Clank!: Catacombs rules refresher

Read the refresher

You win by grabbing an Artifact from deep in the catacombs, getting back to the Crypt without being knocked out, and finishing with the most points. You get there by playing cards from your own deck to move through tunnels, uncover new tiles, acquire better cards, fight monsters, and loot rooms, all while keeping your Clank low so the dragon has fewer of your cubes to draw when it attacks.

For setup, put the Dragon marker on the Rage Track space that matches your player count. Split the square tiles by their backs. Shuffle the twenty two darker Depths tiles into a face down stack. Shuffle the six lighter tiles, return two to the box unseen, and put the other four on top of the Depths stack, so the first four tiles discovered are always safe ones. The bank holds the gold and Lockpicks, the five white Ghost cubes, and the Dragon Bag with the twenty four black dragon cubes inside. Stack the Artifacts face up by value, with the five point Artifact on top and the twenty point Artifact on the bottom. Shuffle the major secrets, minor secrets, and Prisoners into separate face down piles. On the Market board, stack two Backpacks, two Blood Amulets, three Burglar's Kits, and three Crowns, with the ten point Crown on top. Put the starting tile in the middle with either side up. Place the three Monkey Idols on the Monkey Shrine room, and put one Mastery token per player near the Crypt. Set out the Reserve: the Goblin, plus stacks of Mercenary, Explore, and Secret Tome. Deal six cards from the Dungeon Deck to form the Dungeon Row, replacing any card with a Dragon Attack symbol and shuffling those back in. Each player takes their thirty colored cubes, puts their pawn on the Crypt, takes three Lockpicks, and gets a ten card starting deck of six Burgle, two Stumble, one Sidestep, and one Scramble. Draw five cards. The sneakiest player goes first, or pick someone at random, and play goes clockwise. The first player puts three Clank cubes in the Clank area, the second puts two, the third puts one, and the fourth puts none. If any card in the starting Dungeon Row has Arrive text, resolve it before the first turn.

Play is simply turns going clockwise. On your turn you start with five cards and must play all of them, in any order you like. As you play them, they generate resources, and you may take any action as many times as you can pay for it, either between card plays or after you have played everything. When you are done, you end your turn in three steps. First, put your play area into your discard pile and draw five new cards. Second, refill the Dungeon Row back up to six cards. Third, if any of those new cards shows a Dragon Attack symbol, the dragon attacks once.

The main resources are Skill, Swords, and Boots. They pool together across cards, and you can split one card's output across several actions. Anything unspent at the end of your turn is wasted. Gold goes into your supply and is worth a point each at the end. When a card says to make Clank, add that many of your cubes to the Clank area, or skip it if your supply is empty. Negative Clank removes your cubes from the Clank area. Any negative Clank you cannot use yet carries through the rest of your turn, then is lost. Card draws always come from your own deck. When your deck runs out, shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck, but not the cards in your play area. A card's conditional effects apply no matter what order you play things in.

Skill is spent on two actions. Acquire a Card takes a blue banner card from the Dungeon Row or a yellow banner card from the Reserve and puts it in your discard pile. Its Acquire text, if it has any, happens right then. Use a Device pays Skill for a purple banner card in the Row. You do its Use text immediately, and the card goes to the Dungeon discard pile. Swords are spent to Fight a Monster, the red banner cards. You get the Defeat reward, and the monster goes to the Dungeon discard pile. The Goblin in the Reserve is never discarded, so it can be fought again and again, even several times in one turn. Cards taken from the Row are not replaced until the end of your turn.

Boots are for Movement from room to room. Every tunnel costs at least one Boot, and a tunnel with Footprint icons costs two. Each Monster icon on a tunnel deals you one damage as you pass, unless you spend a Sword per icon to prevent it. A Lock icon requires you to spend a Lockpick, which you place on the tunnel. That tunnel is then permanently unlocked for everyone, and if a tunnel crosses two locks on two tiles, you need a Lockpick for each. One way tunnels, shaped like arrows, can only be used in the arrow's direction.

When a tunnel runs off the edge of the dungeon with no tile beyond, moving along it discovers a new tile. Take the top tile from the stack, reveal it, and place it next to the tile you are leaving, in any rotation, but only in an empty space. It must share a full edge with at least one other tile. Along the long edges of the starting tile, it lines up with either the top half or the bottom half. The new tile completes your tunnel and may add icons to it that you must deal with. If you lack the Boots or Lockpicks those icons require, place the tile in a different orientation, though you may pause mid move to acquire, use a device, or fight to get what you need. When the stack runs out, no more tiles can be discovered.

Rooms matter. When you place a tile with an Artifact room, put the top Artifact from the stack there. If the room shows one or two plus icons, place the Artifact one or two down from the top instead. If there are not enough Artifacts below the top, place the highest value one that remains, and if the stack is empty, nothing is placed. Reward rooms give you something on entry: a minor secret, a Monkey Idol, gold, or one healing. You get each room's reward only once per turn. A Crystal Cave exhausts you, so you cannot spend any more Boots that turn, even if you teleport afterward. Entering a Portal sends you out of any other portal in the dungeon, and the whole trip from room to room costs just one Boot, though tunnel icons still apply. Teleporting costs no Boots, ignores tunnel icons, can go against one way arrows, and can even discover a new tile. When you place a haunted tile, add a Ghost cube to the Clank area.

