HOMESTEAD
By Boundless Distraction
BDistracted
The town is under a threat of bandits and the town folk are looking to you for protection. You’d better push these bandits out of town and bring peace soon. High noon is coming and this threats only going to get worse.
Objective
Players take turns buying and moving units into battle as they fight a reverse type tug-o-war to take out the other player’s Player Token or overrun the other player by reaching the ‘Overran’ space with your Player Token.
About the Characters
Each Character is unique and has his/her own unique abilities as well as dice odds. There are two main differences between characters and regular units; the first is that they have unique abilities that never expire. The second is that when the character dies, the game is over.
Bandits & Lawmen: Each character has an icon in the upper left corner of their card. This signifies whether the character is a lawman or a bandit. The badge is a lawman, the hat and bandana signifies bandit (Bandit icon shown to the right). Typically one player is the lawman and the other is the bandit.
Player Tokens are representative of the Player Character in the game.
About the Units
Each unit has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some of these are obvious by the unit’s stats on the card, and others are a little vaguer, such as the corresponding number between their icon and the number on the dice.
Identifying Units – Each unit is identified by its icon in the upper left hand corner of its reference card. Such as the Gun-Slingers crossed pistols in the image below.
The icon relates a unit to dice rolls as well as with its unit on the board.
Dice and Unit Icon – Every number on the dice also has an icon. The icon and number work separately, though they are inseparable. When rolling the dice, if a unit’s icon is rolled its bonus activates if applicable to the circumstance.
Unit Bonus – A unit bonus does nothing unless the player rolls the unit’s icon that turn. In order to tell what a unit's bonus is you must look at a Unit’s Reference Card. The bonus will be stated at the bottom of the card just above the stat-bar.
The stat-bar is the box (in the image above) with the boot, bullets and money and numbers beside them. Above that there is the bonus text, if there is no bonus stated the unit receives a bonus of double its attack value.
(More info on Unit Bonus in Combat Roll Section)
Unit Stat-Bar: The unit stat bar tells, how fast it moves, how strong it is and how much it costs. The number to the right of the boot signifies how many spaces the unit may move, the number to the right of the bullet is its attack value and to the right of the money, how many coins it costs to buy this unit.
Continuous Perk: Some units have abilities that happen no matter if their icon is rolled or not. The way you tell if a unit has an ability that does not stay is if it has text directly under its name.
For example, the War Wagon will always have an attack equal to ‘double the number of passengers’ it is carrying.
Mount Units: Mount units are identified by having a saddle in its stat-bar in the place of bullets. The number to the right of the saddle is how many units it is capable of carrying at one time. A mount unit cannot move without at least one passenger on it.
Getting Started
Setting Up the Board
Town Invasion – The recommended map to start on is the town side of the board, the straight path down the middle makes it easy to introduce the rules and the abilities of all the units.
(For experienced players that want a game with deeper strategy and more choices, flip the board to the desert side and find the section further down called ‘Cowboy Chess’.)
Get each player ready by:
· Placing the board town-side up between the players.
· Each player gets one deck of Unit Reference Cards. (One card for each unit type, Gun-Slinger, Scout, Intel, Support, Sniper, War Wagon, and Demolition.)
· Place the cards in front of each player, it doesn’t matter what way they are facing, but it is recommended that the stat-bar side is up.
· Decide what character each player wants to be.
· Place Character Tokens on opposite ends of the board.
· Retrieve the proper dice for each character.
· The bandit player the black pieces.
· The lawman gets the white pieces.
(See additional rules if both players want to play the same type of character.)
· Each player gets 5 coins.
· Place the rest of the coins in the middle by the board.
Turn Sequence
Starting with the player whose character is the lawman; both players take turns until one player’s Player Token is removed from play.
On a players turn he will do these things (if applicable) in order:
Collect Coins
Starting on the space with the Player Token, collect a coin for every other space there is between a Player Token and the furthest unit out.. (does not include mount units with no passengers). A player will always collect a coin for the space the Player Token is sitting on.
NOTE: You can only collect as many coins as there are available in the center, if there are not any coins when you go to collect you are not able to collect your money this turn.
Traveling Units
Except for the first turn of each player, units require one turns worth of travel time. Place these units aside until step two of your next turn. If you lack the space to place these units on step two they will simply remain in travel until the next turn.
