How to Play Dark Souls: The Board Game

[Music] [Music] [Music] this episode brought to you by meatball Realty comm your source for high quality custom board game inserts meeple Realty think inside the box welcome to board online board offline today we've got a how to play video for you we're gonna be going through Dark Souls the board game now this is based off of a really really difficult and really cool video game for Jacob I'm not sure working about originally I play Dark Souls 2 on the Xbox 360 haven't played Dark Souls 1 or 3 but let's get into the board game itself I'm gonna show you how to play Dark Souls as you're watching this video if you decide that Dark Souls is something you might want to try out check out in the description below a link where you can purchase the game and a small bit of the proceeds from that will go to support the channel alright let's get to how to play now Dark Souls is a game of exploration advancement and death that culminates in an epic boss battle players will explore the initial area and will eventually face a mini boss if they manage you to feed the mini boss then they'll explore an additional area and if they manage to survive that then they'll finally face off against the main boss first the players take the mini boss and main boss tiles and set them aside then the players locate the bonfire tile and set it in the main play area the player then takes the remaining six tiles shuffles them up and places them out randomly in any order as long as it's leading farther and farther away from the bonfire tile players should make sure that the doorways align properly the fog gate token is placed on an empty portion of a wall farthest from the bonfire the two tiles happen to be tied for the farthest and the player chooses which tile will have the fog gate token on it the remaining two tiles are placed back in the box the bonfire has a limited number of sparks based on the number of players which you can find at the bottom of page 8 of the rulebook the player places the spark dial with the appropriate number of sparks on the bonfire when the players are defeated or choose to rest the dial is turned down one number if the dial ever reads zero the characters can no longer rest there and the next time a character is killed the game is over the players now select the mini-boss they would like to fight later in the game locate the mini-boss miniature health dao boss data card boss behavior cards and boss treasure cards set all these atoms aside with the boss tiles and they will be used later next locate the encounter cards separate them into level one two and three shuffle each deck individually and then locate the boss data card at the bottom of the ball static card players will find the levels of encounters they'll face before reaching that boss the players then draw the indicated number of level one level two and level three encounter cards in this case 0 and places each of them on a tile players should place the level 1 encounter cards on the tiles nearest the bonfire tile and as the encounter cards are higher level basically placed farther from the bonfire so each player now selects one of the four characters the player then locates the character board the character model and the starting equipment we'll look at these cards more in detail a little later but for now just know that this symbol right here indicates which slot that card will go in and place it in the appropriate slot the player then places an Estus flask luck token and heroic action token on the player board finally the player places one white LevelUp token in each square hole for the base level of strength dexterity intelligence and faith next the player should find the common treasure cards all the treasure cards have this symbol in common treasure cards have the exact same symbol in the top right corner the players also need to find the 5 class treasure cards for each character which again will have this symbol on the back but have the characters symbol over the regular treasure symbol in the top right corner shuffle the five treasure cards for each character into the main treasure deck place the treasure deck here on the treasure deck section of the bonfire Tao the player should locate the legendary treasure cards and the transposed treasure cards for each character and set them aside for later use finally the player separates all the tokens by their type and places them within easy reach of all players each tile has one or more doorways which allow characters to travel between tiles in this case there are three doorways on the tile and every tile other than the bonfire tile has a number of circular symbols on it called nodes as you can see here nodes should be treated in the same way as spaces are treated in most other board games up to three models may be on a node at any given time each node is one of three different types basic nodes most common type of node and any basic node adjacent to a doorway is considered an entry node spawn nodes which are these red ones are where enemy models are placed at the start of an encounter terrain nodes which are these purple ones are where terrain features may be placed at the start of an encounter the mini-boss spawn node is only located on the mini-boss tile and is where the mini-boss is placed at the start of that encounter likewise the main boss spawn node is found only on the main boss tile well in an encounter each model must be on a node when a model moves it moves from its current node to any adjacent node an adjacent node is any node located directly next to the models current node horizontally diagonally or vertically so in this case adjacent nodes to this node would be this one this one and this one attacks and effects have a maximum range indicated by this icon here and here rage is counted from model to model whether friendly or enemy range zero as with the Warriors battle-ax means the models must be on the same node the silver night great bowman has an unlimited range however if he had a range one he could be no farther away than one node if he had ranged to no farther away than two nodes and so on as mentioned earlier up to three models may share a single node if there are already three models on a node and another model moves on to it the