Stag - How to Play

0:00 Hi everyone, my name is Monique. And today, I'm going to be showing you how to play a game that is currently on Kickstarter called Stag. Stag is a simultaneous action selection planning game for one to four players in which players progress through the life cycle of a beetle, developing from a grub to a pupa, and finally into a fully grown beetle before competing in a final showdown. This game is designed and fully illustrated by J.J. Neville and published by Split Stone Games for helping sponsor this video. Now, before I begin, I do need to mention that the copy I'm going to be showcasing today is a deluxe prototype version of the game, which means the components are subject to change in the future. For more information regarding the game as well as the campaign, I've included a link to the Kickstarter in the description below. Last but not least, if you enjoy content like this and would like to see more in the future, please consider subscribing. And with that, we are ready to begin. So, if you please direct your attention to the set of the table, we're all set up here for a game of Stag.

0:53 Welcome to the beetle breeding grounds. Now, like I was mentioning, in this game, players follow the life cycle of a beetle. Multiple beetles, actually. And so, over the course of the game, you're going to be hatching these beetles into grubs, growing them into pupa, which eventually grows into their final form, which is, of course, a beetle. But, that's not all because as a properly fed beetle, their job is to forage and fight, which will lead to a showdown over points. So, by the end of the game, the player who is able to score the most amount of points by growing their beetles and evolving their traits wins the game. Now, before we talk about how a round works, let's take a look at the anatomy of a beetle card. Beetle cards look like this that each feature a unique beetle with the beetle's common name and their true scientific name.

1:39 Now, along the left-hand side of the card are the various requirements in the form of resources and time which you'll need to pay in order to hatch a beetle into a grub, grow the grub into a pupa, grow a pupa into a beetle, which only ever costs time, and finally, the specific combination of resources you'll need in order to feed the beetle to prepare it for the showdown stage. Each beetle card also showcases one of three special traits at the top right-hand corner, and they'll also be worth a certain amount of points at the end of the game and just for putting them into play. In addition, beetle cards in this game are multi-use. And so, instead of using a card in order to grow a beetle, you can tuck it under your action mat in order to gain an ongoing benefit or a resource bonus. And if you choose to do so, then these cards will provide you with an end-game personal objective scoring at the very bottom. Now, each player has two main boards. We have an action mat as well as a card mat that's comprised of two rows. And so, as you can see, I'm only set up here from the perspective of one player because each player will have their own set of these two boards. Each player will also start the game with two beetles already on their card mats in their grub form. One of which is a starting card, and the other which you'll have to pay for out of your starting resources. And again, beetles always start out hatching as grubs, and in order to put a grub into play, you always have to pay it in the form of eggs. In this case, it's going to be a total of five eggs. Now, each player's card mats are split into three main columns, and they represent the three different stages of a beetle. Upon

3:09 putting a beetle into play, they'll always start out as a grub. And when doing so, you'll place its corresponding grub token on the main board on a space matching the trait that's shown on the right-hand upper right-hand corner of the card, which in this example is a coloring trait. Similar to our mats, the main board is also split into three sections in the form of three concentric rings. We have the outer, middle, and the central ring. And over the course of the game, as these beetles grow from a grub to a pupa and then to a beetle, we'll be moving these cards from column to column, replacing their token from a grub to a pupa, and so on and so forth, moving further and further into the ring. And as soon as a grub spot on your action mat is vacated, then you can now play a new card to that spot. And so, that's essentially how each player's card mat works. I just want to mention that I'm currently set up for a two-player game, and so the red markers represent the other player. Now, the way that the game works is each round is split into six steps, and most of these steps are actually done simultaneously, which means that this is mainly a simultaneous play game. During the first round, we're going to skip the first step that requires us to rotate the board, and we'll move directly to placing our action tiles. keep in mind that from the second round onward, you'll always start the round by rotating this middle blue ring clockwise one space. Now, each player has their own set of these five action tiles, and each action tile shows a combination of three different actions. And each round, players will simultaneously arrange their action tiles on their action mat,

