Duel Of Meloch (Combine Scythe And Expeditions!) - 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 one to two player game Jewel of Mellock designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games who helped sponsor this video. Here the creature known as Mellock has forced two factions into a duel to the death. This standalone game takes place in the world shared by Scythe and Expeditions.
Two games that come together in this one box. In Jewel of Mellock one player uses the rules and components from Scythe to face an opponent who's using the rules and components from Expeditions all on the same shared board. Now everything you need to play is found in this one box including a new Scythe faction and new Expeditions mech character and companion.
But you can also use any of the original factions from these boxes in this new duel format or bring the factions from this box into your games of Scythe or Expeditions. To play Jewel of Mellock you do first need to know how to play Scythe and Expeditions. And I'm not going to teach those rules here as I already have a tutorial for each of these games which you'll find links to in the description of this video. Once you know how to play these titles you just need to know what changes when they come together here which I'm going to explain. So join me at the table and let's learn how to play. To set up put this double-sided play mat on the table with either side face up each having a unique layout of spaces and icons to play on. Nearby create a supply of these resources coins and workers. And if you want you can include extras taken from Scythe and or Expeditions. Now ensure the nine included map tokens are face down with this side showing and give them a good mix. Place one of these randomly face down on each space of the mat showing [snorts] this map icon. It will look like this when you're done and then you set the remaining map tokens into the supply. Now mix together these 12 included corruption tokens and randomly stack two face up on each space of the mat with a dashed square box.
When you're done, it will look something like this. These are the factory cards and you can add in any from the original Scythe game to these shuffling and putting two face down next to the board returning any extras back to the box. In a similar way, you can add any encounter cards from the original game of Scythe to these ones included in Duel of Melok shuffling and setting them as a deck nearby. Then shuffle any discovery cards wanted from the original game of Expeditions into this included deck and add one randomly face up onto each lake which shows this icon putting the rest face down nearby. Then shuffle these combat cards that come with Duel of Melok ensuring you do not include any from the original game of Scythe and set them face down within reach of the players. The cards with this back make up the Melok deck which you shuffle and put face down dealing one face up beside it in a random orientation. Now make sure the Scythe player is sat on the side of the mat so that this popularity and power track is facing them.
Then put this triumph track with either side face up between the players so that the edge showing these icons in the bottom corners are facing the Expeditions player. The Scythe player now sets up their chosen faction and player mat using the ones from the Duel of Melok box as I'm doing or they can use any other ones they might have. If you need a reminder of how a faction is set up in Scythe, you can refer to this included Duel of Meloch Scythe's rule summary, which details the setup requirement steps here. I've followed them, so now it looks like this. And remember, as the Scythe player, you begin with two workers on the locations adjacent to your home base, which is here. If you're the Expeditions player, you'll sit on the other side of the mat and set up these mech and cards from Duel of Meloch or use any other ones you might have. If you need a reminder of how an Expeditions mech is set up, refer to this included Duel of Meloch Expeditions rule summary, which details the related steps here. Those are the steps I've followed, and just remember, if you're playing with a mech originally from Expeditions, but you don't have the related mech cards from the Gear of Corruption expansion, start with three guile, three power, and one hero worker.
And that's the setup. Now, I only use the components that come with the Duel of Meloch box, and that's all you need. But remember, you can add components from the other games as I indicated. Just do not include Scythe's airships or Expeditions corrupted mech, as they are not compatible with this game. In Duel of Meloch, Scythe and Expeditions comes together on a smaller map where both players are racing to be the first to place four stars on the new triumph track, where only one star can be added to each category. The important concepts that carry over from Scythe and Expeditions are detailed on these included rules summaries, which you can refer to while playing, but we also need to go over the changes that occur in this duel format. And that's what I'll focus on for the rest of this video.
The game is played over a series of turns, starting with the Expeditions player and then going back and forth. With that in mind, let's first go over the rules changes that apply to the Expeditions player. First, a reminder. A hero worker counts as all worker colors for all situations and abilities, but because you cannot gain more of these, if you trash a hero worker, you'll have no way to get it back. Okay, when moving, your mech cannot go through tunnels or onto lakes, but you may move across rivers. Also, ignore the factory and any terrain icons. They are only used by the Scythe player. Unlike Expeditions, there are no locations to reveal. Instead, we have what are known as unexplored locations, which are any with a map token. When the Expeditions player enters a space with one, they must stop.