players must push a model we'll discuss exactly how pushing works later but that will reduce the count on the node back down to three nodes also may never have more than one boss on them at a time if one boss moves on to a node with another boss and players must push the boss that was on the node first let's take a closer look at exactly what the player will find on the character Gordon here we've got the name and illustration here is their heroic action the character can't perform as well as the slot for the heroic action token equipment slots for the character's armor hands and backup the character's endurance bar the character's stat progression the character's taunt level luck token slot Estus flask token slot and ember token slot let's talk about the heroic action for a moment each heroic action is a special limited use ability that can be used during encounters when it is used flip the characters heroic action token over from the ready side to the used side once the heroic action is used it may not be used again until the heroic action token is flipped back to the race this is done each time the characters rest at the bonfire the stat progression area lists the base stats for the character as well as the upgrade tiers for those stats each character has four upgradeable stats strength dexterity intelligence and faith these stats determine the weapons and armor that character can use based on the items minimum stats found the left side of the items card for instance the northern armor has a minimum requirement of 16 strength and eight dexterity and zero intelligence and zero faith and you can see that each of those stats is at least at the minimum of those requirements over the course of the game the characters will increase their stats allowing them to equip better and better weapons and armor each character carries a single luck token which is ready at the start of the game during a player's attack block or dodge role she may flip the luck token to re-roll one single die once used it may not be used again until it is refreshed and just as with the heroic action tokens the luck tokens are refreshed when the characters rest at a bonfire each character carries a single Estus flask as well at the beginning of the game the esses flask is full during the characters activation the player may use the estus flask by flipping it over to remove all black and red cubes from the endurance bar once used it may not be used again until it's refilled and just as with the other tokens its refilled by resting at the bonfire a character's combat abilities are primarily derived from the equipment she carries at the start of the game the character will start with very basic equipment but as the game progresses the character will find better and better equipment making her more effective in combat let's take a look at exactly what comes on the equipment cards here you've got the name and illustration down here are the actions in the top right corner is the card type the icon below that indicates the equipment slot the card will go in the top left is the range below that are the stat requirements for the character and along the bottom are the block resist dodge and upgrade slots finally most cards in the game will have the set symbol which just indicates whether the card came from the base game of Dark Souls or one of the expansions will discuss more about an items actions a little bit later but for now just know that for this action a player would spend zero stamina and roll - black dice whereas with this one they would spend - stamina world to black dice and hit every target on a node also often times an action may have an equipment modifier this is a fixed value that adds or subtracts from the die roll associated with the action so the Claymore with either one of these two actions whenever the file died roll the player would add one to it as previously mentioned armor goes in an armor slot any item with this symbol goes in a hand slot this symbol also indicates it is a one-handed item a player may hold up to two one-handed items at a time this symbol indicates the weapon is a two-handed item in order to hold a two-handed item the other hand slot must be empty a character is able to possess up to three weapons at any given time however any weapon is not actually being held must be placed in the backup slot the backup slot is the only equipment slot that can hold more than one weapon at a time as previously discussed range determines how far away a character may attack enemies or Syst allies it's important to note that some abilities will specify a different range than the equipment's base range so a soul stream the base range is 1 but with this ability - and with this 1/3 the block resists and dodge stats show what type of dice the player will roll to defend herself against damage during encounters the upgrade slots show how many times that item may be upgraded one special type of treasure that a player may find is the Ember card when the player finds this card she places an ember token on the ember token slot the ember token does not have to go on the character that actually located the Ember card instead it can go on any character that does not already have an ember token a character may never have more than one ember token so in the rare case that players find an ember card when all characters already have one shuffle the Ember card back into the treasure deck and draw a new treasure card to replace it when a character has an ember token any time she suffers three or more damage from an attack she reduces that damage by one if the party is ever defeated in an encounter the ember token is lost this is the bonfire tile as previously mentioned it serves as the base of operations for the party's exploration and the characters may return to it at any time they are not in an encounter there are no nodes on the bonfire tab because it is never the location for an encounter however it does contain numerous important features the bonfire itself holds the party's spark tile the treasure deck is located on this space next to the treasure deck is where the party keeps any discovered treasure not currently equipped to a character this is called the party's inventory this is the soul cache souls are the currency of Dark