Maquis
Maquis Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 1 Game Board
- 5 White Resistance Worker pawns
- 5 Blue Milice Patrol pawns
- 5 Red Soldier Patrol pawns
- 32 Resource tokens: 4 Blue Intel tokens, 4 Green Food tokens, 4 White Medicine tokens, 4 Yellow Money tokens, 4 Red Weapons tokens, 4 Black Explosive tokens, 4 Cyan Poison tokens, 4 Purple Fake Id tokens
- 4 AA Gun tokens
- 14 normal sized Mission cards: 2 zero-star missions, 5 one-star missions, and 7 two-star missions
- 4 larger three-star Mission cards
- 1 Morale/Soldier Tracking board
- 10 Patrol cards
- 1 Quick Reference card
- 9 Spare Room Action tiles
- 3 Tracking cubes (Blue Day, Red Soldier, White Morale)
- 10 Yellow Action cubes
Setup
- Place the boards in front of you.
- Shuffle the ten Patrol cards and place them in a face-down stack. This forms the Patrol deck.
- Place the three Tracking cubes on the Start spaces of the Main board and the Morale/Soldier board.
- Place all Resource tokens to one side. These form the Supply.
- Place the Spare Room Action tiles face up near the game board. These can be examined at any time.
- Place three of the Resistance Worker pawns in the Safe House Location. These are your available pool of Workers.
- Place the two remaining Resistance Worker pawns next to the Café Location. These are available to be recruited later.
- Randomly select the mission cards for this game (see opposite for details), placing them above the two exits at the top of the board. Return the unused Mission cards to the box.
- Set all other pawns and tokens near the board for future use.
Selecting Mission Cards
The mission cards you play will impact how easy or difficult the game is. The more difficult a mission is, the more stars it is rated.
For your first ever game, it's recommended that you play the Officer's Mansion and Milice Parade Day missions, which are deliberately tuned to introduce the game without being overwhelmingly difficult.
Subsequently, you may choose to randomly select missions only from the one-star cards or the two-star cards, or some mix of the two. If you want an extra-hard game, randomly select one normal mission and one of the larger three-star missions; place the three-star mission on the right-hand exit.
Playing Through a Day
A Day is comprised of the following phases, performed in this order:
- Placement phase
- Action phase
- Upkeep phase
Placement Phase
First, check the Morale track to determine how many Patrol pawns will be placed this Day. Then, beginning with the player, Resistance Workers and Patrols are placed back-and-forth, one pawn at a time. The player will place all of their available Resistance Workers—those that are at the Safe House. Once all Resistance and Patrol pawns are placed, move on to the Action phase.
There may only be one pawn of any type per Location.
There may be points during gameplay where the number of available Resistance Workers will be less than the number of Patrols being placed. When this occurs, place back-and-forth as usual, and then place all of the remaining Patrols one at a time, drawing a Patrol card before placing each (see Patrol Placement).
Check Morale
Each space on the Morale track shows a black number—the Morale of the town—and a red number, which is the minimum number of Occupation Patrols that Day. The number of Patrols placed this Day is equal to the number of recruited, available Resistance Workers or the red Patrol number in the currently-occupied Morale space, whichever number is higher. Workers left on Locations for multiple Days due to Mission Card rules still count toward your total available Workers.
For example: If Morale is 3 and there are 3 available Resistance Workers, then the number of Patrols placed is 4 because the red 4 from the Morale track is higher than the number of Resistance Workers. If Morale is 7 instead, there would be 3 Patrols, equal to the number of Resistance Workers.
Resistance Placement
To place your Resistance Workers, choose a Location on the board and place one of your available Resistance Workers from a Safe House. You may place your Worker on any available Location, regardless of whether you can trace a route there from a Safe House (see Check Escape Route).
Patrol Placement
Draw a card from the Patrol deck. The Patrol card lists three Locations on the board where a Patrol pawn can be placed.
If the first Location on the card does not contain a Resistance Worker or any Patrol, place the Patrol in that Location for this Day. If the first Location is occupied, try the second Location, and, if still unsuccessful, try the third Location.
If all three Locations are occupied, the Patrol attempts an arrest instead of patrolling a Location. To attempt an arrest, check the Locations on the Patrol card from the top again. However, this time the Patrol stops at the first Location occupied by a Resistance Worker. The arrested Resistance Worker is removed permanently from the game. Place the Patrol in that Location. If all three Locations listed on the card are occupied by Patrol pawns, the Patrol pawn is not placed this Day.
Discard the Patrol card face up. You may look through the discard pile at any time. If the face-down Patrol deck is empty when you go to draw, shuffle the discard pile and place it face down to form a new deck.
Soldier Patrol Pawns
By default, all Patrols are Milice Patrols. If the Soldier track ever advances into and beyond the 1st space (see Shooting Milice), you must place Soldiers. Soldiers replace Milice Patrols on a one-to-one basis. Soldiers are always the last Patrols placed.