4:40 so that the action they'd like to take is lined up with the colored strip across their board. And so, I might do something maybe like this, and like that, keeping in mind that after placing all of your action tiles, players will then simultaneously resolve these actions from left to right. So, you want to make sure that you're arranging the action tiles in the order that you'd actually like to take these actions. In addition, once we've finished resolving all five of these actions, players will then get to collect the resources that are shown on the uncovered symbols on their action mats. And this is the main way in which you'll get these resources. So, if you need specific resources, you want to make sure not to cover up those symbols when placing these action tiles. Now, in this game, there are 10 different types of actions, and they're all spread out in different combinations across your action tiles. Most of them are free to take, but some of them require you to pay a cost in eggs or different resources, and they're the ones that have a red circle at the bottom right-hand corner. Now, like we were mentioning earlier, in order to hatch and grow beetles, you will need resources, and hatching beetles into grubs requires specifically eggs. And so, the first type of action allows you to just gain two eggs. And in this game, anytime you see these circles, those represent eggs. So, you just take some eggs from the supply. And just so you're aware, each player does have a resource limit of 15 eggs and 10 of the other types of resources, which are water, wood, fruit, nectar, and sap. Next, we have this action here, which allows you to exchange resources. So, if you need a specific type of resource that you don't

6:11 have, with this action, you can exchange resources from your supply one to one, with the exception of eggs and aging. So, only the five main types of other resources. Speaking of aging, anytime you see these actions here with these circular arrow, that allows you to age your beetles. For each arrow, you'll advance one of your aging cubes up its track. And you can do multiple for the same beetle, or you can split them between beetles. You are just not allowed to pre-age a section of your mat that does not already contain a beetle. And again, this is important because in order to grow a grub to a pupa, you'll need to age it a certain amount. And pupas only need time in order to grow from a pupa to the beetle stage. Next, we have the draw card action, which simply allows you to draw a beetle card from the beetle deck. And keep in mind that each player has a hand limit of five cards. And of course, we have the three actions that allows you to actually grow a grub, grow a pupa, and grow a beetle. Now, we've already discussed growing a grub. To do so, you must pay the cost in eggs, place the beetle on the left-hand side of your card mat, and place the grub token on an available space matching its trait around the outer circle of the main board. But again, since I already have two grubs on my card mats, I would not be allowed to play a third one until I've moved a grub to its pupa stage.

7:25 Now, let's just say for example, I've taken enough actions to age this grub up to the amount that is needed, which is five. When taking the grow a pupa action, I would spend the necessary resources, which in this case is two water and two wood, reset its age tracker, and then I would move the beetle card to the pupa section of its row and place the corresponding pupa token onto the board. Now, when doing so, each grub spot feeds into a specific pupa space. And so, if another player is there, or even if my other pupa piece is on that space, then it actually blocks the spot, and I would not be allowed to grow that specific grub. Now, if I am the first player there, as evidenced by the bonus token still being present, I actually gain the bonus token. And these bonus tokens are laid out randomly around the middle center of the board here, and they do several things for you. The first thing is if the symbol on the bonus token matches the trait of your beetle, then you get a point as a bonus from the supply. And in this game, each of these small yellow diamonds here represents a point. In addition, over the course of the game, we're going to be evolving three different types of traits for our beetles. They are our mandibles, coloring, and wingspan. And each bonus token allows you to go up the track for that specific trait, which in the case of this token is going to be the mandibles. Now, this trait chart is going to be very beneficial in three different ways. The first way is at the end of the game, the player who is the highest on each of these tracks is going

8:56 to earn a certain amount of points. In addition, each player will score a certain amount of points based on whichever track is their lowest. And finally, over the course of the game, the player who is highest in each of these tracks will gain some sort of ongoing bonus for a particular part of the game. And I'll discuss this in more detail again later. But just keep in mind that gaining these traits is a very good thing. The last thing about these bonus tokens is each player has a personal objective card, and these cards want you to collect a certain combination of these bonus tokens. If you're able to do so by the end of the game, then you'll earn six points. In addition, there's also a universal objective that all players can score, which requires you to collect one of each color of token for a specific trait. So, if by the end of the game I'm able to collect the other three colors of mandible tokens, then I'll be able to score eight points. And now that my pupa is no longer a grub, the grub token gets placed back onto the mat so that in the future I can grow a grub in its space if I'd like to. As for the grow a beetle action, in order to grow a pupa to its final beetle form, all you need is time.

