The year is 2876 on a far distant planet named Rennova. Humankind has emerged from their bunkers following the War of the Five Factions. Across the barren landscapes lie mountains of steel, fields of metal, and vast expanses of damaged robots.

To help rebuild Rennova to its once great glory, humans began constructing Salvaqers. With disagreements about how to restore the planet, war broke out again between opposing tribes.

In Two Robots, you take on the role of one of the five Salvagers. Your objective is to claim Rennova as your own. To do this, you can do one of two things. First, you may build two robots: one to keep up the fight and the other to maintain the factory to build more troops.

Second, you can simply defeat all the other Salvagers in battle with your first robot and Rennova will be yours.


Components

  • 60 Robot Part Cards
  • 21 Defense Cards
  • 19 Attack Cards
  • 12 Power Cards
  • 6 Active Robot Cards
  • 4 Salvager Hero Cards
  • 1 Peacemaker's a Card
  • 2 Ocean Recruit Cards
  • 2 Intruder Landing Cards
  • Reference Card
  • Rulebook

Object of the Game

Build Two Robots. Or, be the last surviving player.


Salvagers





Setup

  1. Each player picks a Salvager.

  2. Hand each player their 5 Power cards based on the Salvager they chose. Keep in mind that these cards also keep track of your Salvager's health! If you lose these Power cards you are eliminated.

  3. Each player should make some room in front of them This space will be referred to as their Factory, where they will play their Robot Part cards.

  4. Shuffle both the (purple) Action deck and (red) Active Robot pile and place them in the center of the table. The Active Robot pile starts with 4-6 Event cards, depending on the number of players:

    • Two players 3 Shots Fired, 1 Weapons Jammed
    • Three players: 3 Shots Fired, 1 Weapons Jammed, 1 Scattershot
    • Four players: 3 Shots Fired, 1 Weapons Jammed, 1 Scattershot, 1 Precision Strike

Active Robot Card

Sample Game Setup

Pacemaker (top) versus Apocalypse (bottom). Peacemaker has used 1 Power with 3 health remaining. Apocalypse has used 1 Power with 2 health remaining





Game Play

The game plays counter-clockwise. Robots don't like to do things the same way as humans. The ideal turn order:

  1. Samurai
  2. Scavenger
  3. Peacemaker
  4. Guardian
  5. Apocalypse

This will vary based on the number of players. For example, if only Scavenger and Apocalypse are playing, Scavenger would go first.

On your turn:

  1. Draw Phase: Draw 5 cards from the Action deck.
  2. Play Phase: Play up to 5 Action cards.
  3. Event Phase: Use a Power card (flip it) or deploy an Active Robot if you built one (reveal a card from the pile).
  4. Cleanup Phase: Discard down to 7 cards.

A. Draw Phase

Players draw cards from the Action deck, which can be one of three different types:

Robot Parts ("Part cards"): Play these in your Factory to build your robots.

Attack: Play these on your opponents to gain an advantage. All Attack cards can be interrupted by Homing Missiles.

Defense: Play these to interrupt incoming attacks, draw more cards, unfreeze Stacks, or cancel Event cards.

If there are no more cards in the Action deck, shuffle the discard pile and replenish it.


B. Play Phase

These are the Part cards you will use to build Two Robots.

Each Part card contains one part of the robot which is highlighted on the card and has a matching icon on the top right of the card.



On the bottom of each Part card is either 1 or 2 Energy types. A Part card with only 1 Energy type, like the one above, is called a Core Part card.

Part cards with 2 Energy types are called Hybrid Part cards. The background color of each Core or Hybrid corresponds to its energy (or energies) to help with easy identification.



Stacking Part Cards

Players play their Part cards on top of each other in 5 distinct Stacks inside their Factory, 1 Stack for each of the 5 Energy types: Chemical, Electrical, Mechanical, Nuclear, and Solar. They cannot play Part cards inside an enemy Factory.

Below are some important rules regarding a Stack of Part cards:

  1. A Stack can be started by playing Part cards in your Factory.

  2. If you start a Stack with a Hybrid Part card that doesn't match any of your other Stacks, it will not have a color locked in until you play a second Part card on top with a matching Energy type.

  3. A player cannot have more than 1 Stack of the same Energy type.

  4. Stacks have no height or card limit.


Example: Liz has a Stack with a Chemical Part card on top of a Chemical/Solar Hybrid Part card. This means this is a Chemical Energy Stack.

If she tries to start a new Stack with another Chemical/Solar Part card, that new Stack automatically becomes a Solar Stack.


