This War of Mine: The Board Game

The original base game supports 1–6 jointly controlling all characters, rather than one character per player. Choose a leader randomly. Standard setup draws one red-bordered and two black-bordered characters; no more than four characters may be in play.

Follow the Journal to set up the basic shelter, decks, three available locations and starting storage. Build the Event deck with its prescribed Chapter and Ending Event cards. Start characters at Hunger 2. Read numbered scripts only when directed; a coloured-circle number alone is not an instruction.

Proceed through seven phases: Morning, Day Actions, Dusk, Evening, Scavenging, Night Raid and Dawn. Morning resolves the top Event-deck card. Chapters and objectives follow their own instructions.

Day Actions has three stages, with at most one available action per character in each. Black state dots block specified stages; duplicate blocks do not stack. Assign everyone and pay costs before resolving the stage simultaneously, so newly produced supplies cannot fund another action in that same stage.

Clear, craft or use fittings on accessible shelter spaces; obstacles restrict routes. Craft from available Fitting cards and pay the requirements. Cards in Ideas are not freely available for direct construction, and new fittings require legal placement.

At Dusk allocate water and food. Normally each character drinks one water; missing water causes Hunger or Misery according to the black die. Canned Food lowers Hunger by two, Raw Food by one, Vegetables maintain it, and no food raises it by one. Resolve shortages through these consequences.

At Evening assign each character to a bed, the floor, guard duty or scavenging. Each bed holds one and resets Fatigue; the floor lowers it by two. Guards and scavengers gain one Fatigue. At most three scavenge; use the special instruction if nobody guards. Fatigue reaching four from assignment takes effect after completing that task.

The scavengers select one available location and equipment, then resolve its specified Unknown deck of Exploration cards. Noise checks may trigger Residents. An empty Unknown deck ends exploration automatically; some cards permit an earlier end. Put finds in the Findings Pile, then choose what returns within combined Inventory capacity, including equipment already carried.

Resolve the Night Raid before scavengers return, using guards and weapons to reduce losses and wounds. At Dawn return the party and supplies, assign treatment and resolve Fate. Treatment follows Fate effects; resolve Wait effects and then discard Wait tokens. Continue with Narrative Actions and other instructed follow-up.

Survive as a group and judge the result through Chapter and Final Objectives, rather than individual scores. Requirements may be fulfilled as instructed before their Chapter resolves, but rewards/penalties wait for that resolution. After Dawn, use the SAVE sheet and saving procedure to preserve and later restore characters, supplies and board state.