Arctic Scavengers: Recon Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• New Actions
• Passive vs Active Abilities
• Preparing the Junkyard
• Module Overview
• Module 1 – Spy Hunter
  • Spy (tribe member)
  • Scouting Refugee (tribe member)
  • Binoculars (instant)
• Module 2 – Liars and Thieves
  • Assassin (tribe member)
  • Guard (tribe member)
  • Provocateur (tribe member)
  • Rogue (tribe member)
• Module 3 – Expanding the Ranks
  • Courier (tribe member)
  • Drill Sergeant (tribe member)
  • Hardy Scavenger (tribe member)
  • Scrappers (tribe member)
  • Tinker (tribe member)
  • Portable Decoys (building)
  • Scout Tower (building)
• Module 4 – Randomized Contested Resources
  • Cargo Sled (tool)
  • Combat Medics (tribe member)
  • Demolition Team (tribe member)
  • Tear Gas (instant)
  • Tribal Hunters (tribe member)
• Module 5 – The Kitchen Sink
  • Humanitarians (gang)
  • Map (instant)
  • The Swindler (leader)
  • The Yardmaster (leader)
• Variant – Alternate Starting Hands
• Variant – Leader Drafting
• Variant – Solo Game
  • Setup
  • Game Play
  • Scoring
  • Difficulty Level

Contents

• 1 plastic organizing insert / paper inlay
• 140 cards
  • contested resources (CRs) – 14 (7 sets of 2)
  • junkyard (JY) – 8 (2 sets of 4)
  • mercenaries – 109 (2 sets of 20, 8 sets of 8, 1 set of 5)
  • buildings – 6 (2 sets of 3)
  • leaders – 2
  • gang – 1

New Actions

• Cancel – Interrupts another action such as a recon action. The canceled card and the card performing the cancel action are both discarded.
• Instant – A special type of card. No tribe member is required to grant a benefit.
• Recon – Enables you to peek at cards and gain essential information. Recon rules:
  • Only you may see cards as a result of your recon action. You may not share this information with any other player.
  • Cards are returned in their original order.
  • It may be possible for your recon action to be interrupted through a cancel action or as a result of a snipe attack.

Passive vs Active Abilities

Some cards have active abilities that require you to use their "special action" in lieu of a standard action (draw, dig, hunt, etc.). The default assumption is that special text on a card requires you to choose to use the card for its special action (such as a saboteur's disarm action). However, some cards have passive abilities that trigger without initiating an action. These cards will use the keywords "if" or "when" to designate the condition for applying special text. Examples include cargo sled, hardy scavenger, rogue, and scrappers.

Preparing the Junkyard

Some of the modules specifically provide guidance regarding the construction of the junkyard (i.e. adding in binoculars or maps). In other cases, you will be left to your own devices to determine the junkyard construction. When you do so, it is important to consider the following:

• If you add all tools from the base game, HQ expansion, and Recon, you will severely dilute access to medicine within the junkyard.
• If you select leaders that do not benefit from refugees (or you do not have Humanitarians in play), then players will be incentivized to trash their refugees (further diluting the junkyard).

Consequently, the following recommendations are provided:

• Resist the temptation to remove the junk cards. That's just part of dealing with the harsh realities post-apocalypse.
• Removing excess shovels and spears (for games of less than five players) is a good idea.
• Adding 8-10 cards to the base junkyard provides a good balance. Try starting with base +2 each of toolkit (HQ), rifle (HQ), map (Recon), and binoculars (Recon). Then tweak it from there based on player preference.

Module Overview

As with the HQ expansion, Recon is broken into modules. The modular design allows players to choose which content they use in a given game.

Module 1 – Spy Hunter

Recon includes many mercenaries, several of which are designed to work together to produce a web of intelligence and deception.

Recommendation: Shuffle the 4 binoculars into the junkyard. Put the full stack of scouting refugees in play as a separate stack available for hire, but visually separate from the other mercenaries. Select the spy and 9 other mercenaries available to hire for a total of 10 mercenary stacks + scouting refugees.