Duplicate Parts in a Stack

The Stack to the left is a Chemical Stack. Since this player decided to play another ARMS Part card, they should place it horizontally so that it is easy for everyone to see.

Duplicate Part cards in the same Stack can actually be very helpful during the Event Phase.



Building your Robots

An Active Robot is complete when a Stack contains at least one of each of these Part cards:



These parts do not need to be in any particular order to successfully build an Active Robot!


Attack and Defense Cards

Attack and Defense cards can only be played if you meet the requirement for the minimum number of unique Stacks. The number of Stacks required to play the card is the gold number at the top left of the card.

After playing any Attack or Defense card, place it in the discard pile.



Tip: A Hybrid sitting alone in a Stack still counts as a unique Stack, even though the player may not have chosen the Energy type of the Stack yet.

Sometimes you will have to make the difficult decision of whether to create a new Stack so you can play more Attack and Defense cards, OR continue stacking and building your robots.


Attacking

Some Attack cards allow you to destroy Part cards based on their Energy type. These parts can be inside any Factory, anywhere, within any Stack, and only need to match one of the Energies if it is a Hybrid Part card.

Example: Alyssa plays Power Surge and destroys an Electrical/Nuclear Hybrid Part card in the middle of her opponent's Stack, as well as an Electrical Part card sitting alone in a second opponent's Factory.

Space Pod allows you to steal a Part from any opponent's Factory and immediately play it in your own. You may even steal a Part card from an Active Robot!


Ice Blast and Frozen Stacks

The Nuclear Stack to the left is considered frozen.

Once an Ice Blast card is played, it is placed on top of the Stack. That Stack is now considered frozen. The player who owns the Stack can no longer play Part cards onto the stack until it is unfrozen. Frozen Stacks can be unfrozen with a Rescue Drill Defense card.

All frozen Stacks still count towards the following:

  1. Meeting the Stack requirements of Attack and Defense cards.

  2. The completion of Two Robots to win the game.


Note: An Active Robot that is frozen cannot be deployed to reveal a card from the Active Robot pile.


Parts already inside of a frozen Stack:

  1. Are vulnerable to being destroyed by Attack cards.

  2. Cannot be sacrificed towards deploying your Active Robot and revealing a card.


Defending

Homing Missiles

Homing Missiles can be played when an enemy is attempting to mess with the Robot Parts in your Factory using an Attack card.

You cannot use it to prevent a player from playing Robot Dart cards, and it cannot be used to counter Sentry Gunship.

Homing Missiles can be played when it is not your turn.

If you also have a Homing Missiles card, you can use it to cancel an opponent's Homing Missiles and still proceed with your Attack, but this will count as one of your actions.


Sentry Gunship

Sentry Gunship cancels any Event card only during an opponent's Event Phase. This applies to both Power cards and Active robot cards. Sentry Gunship cannot be interrupted by any other Defense card.



C. Event Phase

During your Event Phase, you may trigger one of two types of Event cards:

  1. Power card: Sacrifice 2 Part cards from your Factory to activate one of your three Power cards. Once you activate it, flip it over. You may only use each of these cards once per game. If it is canceled by a Sentry Gunship, it still gets flipped over.

    Note: A Power card that is flipped over still counts towards your Salvager's health! You must remove one of these Power cards from the game each time you suffer damage dealt from other players.

    OR

    If you have an Active Robot in your Factory:

  2. Active Robot card: Sacrifice 1 Part card from your Factory to reveal a random card from the Active Robot pile. Reshuffle the Active Robot pile after your Event Phase is over.

    The Part card you sacrifice can come from anywhere in your Factory - even from your Active Robot! This would dismantle your Active Robot and you would have to build it up again.

    Note: You may only activate one type of Event per turn.


D. Cleanup Phase

Discard down to the hand limit.


Card Clarifications

  1. For all Attack cards that destroy Part cards, you cannot choose to destroy only 1 Part card, you must destroy two, even if you have to destroy your own.

  2. When stealing a Hybrid Part card with Space Pod, you may change its Energy type as it goes in your Factory.

  3. Cold Fusion and Balance apply to all players, including Apocalypse or Peacemaker, respectively. In the event of a tie, all players who are in the tie suffer 1 damage.

  4. If Apocalypse activates Meltdown, players who do not have any cards in their hand may still choose to discard "nothing" and not suffer 1 damage.

  5. When Samurai uses his Special Ability Katana or uses his Shogun Power card, the Active Robot pile is not reshuffled in-between.

  6. After revealing Scattershot, you cannot choose to only deal damage to one opponent.


End of the Game

You win the game if you build two Robots or if you are the last surviving player.


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