Souls and are used in numerous ways when interacting with the non player characters the soul cache starts with 0 Souls and less playing a solo game in which case it starts with 16 souls this is blacksmith Andre when the party returns to the bonfire between encounters they may visit Andre to purchase treasure change equipment and upgrade equipment to purchase equipment the player removes one soul from the soul cache and draws the top card of the treasure deck any character who meets the stat requirements may equip whatever item is drawn from the treasure deck if no character equips the item place it instead in the inventory players may purchase as much treasure as they can afford to change equipment a player may freely swap out any items on her character board with any items in the inventory as long as her character has the necessary stats Andre also allows players to upgrade their equipment to upgrade equipment the only cost is that the player needs to have found an upgrade card in the treasure deck each weapon and armor card indicates how many upgrades it can hold zero one or two as you can see each of the starting pieces equipment for the warrior cannot be upgraded however if the warrior was using the great mace it can be upgraded possible to separate times there is no soul costs associated with upgrading equipment and when a player upgrades an equipment card the upgrade card is placed directly beneath the equipment card like this so the upgrades rules can be clearly read this symbol indicates that the card is an upgrade card for weapons and this symbol is an upgrade card for armor upgrades also have their own stat requirements that a character must meet in addition to the stats found on the equipment card itself an armor of grade card may be freely added or removed from armor when players are interacting with blacksmith Andre however players must be more discerning with weapon upgrades once a weapon is upgraded the change is permanent and may not be removed the fire keeper is where players can level up and also restore used luck tokens to level up a player must spend souls now to go from the base level two Tier one is two souls tier 1 the tier two is four Souls and tier 2 to tier three is eight souls it's also possible for a player to ready her luck token by spending a single soul but don't forget the player can also ready her luck token by resting at the bonfire and speaking of resting at the bonfire the party may choose to rest any time they are on the bonfire tile also if a party is defeated in an encounter at that point the characters must rest at the bonfire when the party rested the bonfire the players resolved the following steps first turn the spark dial down one number refill all Estus flasks ready all heroic actions ready all luck tokens and turn any face-up encounter cards facedown the goal of Dark Souls is of course to move through the dungeon and defeat the mini-boss and eventually the main boss the bosses are always located through the fog gate the party moves from tile tile through the doorways if the party moves on to a towel with a down facing encounter card the players flip the encounter card initiating and encounter however if instead the towels encounter card has already been flipped face-up as monsters dealt with then players may move freely through the tile in order to pass through the fog gate the players will need to defeat the encounter found on that tile once that encounter is defeated players may choose to enter the fog gate and face the boss or explore elsewhere however if the players rested the bonfire and the encounter card is turned face down it will need to be defeated again before players may access the fog gate again the encounter card contains all the information Cerie to set up an encounter here you have the name of the encounter card burned gardens in this case the first two icons show which enemies will spawn on which spawn nodes so a large Hollow Soldier will spawn there and two silver knights oarsmen will spawn there players will need to find the corresponding enemy data cards and place them nearby place the indicated terrain tokens on the terrain nodes in this case a treasure chest on this node and a barrel on this node barrels should be placed initially on this side intact barrels block movement and block pushes a character can walk run or dodge into a node with a barrel but must spend one additional stamina to do so also when the character moves into that node it destroys the barrel and the player should flip it over at the end of an encounter flip all barrel tokens back to the undamaged side chest also block movement if the party defeats the encounter flip the token to the open side and draw two cards from the treasure deck any capable character may immediately equip the discovered treasure unequipped items will go into the inventory and once opened the chests are never flipped back to the close side grave stones represented by this symbol block movement also at the start of a boss encounter the party gains information about the boss for each discovered grave stone if the encounter card includes this trap icon at the bottom of the card then the encounter will include these trap tokens randomly select and place one trap token on each basic node excluding the entry nodes here and here as well as here and here and finally here the first time a character moves on to a node with the trap took and flip it over and resolve it accordingly in this case nothing happens however if the token is not blank the player suffers the indicated damage or attempts to dodge trap damage cannot be blocked and can only be dodged once tripped a trap will not cause any further damage during an encounter at the end of an encounter flip all trip trap tokens facedown once again trap tokens have no effect on enemies and enemies cannot trigger them once a player has set up the encounter she places her character model on any of the entry douds beside the door she just entered if playing with four characters remember no more than three models can be on a single node next decide which character led the party through the door and place the aggro token with that character's model finally the battle begins during an encounter enemy models and characters take turns activating and