Synchro Horizon - How to Play. Complete, Clear, Concise Board Game Tutorial

Want to explore mythpacked quest fest where you battle beasts and chase fame across magical realms? That's Synchro Horizon. >> And today we'll be teaching you how to play Synchro Horizon game designed by Zamaki and published by New Game Entertainment. And check out the link to the project page in the video description below.

>> And hi everyone, it's Stella >> and Tarant. Welcome to Mele University. >> And hey, if you enjoy this video after watching, like, subscribe, and comments. You know what to do. All right, now let's get to the classroom. >> In Synchro Horizon, the evil Celestial threatens the balance of the land. Now, it's up to you to assemble a band of heroes to stop it.

You'll travel the lands, battle hordes of monsters, and level up your heroes with new items and with the essence of magical shards, higher levels, and new skills. All to prepare yourselves for the greater battles ahead. If you can defeat the celestial before winter falls over the land, then you'll win the game.

I'll now take you through setup and introduce you to a lot of the core components of the game. Lay out the main board and on each of the 12 cities which shows one of these gem icons, place a random matching journal tile, flipping it face up, these show you the types of monsters and landmarks you'll find there.

The only cities which won't have a journal are Stellaris, your end location in the bottom right corner, and your starting city of Luminaria in the top left, where you place your party flag token. Set up your party of heroes. You will always begin the game with four heroes, regardless of your player count, so some players may need to double up.

To pick your heroes, take the hero cards, flip them over to the unupgraded side. That's the one not showing the star in the corner. Make sure to separate any legendary heroes from the deck. These are the ones with the dark night sky behind them and then shuffle the rest. Deal out seven heroes. Collectively choose four of them, returning the unchosen ones to the top of the draw deck and assign each hero to a board.

Each hero begins at level one. Place a cube here. You'll be upgrading through the game and this will give you higher rewards and a higher maximum health. Take red dice to track the damage you've suffered. In Synchro Horizon, you'll be counting damage up as you suffer it rather than counting hit points down.

Meaning, you'll always be comparing your damage to your maximum hit points as that increases when you level up. Each hero has two slots for item cards, but begins with no items. Simply shuffle the item deck and place it aside for now. There are 28 magical crystal shards, green, red, blue, and clear in equal proportion, and you'll need these to take most of your actions in the game.

In setup, mix them up in the bag. Randomly place two in each hero's shard slots and leave the leftovers near the shards discard tray. Mix all the skill tiles up in the skill bag. Then deal three to each hero. Your skills will be your most valuable actions in combat, and you begin the game with one, leveling up to four as you proceed.

To choose your first skill, flip them all over to their silver basic sides. Pick any one of them to take and return the rest to the bag. Now, at this point, I'll pause to explain an important note about player and class colors. Each hero will have a player board which could be red, blue, green or yellow.

And this is your player color. This is purely for ease of identification. And you can affix a matching colored base ring to your character stand or character mini if you have them. And this will be your distinguishing color in the initiative box. A marble shaker which randomizes turn order throughout play.

You'll also have a class color which will be red, blue, or green. And this is shown by the color in the band at the bottom of your hero, as well as in this larger icon showing here. A green character is a ranger, a red character is a warrior, and blue is a sorcerer. These are also the three colors you'll see on skill tiles and on shards.

And this is intentional to match up with those classes. You can expect the green skills and the green shards to benefit the range of characters the most. Your player color and your class color do not have to be the same. Make common supplies of coins, shields, stun, and silence tokens, and potions. And give the hero party a starting supply of eight coins.

Coins always belong to the entire party as a whole, not to any individual hero. Set up the time tracker with the season set to spring and the time dial set to one. Your actions in the game are going to cost you some amount of time which you track on this dial. And when the dial returns to one, advance the season.

To win the game, the party must defeat the celestial before reaching winter 12. Keep the colored exhaustion cube nearby. It's used with this board. Set up the monster area. There'll be four monster boards, each with damage trackers and an identification color, again, which you'll use in base rings on standees, and which will correspond to the monster's marble shaker.

