thewolves
The Wolves is a pack-building strategy game for 2-5 players. It's survival of the fittest as you compete to build the largest, most dominant pack by claiming territory, recruiting lone wolves, and hunting prey.
Each action requires you to flip terrain tiles matching the terrain where you wish to take your action. These double-sided tiles mean the actions you take this round will set up which terrain types you can act on in the next round. As you take actions to expand your pack's control of each region, you also upgrade your pack's attributes, allowing you to take more aggressive actions as the game goes on.
In three mid-game scoring phases, power is calculated in each region. At the end of the game, players tally points based on VP tokens earned in these scoring phases and the highest VP number revealed in each of the six tracks on your player board. The player with the most VP wins!
LB_NUMBER_OF_PLAYERS: 2 - 5
Game duration: 60 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
Play thewolves and 851 other games online.
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Play thewolves and 851 other games online.
No download, directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Overview
Score the most Victory Points by using Actions on your turns to:
1. Fight for Control of a Region by increasing your wolf pack's presence there.
2. Hunt Prey scattered around the Regions by surrounding it with your wolves.
3. Increase your pack's strength by improving your Attributes.
Attributes
- Build Dens to increase attributes (and gain Bonus Terrain and Action Tokens):
Pack Spread: number of wolves that can move in a Move action.
Wolf Speed: number of hexes each wolf can move in a Move action.
Howl Range: number of hexes for Howl and Dominate actions.
Actions
- Take any two actions.
- May take the same action more than once.
- Pay for actions by flipping Terrain Tiles that all match the terrain type of the target hex(es).
- Bonus Terrain Token: use as any one terrain type.
- Bonus Action Token: use as any one additional action.
Move
- Central Chasm and Water Sources are impassable.
- Cannot land on lone wolf or prey tokens.
- Maximum 2 pieces per hex.
- Wolves of the same type from different packs cannot occupy the same hex.
- Alpha Wolves push Pack Wolves to the nearest empty or friendly hex of the Alpha’s choice.
- Wolves cannot land on an enemy Lair.
Build Dens
- Select a hex occupied by or adjacent to your Alpha Wolf.
- Flip 2 terrain tiles that match the target hex.
- Select an Attribute Track.
- Maximum 1 Den/Lair per hex.
- Cannot build on a hex with an enemy Wolf.
- Can gain Bonus Terrain and Action Tokens and Victory Points (VP).
Upgrade Den
- Select a hex with one of your Dens occupied by or adjacent to your Alpha Wolf and adjacent to a Water Source.
- Flip 2 terrain tiles that match the Den's hex.
- Den moved to the Moonlight Board.
- Lair placed which reveals a bonus.
- Den must be adjacent to Water Source.
- Gains VP.
- Maximum 1 Lair per color in each region.
- Push an enemy wolf in the same hex to the nearest empty or friendly hex of the Lair's choice.
Howl
- Select a Lone Wolf within the Howl range of your Alpha Wolf.
- Flip 2 terrain tiles that match the Lone Wolf's hex.
- Lone Wolf moved to the Moonlight Board.
- Your next Wolf is placed on the Lone Wolf's hex.
- Gain a Wolf by Howling at a Lone Wolf.
- Gains VP.
Dominate
- Select an opponent's Pack Wolf or Den within the Howl range of your Alpha Wolf.
- Flip 3 terrain tiles which match the opponent's piece's hex.
- Opponent's piece moved to the Moonlight Board.
- Place a matching piece of yours on the target hex.
- Gain an opponent’s Pack Wolf or Den.
- Cannot target a hex with 2 pieces of the same color.
Hunting
- At action end, if Wolves of the same color occupy three hexes adjacent to a prey token, that player may move the top prey token to the next free Hunting Tracker space.
- Gain a Bonus Action Token.
- 2players: No Bonus Action Token.
- Gains VP.
- Triggered automatically (no Terrain Tiles).
- Cannot hunt the same type of Prey more than once.
Moonlight Board Scoring
- Tracks when the Region Scoring phases are triggered.
- Most region control gains the most VP.
- 2nd most control gains the lower VP.
- Control = Wolves + Dens + Lair × 3.
- Tiebreak: most Alpha Wolves.
- Else both gain 2nd reward.
- No VP for tied 2nd.
Game End
- After the final Full Moon phase.
- Total VP = Moon Phase VP + highest revealed VP on each track.
- Most VP wins!
Tiebreaks
1. Most Region Scoring tokens.
2. Most wolves on the board.
