Haselwurz und Bärenklau Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Components
• Setup
• Example Discovery Situation
• Plant and Animal Cards
• Turn Sequence
  • 1. Place a Landscape Tile
  • 2. Optional: Place Copses, Flower Fields and Hedges
  • 3. Choose a Transport Animal and Move the Sprite
  • 4. Take Cards and Place Marker Chips
  • 5. Replenish Cards and Tiles
• End of the Game

Object of the Game

In Haselwurz und Bärenklau, players take on the role of these sprites. Each game a new playing area is built from forests, meadows, fields and waters, and the discoveries are marked on it. By choosing the transport animal wisely and placing special elements such as hedges and copses well, players improve their chances of discovery. Whoever places the right landscape tile at the right moment may even be rewarded with two or three discoveries at once.

The player who obtains the highest total score from the plant and animal cards they have discovered wins the game.

Components

• 48 hexagonal landscape tiles showing: forest, rich meadow (yellow-green), lean meadow (speckled), arable field (brown), lake (blue), village (grey/red) and gravel pit (grey).
• 48 plant and animal cards with different pictures and rarity values from 1 to 9.
• 16 transport animal cards showing 4 animals: badger, yellowhammer (bird), dragonfly and grasshopper. Each player receives the 4 transport cards that share one frame colour.
• 8 cards with a summary of the turn sequence.
• 48 red marker chips made of wood.
• 12 dark green hedges made of wood.
• 6 dark green copses made of wood.
• 6 yellow flower fields (flower strips) made of wood.
• 4 sprite figures in different colours.
• 1 rules booklet.

Setup

1. Each player receives:

   • one sprite figure;
   • the 4 transport animal cards with the same frame colour;
   • one card with the turn sequence;
   • 3 landscape tiles.

   The available hedges, copses and flower fields are divided equally among the players. With 4 players, 2 players each receive 2 copses and 1 flower field, and the other 2 players each receive 2 flower fields and 1 copse. Sprite figures that are not used go back into the box.

   Printed captions: the material of one player in a 3-player game is shown; for a 2-player game the wooden pieces of one player are shown; for a 4-player game the wooden pieces of players A or B are shown, and players C or D each receive 2 flower fields, 1 copse and 3 hedges.

2. In the middle of the table, lay out the 7 landscape tiles in the arrangement shown in the printed illustration (labelled in the illustration: arable field, rich meadow, lean meadow and lake; the village is in the centre).

3. Players take turns placing their sprite figure on any of the face-up tiles, except the village and lake tiles.

4. Shuffle the remaining landscape tiles and place them face down in several stacks.

5. Set the red marker chips ready.

6. Shuffle the plant and animal cards together and place them face down as a stack. Turn the top four cards face up where everyone can see them.

Example Discovery Situation

The rules booklet shows an example of discovering plants and animals. The following plant and animal cards are face up and can be discovered:

• K: Cornflower (Kornblume)
• Z: Sand lizard (Zauneidechse)
• L: Tree frog (Laubfrosch)
• S: Siberian iris (Schwertlilie)

The capital letters on the playing area mark the corner points at which the respective plant or animal can be discovered.

Tiles on which the sprites can discover plants or animals (numbers as printed on the example board):

• 1: Tree frog and Siberian iris
• 2: Tree frog and sand lizard, or Siberian iris and sand lizard
• 3: Siberian iris and sand lizard
• 4: Tree frog or Siberian iris
• 5: Siberian iris
• 6: Sand lizard
• 7, 8, 9: Cornflower

No discovery can currently be made on the other tiles.

Where discovery marker a lies, the environmental conditions for the cornflower are also met, but a discovery is no longer possible there. The same applies to discovery marker b: there the conditions for the Siberian iris would be met.

Plant and Animal Cards

Each plant and animal card shows the following:

• Corner circle (top left): the landscape conditions that must be met by the three landscape tiles meeting at a corner point.
• Symbol (below the corner circle, where present): an additional condition.
• Rarity value (top right, in a circle): the value of the card when scoring at the end of the game.
• Picture and name of the plant or animal.

Three example cards are explained in the rules booklet:

• White stork (rarity value 6): the adjacent tiles must include a lean meadow and a lake. Instead of the lake, a stream may flow through the corner circle. The house symbol means that one of the adjacent landscape tiles must show a house.
• Daisy (rarity value 2): the corner circle requires that one of the adjacent tiles be a rich meadow. The other two tiles may be any landscape. The hedge symbol means that this corner point must border a hedge.
• Skylark (rarity value 5): one adjacent tile must be a rich meadow and one must be an arable field; forest must not be adjacent (marked with a cross in the corner circle). The empty-circle symbol means that the adjacent arable field must have a flower field on it.