enemies will always activate first when the enemies activate they all activate at the same time however when characters activate they activate one at a time for instance in a game with the knight warrior and Herald for example the activation may go enemy's knight enemies warrior enemies Harold once the final hero activates the order would then return to the beginning during the very first character activation of the game players may choose which character is going to activate first however after that for the rest of the game activation is always clockwise around the table when a new encounter begins the first character to activate is the character who would have activated next in turn order when the previous encounter ended players will be able to easily keep track of this because whether an encounter ends in victory or defeat the first activation token is given to the player who is next in turn order if the party defeats all enemies and no characters are killed the party wins the encounter remove all black and red cubes from all character boards then if the encounter is not a boss encounter add two souls per character to the soul cache so in a two-player game you would add four souls on the other hand if the encounter is a boss encounter add one soul per character to the soul cash for each spark remaining in the bonfire so in a two character game with four sparks left in the bonfire the players would add eight souls if on the other hand a character is killed during the encounter the party immediately loses the encounter when the party is defeated place all characters on the bonfire Tao and place all soul tokens from the soul cash on the node where the character was killed the party must now rest as previously discussed following the steps previously discussed to regain the lost souls from the node one character must move on to the node if any character dies before these souls are retrieved the souls are discarded and lost forever it's important to note that once an encounter is begun the party may not leave until they either are victorious or are defeated when a character or enemy makes an attack the model that must defend against the attack is the target most attacks will have a single target some target all opposing models on a single node and some boss attacks can even target opposing models on multiple nodes characters will never target other characters and likewise enemies will never target other enemies a character is considered to be hit by an attack even if it deals zero damage due to block or resist therefore the character could still suffer condition or be pushed even if it suffered no damage however if a character successfully dodges the attack she has not hit by the attack and therefore suffers none of those conditions the endurance bar is used to track a character stamina and health when no cubes are on the track as you see here the players at full health and full stamina when a character spends one stamina add one black cube to the left side of the track as you might expect if the player later spends two additional stamina add two more black cubes to the left most spots in the track when a character suffers one damage add one red cube to the rightmost spot Lautrec any space not covered represents the character's ability to continue to endure additional damage or spend stamina if all ten of a character's endurance bar spaces have cubes that character has been killed and the party is immediately defeated when an effect allows a character to gain stamina or gain health the player removes the appropriate number of cubes from the endurance bar so if a character gained two stamina two black cubes would be removed from the endurance bar if there are no cubes to remove then gaining salmon 'or gaining health has no effect each enemy type in the game has a data card which breaks down exactly how the enemy works in the game enemy data cards include the following information name and artwork threat level attack range dodge difficulty block and resist values behavior icons starting health and enemy icon moving and attacking in Dark Souls will frequently push models onto adjacent nodes if a character is pushed that movement does not cost the character stamina boss models cannot be pushed by characters in fact the only way a boss model could ever be pushed is if another boss model moves under the same node as that boss if this push icon appears on an attack the model or models hit by the attack are pushed the push models are placed on an adjacent node that is farther from the attacking model if there are multiple possible nodes farther from the attacker as you see here then the players choose the node if the push icon appears on an enemy's movement then immediately at the beginning of that enemies movement move each character on the enemies node to an adjacent node of the player's choice each time that enemy moves on to a node with a character immediately move that character on to another adjacent node when an enemies push icon has a number on it like this one does that means that the very act of pushing the character will cause that much damage however if the enemy starts his activation on the same note as a character and that initial push does not cause damage only subsequent pushes when the enemy moves onto a node with a character will cause damage this sort of damage is just like any other damage and may be blocked or dodged some attacks inflict conditions on their target the conditions in the game are as follows when a model has a bleed token and suffers one or more damage it suffers an additional two damage then the bleed token is removed at the end of a models activation if it has a poison token it suffers one damage a character where the Frostbite token must spend one additional stamina each time it walks runs or dodges an enemy where the Frostbite token has the move of value on its move icon reduced to one a character where the stagger token must spend one additional stamina to use her weapons actions an enemy with stagger has its damage values on its attack icons reduced by 1 when an attack with one of these condition icons hits its target place the corresponding condition token on the model or models affected a model can never have more than one token of each condition so in this