There will be monster action dice which will come into play during battle and five separately shuffled decks of monsters. Each one stronger and more difficult to defeat than the one which preceded it. Finally, set up the hero and monster stages. You'll use these to track character order during battle, but we'll leave them empty in setup.

You're now ready to play in Synchro Horizon. Your hero party will travel from Luminaria in the top left of the board to Stellaris in the bottom right, visiting cities where you'll battle monsters and level up in villages and other landmarks. Throughout a successful game, you will visit a total of six increasingly difficult cities.

And so when you're about to visit your next city, take your party marker and move it either to the right or down. You're not allowed to travel backwards towards Luminaria during the game. Having chosen your city, now choose which of its two landmarks you wish to visit. In this case, it's either the campfire or the flower field.

You must choose now and pay its time cost immediately. So here three time which you would mark on the wheel. Next you must battle monsters and then once you're successful you may visit the landmark you've chosen and you may visit a village within the city. The landmark and village may be visited in either order but you must battle the monsters first.

In a monster battle you'll always face four monsters and they'll be of the levels shown on the tile. So here it'll be four level one monsters. In higher level cities, you'll have a mix of different levels of monsters. From left to right on the journal tiles, draw and arrange the appropriate monster cards into a line of four.

A standard card is placed in the frontmost empty slot of the monster queue. A card with an F always goes in the very frontmost slot, pushing any others behind. A card with an R behaves similarly, but from the rear of the queue, and continue in this way until all four slots are filled. Find the standees and place them in that order on the monster stage.

Roll a monster action dice for each monster and place it above the board for now. This means that you'll know the first action each monster is going to take before you make your next decisions. Those decisions are that players may freely exchange items among the heroes. They must decide a battle order for the heroes.

Be warned, whoever's at the front of the queue is going to suffer the most damage. And they must decide who's going to take the first turn. If the heroes want to go first, then place the monster action dice on space two and each hero draws one shard. If you let the monsters go first, place the monster action dice on the one slots and each hero draws shards according to its current level.

So either two or three. On the time tracker, place the exhaustion cube in this slot on the color which matches the current time. Some time is going to elapse during the battle. And this helps you to track where the battle began. Now, shake up, but leave covered the two initiative boxes, and you're ready for the first round of battle.

A battle is broken into rounds and in each round each of the eight characters will take one turn. You will alternate back and forward between the teams. So if the monster dice are in slot one, then you'll start with a monster turn, go to a hero turn and back and forward. While if the monster dice begin in slot two, you'll do a hero turn, then a monster turn, and back and forward.

This alternates. If the monsters go first in one round, the heroes will go first in the next round. Turn order within each team is randomized based on the initiative box. On any team's turn, reveal the next and only the next marble from the initiative box. That character is now the one which takes a turn.

In this way, turn order is gradually revealed as you go through the round. On a hero turn, the hero takes any number of actions by spending shards to pay the cost of those actions. Spent shards are discarded and new shards gained at the end of each round. On a monster turn, the monster resolves a single action based on the roll of the dice, then immediately rerolls the dieice to set the next round action.

There's a few other steps that will occur between battle rounds, but we'll come back to those later. For now, let's learn how to do a hero turn. On a hero turn, the hero takes any number of actions in any order as long as they can spend the shard cost. The main actions available are skill, basic attack, shift position, level up, or reserve shards.

You can only take each action once, although in the case of skills, that means you can take each skill once. You'll always move the shard cost onto the action you're taking. And this will signify that you can't take the action again this turn. During your turn, you can also use the abilities on your hero or the abilities on your items.

These are not actions in their own right. they will enhance one of your other actions. So, first we'll take a look at skills as these are your most powerful attacks and where a lot of your actions will take place. To pay the cost of a skill, pay exactly the combination of shards printed on the skill.

When doing this, you can spend a clear shard as if it is wild and up to a maximum of once per turn. You can spend a non-clear shard as if it were the color of your class. This is why it's often beneficial to have skills matching your class. So, let's go through some skills. This type of skill attacks your enemy, and this is how you'll defeat them.

