The Kingdom is in grave danger. Powerful enemies are conspiring to resurrect the vile and powerful Unhallowed that your party has just slain. Now you, the mighty adventurers of the land, must visit these summoning locations and defeat the hordes of creatures behind this evil plot.

It falls to four mighty Adventurers, each of whom has a unique set of skills, to band together once more to vanquish this evil before the Unhallowed consume the world in darkness.

Set a Watch is a cooperative game for one to four players. You must secure nine locations to prevent the acolytes from breaking the seals holding back the evil Unhallowed.

Each round your party will visit a new location and choose an Adventurer to rest and take strategic camp actions. The rest of the party will assume watch and confront a line of creatures attempting to breach your camp.

Using your dice to do battle and activate unique class abilities, your team will need to approach each round's combat puzzle with both cunning and resolve.

In an epic campaign to stay alive, defeat the arisen Unhallowed, and keep the campfire burning, you must use your wits and skill to fight for the light... or all will perish to darkness.


Components

  • 6 Adventurer Boards
  • 30 Adventurer Ability Cards
  • 9 Unhallowed Creature Cards
  • 42 Creature Cards
  • 20 Location Cards
  • 9 d6 dice & 9 d8 dice
  • 4 Rest Tokens and 1 Fire Token
  • 1 Rulebook
  • 1 Magnetic Box and foldout Camp Board

Setup

1. Set Out the Board and Components

Place the Camp board within easy reach of all players.

Put the 4 resting tokens, dice, player boards, and other components nearby. Separate all the cards by type into Creature, Ability, Location, and Unhallowed piles.

2. Select Adventurers

Players select their Adventurer and take the corresponding dice, Ability cards and Adventurer board. Each player randomly picks 3 Ability cards to begin play.

Place these Ability cards on your player board and the two additional Adventurer cards off to the side. Randomly select one Ability card to exhaust (flip over).



A Adventurer Class.

B Ability Slots: Adventurers should place their three ability cards in the slots on their board.

C Dice: Place your spent combat dice here. This also displays whether your Adventurer's three dice are six (d6) or eight sided (d8). Blue banners represent d8s and Red corresponds to d6s.

D Camp Action: The specific action that the Adventurer can take in camp. This ability can only be used once per Camp Phase.

E Range: An Adventurer with range can attack and damage Creatures in the first or second position. Melee can only attack Creatures in first position.

Note: There must always be four Adventurers in play no matter the player count. If you have 4 players, each selects one Adventurer. With 3 players, pick a flex Adventurer that the player in camp controls during the Watch phase. In a 2 player game, each player selects two Adventurers.

3. Prepare the Creature Deck
  • Easy: Summon x1
  • Normal: Summon x2
  • Hard: Summon x3
  • Insane: Summon x4

Set the game's difficulty level, by using either 1, 2, 3 or 4 Summon cards, for an Easy, Normal, Hard or Insane game.

Remove all unused Summon cards from the game. Randomly select 30 Creature cards, be sure to include both Acolytes.

Divide the Creature cards into face-down piles, as equal in size as you can, so that the number of piles matches the number of Summon cards you are using. Shuffle 1 Summon card into each pile, face-down. Stack these piles to form the Creature deck, placing smaller piles on the bottom.

4. Prepare the Map

Find and remove all of the respite locations (denoted by ) and final locations from the Location cards. Shuffle all the remaining Location cards together and draw 8 cards without looking at them.

Shuffle these 8 cards and place them on the board face-down with a final location at the bottom to form the Map deck. You may choose the final location.

Shuffle all of the remaining location cards together with the respite locations and place them in the box face-down to form the Unused Location Deck.

5. Prepare the Unhallowed

Shuffle the Unhallowed cards and without looking, draw and place one card in the Horde face-down. The Horde is a face-down deck of cards that is added to the final round of the game.

The bigger the Horde, the more difficult the final round. Draw and place 7 Unhallowed face-up next to the Camp board. Put all remaining Unhallowed out of play.

6. Light the Fire!

Draw the top location card from the Map deck and place it as the current location on the Camp board. Do not trigger the location's firewood modification for the first round.

Set the starting firewood to 7 on the Camp Board. To vary the gameplay and make the game more difficult, you may roll a d8 to randomly set the starting firewood value.



Creature Cards

Creature cards describe the abilities and health of each Creature. When Creatures are defeated they go to the Graveyard, when they are not defeated they end up in the Horde.



A Damage: This number represents how many Ability cards from the Adventuring party are exhausted if the Creature cannot be defeated. This is not per player but rather the total number of cards exhausted among all the players on the Watch.

B Health: The number that must be met or exceeded with dice to destroy a Creature.

C Power text: Unique effects that occur when triggered (such as Reveal and First Position).

D Creature Type (Be sure to separate out all the Unhallowed into their own deck). Unhallowed are considered Creatures with a Creature Type of Unhallowed.


Summon and Unhallowed cards

The Summon card immediately exhausts 1 Ability card (of any one Adventurer on Watch) when it is revealed then goes to the Graveyard and is replaced with the card on the top of the Unhallowed deck.

Any relevant Unhallowed card powers resolve and when defeated, the Unhallowed card goes into the Graveyard. The Summon card ALWAYS triggers when revealed.


Example: The Ranger spends a die to use the Longshot ability and reveals the Summon card. Players must still decide who on Watch exhausts a card and then put an Unhallowed in place of the Summon card.

The Unhallowed is then put immediately into the Graveyard without its ability triggering because it is defeated by Longshot.



Game Play

Gameplay proceeds with players rolling their dice and then deciding which Adventurer goes to camp (using their dice for camp actions) leaving the rest of the party members on Watch (see below).