Spy (tribe member)

• Grants a recon action.
  • Peek at up to four cards from one player. Choose the player and the target (building, deck, hand, skirmish force).
  • If there are more cards available than four, then the spying player must select which cards to view in advance (randomly choosing those cards if needed).
  • After completing your spying action, discard the spy and draw 1 card.
• In a given round, you may use the standard actions OR spying action, but not both.
• The spy's recon action can be canceled (such as by a scouting refugee).
  • The card that cancels a spy can be revealed from committed cards, hand, or bunker, regardless of what was being spied upon.
  • If a spy is canceled, it is still discarded, and the draw of 1 is still performed.
• A spy can be sniped. Discard the spy and draw 1 card.

Example 1: Carol uses a spy to peek at Sarah's committed skirmish cards. Since Sarah does not have access to a scouting refugee or guard anywhere in her available cards, Carol will succeed in the spying attempt, viewing up to four committed cards.

Example 2: Sarah attempts to spy on Betty's hand of cards. Betty reveals a scouting refugee, canceling the spy attempt. The spy and scouting refugee are both discarded and both players draw an additional card to replace the spy and scouting refugee, respectively.

Example 3: Betty attempts to spy on Linda's committed skirmish cards. Sarah retrieves a sniper team from her bunker and snipes Betty's spy. Discard the spy and draw another card. Discard the sniper team.

Scouting Refugee (tribe member)

• Serves as a refugee for any actions or game conditions that depend upon a refugee card (i.e. tribal leader powers, Humanitarian gang).
• Two basic uses:
  • Can modify another tribe member's actions, but cannot initiate such actions.
  • Alternately, can be played to cancel a recon action (i.e. spy, binoculars, or scout tower) by alerting the tribe that spying activity is occurring. If this special action is performed, discard the scouting refugee and draw one card from the top of your deck.
• A given scouting refugee can only cancel one action, after which it is discarded and then replaced (draw of 1).

Example: Carol attempts to use her scout tower to gain additional information. The scout tower grants a recon action which Sarah cancels by playing a scouting refugee. Sarah then draws another card to replace the played scouting refugee. Carol then attempts to use a spy to look at Sarah's skirmish force. Since Sarah does not have another scouting refugee and no other player comes to her rescue, this action succeeds.

More examples: See spy examples.

Binoculars (instant)

• Standard actions
  • Useful in hunting, binoculars help you plan your actions.
  • An instant action. Does not need to be equipped and thus does not count as a tribe member's equipment limit.
  • Cannot be discarded through a disarm action.
• Special - Grants a recon action.
  • Peek at the top card of every pile in play (CR, JY, engineering schematics, etc.), returning each card to the top of its respective pile.
  • Only you may see cards as a result of your recon action. You may not share this information with any other player.
  • Alternately, the binoculars can improve any recon action by an additional two cards. Thus, two binoculars would allow you to see the top 3 cards of each pile or a spy with binoculars would allow you to see up to 6 cards from one player.
  • No tribe member is required in order to use the card in this way.
  • Does not need to be equipped by a tribe member when using the special action.
  • This action cannot be interrupted by a disarm action but it can be canceled (such as a scouting refugee or a guard).
• In a given round, you may use the standard action OR use the recon action, but not both.
• As with any card, binoculars are discarded after use.

Module 2 – Liars and Thieves

This module introduces a couple of the deception elements introduced in Recon. The resolution of these cards during the skirmish can sometimes get confusing. It is important to remember that resolution decisions happen in play order (starting with that round's initiator) rather than in real-time.

Recommendation: Put the assassin, provocateur, rogue, and guard in play together as mercenaries for hire. Select 6 other mercenaries for a total of 10 stacks.

Assassin (tribe member)

• Like the sniper team, this mercenary has the ability to snipe an opponent's tribe members during resource gathering or the skirmish.
• Unlike the sniper team, the assassin is restricted to only attacking single-unit tribe members (cards that represent only 1 tribe member).

Guard (tribe member)

• An inexpensive fighter, similar to a brawler.
• Can be used to cancel any action outside of the skirmish which targets your card(s). Examples include spying, sniping or disarming while you gather resources, attacks against your buildings, and etc.
• If you do use the guard for his cancel ability, discard him and draw a new card from the top of your deck.

