Lewis & Clark: The Expedition

Objective and finish: Each player races west from St. Louis toward Fort Clatsop on the Pacific side. The Scout marks expedition progress. When a player camps, they win immediately if the Scout is at or beyond Fort Clatsop and their Time tokens do not exceed the number printed on the Scout’s space. Reaching the finish does not itself end the game; the player must satisfy the time threshold at a camping check.

Setup and starting crew: Prepare the shared stocks of wood, fur, food, equipment, canoes, horses, and Indians according to player count. Each player takes an Expedition board, Scout, and six starting Character cards, then places starting goods and an Indian on the boats as directed. Put each Scout at St. Louis. Shuffle the Encountered Character deck and arrange five available characters by Strength for recruitment. The rules recommend two to four players for learning; five-player games are intended for experienced groups.

Turn structure: On a turn, a player must perform one action. Recruitment and camping are optional phases and may both occur in the same turn, before or after the required action, but they must be performed separately rather than simultaneously. The required action can come from playing a Character card or sending Indians to an action in the shared Village. Choose with the effect, required resources, action strength, and the card’s later recovery in mind.

Character actions and strength: A Character cannot power its own action with its own Strength. Use the back of another Character, one to three Indians from your Expedition, or another card plus one or two Indians, for a total Strength of one to three. Repeat the active Character’s action up to that many times. The supporting card’s action is unavailable while it remains face down, and both cards stay in the Playing Area until recovered by camping.

Village actions and Indians: A player may send Indians from the expedition to the shared Village board to perform its available actions, such as collecting basic resources, transforming resources, or using a village ability. Each space and the available Indian supply have limits. Indians sent to the Village are no longer on the player’s boats and must later be obtained or returned through the relevant rules. They provide an alternative to Character cards, but carrying them also affects camping time.

Resources and transport: Wood, fur, food, and equipment are primary resources. Canoes and horses are transformed resources used for the route and transport. Goods sit on boat spaces on the Expedition board, which has limited capacity; some boats provide spaces for goods or people, and occupied spaces marked with time affect the next camp. Players may reorganize people and goods during the expedition to reduce unnecessary time loss when they camp.

Recruiting a Character: Once per turn, choose a Character in the Encounter Journal and pay Fur equal to its journal-position cost and Equipment equal to its Strength. You may discard at most one hand card to the shared discard pile to reduce the Equipment cost by its printed recruitment discount. Add the recruited Character directly to your hand. Slide the other Journal cards down and add a new card beside the deck; do not reorder the display by Strength when refilling.

Recovering cards by camping: First return Indians from your Character cards to your boats. Calculate Camp Time from the cards still in hand at that moment plus the time costs of loaded boats, and take that many Time tokens. Only then return all cards from your Playing Area to your hand. Newly recovered cards do not add to this camp’s hand-card cost. Existing Time tokens remain; later movement clears them before advancing the Scout. Camping does not move the Scout backward and is also the point at which victory is checked.

Route and terrain: Character and Village actions provide movement. Route spaces have different terrain and obstacles, and players pay the required resources or use the appropriate transport ability to cross them. Canoes, horses, and character effects help with specific demands. Movement first spends its terrain value to remove existing Time tokens; once those are cleared, remaining movement advances the Scout and may pass other Scouts. Coordinate progress, recruitment, resource conversion, and camping.

End, variants, and solo: In multiplayer, victory is checked when a player camps. The Scout must be at or beyond Fort Clatsop and Time tokens must be no greater than the value printed on that space; otherwise play continues. The solo variant uses the same 2020 time-marker rules and races Alexander Mackenzie: camp at or beyond Fort Clatsop with a qualifying Time-token count before Mackenzie arrives. Optional route changes and solo setup follow page 15.