Turn Sequence

The player who placed their sprite last begins the game. Each turn consists of the following steps:

1. Place a landscape tile.
2. Optional: place a copse, flower field or hedge.
3. Choose a transport animal and move the sprite.
4. Take a card and place a marker chip.
5. Replenish cards and tiles.

1. Place a Landscape Tile

A new landscape tile is placed adjacent to one or more tiles already on the table.

When placing, observe the following:

• Streams may flow into a lake, but must never end abruptly at the edge between two landscape tiles.

The diagram marks with an X two places where a stream may not end abruptly at a tile edge (a stream may end in a lake).

Otherwise there are no further restrictions on placement.

2. Optional: Place Copses, Flower Fields and Hedges

The player may now place one or more of their wooden elements on the landscape tiles as follows:

• Copse: on a rich meadow, lean meadow, arable field or gravel pit.
• Flower field: only on an arable field.
• Hedges are not placed on the tiles but along the edges of the landscape tiles. Hedges may cross streams, but may not be placed between two lakes or between two forests.

An arable field may hold a copse and a flower field together.

3. Choose a Transport Animal and Move the Sprite

The player may now move their sprite in one of the following ways, to reach a landscape tile which, together with its neighbouring tiles, fulfils the environmental conditions of one or more of the 4 face-up plant or animal cards on the table.

• Dragonfly: moves any distance, as long as the path follows streams and lakes. A stream must flow through the starting tile and the destination tile. (A sprite may not stop on a lake.) Dragonflies may not stay on a lake.
• Badger: moves without limit across forest tiles, tiles on which copse pieces lie, or along hedges. The starting and destination tiles of the badger must be forest or count a copse.
• Grasshopper: moves without limit across meadow tiles (rich or lean) and/or arable fields that carry a flower field. These same tiles must be at the start and at the end of the movement.
• Bird (yellowhammer): may move up to three tiles over any other tiles. At the end of the move the bird lands on any tile (except a village or a lake).

Village and lake tiles may be flown over by the bird or the dragonfly, but sprites may never stop on these tiles.

The diagram shows the movement options for the dragonfly, grasshopper and badger from the example position (routes are shown by a white line, outlined white line and black line respectively). With the dragonfly, tiles A and B may be crossed but not entered. The grasshopper cannot reach tile J, since there is no flower field between tile H and tile J. With the badger, one may follow the hedges; the adjacent tiles F, G, H, B and J can be neither entered nor used as a starting point. Starting from tile E with the bird, all tiles can be reached except D, J, K and C (4 tiles away). The lake A and the village B may also not be entered.

If a player's sprite stands on a tile from which it cannot move on with any of the transport animals available to it, the sprite stays where it is and that player may not discover any plants or animals in this turn.

After the move, the card of the transport animal used for the move is turned over and is no longer available for further moves.

If the sprite could not be moved, the player turns over one still face-up transport animal card of their choice. (The French edition additionally describes this for a player who decides not to move the sprite, or who lacks a suitable transport animal, in which case the sprite stays in place and no plants or animals may be discovered that turn.)

Once all transport animal cards have been turned over, all 4 cards are turned face up again for the next turn and may again be used as transport for the sprites.

4. Take Cards and Place Marker Chips

If the player's sprite stands, after moving, on a landscape tile which, at a corner point it shares with two other landscape tiles, fulfils the environmental conditions (shown in the top left of the plant and animal cards) for a face-up card, the player may:

• take that plant or animal card; and
• place a red marker chip on the corner point (circle) that was used.

Further rules: at a corner point already covered by a marker chip, no further plants or animals may be sought there. In any case, marker chips may only be placed, and plant or animal cards taken, where all three landscape tiles have already been placed at the corresponding corner point.

5. Replenish Cards and Tiles

After the move, the player takes a new landscape tile and again has 3 tiles in front of them.

The face-up plant and animal cards are then replenished from the stack until there are 4 face up again.

If none of the players could take a plant or animal card during one complete round of play, all 4 face-up cards are placed under the stack and four new cards are drawn. (In other words, no player may meet the same four face-up cards twice in a row.)

Note on the source: the French edition describes the placing of the four face-up cards under the stack as optional ("cette action est optionnel") and as the right of the player whose turn it is. The German text does not say this; it is transcribed here as printed in the German rules.

End of the Game

The game ends immediately when:

• the open plant and animal cards can no longer be replenished to four; or
• a player can no longer replenish her landscape tiles to three in front of her.

The plant and animal cards are then scored. For each player, the rarity values of the cards they have collected are added up.

The player with the highest total score wins the game.