Provocateur (tribe member)

• Standard draw / fight actions.
• Special - Grants a special means of fighting through intimidation.
  • During your turn of the skirmish resolution phase, you may announce an intent to use the number of tribe members you brought to the skirmish as your fight score.
  • Count the total size of your force (tribe members you brought, even if they are not fighters) ignoring any tools or other combat modifiers, but including leader and building abilities that increase the size of your force.
  • Use the total force size as your fight score.
  • If your provocateur gets sniped, your fight score reverts back to its natural score.
  • The Gangster leader ability does not count toward the provocateur ability.
• A player in later turn order can snipe a provocateur in earlier turn order.

Example: When resolving the skirmish, Betty (the initiator this round) decides to use her provocateur's special ability. She brought only two cards: combat medics (four people) and a provocateur (one person). Since the total is five, she announces her use of the special ability. Assuming her provocateur is not sniped, then her fight score will be five for this round.

Rogue (tribe member)

• Standard draw / fight actions.
• Special - Grants a special skirmish win condition.
  • If a skirmish ends with a tie for highest fight score, the first player in turn order with a rogue in the skirmish automatically wins the contested resource.
  • Only a tie for highest fight score is considered, not the number of tribe members. The rogue ability constitutes a higher order of precedence than the number of tribe members brought to the skirmish.
  • It is not necessary that the player using the rogue be involved in the tie. Any two players with identical fight scores trigger the potential for a rogue win condition for ANY player in the skirmish. At this point, the number of tribe members in the skirmish is not relevant.
  • The rogue's ability to steal the CR is passive. You do not need to give up the rogue's fight in order to steal the CR.
• Your rogue can be targeted by a snipe action.
• Only the first rogue action can be successful per round (resolved in turn order). Multiple players cannot successfully use this action.
• A player in lower turn order can snipe a rogue in higher turn order.

Example 1: In a four player game, Carol chooses to not commit any cards to the skirmish. Sarah has the highest fight score and Betty and Linda are close behind. In this case, the rogue ability does not trigger. During skirmish resolution, Linda uses a saboteur to disarm one of Sarah's tools. This causes Sarah and Betty to tie for first, at which point Linda's rogue steals the CR without a fight.

Example 2: In a different skirmish, the same scenario is about the play out. This time, Sarah pre-emptively uses her sniper team to block Linda's potential use of her saboteur. Linda's rogue is irrelevant this time since there is no way to force a tie.

Module 3 – Expanding the Ranks

This module introduces the remaining mercenaries from Recon as well as two new buildings.

Recommendation: Add the schematics pile (from HQ) and the two new buildings (portable decoys and scout tower). Put the courier, drill sergeant, scrappers, and tinker in play together as mercenaries for hire. Select 6 other mercenaries for a total of 10 stacks. Finally, substitute hardy scavengers in place of the standard scavengers during player setup.

Courier (tribe member)

• Has a powerful draw ability.
• When you perform a draw using a courier, you must discard two of the drawn cards.
• Even if other cards are used to augment the draw ability, only two of the drawn cards must be discarded per courier played.

Drill Sergeant (tribe member)

• Standard dig / fight actions.
• Special – Retrieve two cards from the discard pile and shuffle them into your deck. Then draw the top two cards from your deck.
  • This draw is distinct from the standard draw action.
  • This draw is not modifiable.
  • If you have no cards in your discard pile, you still draw two.
  • If you have no cards in your deck, then both cards retrieved from the discard will form your new deck.
  • Using the drill sergeant in the skirmish will NOT permit you to add new cards to your skirmish force.

Hardy Scavenger (tribe member)

• Similar to a standard scavenger, the hardy scavenger is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. Unlike the standard unit, the hardy scavenger has a 0 for draw and fight. Thus, modifiers are required to make those actions useful.
• The hardy scavenger (HS) has a special ability which triggers only at the end of a skirmish in which the player does not win. If you send HS into the skirmish and you either lose or tie, then any HS units you sent are returned to your hand at the end of the round.
• Even if one or more HS units return to your hand, you still perform a standard draw action at the start of the next round.

Scrappers (tribe member)

• When you perform a dig using scrappers, you have choices to make:
  • You may perform your entire dig from the top or the bottom of the pile.
  • When you return cards to the pile after digging, you may choose to return cards to the top or bottom of the pile.
• You still only retrieve one card from the set of cards you collect.
• When you return cards you may choose to return some to the top and others to the bottom.