For an attack, you're looking for this icon, which represents damage. In this case, you're dealing seven damage. Unless otherwise stated, damage is always dealt to the enemy in the frontmost position, regardless of your own position. So, for that skill, the Blossom Spirit would take seven damage. for some variations on that.

The shadow dagger would separately let you deal seven damage to any two monsters of your choice. And note that each target of any multi-target attack must be different. Dragon strike would separately damage all of the enemies with 10 damage to whoever's in the front of the queue, six to whoever's second, and then four and two.

While precision thrust deals six damage to the enemy with the lowest health. So here that is the lowest value of maximum health minus current damage. If such a condition is tied here for example both of these enemies have 10 health remaining. The players get to choose. A skill might let you gain shields in which case take the matching amount of shields and place them on that hero.

A character with shields who gains damage first loses shields before gaining damage on the damage dice. So, if a monster now attacked this hero for five damage, the hero would simply lose the five shields. If a monster now attacked this hero for another five damage, it would result in one shield lost and the remaining four gained on the dice.

A character cannot have more shields than its current max health. Some variations on that include granting shields to any other ally. In this case, it's 12 shields to this hero and then one adjacent ally that is currently adjacent on the stage. While this allows this hero to take shields either from allies or from enemies, a skill might let you heal, meaning to reduce the damage value currently on your dice.

This would be heal seven for yourself or an adjacent hero. This would be picking any hero to get six shields and heal three. While this would be every hero heals two. This effect is a shift and this allows you to manipulate the positions of the heroes on the stage. Since the hero at the front of the queue is going to be taking most of the damage, effects like this are necessary to cycle your heroes equally through the front line.

for the icon by itself. Move the hero taking the action to its new position and slide all the others one step to fill the spaces. These may have other abilities connected to them. Here, for example, you'd shift to an allies position, then give shields to that ally. While a shift may come with a restriction, here for example, you must shift to the front of the queue.

Similarly, there's pull or push, which target your enemies and forces one to shift positions either towards the front line or away from it, following the same rules. Some skills affect shards. Filling shards lets you draw new shards to your slots. So, here it would be drawing three shards from the bag and giving them either to yourself or an ally.

Picking a shard lets you take the shard of your choice. So through this skill, you would look through the bag, choose the shard you want, and then fill it to any hero. Do note heroes can hold up to five shards, and if you fill above five, you must discard back down to five immediately. A skill might let you burn shards, and when you target a monster with this, reduce the value of its action die by that amount, including to zero.

Higher numbers make for more powerful attacks, so this can reduce the severity of the monster's attacks. A skill might inflict silence or stun, in which case deal the relevant token to the enemy. A stunned monster takes no action on its next turn. A silenced monster's action is weakened. There are also skills which enhance or modify other skills.

Skills are indicated by the scroll icon. So, if you have a player or item ability which combos with a scroll, it will be indicated like so. This, for example, enhances the damage of a skill which deals damage. This one improves a skill which heals or adds shields. Each player has these two standard actions, each of which costs a single shard of any color to activate.

These effects are basic attack and shift position. Shift position works like a shift effect on a skill with the exception that this can only be done with an adjacent character. That means it's less flexible and you need to make sure you pick the right opportunity to get a damaged character out of the front line.

The basic attack will simply do a standard amount of damage to the front monster. Damage dealt is based on your hero's level. So, at level one or two, it will deal one damage. Level three or four will deal two and so on up to four. Basic attack is represented by the crossed swords and often combos with player powers or items, meaning that the basic attack can become quite powerful over time.

This axe, for example, simply adds five damage to every basic attack you do. Finally, depending on your class, there is an additional bonus for your basic attack. For a sorcerer, that's to attack a second enemy with the same basic damage. For a warrior, it's to gain shields based on your basic damage.