10:01 So, this stage does not require any other type of resource. So, for example, if I wanted to grow my rainbow stag beetle, I would need to age it twice. Now, on the main board, every two pupa spaces funnels into a single beetle space, which means if there are two pupa tokens on the board that are leading into the same beetle space, only the first player to grow a beetle will actually get to place a beetle token there. The other player will have to wait for that player to vacate its spot before growing theirs into a beetle. Now, similar to growing a pupa, when growing a beetle, after aging it enough, you'll then move the card to the beetle space, place a beetle token on the board as long as you're able to, and return the pupa token back to your board resetting the age timer. If you are the first player in the game to age a beetle to its spot, you also get the corresponding bonus token as a reward, which again is one point. And now your beetle token, as well as your beetle card, will stay where they are until you're able to meet its feeding requirement, forcing the beetle into a showdown, which we'll talk about later.

11:03 Now, before we discuss the showdowns, let's go over the last three actions that you'll see on these action tiles. And again, they are the ones that have a cost associated in order to take the actions. First, we have this action that allows you to pay eggs in order to move up one of the trait tracks. Next, we have this action which allows you to tuck a card from your hand into one of the two sections of your action mat. And again, when doing so, this allows you to gain an ongoing boon if you tuck it under the left side of your player mat, or an additional resource as long as the resource is visible when tucking it under the right side. But, keep in mind that you're no longer going to be growing this beetle. You're using it to tuck under your player mat. And, as you can see, there are little windows that kind of show what the boon is, or what the visible resource is when tucked under your mat. In addition, each tucked card at the end of the game will give you another type of end game scoring if you're able to meet its criteria. And, they usually have to do with you being the best at a certain trait, or the lowest, or having the most of a specific resource, etc. And, over the course of the game, you are allowed to replace these tucked cards by taking this action, but the card that you replace then gets discarded. And, finally, each of these action tiles can be upgraded in order to make their actions sweeter. So, after paying the cost, you then choose an action tile to upgrade, flipping it over to its opposite side, and then if possible, you can then take the upgraded action. And, those are all the different types of actions you'll see in the game.

12:28 Now, again, once all players have finished resolving all five of the actions they've chosen along their colored strip, then you'll simultaneously collect the resources that are visible, and then we'll move into the final two steps in the round that have to do with the beetle showdown. But, before we do, I just want to remind you that from the second round onward, you'll always start each round by rotating the inner circle one space clockwise. And, that's important because, like we've already discussed, some of these spaces get blocked depending on where players place their pieces. So, this could open up opportunities for you, or even create problems. Now, once a beetle has fully grown into its final beetle form, there's only one last thing to do, and it is to prepare the beetle for foraging and fighting. In order to do so, you'll need to feed the beetle a certain combination of resources, which is going to be in the form of fruit, nectar, and sap. In this example, this beetle here needs one fruit and two sap. Now, if by the end of the round, you have the required resources in your supply, you're actually required to feed your beetle. You are not allowed to withhold these resources. Your beetle gets immediately fed. And when doing so, you'll return these resources and you'll flip over your beetle to its fed side.

13:37 Once the beetle is fed, it is now ready for the showdown, which is the final step in a round. A true showdown typically happens when there are multiple players who have beetles that are fed. Now, if however, you get to the showdown stage and only one player has a beetle fed or unfed, then that player gets a lone beetle bonus of one trait of their choice advancing on its corresponding track. But otherwise, nothing else happens. No fight occurs. That beetle stays there. Now, even if a single player has multiple fed beetles, a fight still doesn't occur because again, it must be amongst multiple players, but that player still gains a bonus. And you actually get a bonus for each of your fed beetles. So, in this case, I would gain two traits of my choice. Now, even if there are multiple players who have beetles, but only one player's beetles are fed, a true showdown still does not occur because that player's beetle is not ready. Now, if two or more players have a beetle that is fed and ready to go, in this case, we will have a showdown. And the way that a showdown resolves really depends on the number of players who are participating. So, right now, I'm just going to describe what a two-way showdown looks like. During a showdown, each player must choose one of their fed beetles to participate. So, in this example, the red player would throw in their only one, and the purple player would have to choose one, moving them to the center ring. Each player would also move their beetle cards to the center ring so that players can see what is on the line. Then, each player takes their showdown tile and chooses to either forage or fight. And this is done