NOTE: On the first turn of each player, the player may purchase and immediately place units on the board in play, this includes being able to move just like a unit done traveling.
Placing Units
When you place a unit into play it must either be placed on the same spot as the player’s Player Token or in the space directly in front of or behind the Player Token, spaces on the board can hold up to 3 units each. If there are no available spaces the units can be placed next turn during the placement phacse
Purchasing Units
You can buy as many units on a turn as you can afford, or you can choose to keep your coins for later purchases or try and collect all the coins to keep them from entering your foes pocket. Newly purchased units must travel before being put into play (See Traveling Units above).
Moving Units
All units may move forwards and backwards and do not need to move their max movements.
You may move up to three different units per turn. You can, however, use a movement to mount a unit and then move the mount forward taking that unit with it, but the unit must wait until the next turns movement phase before it can dismount.
Mounting Units: Mounting and dismounting units takes one of the 3 moves you have per turn, in order to mount a unit the unit that you wish to mount needs to be in moving distance of the mount. Mounting a unit is shown by placing the mounted unit under the mount.
Note: Mounting a unit is the only time a player can use a movement before getting to the moving phase. Example: You have a Gun-Slinger done traveling and you are putting him in the game, there is a mount unit next to your Player Token. You may immediately place the Gun-Slinger directly into the mount unit for a cost of a movement.
Friendly units can move past other friendly units even if a space is full in front of it as long as it doesn’t stop on that space. (Spaces hold up to 3 units at a time). However, your units cannot move past the other players units and must stop in the space before their occupied space no matter how many movement spaces your unit has left.
Line
The line is referred to as the space closest to the enemy units that a friendly unit is occupying. The line is where you count to when deciding how much money you make on a turn. A mount unit that is on a space by itself without a passenger is not considered the line even if it is the closest friendly unit to the enemy.
Contested Line
This is when both players cannot move their line forward any further because of the opposing player’s units occupying the space in front of them. Players do NOT have to attack on a contested line.
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Action Rolls
An action roll is an option a player has if he/she doesn’t wish to make an attack on their turn. An action roll gives the player a chance to activate either their Sniper or Intel unit without the risk of retaliation. The Sniper and Intel do not need to be on the line in order to activate their bonus when their icon is rolled.
When an Action Roll is made the player must state that it is an Action Roll, if the player rolls without stating what the roll is for and the line is contested, the opposing player can call it as an attack. If this happens, the player whose turn it is cannot reroll their die and must keep what it landed on. The opposing player will then roll his/her die and continue with normal combat roll procedures.
Combat Rolls
A combat roll is used for both offense and defense (the term is used interchangeably). Combat rolls can only be made from a contested line and all the units on the line at the time are endangered of being wiped out.
A combat roll, like an action roll, can activate a Sniper or Intel’s bonus without the unit needing to be on the line. Every other unit in the game however, needs to be on the line in order to use its bonus.
Unit Bonus: No matter how many of the same type of unit is on the board or on the line, when a unit’s icon is rolled only one of the units can be selected to use the bonus. Also, (excluding Snipers and Intel) if a unit’s icon is rolled but it is not on the line, there is no bonus for this roll.
Sniper: If both players roll a Sniper icon, the initiating player chooses a target first, if the defending player still has a sniper after the first player chose their target, they may now choose a target.
Intel: When an Intel Icon is rolled the Intel can bring forward up to 3 units, these units are placed just like units are placed with coming into play. They must either occupy the same space as the Intel unit or the space in front of the Intel unit. If the unit is called forward and placed on the line during a combat roll, that unit’s attack strength is added in to the fight.
Attacking and Defending
To determine the winner of a battle do the following steps.
Winning the Game
The game is won when one player reaches the overran spot closest to the opponents starting side of the board or when a player takes out the other’s Player Token. A Player Token can only die if it is on the contested line and the opponent beats them in a combat roll, A Player Token cannot be sniped to win the game.
Example 1
First Turn – Josh has picked Billy the Kid as his Character and starts his first turn. Josh collects 1 coin for the space his Player Token is on and decides to buy a horse using his starting coins. Normally a horse costs 2 coins, but Billy’s ability allows him to buy horses for only 1 coin. Josh also buys 4 Gun-Slingers and a Sniper for 1 coin each.
Josh places the horse down and immediately places 2 of his Gun-Slingers under the horse to mount them; this uses two of his moves. Josh places the last two Gun-Slingers beside the mount on the same space.