case it could not have a second frostbite condition however it could for instance also have a poison and stagger condition poison frostbite and stagger tokens are removed from the model they are on when the model ends its activation remember that a bleed token is removed after it causes its model to suffer additional damage also no model will maintain a condition after the end of an encounter when a character starts their activation the following occurs the character gains to stamina the character gains the aggro token and the character may swap items between his backup slot and hand slots then after completing those three steps the character may attack and then move or move in an attack keep in mind the character may move before or after attack but not both once the character has resolved both its attack and movement then the character's activation ends and a next enemy activation begins so let's talk a bit about character movement characters have three methods of voluntary movement once per activation a character may move to one adjacent node without spending stamina this is called walking after a player has walked she may then move any number of additional nodes per activation at a cost of one stamina so after moving to this node the player can then move one more node to be in the same node as this enemy which would cost the player one stamina this is called running the third type of movement actually occurs during the enemy's activation when a character is attacked by the enemy the character may move one node in order to dodge the incoming attack this represents the character diving into a role during an activation a character may make up to one attack with each weapon she is holding in her hand slots to make an attack the character targets an enemy within range of one of her weapons as you can see the battle axe has zero range she then chooses one of that weapons attack options and spends the stamina equal to the listed stamina cost of that attack so if she chose the first attack it would cost zero but let's say she chose the second attack it cost to stamina she then rolls the dice and matching the quantity and color of those shown on the chosen tech in this case two black dice each sword that comes up on the rolled die represents a single damage most weapons cause physical damage and the players will subtract the targets black value from the damage total so the player rolled for damage the Silver Knights oarsman's black value is two so the player dealt two damage elemental weapons and spells caused magical damage represented by this yellow symbol here these attacks will instead be subtracted from the targets resist value so in this case the resist value is 1 and if using this first attack the player had rolled four swords three damage will be dealt to the silver knight swordsman instead once the correct amount of damage is determined the player places that number of wound tokens on the enemy however of course in this case the enemy only has one health and so three damage would have killed him any time the total wound tokens the enemy has suffered is equal to or greater than its health value it is destroyed and removed from the tile though many weapons deal only physical or magical damage some weapons have additional abilities the icon in between the three dice and the push icon is called the node icon attacks with the node icon target all enemies on a single node within range instead of targeting just one enemy the player will make a single attack role and they compare it to each of the enemies block or resist values as appropriate the shaft icon seen on the end of the action here indicates that the weapon may not be used against targets at range zero as previously mentioned sometimes a weapons range will differ based on action this weapon has a bass range of 1 but if the player were to use this final action it has a range of 3 an attack with the shift icon allows the player to move up to the indicated number of nodes either before or after the attack depending on the placement of the icon in this case it would be after the attack this form of movement calls zero additional stamina and does not replace the character's ability to walk or run and the repeat icon allows the character to use that entire weapon option the number of times indicated in the circle as previously mentioned all enemy models activate during every enemy activation starting with the highest threat level animate continuing to the lowest threat level enemy for enemies with equal threat levels the players may choose the order that they activate none buffs enemies follow the icons on the behavior cards and the icons are resolved from left to right the enemy movement icon determines exactly how an enemy will move frequently other smaller icons will appear around the movement icon modifying the movement when an enemy is moving toward a model it will stop its movement when it is on the same node as its target when an enemy is moving away from a target it will stop its movement when there are no nodes farther from the target let's take a look at the different symbols of player may encounter around the enemy movement icon the number found on the movement icon in this case a 2 indicates the number of nodes the enemy will move the location the number is found on the icon indicates if the enemy will move toward its target away from a start or to the left or right of its target in this case the enemy is moving toward its target this circular icon indicates the enemy will move closer to the nearest character if multiple characters are tied for being the nearest the enemy moves towards the character with Agro token if the model of the agra token is not one of the tied characters than the enemy moves towards the character with the highest taunt level if the enemy would move multiple nodes the target is determined at the start of the movement not after each step this skull icon indicates the enemy model will target the character with the agro token and this is the push icon which we've already discussed earlier but just to recap this indicates the enemy pushes all characters on a node out of the way when it enters their node since this one has a number on it it also deals damage and since the enemy pushes all characters when it enters