And for a ranger, it's to double the basic damage of the attack on the same target. Be clear. These bonuses are based purely on the basic damage as listed in this table. They are never increased for items or powers. The next action is to level up your hero, making that hero stronger. This costs a number of clear shards equal to the number in the next box you're advancing to.

So here it would be two clear shards. For this action, you can always substitute two matching non-clear shards, whether they're your color or not, for a clear shard. Having done this, it now may immediately increase your maximum health and your basic attack damage, and it may increase the shards you gain each round.

It will also give you an immediate reward. And for your first four level ups, including initial setup, that will be gaining a skill. Draw three skills from the bag, flip them all to their basic sides and either choose one to keep or set them aside. If you set them aside, draw another two. Again, you may choose one of those or set those aside.

And if you do set them aside, you may look at one more. Ultimately, you're allowed to take at most one skill on its basic side as part of this upgrade. Return any set aside tiles to the bag. Once you reach level five and above, your reward is either to upgrade a skill to its gold side or to upgrade your character to its gold side.

The last action is reserve shards, and this is a cooperative action. There are two reserve slots at the bottom of the time tracker board. And as an action, any hero can move one or two shards to empty slots on that board. Any hero on its turn is allowed to spend shards from reserve as if they were in its own shard slots.

Now, we'll talk about a monster turn. And when a monster acts, it takes a single action based on its die roll. If the monster is silenced, it takes the next tier of action down. So here, having rolled a four, but taking the one through three action. While if a monster's die has been reduced to zero through burn shard, or is at the lowest tier, but silenced, then it performs its own version of the basic attack.

Monster skills mostly perform in much the same way as hero skills. Here, for example, corpse guardian with a one through three would gain three shields for itself and deal three damage to the frontmost hero. Shields on monsters provide an identical type of protection to shields on heroes. This would deal four damage to all heroes.

And this would deal six damage to the hero with the least current health, which likewise means maximum health minus damage. And in the event of a tie, lets the players choose who gets targeted. Monsters might swap positions or they might heal. Heroes could be stunned or silenced. A stunned hero takes no actions on its next turn.

A silenced hero can take actions but not use skills. If a monster burns shards, discard that many shards from the target hero's slots. Do note that your final enemy, the celestial, will also have a passive ability in gold text. No other enemies will have this. If a monster is reduced to taking its basic attack, then simply check its level, double it, and deal that much damage to the frontmost hero.

For a celestial, that means level five. Whatever happens at the end of a monster's turn, discard any stun or silence, re-roll the action die, and move it to the opposite side of the board. This monster is now ready for next round. Once all eighth characters have activated, proceed to the end of round.

First, discard used shards. Take all shards from your action spaces, but not from your slots, and drop them in the discard tray. Advance the time tracker by one step. Every complete round of combat will result in one time spent. Then, if you're still inside the first four rounds of battle, all heroes fill shards from the bag based on their current shards per round level.

And if the bag is empty, return the discards to the bag. However, after the fourth round of any combat, your party becomes exhausted. And this occurs when the color on the wedge matches the color on the exhaustion cube that you placed at the start of the battle. From this point forward within this battle, heroes fill only one shard per round instead of what's on their track.

Now, reshuffle and reset the initiative boxes to set the new turn orders. And the new round begins with either heroes or monsters first, depending on the positions of the monsters dice. Once a monster has damage equal or greater than its maximum health, that monster is eliminated. Any excess damage you've dealt in that attack is lost, not transferred to another enemy.

Discard its card and remove its stand, shuffling all those behind it one step forward. The eliminated monster is not eliminated from the turn order. And when its color comes up, the hero of your choice suffers three damage, which cannot be defended or otherwise modified by abilities or items. If a hero's damage ever meets or exceeds its maximum health, then that hero is eliminated.

Send a hero to the graveyard, discard its shards, and return its skills to the bag. The party does get to keep the items and redistribute them to other heroes at the next city, but otherwise, for the time being, you'll be proceeding as a three-piece. When an eliminated player comes up in the turn order, draw one shard and fill it to the other hero of your choice.