For example: If 4 Patrols are being placed, and the Soldier track is at 1, then the first 3 patrols placed are Milice and then the last one a Soldier.
Action Phase
Activate Workers
In any order you wish, activate each of your Resistance Workers one at a time. Workers may only be activated once per Day and for at most one action each. Resources acquired during a Day may be used later in that Day to pay for another action. You are not obligated to perform an action just because you have a Worker in that Location.
Remember: All Resource tokens are limited.
Location Actions
If the Worker occupies a Location with an action, you may perform that action.
Resource Icon: In some Locations, you may spend an action to gather the Resource displayed in the top right of the Location.
Arrow: Some actions in Locations require trading in Resources from the left of the arrow to obtain rewards on the right. All Resources are returned to and taken from the Supply.
Slash: This represents a choice to make. You may only perform one of the actions.
Airdrop: If you decide to Airdrop, you may choose either one Weapon, one Money, or three Food Resources to place on one of the Field Locations. You may only place Resources in a Field that does not already have Resources in it.
Pickup Airdrop: A Resistance Worker may move to a Field Location containing airdropped Resources and retrieve these Resources as an action. Airdrop Resources cannot be retrieved on the same turn as they were delivered. If there are no Resources in a Field Location at the start of the Day, you may not place a Worker there.
Add Spare Room: If you activate one of the three Spare Room Locations on the board—houses where the locals have a spare room they can provide to the Resistance—you may select any one of the Spare Room Action tiles to replace that Location. Place the new Location action tile over the Spare Room Location. Building a new room is permanent.
The Safe House Spare Room acts as a second Safe House that Workers may return to at the end of the Day. If a Resistance Worker cannot trace a route back to the Safe House at the bottom of the board, they may trace a route to the Safe House Spare Room Location instead.
The Fixer Spare Room allows you to perform an action on any Spare Room that is not presently on the board, paying the usual cost plus one extra Money resource for the usual benefit.
For example, if the Chemist's Lab is still in the game box, you may visit The Fixer and spend one Money (the cost for The Fixer) plus one Medicine (the cost for the Chemist's Lab) to obtain one Explosives resource.
Mission Actions
If the Mission card has an action rectangle on it, it is considered to be a Location connected to the town through the exit it is located above. A Worker must be placed here to take the Mission action just like any other Location. Each time you score a success using the Mission action, place a marker on one of the action rectangles on the Mission card. Numbered successes must be performed in order; all successes marked with a '1' must be completed before you may mark any successes marked with a '2'.
The Mission is only complete when all of the action rectangles have been marked.
For example: The Sabotage mission has three action rectangles, marked '1', '2', and '3'. You must perform the first two actions to fill the '1' and '2' action rectangles before you may perform the third action and spend the explosives to fill the '3' action rectangle.
If the action rectangle has a dashed border, the Worker must be placed on another location in order to complete that objective. The card text will explain where this location is.
For example: the Take Out The Bridges mission requires you to place explosives and destroy the two bridges leading away from the Black Market space, to the Poor District and Pont du Nord. The action rectangles have a dashed border, and the card explains that the actions must be taken at the Black Market location.
If you are playing with the harder three-star missions, you will find that they are more complex than the regular missions. The extra rules text on the card may contain extra directions about the specific order or timing of actions. For example: the Bomb the Barracks mission has two actions that must take place on the same turn for Objective 3.
Check Escape Route
After each Resistance Worker has been activated, that Worker must be able to trace a clear route from their present Location—following the white road lines that connect Locations—back to a Safe House. To draw this route, a Resistance Worker may only pass through empty Locations and Locations occupied by other Resistance Workers. The route may not pass through Locations occupied by Soldiers or Milice. If there is a clear route, return the Worker to a Safe House Location the route connects to.
Getting Arrested
If you cannot draw a clear route from the Worker to a Safe House, then the Worker is arrested. Remove it from the game permanently. This worker may not be re-recruited! If the Worker is arrested, you may only receive the rewards from that action if the Location has an orange shield with a star symbol. Otherwise, the Worker never makes it home and cannot bring the reward back.
Note that on the larger three-star missions, the orange shield icons are specific to particular objectives rather than being in effect for the whole card. For example: Objective 1 of the Milice HQ mission does not have an orange shield, while Objective 2 does.
Shooting Milice
If you discard a Weapon Resource, you may remove one Milice Patrol pawn from the board. You may only perform this action once per Day. Soldiers cannot be removed this way—they are too good at shooting back! Each time you remove Milice in this manner, increase the Soldier track by one—removed Milice are replaced by Soldiers on future Days. Then, decrease the Morale track by one.
You may only shoot Milice that are already on the board. Milice being placed during Patrol Placement may not be shot. Shooting Milice may be—but does not have to be—used to free up a route, and may be used in between performing an action and tracing the route home. A Worker collecting a Weapon Resource may use that same Weapon to shoot Milice if a shooting has not occurred yet that Day.