their node this attack will hit all characters on a node and once again and this is very important it's important to note that this damage will not apply to characters pushed off the enemies starting node just like with character attacks enemies have two different types of attack physical and magical and just like movement attacks can be modified by smaller icons located around the attack icon this icon indicates the attack will target the character with the agro token this icon indicates the attack will target the nearest character this icon indicates the attack will push the character after it's hit by this attack and this icon indicates all characters on the node are targeted damage dealt by enemy is a fixed value just like their block and resists values and can be found here for physical attack and here for magical attack player rolls the appropriate amount of dice either block or resist in this case resist since the attack is magical this time any sword icons rolled will be subtracted from the enemy's attack in this case the player got no sword results and so the full three damage will be dealt generally speaking the characters will gain the most block from armor but shields also we'll provide some protection it's also possible some weapons will add to the total number of dice rolled as you can see here the spiked mace adds one black dye to block as well as one black dye to resist anytime a player is targeted by an attack she may choose to dodge rather than block or resist as previously mentioned in this case if the player wanted to dodge the silver Knight swordsman's attack she would look here and see that it would take two successes to be a successful dodge the player would move the character to an adjacent space this costs one stamina and the player rolls and checks her successes in this case the player only got one success and therefore takes the full 5 damage indicated by the enemy's attack if the character had instead gotten 2 successes no damage will be done to the character whatsoever and remember the number of dice of character rolls is based on the number of dice indicated by the dodge values of the characters various equipment balls and counters are the culmination of the party's exploration and advancement a true test of the players skill and readiness there are two types of bosses as we've previously discussed main bosses and mini-bosses bosses follow many of the same rules as the other enemies but there are a few key differences the boss data card includes much of the same information as other enemies but does not detail the boss's behavior threat level block value resists value and starting health all function the same way they do on enemy data cards each boss has a special ability explained in this box and as explained earlier these icons indicate the difficulty of the encounters leading up to the boss fight finally this is the size of a behavior card deck and this is the heat up point which we'll discuss more in a moment a boss's behavior cards replace the behavior icons found on enemy cards on the behavior card you can find the name and some artwork the attack range the dodge difficulty and the behavior icons certain more powerful boss behavior cards will also have the heat up icon on it the attack range and dodge difficulty operate the same way they do for regular enemies any behavior card with the heat up icon is not used at the beginning of a boss encounter but will be added once the boss has been significantly damaged behavior cards without the heat up symbol are known as starting behavior cards and those with the heat up symbol are heat up behavior cards another way the boss is different from the regular enemies is their bases are divided into four distinct arcs front rear left and right bosses will always directly face an adjacent node with the center of its front arc lining up with the center of that node as you can see here this splits the tile into four areas defined by the four arcs each node on the tile is in at least one of these arcs nodes along the border as you can see here are considered to be in both arcs characters are therefore either in one or two of the bosses arcs so the warrior is in the front arc and the knight is in both the front arc and the right arc if a character is on the same node as the boss it must select one of the arcs to be in and cannot be in two when a character makes the initial move onto the same node as the boss it must stay in the same arc it was in prior to the move if the character was in two arcs prior to the move the player may choose spark she places the character in similarly when moving off the bosses node or being pushed off the character must remain in the same arc if no note is available in the same arc due to a wall the character may move and to any adjacent node along that wall when on the same space as the boss a player may walk or run into adjacent arcs the same way she would adjacent nodes however when a character dodges a boss attack while on the bosses node that character may be placed in any of the bosses arcs or onto any adjacent node some boss attacks will attack multiple arcs and some will leave the boss vulnerable to attack in certain arcs let's take a closer look and the arc icon green indicates the arcs this attack will target so in this case whirlwind attacks all nodes within one range in all arcs around the boss sweeping blade swing on the other hand still has one range but only hits nodes in the front and left arc a black arc on the arc icon indicates that nothing will occur in that arc orange indicates the boss is temporarily weaker in that arc as a result of the attack if a player attacks a weak arc she gains one additional black die if a player attacks the weak arc she gains one additional black die you can see that the warrior is attacking the right arc of the wing night and on this the sweeping blade swing behavior card you can see that the right arc is the weak arc let's say for a moment the warrior had a ranged attack you can also see the warrior is now in two different arcs the front and the right one of those arcs is not weak while the other one is the player can therefore still gain the weak arc bonus getting the one extra black dye also it's important to note that if the player managed to