You can keep battling for as long as you have at least one hero alive. But if you lose your last hero, then the entire game is lost. To try to avoid this, there is one other action which any living hero may take on their turn, and that is to call a retreat. You end the current battle immediately, run away, refill each hero's shard slots based on their current shards per round, and reset all living heroes damage back to zero.

Do note that's living heroes only. If a hero had already been eliminated, it remains eliminated. This is a pretty good chance to regroup. However, it's going to cost you five time, making it a lot more difficult to complete the whole game inside four seasons. You'll return all of the monsters back to their decks and then return to face another battle in the same city.

As such, you don't choose a new landmark and don't spend more landmark time, but you simply go all the way back to setting up a whole new battle with newly drawn monsters. Once all four monsters have been eliminated, then the battle is over. The party gains cash rewards, which will be two coins per elite monster in the battle, plus whatever coins are on the journal tile.

Heroes discard all shields and spent shards, but retain everything else, including unspent shards and damage. Now it's time to visit, grow, and level up in the city. And this is when you can visit the landmark you chose, as well as visiting the village in either order. You've already paid the time cost for the landmark.

While to visit the village, you must pay a further three time. When you visit the village, it's an opportunity to spend coins on upgrades and new heroes and items. When you visit the village, deal out five heroes face up from the bottom of the hero deck and likewise five items from the bottom of the item deck.

These are the only heroes and items you'll be allowed to interact with during this visit. Make sure both the heroes and the items are flipped to their non-upgraded sides. The party may now buy any number of items for their printed costs. And they may invite heroes to join their party in one of three ways.

The first is that you may pay eight coins to hire a new hero to replace one who has been eliminated. The second is you can pay four coins to hire a new hero who replaces one of your existing heroes. They stay behind in the city you're in. Remember, all the heroes in the land of Valencia are fighting together against the menace.

You won't necessarily take the same crew of four heroes through the whole journey. In both of those cases, the new hero begins with no shards and no damage and without the skills of any predecessors. However, they have access to their predecessors items, which again can be freely exchanged among the party as part of the start of a battle.

and the new hero's level is set to match the level of the city of the village visited. All of the standard rewards up to that point are gained. Meaning in this case, I would go through the drawing and selecting process of taking two starting skills. The third way to hire a hero is to hire a master. pay eight coins and then take the master and slot it underneath the hero so that you can see its special ability and its class.

This still counts as though it is just one hero, but now it's a hero with two special abilities and with two classes, which means that on a turn, this hero could treat one shard as blue and one shard as red, as well as adding both the sorcerer and warrior bonuses to each basic attack. If hero and master are the same class, double both of those benefits.

Your other options at the village are to rest. Each hero may spend one coin to reset its damage to zero or to buy a potion. Spend two coins and then add a potion to the shared pool of party resources. At any time during a battle, including as a hero is receiving a fatal blow, a hero may spend a potion to reduce damage by half of their current maximum health, rounded down.

Once your visit to a village is complete, gather up any unhired heroes and unpurchased items and return them to the tops of their decks. Finally, I'll talk quickly about resolving landmarks. I won't take you through every landmark in detail because they're all outlined on this player aid, but I'll go through a few types of effects we haven't yet seen.

The tavern lets you gain a fifth hero who stays with you in reserve. That hero can join your party automatically at the end of a battle to replace one who was eliminated during the battle. The sanctuary and the library are the only places you can go to upgrade an item or a master to their upgraded sides.

If you visit the dungeon, you must take on a harder combination of enemies than you would otherwise have to from that tile. But if you win, your party gains one of the more powerful night skybacked legendary heroes which we set aside in setup. Other landmarks give you a combination of other upgrades and even some cases where you'll need to trade off one benefit for another.

The heroes in your party may change over time, but the game's objective is clear. Get to the city of Stellaris and win a battle against three level four enemies and a celestial. Win that battle and you will win the game. lose all heroes from your party or allow time to reach step 12 of winter. The celestials take over and the players lose.

>> Thanks for watching and if you like this video, maybe you'd like to watch this next one. Have a great day. Bye.