Josh uses his last move to move the horse forward 5 spaces and ends his turn.
Example 2
First Turn – Sarah has chosen Wyatt Earp as her character. She takes her starting 5 coins plus an additional coin for her Player Token’s space and buys a Support unit (Cost 3), 2 Snipers and a Gun-Slinger (Cost 1 each). She places the Snipers on the same space as her Player Character and the Support and Gun-Slinger units in the space in front.
Sarah moves her Support and Gun-Slinger units forward 2 spaces each and ends her movement phase, leaving her Snipers in the back. Sarah decides she wants to try and snipe one of Josh’s units and rolls an action die. She rolls a 5, which is a Horse Icon and misses. However, Earp’s ability allows Sarah to re-roll her action roll once and rolls a 2, which has the Sniper icon. Sarah chooses one of Josh’s Gun-Slinger units and it is removed from the board.
Sarah ends her turn.
Example 3
Second Turn – This turn Josh will collect coins depending on how far his furthest unit is from his Player Character. He counts the space his Player Token is sitting on and then every other space after that. He counts 3 spaces and collects 3 coins.
Josh does not have any units in travel and skips the ‘Place Unit’ phase. He now buys a Gun-Slinger and places it off to the side of the board to show it is traveling and will place it during his next turns ‘Place Unit’ phase. He decides to save the rest of his coins for later. Josh moves his horse forward 4 spaces and must stop because he has run into Sarah’s line. Josh dismounts one of his Gun-Slingers for his second move and decides to attack her line.
Sarah has a support unit on the line and a Sniper unit on the board.
Josh rolls his dice and it lands on 8 showing the Gun-Slinger icon. Sarah rolls a 6 showing the Intel icon. They now add up their totals.
Josh: Gun-Slinger attack doubled with icon rolled (4) + Other Gun-Slinger (2) + Dice Roll (8) = Attack Total (14)
Sarah: Support (5) + Dice Roll (6) = 11
Sarah loses her line, all units on that line are removed, and Josh moves his line units onto Sarah’s old line.
Josh ends his turn.
Player Characters
If both players want to be a character from the same side (i.e., both want to be a Bandit), players must decide who is what color and who goes first. This can be settled by both rolling the same die, the highest number gets to choose what color and who goes first.
On the other side of the board there is a Desert Map. This map is played almost exactly the same as the town side of the board with a few minor differences.
Collecting Coins
In this mode coins are collected by all the spaces between the Player Token and furthest unit, this includes the space that the Player Token is sitting on.
Placing Units
When placing a unit from traveling the unit must be able to be placed on a space adjacent to the Player Token. If there are no spaces available, the unit will have to wait until this phase next turn to be placed on the board. Remember, you can place units directly into a mount at the cost of a movement.
Purchasing Units
Units are purchased in the same way as the original game mode and require the same amount of travel time.
Movement
You are still only able to move only 3 units a turn, the difference in this new map is every space can only hold 1 unit (aside from mounted units). Friendly units can pass through one another as long as they don’t land in the same space, but cannot pass through enemy units.
Action and Combat Rolls
Action and Combat Rolls are the same as the original game with minor changes.
Sniper: The Sniper unit no longer has access to the whole board, the Sniper cannot shoot through rock or snipe any units that are standing on one of the two bush spaces. Below, the image shows the available sniping spots from the Sniper’s position shaded in red.
Intel: It doesn’t matter where on the board the Intel unit is, if its icon is rolled, any units that are in play can be moved to an open spot adjacent to the Intel unit.
Attacking: When attacking or defending, units are still able to attack with up to 3 units at once. The way this works is whenever a friendly and foe unit come into contact, like the regular game the player can state he is attacking the enemy units. The player must say what units are attacking and who they are attacking.
Both players can bring up to two other friendly adjacent units in the fight to aid the main attacking unit. Be warned, all units that are involved in the fight will be killed if you lose the roll. If a player rolls the dice before stating what units are going to aid in the fight, the unit attacking or being attacked is automatically assumed to be fighting alone and can no longer have aid from nearby allies.
The following people made this game possible.
Game Concept: Darryl Hardin
Artwork: William Black
Play Testers: Scott Hardin, Eric Hardin, Gary Robinson, Eli Shirley
Homestead is ©2012 Boundless Distraction. All rights reserved.
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