Farmerstein
Farmerstein Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Idea and Goal of the Game
What better soldiers than asparagus, mushrooms, cucumbers and tomatoes mutated into monstrous creatures thirsting for blood? All you have to do is subject the defenceless vegetables to mutagenic agents to turn them into a fearsome Army with which to take control of the three Continents and conquer the whole world.
Be careful, though! You will have to watch your back against your opponents, who will try to achieve total domination first, and against the Zombie Zucchinis, now out of control. In the grip of voracious greed, these undead vegetables are capable of devouring even your precious mutagenic agents! Without them your Army is nothing more than a handful of inert vegetables ...
Grow your Plants by leaving them for one round under the effect of the Mutagens, so that they can join your Army and invade, one by one, all three Continents needed to conquer the world: the red Americas, the green Europe and the yellow Asia.
Components
To play FarmerStein you need: this ruthless rulebook; 110 utterly wicked cards: 90 ferocious Plants in five different colours (orange, blue, yellow, red and green), 15 cruel Evil Objectives and 5 inhuman placeholders; from a sheet of die-cut cardboard you get: 15 sinister markers in three colours (red, green and yellow) and 10 powerful Mutagen tokens in five colours (red, yellow, orange, blue and green).
Component illustration labels: 15 cruel Evil Objectives; 90 ferocious Plants; 5 Monstrous Powers; 15 sinister Conquests; 10 powerful Mutagens.
Setup
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The player who most recently ate vegetables takes a placeholder of their choice and places it in front of them, on the side marked First Player. Proceeding clockwise (to the left), each other opponent chooses and takes a placeholder, placing it on the opposite side. (Any placeholders in excess are removed from the game.) Attention: if you are not using the optional rules, ignore the effect of the Mutant Placeholder.
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Shuffle all the Plant cards together in a single deck and place it in the centre of the play area. In turn order, each player creates their own hand by drawing 5 cards from the top of the deck.
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Place all the coloured Mutagen tokens near the deck, within easy reach of all players.
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Shuffle the Evil Objective cards face down. In turn order, each player draws 1 card from the top and reveals it in front of them on the play area.
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Each player receives 3 Conquest markers: 1 red, 1 green and 1 yellow (any in excess are removed from the game), which they keep in front of them on the play area until they mark the corresponding Continents on their Evil Objective.
Now you are ready to begin ... the conquest of the world!
Sidebar (design background about the Zombie Zucchini, the Scarecrow and the Two-Headed Eggplant, Olive, Asparagus, Lettuce, Cucumber, Mushroom, Carrot, Squash, Tomato, Radish, Chilli, Potato-Fly, Corn-Crocodile, and Onion-Robot cards) omitted.
How to Play
A game of FarmerStein is made up of a series of rounds in which the players act in turn, beginning with the First Player and proceeding clockwise (to the left).
Attention: first, at the start of the round, every player who has Zombie Zucchini cards in hand must immediately play them (see The InvaZion below).
On their turn, each player may choose to play 1 card from their hand in front of them on the play area, provided they can give it a Mutagen token of the same colour taken from the common supply and placed on top of the card just played. They must then apply that Plant's effect, if they can. Then it is the next player's turn.
When a player cannot or does not want to play cards on their turn, they must pass and discard their entire hand to wait for the end of the current round.
The round continues from turn to turn until all players have passed.
End of the Round
When the round is over, each player stacks face down into their personal Army all the cards that are in play in front of them (except the Zombie Zucchinis, which must be discarded), returning the Mutagens to the common supply. Still in turn order, each player may choose to conquer 1 Continent from their Evil Objective (no more than 1 Continent may be conquered per turn), revealing all the cards from their personal Army in order to satisfy the minimum requirements of their Evil Objective. Each Continent requires that the player's Army include a minimum number of cards (excess cards do not count against this) that satisfy a specific combination.
- America, red Continent: conquered with 3 cards that satisfy your Evil Objective.
- Europe, green Continent: conquerable with 4 cards that satisfy your Evil Objective.
- Asia, yellow Continent: conquered with 5 cards that satisfy your Evil Objective.
