Nemesis: Retaliation

The core game supports one to five players. Standard semi-cooperative play reveals one Mission Task and gives each player one Mission Objective and one Private Objective. Winning requires escaping or hibernating, surviving the final procedures, and fulfilling the retained objective. Several players may win, or none. Solo and cooperative play use the separate task system described below.

Each round has Player, Intruder, Event, and Cleanup phases. Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, players take short turns: normally perform two actions, then resolve oxygen loss and fire damage. Players who have not passed keep taking turns until everyone passes; two actions is not a player's entire round allowance.

Pay the basic Action-card costs shown on the character board: normal movement, shooting, bursting, and item use generally discard one card; room use and cautious movement generally discard two. Playing an Action card has no additional basic card fee, but its effects may require further payment. Cards discarded as payment do not resolve their abilities. Actions marked Not In Combat cannot be used while sharing a room with an intruder.

Passing is an action, not an automatic result of running out of cards. Discard any number of hand cards, including Contaminations, and skip further turns that round, while retaining eligible Reactions. Cleanup passes the starting token clockwise, refills each hand to five, and advances time. When a required draw finds an empty Action deck, reshuffle the discard pile.

At the end of each of your turns, including the turn in which you pass, lose one oxygen if that section's life support is inactive. Active life support does not refill personal oxygen. An oxygen supply token restores three, to a maximum of seven. Once Suffocating, the next oxygen loss kills you; gaining oxygen or ending a turn in a section with active life support removes Suffocating.

Characters move from one room through an adjacent corridor into another room and never stop in corridors. Intruders in the departure room or chosen corridor cause opportunity attacks first, to a maximum of three. Entering a discovered room still requires a Noise roll even if characters or intruders are present. Undiscovered locations use an Exploration card to place rooms, corridors, markers, and entrance effects; only explicit effects waive noise.

A numbered Noise result affects adjacent corridors with that number. For each corridor, resolve these checks in order: if it contains an intruder, move the largest one into the room; if it contains a Noise marker, remove and resolve it through a bag draw and help sheet; if it has no Noise marker, place one. No matching corridor means no effect. A Hazard result instead uses the bag's room procedure. Intruders newly entering a room immediately attempt to attack a character there.

Shooting targets an intruder in your room and requires a working, loaded ranged weapon in hand. Normally deal one hit, then roll: a numbered result no greater than accumulated hits or a critical symbol kills an Adult; only the specific ammo result spends ammunition. Bursting targets an adjacent corridor without a closed door blocking it, always spends ammo, and distributes Burst-die hits. Corridor Adults and Larvae die to one hit each; a Drone needs two hits assigned in that burst. The Queen uses a separate health deck.

New Contamination cards enter your discard pile, later occupying hand space without paying for actions. At game end, safe escaped or hibernating characters without a Larva draw their entire deck and discard pile into hand and scan Contaminations for the Infection Procedure. Characters with a Larva gain one Contamination, reshuffle their whole deck, and draw four for Eclosion; any Contamination drawn kills them. Escaping alone does not secure victory.

The game ends after round fourteen or when every character is dead, escaped, or hibernating, followed by final checks. Characters still in the facility without hibernating die; facility destruction also kills hibernating characters. Official solo and cooperative play draws one Solo/Coop task per character instead of normal objectives. Complete every task and have at least one survivor, satisfy repeated requirements separately as specified, and apply the FAQ restriction on incompatible tasks.