receive only one mitigation.

Examples include:

• Changing the die’s colour
• Adjusting its value by +1 or −1
• Upgrading the die by one star level
• Flipping the die to its opposite face
• Rerolling the die
• Drawing a replacement card (Trade Card)
• Rolling an additional die (Extra Dice)

3-star dice cannot be upgraded further.

Animals

Animals come in two types: land animals and ocean animals.

Each animal has a strength and movement value.

Land Animals

Animal	Strength	Movement
Spider	1	1
Snake	2	1
Cassowary	3	2
Crocodile	4	1
Drop Bear	8	1

Drop Bears appear only in Chapter 3.

Ocean Animals

Animal	Strength	Movement
Jellyfish	1	0
Octopus	2	1
Shark	3	2
Crocodile	4	1

Animal Phase

After all players have finished their turns, animals act.

Resolve the following steps in order.

1. Captured animals are returned to their bags. Jellyfish are removed from the game.
2. Workers recover in the hospital.
3. Animals attack workers sharing their cell.
4. Animals move toward the Resort along their paths.
5. Delayed sprays resolve.
6. Animals sharing cells with workers attack again.
7. Stunned animals recover.

Animal Movement

Animals move along predetermined paths toward the Resort.

Animals with movement 2 move two cells during the Animal Phase.

Jellyfish Swarm

Jellyfish do not move normally.

Instead, they swarm, spreading into nearby ocean or shoreline cells based on the current wind direction shown on the capture deck.

New jellyfish appear in adjacent cells that do not already contain one.

Animal Attacks

Animals attack any workers sharing their cell.

When this occurs:

1. Roll 1d6.
2. The worker is injured if the result is less than or equal to either:
   • the strongest animal’s strength, or
   • the number of animals in the cell.

If injured:

• Workers go to Intensive Care if the strongest animal has strength 3 or higher.
• Otherwise they go to Wards.

Hospital

The hospital has two areas.

Wards

Workers recover during the next Animal Phase and return to the player mat.

Intensive Care

Workers move to Wards during the next Animal Phase and recover one round later.

Workers in hospital cannot take actions or contribute dice.

Round Cleanup

At the end of the round:

• Workers return to their player mats (except those in hospital).
• Any partial damage on animals is cleared.
• Animals that reached the Resort cell (R) become flagged.
• Temporary gate closures are removed.

If all gates are closed and no animals remain on the board, the players win.

Chapter 1 — Learning Game

Designed for new players.

• Some gates automatically close during spawning.
• Each player uses 7 capture cards per level.
• Capture Modifiers and Drop Bears are not used.

Chapter 1 Rule — Automatic Gate Closures

In Chapter 1, roll two dice at the start of spawning. Any gates matching those numbers are temporarily closed for that spawn.

Chapter 2 — Standard Game

The full core game.

• Gates must be closed entirely through player actions.
• Capture Modifiers are enabled.
• Each player uses 9 capture cards per level.

Chapter 3 — Advanced Game

For experienced players.

• Drop Bears are added to the land bag.
• Capture Modifiers remain active.
• Each player uses 9 capture cards per level.