The Monolith - How To Play
Transcript
Hi and welcome to Watch It Played. My name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the three to four player game The Monolith designed by Phil Gross and published by Plahat Games who helped sponsor this video. The voice of the Monolith calls you aching in its endless hunger for hearts. Thankfully, you know just where to find some. the ones still beating in the chests of your enemies. So, rally your troops, get on the hunt, and bring the monolith its dinner. If you feed it well, you'll win and live to harvest another day. In this video, I'll be teaching the rules for the three and four player game, which come in this box. Due to demand, a separate one and two player mode has been developed, and you can pick that up separately. I'll put a link to that in the description below. But for now, join me at the table and let's learn how to play. To set up, put this map board in the center of the play area. This is divided into various spaces, each surrounded by solid and dashed lines. If you have a threeplayer game, as we'll be setting up in this video, put one of these locked tokens on each of the spaces in the top left hand corner.
These [snorts] spaces will not be used in the game, so treat them as if they do not even exist. Now, assemble this monolith tower and put it onto this base. When setting up for the first time, you'll have stickers to add here, which I've already done. Put the monolith on this space in the center of the board, or you can just set it to the side if you feel that it will obstruct your view while playing. Within the monolith space, find what are known as these boast slots and fill any two of them with these blood markers. Put the rest of the blood markers in a supply by the board along with this surge marker. Now find the scriptorum, mausoleum, and temple buildings, adding one to each of the symbols on the board with the matching shape and name. It will look like this when you're done. If you have three players like we do here, you'll have some extra buildings that would have gone into these spaces which you now return to the box. Now set this day board within reach of the players, adding this day marker to the first space. Then find the event and objective decks which you can identify by their backs, shuffling and putting each of them on either side of the dayboard as indicated by the markings here and here.
The cards with this back make up the divination deck which you'll shuffle and put face down nearby dealing a number of them face up equal to your number of players. So three in this threeplayer game. Then each person takes a player aid board, 19 hearts, 16 warriors, one stronghold, one favor token, and one base ring in their chosen color. Next, each person picks one of these shaman cards and its matching figure. [snorts] You can distribute these randomly or select them using a method of your choosing. Put your shaman card in front of you and attach your base to its figure like this. Each player then finds the space on the board with a stronghold that's closest to them and sets their stronghold piece there. Then flip your shaman card over and follow its setup instructions here. For example, we're told to put 11 of our hearts in our available pool and eight in the unearned pool. Your available pool is this space of your player board. And the unearned pool is an area all players will share near the day board. We are then told to put a certain number of our warriors into our stronghold space, the monolith space, reserves, and angerpool. Your stronghold space is the one with your stronghold piece, and the monolith space is the one, you guessed it, with the
monolith. Your anger pool is this space of your player board. And the reserves is the area indicated here to the right. This player is also told to put their shaman into the monolith space. Each player's shaman will have slightly different setup instructions. And after you finished following the instructions for yours, flip its card back over and put it in front of yourself in the area here. Then move your favor marker to this starting space of the favor track that runs around the outside edge of the board. Next, each person draws two objective cards, examining them privately and choosing one to put into a shared discard pile, keeping the other face down to the right of your board here. You can always examine your own objective, but keep it a secret from the other players. Finally, pick someone randomly to be the first player and give them this first player marker. And that's the setup. In the monolith, you and the other players will be engaging in bloody battles as you spread across the map in search of hearts to harvest an offer to the monolith, which will reward you with favor. Have the most favor at the end of the game and you win. The game is played over a series of rounds known as days. And each round is divided into three phases. Starting with the order phase. Here, players will take turns starting with the first player and
going clockwise around and around the table. On your turn, you must perform a single order, and you have five to choose from, which are listed here on your player aid. So, let's go through each of them and see how they work. Starting with the march order. And to help explain the various rules of the game, I'm going to be freely moving pieces around the board like you might see later in the game, as that will help me set up the examples I want to show you. When performing a march order, you pick any number of your warriors within one space to march as a group. As we'll learn later, warriors can be killed, which knocks them over, and you cannot move dead warriors with a march order. You also cannot move your shaman with a march order. I have three warriors here I could move, but I'm going to march with just two of them. With your group picked, you then spend one or more hearts by moving them from this available pool to this spent pool. The number of hearts you spend is how many spaces you can move your chosen group of warriors. So, three spaces in this example. Move them one space at a time from the one they're in to any adjacent space. A space is adjacent if there's a dashed line anywhere between it and the space the pieces are moving from. So I could not move these warriors from this space to the one here because these spaces only share a solid line. But I could move them into this space. And you
do not have to stop if that space contains enemy pieces. So I'll keep moving. And as you march, you can drop off or pick up warriors. I might leave one behind as I continue to this space and then add these two warriors to this group that I'm moving. If your space contains a tunnel like we see here, it's considered adjacent to every other space on the board that also has a tunnel. So, we could move from here all the way over to this space, which also has a tunnel. That means we moved a total of three spaces and we had spent three hearts. So, our march order is complete. All right. Next up, let's learn the shaman order, which as it says here, always costs exactly one heart. You may then move your shaman up to three spaces.