be in multiple weak arcs at the same time she still would only gain one additional black dye once the players choose to enter the fog gate at that point they have initiated an encounter with either a mini-boss or a main boss if the players are facing a mini-boss placed just the mini-boss tile on the table if the players are facing the main boss then placed both the mini-boss tile and the main boss tile on the table then place the characters on the entry nodes and select one character to receive the aggro token finally place the boss on the appropriate node next the boss behavior deck must be set up separate the starting and the heat-up behavior cards set the heat up behavior cards aside and randomly select the number of starting behavior cards indicated for the behavior card deck any remaining cards should be placed back in the box without looking at them for each gravestone on a tile with a face-up encounter card the player is allowed to reveal one behavior card from the deck this provides the player with some knowledge of what sort of attacks will be coming finally shuffle the behavior decks at this point the boss encounter is ready to begin the bosses health Dao will start and the indicated starting health number however if the health ever drops to the heat-up point which is also indicated on the dial the players will then take the heat up behavior cards shuffle them select one at random and shuffle it into the behavior card deck and the start of a bosses activation flip over the next behavior card and place it in a discard pile face-up the boss follows the icons from left to right as usual keep in mind if the repeat icon appears as you see here the boss will repeat its entire behavior the indicated number of times whenever the boss behavior deck is empty at the start of above this activation pick up the entire discard pile and flip it over without shuffling it then continue combat as normal when a boss move towards a character first turn the boss so the center of its front arc faces an adjacent node that is closer to the character the boss then moves forward without changing its facing again if a boss instead moves away from a character it turns to the center of its back arc is facing an adjacent node that is farther from the character the bus then backs up onto that node again without changing its facing if a boss is to move toward a character which is already on its node then the bus turns so the center of its front arc is facing that model if a boss moves on to a node with another character that character stays in the arc it was already in the same way it was staying that arc if the character moved on to the boss's node it's possible that some bosses can move without changing their facing in which case it simply shifts in the appropriate direction and does not rotate as you can see here the boss shifts one space to the left if the behavior card has this icon facing either to the left or the right the boss turns 90 degrees in the indicated direction in this case a 90 degrees to the right if the boss has this turn icon it will turn 180 degrees finally this is the leap icon it allows a boss move directly to its target the player removes the boss from the tile and places it directly on the node where the target is located there is no limit to the number of nodes a boss can travel during a leap and the boss does not change its facing as a result of the leap all leaps also have the push icon when a boss sleeps the characters are no longer considered to be in any particular arc so when the boss lands any push characters may be pushed to any adjacent node now let's talk a little bit about how a boss attacks it's important to remember that a boss does not rotate when it attacks that only happens when it moves the bosses attacks are resolved similarly to those of other enemies however it's important for players to remember that the boss only attacks the indicated arcs in the arc icon bosses also have one additional attack icon not available to regular enemies this area icon indicates a multi node attack all characters on a node within range and one of the indicated arcs are targeted by the attack each affected character must separately roll block resist or dodge after defeating a mini boss encounter place that bosses treasure cards in the inventory then complete the following steps first just as at the beginning of the game the player selects four tiles at random and places them in any order she wishes the bonfire sparks are then reset to the appropriate number based on the player count in step three the player will choose the main boss rather than the mini boss as you might expect and gather all the required items just as she did before then the player will set out the encounters as indicated on the main bosses card and finally instead of creating a new treasure deck the player will shuffle new cards into the existing deck first she will shuffle the pile of legendary weapon cards indicated by this icon on the top right and then randomly select five those five will then be shuffled into the main treasure pile those five will then be shuffled into the main treasure deck then the player will collect the five transposed treasure cards for each character here you can see this is for The Herald and shuffle those into the treasure deck as well the player is now ready to take on the main boss or at least as ready as she can be when the party defeats the main boss they win the game the main bosses do have their own treasure cards however those are only used in campaign play with a few rule changes which are found on page 33 of the rulebook players can play an entire six mission campaign but I'll leave that for you to discover on your own I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope you found it informative and useful if you did please give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing to my channel if you haven't already and until next time if you're borderline bored offline [Music]

Channel: Bored Online? Board Offline!

Views: 3,289

Rating: 4.8709679 out of 5

Keywords: board games, card games, dark souls, cooperative, mini boss, main boss, difficult, hollow soldier, hollow

Id: k4iAlCXU8g0

Length: 58min 47sec (3527 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 22 2017