Players on Watch are tasked with eliminating Creatures that will threaten the party (this is referred to as the Line). The Adventurer in camp assigns his/her dice to any camp actions and/or Runes on the back of the Map deck and completes those actions.


Camp Phase

The Adventurer in camp does not participate in combat. Instead this player places his or her rolled dice on any available placements in camp, on their Adventurer board or on the Runes on the back of the Location cards to assist the Adventurers on Watch.

The Adventurer in camp also refreshes one of his or her exhausted cards for free immediately when he or she enters camp.

Camp Actions

Chop Wood (3 placements): The Adventurer increases the firewood by 2 for every die placed in the Chop Wood location.

Scout Ahead (3 placements): Draw and look at the top 2 Creatures. Rearrange them however you like and return each card to either the bottom or top of the Creature Deck. Each additional placement requires a die greater than the one just placed.

Check Map (1 placement): Draw the top card of the Map deck and the top card from the unused locations deck, pick one and return it to the top of the Map deck. The remaining card goes at the bottom of the unused location deck. Requires a die value of 4 or greater. You cannot swap out the final location.

Heal (1 placement): Refresh 1 exhausted Ability card for yourself or any Adventurer on Watch. Requires a die value of exactly 6.

Equip (1 placement): Swap an Ability card on your player board with one of your leftover unused Ability cards. If you swap with an exhausted card, the new card must be exhausted as well.


Adventurer Special Camp Actions

Each Adventurer has their own special camp action. These are listed on the Adventurer player boards. You spend a die to activate these abilities like any other camp action. Each Adventurer camp action can only be used once per round.


Runes:

In order to activate Runes the Adventurer in Camp must roll at least doubles on their dice and place those matching dice on the Runes they would like to activate. You must select at least two Runes and cannot select the same rune twice. Triples allow you to activate all three.

Seal (1 placement): Remove an Unhallowed from the Graveyard and place it at the bottom of the Unhallowed deck.

Vanquish (1 placement): Remove the top Creature of the Horde from the game (The Horde represents Creatures that have not been stopped by the Watch and add to the total during the final round of play).

Bolster (1 placement): All adventurers on Watch may choose to reroll any number of their dice.

Each Adventurer MUST go into camp twice during the game. Take a Rest token on your first visit to camp and place it on your board. Flip it over on your second visit to camp. During the final round all adventurers must go on Watch for the final battle.

When all of the camp Adventurer's dice are assigned and actions have been taken, continue to the Watch Phase.


Watch Phase

Setting Up the Line

Look at your current Location card noting how many Creatures you will face this round. Without looking, draw cards from the Creature deck and place them facedown in a line starting with the top card being placed closest to the Camp board.

Stop drawing and adding to the Line once the total number of cards in the Line are equal to the Creature count noted on your current Location card (B).

If you ever need to draw a card from the Creature deck and cannot, shuffle the Graveyard (including any Unhallowed and Summon cards) to create a new Creature deck.


Reveal Monsters

Check the current firewood value to see how many Creatures are revealed by the campfire light. Reveal Creatures closest to the Camp board and resolve their abilities one at a time.

Once a Creature is revealed, it stays revealed even if the firewood value decreases enough to affect the number revealed. Players then use their dice and Adventurer Ability cards to send Creatures to the Graveyard.

When all Creatures in the Line have been defeated players draw a new location and begin a new round.



Combat Actions:

Direct Attacks:

The Adventurers on Watch will use their dice and abilities to defeat the Creatures in the Line and send them to the Graveyard. Players may assign and combine their dice directly to revealed Creatures to meet or exceed the Creature's health.

Once the total assigned to a Creature meets or exceeds its heath, it is defeated and sent to the Graveyard. Once dice are assigned to take away a Creature's health they are spent and cannot be used again.


Ability Cards:

Alternatively, players can spend and place a die on an unexhausted Ability card to activate it. This can only be done once per card per round. Most Adventurers' Ability cards may be exhausted for another use after a die has been spent on them.

Passive abilities are the exception and do not require a die to activate. Passive abilities are active as long as they remain face-up.

Players can activate and assign dice in whatever order they see fit (there is no turn order) until all Creatures have been defeated or all Adventurers run out of useful actions.

A player cannot participate in combat if all of their Ability cards are exhausted at the start of the Watch Phase.

If Adventurers run out of actions and there are still Creatures in the Line, add that Creature card to the top of the Horde and exhaust cards based on that Creature's damage. Whenever cards need to be exhausted, you must exhaust cards from the Adventurers on Watch.


Locations & Ending the Round

Once the Line is clear and if the Adventurers on Watch are not all exhausted, then the round was completed successfully. A game will have 8 random locations (rounds) and 1 final round location (denoted by the symbol at C).



When a round is completed, draw and reveal the next location. Locations determine how much firewood is removed or added to the campfire A and list how many Creatures will be placed in the Line during Watch B. Locations also have unique effects that takes place during the round D. Clearing a location requires all Creatures in the Line to be either defeated or added to the Horde.


Final Round

When the final location is revealed the Adventurers have reached the last round. The final location follows some different rules from the other rounds. First, all Adventurers go on Watch but remember that you can always exhaust a card to increase the firewood by 2.

Creatures are drawn and placed normally and then the Horde is placed face-down at the end of the Line. The Horde is not shuffled. The round then proceeds as normal with the Creatures in the Horde being added to the Line as necessary.

Once the round begins, you can start a new Horde pile as necessary. You can still win without clearing the final location as long as you have 1 Ability card left after Creature damage.


End of the Game

Players win the game by making it through all 9 locations successfully.

If the party's firewood ever reaches 0, players must immediately exhaust an Ability card to increase the firewood by 2. If all Adventurers on Watch become exhausted by the end of a round, the party has fallen and the game is lost.

Additionally, if a Summon card is revealed and the Unhallowed deck is empty, the game is lost.


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