This works just like marching warriors, except you cannot pick up or drop off warriors as you go. This order only moves your shaman. That said, your shaman will cremate each of your dead warriors in the space it starts from and in any that it moves to during that order. Again, we'll see how warriors die a little later, but these are any that are lying down. So, if I move my shaman from here to here and then maybe to here, that would cremate my dead warriors in all of those spaces, which I show by collecting them from the board and standing them in my anger pool located here. And there's no limit to how many warriors can end up in this space. Now before discussing the next type of order, I should take a moment and explain a couple of key terms in the game. We know this is a shaman and these are warriors and all of them are considered units. If a rule refers to your units, it applies to shamans and warriors. If it specifically refers to shamans, like a shaman order does, then it only applies to this piece. If a rule refers to warriors like a march order does, it only affects warriors. Upright units are living and ones lying down are dead. When a space has any of your living units, you are said to occupy that space. So, I occupy this one as the
blue player, but now I don't. If you're in a space with any of your living units and the living units of another player, you are said to be contesting that space. So, these three players are all occupying and contesting this space. Finally, if no other player has the same number of or more units than you in a space, you control it. So, as the blue player, I control this space. If you're tied with even just one player there or if someone has more pieces than you there, you do not control that space. With that understood, let's learn about the recruit order. Here, you can spend any number of hearts, but must spend at least two. Then, for each heart spent, you deploy a warrior. And for each mausoleum you control, you may deploy an additional warrior for free. Mausoleum spaces have this miniature and label.
and I control this space. So, I get to deploy an extra warrior if I want to. Let's assume I spend four hearts. With the mausoleum bonus, I can then collect five warriors from my reserves and or anger pool and place them among spaces with my stronghold and or any mausoleum spaces I already occupy. My only unit here is dead. So I cannot recruit warriors to this space. But I have a shaman in this mausoleum space and warriors in the one here. So I can recruit to either or both of those spaces. And you can always recruit to the space with your stronghold even if another player occupies or even controls it. Okay, we're now ready to learn about the divination order. Here you move one or more of your hearts from the available pool to any one face up divination card in this row. This is called making a bid. And we'll see why you might want to bid on one card over another later. Placing a bid resolves that order and now the next person would take their turn. When it eventually comes back to your turn, before performing your next order, first check the divination cards. If you have the highest bid on any card there, you move all your hearts from it to your spent area and put the card face up in front of yourself in the area here. [snorts]
You can only have three divinations at a time. So, if you would ever gain extra, discard down to three, putting the removed cards into a shared discard pile. Just know collecting a divination does not end your turn. You still get to perform an order as usual. Basically, at the start of each turn, players always freely check to see if they have the highest bid on a divination. And if they do, they gain it. So, that raises the question, how do you get out bid on a divination? Let's pretend I spent my turn performing a divination order for this card. Another player on their turn can also place a bid there, but they must bid so that they have more hearts on it compared to any other player. So, they might add four hearts to out bid me or even more if they want. When it gets back to my turn, at the start, I will freely check the bids on these cards. And if I have been outbid, I must either add enough hearts from my available pool to outbid any of my opponents there or forfeit my bid, collecting my hearts there and putting them back into my available pool. If you choose to raise your bid, that does not count as your order for that turn. It's only when you place your first hearts on a card that you're using your turn as a divination order.
