OBJECTIVE OF THE WOLVES: The objective of The Wolves is to score the most Victory Points by using actions during your turn to gain territory, hunt prey, and improve your attributes.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 5 Players
MATERIALS: 1 Game Board, 10 Region Boards, 5 Player Boards, 1 Moonlight Board, 5 reference Cards, 12 Bonus Terrain Tiles, 12 Bonus Action Tokens, 50 VP Tokens, 10 Region Scoring Tokens, 20 Prey Tokens, 20 Lone Wolf Tokens, 20 Lairs, 60 Dens, 40 Pack Wolf Meeples, 20 Alpha Wolf Meeples, 30 Terrain Tiles, and Instructions
TYPE OF GAME: Area Control Board Game
AUDIENCE: Ages 14 and Up
OVERVIEW OF THE WOLVES
The Wolves is a pack-building game for two to five players. It requires strategic planning, brutal battles, and dominant actions in order to take as much of the land as possible from the other alphas. After all, an alpha protects their pack, and everyone who stands in their way is nothing more than an obstacle that must be overcome. Can you overcome the obstacles in your path?
SETUP
To begin setup, place the game board in the center of the playing area with region boards randomly placed around it. Place a lone wolf token on each of the hexes that have a wolf head icon. Place prey tokens on each hex, with the mixture of tokens dependent on how many players there are in the game. Orient the moonlight board to ensure that the correct player count is showing.
A pool of region scoring tokens is gathered, also depending on the number of players in the game as indicated. On each of the water source hexes, place a random region scoring token. A region scoring reminder card is placed on the moonlight board on the crescent moon. Reminder tokens will remind the players which regions will be scored.
Once tokens are placed, the players will setup their boards. They will begin by placing their faction specific terrain tiles on the first slot. Four lairs, one den marker, six pack wolves, and two alpha wolves on their assigned space of the player board. Once the wolves are placed, the first player will be chosen randomly, and they will place an alpha and a pack wolf on an unoccupied hex found around the central chasm. Every other player will then do the same thing, going clockwise around the group, and then again going counter clockwise.
GAMEPLAY
Gameplay will begin with the first player and rotate clockwise around the group, with each player taking their own turn before the next player completes theirs. During their turn, a player may take any combination of two actions, regardless of how much they cost. They may choose to complete two different actions or complete the same action two times.
In order to take an action, the cost of the action must be paid by revealing the Terrain Tiles. To do so, the player will flip one or more of the double-sided Terrain Tiles found at the top of their player board. Actions include the following options: move, build dens, upgrade den to a lair, howl, dominate, and hunt.
To choose the correct Tile, the player should refer to the hex that they hope to affect. They must flip a Terrain Tile that match the terrain type of the target hex that they are wanting to affect. The players may choose to take more than two actions if they have Bonus Action Tokens that they can discard. Once a player completes their actions, they should refer to the Moonlight Board to check if Region Scoring has been triggered. Once complete, the next player will begin their turn.
As a player moves across the board, they should keep some key rules in mind. If the player is moving an alpha, then they are able to move to an unoccupied space or a space that is occupied by a pack wolf, but never one occupied by another alpha. If they move onto a pack wolf, then the pack wolf is moved to the closest empty space. Two alphas are never able to occupy the same space, but two pack wolves are able to occupy the same space.
The game continues in this manner, with players taking turns in a clockwise fashion around the board until a player progresses to the Full Moon space on the Moonlight Board. At this point, the game comes to an end.
END OF GAME
When a piece is placed on the Full Moon space found on the Moonlight Board, the game will immediately come to an end. The players will then tally their VP Tokens and the VP number found on each of the tracks on their board. The player with the most VP points when the game ends, wins the game!
- 20 CLASSIC OUTDOOR GAMES FOR KIDS - January 3, 2023
- 10 FUN VIRTUAL GAMES THAT ARE PERFECT FOR GROUPS - October 5, 2022
- 35 BABY SHOWER GAMES - September 3, 2022