Using a Fake Id
You may place a Fake Id Resource on the board at the same time as you place a Worker in the placement phase, in the same location as the Worker. If that Worker is blocked on their way back to the Safe House they may use the Fake Id to bypass a single Patrol - either a blue Milice or a red Soldier. If they do this, the Fake Id is spent and returned to the supply; if the Worker is not blocked, the Fake Id is not lost and can continue to be used on subsequent turns. If bypassing a single Patrol is not enough for the Worker to find a clear route to a Safe House and they are arrested, the Fake Id Resource is also lost.
Upkeep Phase
- Remove all Patrols from the board.
- Increase the Day track by one.
- If the Day marker moves onto an orange space, decrease the Morale track by one.
Ending the Game
The game ends as soon as you succeed at both of your missions, the Day Track marker is moved to the 'END' space, or something causes you to lose.
Major Win
If you obtain a Major Success on a three-star mission and complete your second mission, you immediately score a Major Win - you've stuck a meaningful blow against the occupation!
Win
If you succeed at two regular missions, you immediately score a Win - you've done your part for the Resistance! You also Win if you obtain a Major Success on a three-star mission but fail to complete your second, regular mission before the Day Track marker is placed on the 'END' space.
Draw
If you have completed one regular mission but not the other at the point that the Day Track marker moves to the 'END' space, you score a Draw. You've fought the fascists valiantly, and done some damage, but nothing critical.
Lose
You lose the game if at any point:
- Your last Worker is arrested.
- The town's Morale reaches the 'FAIL' space.
- The Day Track marker reaches the 'END' space and you have not completed either of your missions.
Patrol Cards Summary
| Pont Leveque | Radio A | Grocer | Fence | Pont Leveque |
| Black Market | Rue Baradat | Pont du Nord | Pont du Nord | Pont du Nord |
| Doctor | Grocer | Fence | Pont Leveque | Doctor |
| Fence | Radio B | Radio A | Grocer | Radio B |
| Rue Baradat | Rue Baradat | Pont Leveque | Poor District | Grocer |
| Poor District | Pont Leveque | Black Market | Doctor | Black Market |
Difficulty Modes
All of the rules presented here are additions or overrides to the main rules of the game, and if they contradict the main rules, the difficulty setting takes precedence.
Very Easy
When the Day track marker reaches the 'End' space, do not end the game; instead, move the Day track marker immediately next to the Day 1 space and continue as normal. (Any objective that has specific day requirements may be completed on those days on either pass through the time track). When you Airdrop in Resources, you may choose from 2 Money, 2 Weapons, or 4 Food.
Easy
When you Airdrop in Resources, you may choose from 2 Money, 1 Weapon or, 4 Food.
Tricky
Start the game with only two Workers, with two recruitable Workers by the Café; the fifth Resistance Worker does not exist. The game ends when the Day track marker lands on Day 12.
Hard
Utilize the same rules as Tricky mode. Additionally, instead of decreasing Morale when the Day track marker lands on an orange space, decrease Morale when the Day track marker lands on a space with a triangle.
Very Hard
Utilize the same rules as Tricky and Hard mode. Additionally, when a Resistance Worker is arrested (either by being cut off from a Safe House or by a Patrol landing on it because all available Patrol Locations were taken), reduce Morale by one.
Mission Cards Difficulty
The Mission cards have four levels of difficulty. Mix and match difficulty instead of randomly drawing mission cards if you wish to have control over the difficulty level of the Missions.
Easiest
Milice Parade Day • Officer's Mansion
★ Easier
Sabotage • Underground Newspaper • Double Agent • German Shepherds • Infiltration
★★ Harder
Destroy the Train • Assassination • Liberate the Town • Coded Messages • Take Out the Bridges • Aid the Spy • Bomb for the Officer
★★★ Hardest
Bomb the Barracks • Milice HQ • Destroy AA Guns • Free the Resistance Leader
Quick Reference Card
- Money, Food, Intel, Medicine, Explosives, Poison and Fake Id.
- Weapon. Used once per turn to remove 1 Milice.
- Increase/decrease Morale by 1.
- Recruit 1 worker from Cafe.
- Add Spare Room tile in current location (if empty).
- Airdrop - add 1 Money, OR 1 Weapon, OR 3 Food on empty Field.
- Pick up Airdrop resources (not the same turn as Airdrop).
- May complete an action without returning worker to Safe House.
Morale/Soldier board: -1 Morale whenever Soldier track is advanced.
Credits
Maquis © Sideroom Games, 2019
Game Designed by Jake Staines.
Artwork and Iconography provided by Ilya Baranovsky and Mark Tuck.
For additional mission suggestions/designs, we would like to thank Lee Benson, Nicolas Vanbelle, and Paul Dymond.
For playtesting, suggestions, and rulebook editing, we would like to thank Teresa Manco, Dave Capps, Mary-Ann McBride-Andrews, Eirik Gumeny, Travis D. Hill, Alan Andrews, Brett Gilbert, Michael Murphy, and Dustin Culbertson.