raising, forfeiting, or acquiring a card at the start of your turn does not count as resolving an order. So, you still get to resolve an order after. Speaking of which, if you do raise your bid, you then have to wait until it comes back around to your turn to see if you still have the highest bid there. And if so, then you acquire the card. And you must acquire it if you have the highest bid there. You cannot win the bid and then change your mind and forfeit. If you acquire a divination that has other players hearts on it, they return them to their available pool while you put yours into your spent pool. We'll see how you use your acquired divinations later, but each will have a special power and a rating of one to four symbols in this area. The more symbols it has, the more potent its effect, which can give you an idea of how valuable it might be to have. Now though, let's learn the final type of order, committing. Here you collect all the remaining hearts in your available pool and any still on divination cards where you were outbid, dropping them into the opening at the top of the monolith. If you are the first person to commit during a round, you also collect this surge marker and put it in front of yourself. After you've resolved a commit order, you will not take any more turns during this order phase, and you will be skipped over while any remaining players
continue to take their turns. Until you commit, you must always perform an order on your turn. So, if you do not have hearts you want to spend on other orders or you do not have any hearts left to spend, you must commit as your order. When you commit, you may not have any hearts left to drop into the tower, and that's okay. It still counts as committing, and you're done taking turns this round. Once everyone has committed, the order phase is complete, and you move on to the action phase. Here, you remove the monolith from its base, setting it aside. The hearts that were dropped into it will be resting on this base, scattered into the three different zones of what are known as the action board. During the action phase, you'll take turns in clockwise order around and around the table, just like the last phase, but this time you start with the person holding the surge marker, which may or may not be the same player holding the first player marker. As it says here, the person with this marker performs four actions on their very first turn of this phase. And then on every turn after that, players will only perform two actions. That said, each action you perform requires you to spend a heart from this board. So, if you run out of hearts to spend, you'll stop taking actions and your turn will be skipped for the rest of this phase. On your turn, you must take the actions you are owed if possible. So, if you still have two hearts on the board, then you
must perform two actions. And you can perform the same action for both if you like. Most will require you to spend a single heart from one of these labeled zones on the action board. For example, if I return one heart from this sleigh area to the spent area of my player board, I then get to kill an enemy unit in a space that I occupy, knocking it over. Anytime you kill a warrior, you earn one favor. Anytime you earn favor, move your marker here, the related number of spaces, forward along this favor track. A slay action can also kill an enemy shaman, but only after any other warriors from its faction in that space have been killed. Then you can target a shaman, and slaying it earns you three favor. Next, we have the maneuver action. Spending a heart from here lets you move any one of your living units to an adjacent space. We also have this boast zone. You spend a heart here by moving it to any boast slot of a space you're contesting which does not contain a blood marker or another heart. This will earn you favor in the upcoming rest phase. But if at any time you stop occupying that space because your units are killed or move away, immediately move any hearts you had in slots there to your spent pool.
You won't find the next action we're going to talk about listed on this board. But if you spend a heart from any zone here, you can perform a sacrifice, which you resolve by moving any one of your living warriors to your anger pool. We'll see how warriors here can be used in just a moment, but let's first cover the last type of action, relenting. This would return any hearts you have remaining on this board to your spent area. After relenting, you'll take no more actions for the rest of this phase, and your turns will be skipped over. This also happens if you run out of hearts on the action board to spend. You'll find all of this phase's actions on your player aid along with a manipulate fate option you can perform before any action. To manipulate fate, spend anger by moving warriors from your anger box to this limbo area. And for each one spent, move one of your hearts from one zone to the next in clockwise order. We spent two anger, so I might move this one from here over to here.