The combination to be satisfied is instead set by the symbol shown on your Evil Objective, next to the Continent you intend to conquer. Because the difficulty of the required combinations varies, the symbols are accompanied by stars that indicate their difficulty (more stars = more difficult).
The combinations are:
- Same Plants: the cards required by this combination must all show the same Plant (for example, an Army with 3 Two-Faced Broccoli to conquer the red Continent).
- Cards of the same colour: the cards required by this combination must all have the same colour (for example, a yellow Army with 2 Fly Potatoes, 1 Robot Onion and 1 yellow/blue Creature Pepper to conquer the green Continent).
- Cards of different colours: the cards required by this combination must all be of different colours from one another (for example, an Army with 1 orange/red Creature Pepper, 1 yellow Fly Potato and 1 red Killer Tomato to conquer the red Continent).
- Different Plants: the cards required by this combination must show Plants different from one another (for example, an Army with 1 Jurassic Carrot, 1 Fly Potato, 1 Super Atomic Squash, 1 Robot Onion and 1 Creature Pepper to conquer the yellow Continent).
- No rule: any card satisfies this combination, regardless of colour and the Plant shown (for example, an Army of any 4 cards to conquer the green Continent).
Players who successfully conquer a Continent must mark the target combination on their Evil Objective and put their entire personal Army together with the discard pile (that is, not only the Plants used to satisfy the conquest, but all of them!).
Example of conquering America with an Army of at least 3 cards of different colours (illustration).
The InvaZion
At any time (including the Setup phase), whenever a player draws 1 Zombie Zucchini from the deck, they must immediately play it with 1 Mutagen token of the required colour, taken from the common supply, placed on top. Even if the optional Mutant Placeholder rules are in use, the Zombie Zucchinis ignore them.
Caution: it can happen (although rarely) that, as the effect of other cards, a Zombie Zucchini is drawn at a moment when the Mutagen token of the required colour is not available in the common supply. In this specific case, the Zombie Zucchini makes the player whose turn it is discard a Plant in play that bears the required Mutagen token. If even then the Zombie Zucchini is not satisfied, apply the same penalty to the next player in turn order, until a Plant in play bearing the required Mutagen token has been discarded.
The player who drew the Zombie Zucchini may, however, choose to put their Evil Objective at the bottom of its pile in order to draw a new one from the top in its place, knowing that the Continents already conquered will be kept by transferring the markers onto the new card.
Monstrous Powers
The player whose placeholder is revealed on the First Player side enjoys, for the whole round, the ability described on the card. When you flip the placeholder to the marked side, read the Monstrous Power aloud, so that all opponents are informed of the additional rules that the First Player's ability introduces for the current round.
Caution: the effects of the Monstrous Powers take precedence over the normal rules of the game.
Mutant Placeholder
Optional rule for experienced players. A player who, during any round, has their placeholder on the side that is NOT marked (that is, every player except the First Player) may use it as a special additional Mutagen of the placeholder's colour (instead of giving the card a token). Plants played thanks to the placeholder follow the normal rules.
This additional Mutagen is personal: it is not possible to take an opponent's to play one of your own Plants. The Mutant Placeholder is a Mutagen for the exclusive use of the player who owns it.
Caution: if a Plant played with the Mutant Placeholder is discarded from the game, the placeholder (and therefore the additional Mutagen) becomes available again to its owner. The Mutant Placeholder is not devoured by the Zombie Zucchinis.
The player who has the First Player marker during the round benefits from the Monstrous Power, but cannot use their placeholder as an additional Mutagen.
End of the Game
The first player to conquer all three Continents wins the game.
If in the same round more than one player conquers the third Continent at the same time, the tie is resolved by rewarding the player who conquers the Continent that required more cards (Asia > Europe > America). If the tie persists, it is resolved in turn order, starting from the player holding the First Player marker and proceeding clockwise (to the left).
Closing line of the rulebook: "Thank you for conquering the world with us!" The rulebook refers players with questions to the official Cobblepot Games YouTube channel, which hosts a video tutorial on FarmerStein.