Several room actions are available once you are there. Take an Artifact picks up the Artifact in your room. You do not have to take it on entry, and you cannot take one if you already hold one, unless you have a Backpack, which lets you carry one more. Taking an Artifact moves the Dragon marker up one space on the Rage Track. In a Market room, Buy From the Market costs seven gold per item. The Blood Amulet requires at least five damage to buy, and a Crown buyer always gets the most valuable Crown left. In a room with a Chest, Library, or Prison, spend a Lockpick to cover it, and it can never be picked again. A Chest gives you a random major secret. A Library puts a free Secret Tome from the Reserve into your discard pile. A Prison frees two random Prisoners, which you keep for scoring. You cannot pick one if nothing is left to take, though you can free the last Prisoner if only one remains. At a Wayshrine, you may place one of your cubes from your supply on an empty space and take gold equal to the number of Wayshrines you have marked, so one gold for your first, two for your second, and so on. You cannot mark the same Wayshrine twice or mark one with an empty supply.

A Dragon Attack puts every cube in the Clank area into the Dragon Bag. Then draw as many cubes as the Rage Track shows, plus one more for each Danger card in the Dungeon Row. Black cubes are set aside. Each colored cube is one damage to its owner. Each Ghost cube deals one damage to every player and goes back to the Clank area after the attack. Undrawn cubes stay in the bag. Artifacts, and some secrets and Prisoners, push the Rage Track higher. Damage goes on your Health Meter: attacks use the drawn cubes, and other damage uses cubes from your supply. You cannot voluntarily take damage, such as walking through a Monster icon without a Sword, if your supply is empty or it would fill your meter. Healing returns a cube to your supply. A full Health Meter knocks you out.

You escape by arriving at the Crypt with an Artifact, and you cannot return there empty handed. Finish your turn, then remove your pawn before the Dungeon Row is refilled, and take a Mastery token worth twenty points. If you are knocked out, lay your pawn on its side. You score nothing if you have no Artifact or if you were knocked out in the Depths, which means the darker tiles plus the top half of the starting tile. Once you have escaped or been knocked out, you add no more Clank, take no dragon damage, and are unaffected by cards that hit all players. On each of your turns, instead of playing, put all the cubes in the Clank area into the bag and draw exactly four, or six in a two player game, ignoring the Rage Track and Danger. Deal that damage as in a normal attack. The game ends immediately with all remaining players knocked out if the Dungeon Row cannot be refilled or the Dragon Bag is empty after an attack. Otherwise it ends once everyone has escaped or been knocked out. Each player who scores adds up their Artifact's value, the points on their other tokens including the Mastery token, one point per gold, and the points on the cards in their deck, hand, and discard pile. Most points wins, and if tied, the tied player with the more valuable Artifact wins.

A turn, played out

You stand in a room on a darker Depths tile, holding no Artifact, with 1 Lockpick left of your 3. One of your cubes already sits in the Clank area, beside 2 from the player to your left and 1 white Ghost cube. The Dragon marker is on 3, and the Dungeon Row holds 1 Danger card. You play all five cards. Together they give 4 Boots, 2 Swords, 3 Skill and 2 Clank. You add 2 cubes, so 3 of yours now wait in the Clank area. You start with Skill. A blue banner card in the Row costs 3, so you acquire it into your discard pile. Its slot stays empty until your turn ends. Now you move. The tunnel toward a Wayshrine room shows Footprints and 1 Monster icon. It costs 2 Boots, and you spend a Sword so you take no damage. You marked a Wayshrine on another tile earlier. So you place a cube from your supply on this one and take 2 gold. You have 2 Boots and 1 Sword left. From here, a tunnel runs off the dungeon's edge with a Lock icon. You spend your last Lockpick and leave it on the tunnel, so that tunnel is now open to everyone. Then you draw the top tile from the stack. It has an Artifact room, marked with one plus icon, so the second Artifact from the top of the stack goes there. You place the tile against the one you are leaving. Turned this way, it adds Footprints and 1 Monster icon to your tunnel. That costs exactly 2 Boots and your last Sword. If you had come up short, you would have turned the tile to another side. You enter and take the Artifact. The Dragon marker climbs from 3 to 4. Now your turn ends. You discard your play area and draw 5. The Row refills its 1 empty slot, and the new card shows a Dragon Attack. Every cube in the Clank area goes into the bag. The Rage Track shows 4, plus 1 for the Danger card, so 5 cubes are drawn. They come out as 3 black, 1 of yours and the Ghost. The black cubes are set aside. You take 2 damage, and the player to your left takes 1 from the Ghost. Then the Ghost goes back to the Clank area.