Example: You perform a dig using scrappers, a scavenger, and a shovel for a total dig of 6. You find pills, a rifle, two spears, and two junk. You choose to keep the rifle (place in discard pile), put the two junk cards on top of the junkyard (to mess with another player's dig) and return the remaining cards to the bottom of the junkyard.

Tinker (tribe member)

• A lighter weight version of the engineer (cheaper and weaker abilities).
• The tinker permits you to dig in the engineering schematics pile. However, with only a digging modifier, you will need to pair up with another tribe member that has a base dig ability.
• Any tribe member with a base dig ability (even a standard refugee) can team up with a tinker to dig in the engineering schematics pile.
• Tinkers do not contribute to the tie breaker when competing for The Masons gang (ties are broken by number of engineers).

Note: When playing with the tinker, you may find it helpful to add in the toolkit to the junkyard.

Portable Decoys (building)

• Increases the size of your force at the skirmish for the purpose of tie-breaking or leveraging special abilities like the provocateur.
• For every 2 cards you bring to the skirmish (tribe members, tools, medicine, etc.) increase the effective size of your skirmish force by 1 (round down, no half credit).

Scout Tower (building)

• Discard 1 card to activate your tower.
• Select any two piles (CR, JY, schematics, leaders, etc.) as your target.
• Peek at the first two cards for each target and return them in their original order.

Module 4 – Randomized Contested Resources

This module deals exclusively with the contested resources pile, and thus can easily be combined with any other module.

We have got a full set of 14 CRs (2 copies each of 7 different types) to spice up the rewards for skirmishing. This permits you to either cherry pick your rewards or introduce a bit of mystery by selecting a random set of 14 CRs to fight over.

Recommendation: Shuffle all 28 CRs together into one pile (the 14 original plus the new 14 in Recon). Draw the top 14 and use those for the game.

Alternate: Choose 1 copy of each CR (7 from the base game and 7 from Recon).

Cargo Sled (tool)

• Standard dig / hunt actions.
• The special ability kicks in when digging. You have the option of keeping an additional tool or medicine from the set of cards you retrieved from the junkyard. If you find two tribe members or instant cards in the junkyard, you may keep only one. The additional card you get with the cargo sled, must be medicine or a tool.

Combat Medics (tribe member)

• Carries medicine like a medic.
• Can save against a snipe attack AND fight in the same round.

Demolition Team (tribe member)

• Standard dig / fight actions.
• Alternately, their special ability can be used to reset the build timer on one under-construction building. Afterwards, draw two cards.

Tear Gas (instant)

• Used only in the skirmish.
• This card's use is declared during your turn within the skirmish phase.
• It does not need to be equipped by a tribe member and it cannot be disarmed.
• When a player uses tear gas, one opponent tribe member is targeted. The targeted tribe member's fight score (or fight modifier) is set to 0.
• This is not a snipe attack, and thus cannot be blocked by a save action.
• Tear gas is not effective against a provocateur (cumulative tribe member count is used).
• Tear gas can indirectly counter a rogue by breaking a tied skirmish.

Tribal Hunters (tribe member)

• Just like the tribe family, comes in a 2-person, 3-person, and 4-person variety.
• Unlike the tribe family, these groups are dedicated hunters and have a minor fight.

Module 5 – The Kitchen Sink

Here's the remaining content introduced by this expansion.

Humanitarians (gang)

• Select a full stack of 20 refugee cards and make them available for hire in addition to the 10 mercenary stacks you choose to select.
• Awarded based upon number of cards with the "refugee" keyword in the title (those you start with, find in the JY, and hire).
• There is no tie-breaker. In the event of a tie, this gang is not awarded.

NOTE: Either refugee stack will work (refugee or scouting refugee), however, the recommended setup is to use standard refugees in your starting tribe and scouting refugees available to hire. If you choose to make standard refugees available for hire, a hire action must still be used, but no food is required.

Map (instant)

• An instant action. Does not need to be equipped and thus does not count as a tribe member's equipment limit.
• Cannot be discarded through a disarm action.
• Play this card to retrieve a tribe member you have just used and apply them to another action this same round. This enables a card to participate in a second action this round (a map helps this tribe member get to the junkyard AND the hunting grounds, for example).
• Does not permit an action to be performed more than once (i.e. one draw, dig, hunt, etc.).