15:10 secretly and simultaneously. So, once everyone is ready, you'll simultaneously reveal and you'll resolve the showdown depending on what players chose. Each time you have a showdown, one of these six-point tokens are up for grabs. If both players chose to forage, this is the most amicable result because each player will split these points, gaining three points each from the supply, and returning the large token. And each player will also gain two traits on the traits track. And once the showdown is done, each player will get to tuck their beetle card under their mat so that you can score them at the end of the game. Now, if one player chose to fight and the other player chose to forage, the fighting player gains all six points and one trait of their choice, and the foraging player gains two traits of their choice, but no points. So, the fighting player basically got to take all the points for themselves, and each player still gets to retain their beetle cards. If, however, both players chose to fight, this is by far the worst result because not only does neither player gain any points, this token just gets discarded. Each player also loses one trait of their choice, and they lose their beetle card. So, you no longer get to score your beetle card at the end of the game. So, as you can see, the showdown stage is sort of what the game culminates to, and so players will want to choose which side of their showdown token to play wisely. And when doing so, you can discuss it, you can negotiate, you can do all sorts of things, but at the end of the day, you won't know what the other player is going to choose.

16:35 Now, if during the showdown step there are three players involved, the three-way showdown is actually resolved differently, and there is a player aid that showcases all of the different resolutions. And a four-player showdown is actually treated as two separate two-way showdowns. And that's it. Once the showdown is over, each player will either discard their beetles or tuck their beetle cards under their player mat depending on the result of the showdown, and you'll return your beetle token to your player mat. Any leftover fed beetles will stay on the board to possibly participate in a showdown in the next round. And once the showdown step is finished, you then start a new round by rotating the board. Now, before we talk about how the game ends, going back to the traits tracker, during the game, the player who's advanced the most on each of the three different traits actually gets an ongoing benefit. In the case of the mandibles trait, at the start of the showdown, if you're involved in the showdown, then you gain a trait no matter what. For the coloring trait, if you're the highest during the collect resources step of the round, you can exchange one of your resources for another one. And finally, for the wingspan trait, if you're the highest, then when taking actions, if you choose to draw a card, you actually get to draw two cards, choose one, and tuck the other one to the bottom of the deck. And if ever there is a tie of the game, whether it be for vying for position on the main board or when advancing on these various tracks, you'll actually resolve ties in favor of the hierarchy card, which is at the very top here. The leftmost player breaks ties, but then you would move the tokens so that now the next time a tie occurs, the players have switched. And that's essentially it. As soon as all five of these large

18:07 point tokens have been taken or discarded via these showdowns, then at the end of that round, the game ends and players go into final scoring. At the end of the game, players will score points for each of their beetle cards, whether they are still on their mats or tucked underneath their mat, but not for any beetles that were discarded during showdowns. You'll also score points for the various objectives as long as you're able to meet them, whether that be your personal objective card, any cards that were tucked underneath your action mat, as well as the universal objective for collecting a set of these bonus tokens. On the traits track, you'll score points for your lowest rank marker, depending on how far along the track it's progressed. In addition, each player who is the furthest advanced on each of these tracks will score points depending on player count. In a two-player game, the highest player will score four points and the second player will score zero points. And finally, you'll add up all the point tokens that you've earned throughout the game. And at that point, whoever has the most points wins. And that's essentially how you play Stag.

19:03 So, as you can see, this is a game that requires you to be efficient in planning and programming your action tiles. You'll want to also manage your resources wisely so that you can grow your beetles at the right time and also feed them at the right time to make sure that you are in place during the showdown steps. But, you'll also want to position all of your pieces wisely so that you can gain these bonus tokens, meet your objectives, and gain as many of these traits as you can. And again, I was showcasing a two-player game from the perspective of one player, but the game plays up to four players and also includes a solo mode. And there you have it. That's essentially how you play Stag. Now again, this game is currently on Kickstarter, so for more information regarding the game as well as the campaign, I've included the link to the campaign in the description below. If you have any questions about anything that you saw here today, please feel free to leave me a comment down below and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you so much for watching the video. I really hope it was helpful. If you enjoy content like this and would like to see more in the future, please consider subscribing.

19:57 Thank you. Bye.