And this is the symbol for spending anger, which reminds you of this option. As we'll see, there are other ways to spend anger as well. But after each person has performed all the actions they can, the heartboard will be empty and you move on to the rest phase. You'll find the steps for this on the other side of your player aid. First, remove any blood markers on the board and return them back to the supply. Then, it's time to score favor, which is done in a variety of ways. First check the effect on any divination card you have with a score condition as indicated here. This symbol represents favor. So this effect means you score two favor for every scriptorum you control. We're going to learn how events enter play in just a moment. But some of these will list a scoring condition which you check next. For example, this says that any player with a living shaman in its space earns five favor. and then this is put into a shared discard pile. Other events may stay in play after they're resolved.
For example, this one is moved to another space if a player scores points from it. After events are scored, if any, you may choose to reveal any objectives you have that can be scored. For example, here you would earn one favor for each space you control that contains at least one enemy unit, living or dead. After scoring an objective, move it to a shared discard pile. Next, each player earns two favor for every space they control with a temple, which you're reminded of here. Then, check every space of the board and for each of your hearts in a boast slot, return it to your spent pool and score three favor, filling that slot with a blood marker after. On the other hand, if you control the monolith space, as it says here, you earn one extra favor for each heart you return from a boast slot that round. So, if the blue player controlled this monolith space, returning their hearts from here and here would earn them four favor each. Now, each player draws one objective card for each space they control with a scriptorum. As this reminds you, you can only have a total of three objectives at a time. So, discard down to three if you ever exceed that limit. Also, if the objective deck ever runs out when you would need to draw more, reshuffle its discard pile
into a new draw deck and just take what you're owed. The next step of the rest phase is to reset your pools. First, move all the hearts in your spent pool over to your available pool, and all warriors in your limbo to your reserves. Each player then collects two of their unearned hearts from this pool by the dayboard and puts them into their available area. Certain card effects may also allow you to collect unearned hearts, but if your unearned hearts pool ever runs out, you just won't collect any extra when you normally would. Next up, any player with a dead shaman stands it back up and then moves it to their stronghold space. Then discard any remaining face up cards in the divination row and deal a number of new ones face up equal to your number of players. Now set the surge marker back by the board and pass the first player marker to the next person in clockwise order. Then set the monolith back on its base and have the player with the least favor draw one event card, read it out loud, and resolve its reveal effect. If there's a tie for players with the least favor, the tied player who is later in the current turn order draws and resolves the event. In this case, we're told to put this card on any space and treat it as if that space has a tunnel.
Then finally, you advance the day marker one space and begin the next round with its order phase. With that, we've covered the rules for a round or day of the game, leaving one last thing to go over. All cards have one or more effects, and each will specify when the effect can be activated, which is also known as its timing window. Here during a sleigh action, here during a shaman order, this when revealed, and here when scoring during the rest phase, some divination cards will have a cost in the area here. When you see this symbol, it means that you must discard that divination after resolving its effect. The symbol here means you must spend the related amount of anger, which as we saw moves warriors from this area to limbo.
If a divination has a cost, you can choose if and when to activate it during its timing window. Effects with no cost, like we see here, automatically resolve during their timing windows. But if the effect uses the term may, you can choose not to resolve it. During a player's turn, if more than one effect would resolve at the same time, they decide the order to resolve them in. But if multiple effects would resolve during the rest phase, the first player decides what order to resolve them in. We're not going to go through all of the cards and effects in this video, but you can refer to these clarifications in the rule book if you have any questions while playing along with this glossery of terms. And with that, rounds will continue until you get to the rest phase of the fourth day. During that phase, when you get to step three, each player will earn one favor for every unscored objective they have remaining, and then the game immediately ends. Here, the player with the most favor wins. In the case of a tie, the tied player closest to the first player in the turn order of the last round wins. Once you have experience with the game, there are rules provided to allow you to draft shaman where you'll bid hearts for the ones you want to use. But those rules I'll leave for you to discover on your own. Otherwise, that's everything you
need to know to play the monolith. If you have any questions about anything you saw here, feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance. You'll also find forums for discussion, pictures, other videos, and lots more over on the games page at Boardamege Geek. And I'll put a link to that in the description below. And if you found this video helpful, please consider giving it a like, subscribing, and clicking that little bell icon so you get notification anytime I post a new video. And if you'd like to support the channel directly, you can join the Patreon team, which I'll have linked below. But until next time, thanks for watching.