The Swindler (leader)

• Discard 1 refugee to reduce the cost of hiring by 1 food or discard 2 refugees to reduce the cost of hiring by 1 medicine.
• This special action can only be performed once per turn.

The Yardmaster (leader)

• Once per round, you may peek at the top two cards of the junkyard. Return both cards to the top or bottom of the pile (preserve original card order).
• This action may be taken at any time during the round.
• This action cannot be canceled or otherwise interrupted.
• This action is not modifiable.

Variant – Alternate Starting Hands

For variety, you may want to experiment with different starting hands. Suggested substitutions are as follows:

• Scouting refugees for refugees (depending on what leaders you have, this can be challenging as you will find a large number of card modifiers rather than base abilities)
• Hardy scavengers for scavengers
• Guards for brawlers

Recommendation: With the greater variety of mercenaries offered through the Recon expansion, it is recommended that you not include any mercenaries for hire that are part of the player's starting hands. Thus, if you use hardy scavengers, then do not put hardy scavengers out for hire.

Variant – Leader Drafting

To incorporate leader acquisition into the game and infuse more choice, there is a variant for drafting leaders during the game rather than at the beginning.

Variant Details:

• Shuffle all the leader cards together and create a new face-down pile next to the other piles (JY, CR, engineering schematics, etc.).
• During the game, players may use the hire action to persuade a leader to join their tribe by bribing them with food:
  • Food (from hunting, buildings, leader powers, etc.) is used to bribe leaders. For each food generated, the player may draw 1 card from the top of the leaders pile.
  • A player may not hire more than once per turn. Thus, if you hire a leader, you cannot hire a mercenary that same round.
  • The player may take one of the leader cards drawn in this manner and return the others to the bottom of the pile.
  • This leader card is then placed face-up in front of the player.
  • All leader powers on this card are immediately in effect.
  • Actions that permit peeking at a pile (binoculars, scout tower, spy, etc.) can target the leaders pile as well.
• At any point during the game, a player may choose to perform this action, even if she already has a leader. When a new set of leaders is drawn in this manner, the player may choose to take one and replace her current leader (returning the rest to the bottom of the leader pile) or return all such cards to the bottom of the pile.

Variant – Solo Game

Sometimes you alone are available to scavenge in the arctic. Here's a solo variant for those situations.

Setup

• Shuffle all 28 contested resource cards together along with 2 rifles and 2 thugs. This should form a single pile of 32 cards.
• Break the 32 cards up into 7 skirmishes (face-down) that you must encounter.
  • One set of three cards.
  • Two sets of four cards.
  • Three sets of five cards.
  • One set of six cards.
• Select 10 mercenaries and lay them out in front of you like normal.
• You may play with or without a tribal leader (but do not select one for the opponents).

Game Play

• There is no concept of an initiator.
• Every time you shuffle your discard to form a new deck, you must take the top card of your newly shuffled deck and remove it permanently from play. This represents the attrition of your tribe over time.
• There is no forced skirmish phase. On any turn you choose, you may initiate a skirmish:
  • Select one of the available opponents (represented by the face-down stacks of cards).
  • Send as many or as few forces from your hand as you choose.
  • During skirmish resolution, assume the opponent will take the most favorable action (e.g. using tear gas on your strongest tribe member).
  • If you win, take one card from the opponent's skirmish forces as a prize and place it in your discard pile.
  • If you lose, you must permanently remove one card from your skirmish force and set it aside. The card you remove is your choice.
  • Whether you win or lose, the opponent's remaining skirmish force should be removed from play (thus, each of the seven forces are encountered only once).
• Play continues until you have skirmished with each of the seven opposing forces.
• Although there is no set timer for the game, you must constantly balance the loss of tribe assets as you cycle through your deck with the risk of losing by going into a skirmish half-cocked.
• After you fight in the seventh battle, proceed to scoring.

Scoring

• Contested resource cards in your tribe count as 2 points.
• All other cards in your tribe count as 1 point.
• Keep track of your points from game to game and try to beat your personal best!

Difficulty Level

• You can always increase the solo difficulty level by adding in more mercenaries with fight (brawlers, scrappers, thugs, etc.) or even snipe (assassins and sniper teams) and removing tribal families (which dilute the opposition fight scores).