Whenever they gain one of these tokens, either by moving into its space or through a card ability, they flip the token over and resolve it. Your mech is considered to be on that location when you gain the bonus. So, as an example, in this case, we'd gain a worker of any color. However, do not add corruption to newly explored locations. If you collect a map token showing this combat card symbol, draw the top one from its deck. Keep it hidden from the other player, but also separate from your hand and active row. You'll find a new icon on the map, which allows you to draw any combination of two cards from the combat and or discovery decks, choosing one of them to keep, discarding the other.
Speaking of discovery cards, there are two new phrases you'll find on them. If you're told to peek at the top two cards of any deck, then gain one of them. That means you choose either the combat or discover deck and draw two cards from it, not one card from each. Then take one of those cards and put the other back on top of its deck. If an effect tells you that all opponents decrease each token on tracks by one, then the Scythe player must reduce their power and popularity by one each if possible. If an ability tells you to trash a card, you may choose either a discovery or combat card to trash. On the other hand, if it says to discard a card, that only applies to discovery cards. So, you would pick one to move from your hand to your active row without activating it. I should also point out that each quest card will list two locations in the area here, and you can solve the quest at either of them. If you're playing with discovery cards from the original game of Expeditions, you'll find that some of them refer to directions. For example, this refers to opponents being south of you. In these cases, compare your mech's location to the Scythe character's location. A location is south of you if any part of its hex is lower than yours.
And if any part of its hex is higher than yours, it's north of you. Here, the players would be neither north or south from each other's position. And just note, the expedition player considers the top of the map relative to their position at the table as north. Also, if you draw a discovery card from the original set that includes a quest from locations 11 through 20, just discard it and redraw. Those spaces do not exist on the Jewel of Mellok mat. All right, with that we've covered the main changes for the Expeditions player. Though, we still have the new rules that affect them related to combat and other interactions between players, and we'll cover those later. But for right now, let's take a look at the gameplay changes specifically related to the Scythe player. First off, keep in mind you will not be using structure bonus tiles or objective cards from the original game. And your recruit ongoing bonuses cannot be triggered by the Expeditions player. Also, ignore the gather benefits and corruption on locations. Those are for the Expeditions player. But when moving, be aware that there are two rivers on the desert side of the map. One that runs along here and another here. When moving, you'll treat these map tokens the same as encounter tokens from Scythe. If your character gains a map token, ignore the bonus on its other side and instead draw and resolve an encounter card. If the
encounter deck ever runs out, reshuffle the discarded ones into a new deck to draw from. Some encounters might have an effect that adjusts an opponent's tokens on their tracks. When targeting the Expeditions player with this, it would adjust their power and guile. Some of the encounter cards you might find in the original Scythe won't really make sense in the context of the Duel of Mechs format. So, if you draw one of those while playing, just discard it and draw a replacement. Also, be aware as the Scythe player, you can now gain access to this refresh benefit that was first introduced in the game Expeditions. When resolving this effect as the Scythe player, you take your action token from its current section of your player mat and put it on a different one. And if you gain the ability to refresh before taking a bottom row action on your turn, you could then take the bottom row action of the new section you just moved to. If you're playing Duel of Mechs with a faction that came with one of the other Scythe games, you can refer to this section of the rulebook to see if there are any unique adjustments to make when using those factions. All right, with that we've covered the changes related to specific expeditions and Scythe player rules. But now let's look at what happens when these two forces cross paths during play. As the Scythe player, your workers may not move into a territory containing the opposing player's mech. If your mechs or
character piece move into a space with the opposing mech, your movement ends. For the Expeditions player, if their mech enters a space containing the Scythe player's mech or character, their movement ends. They can move into a space with opposing workers. The workers stay there and the mech can continue its movement. Just know, while the Expeditions mech is in a location, they control that location, meaning the Scythe player's workers cannot trade, produce, build, deploy, or spend or gain resources there. When opposing units share a location, that does not trigger combat. Combat has to be intentionally initiated by the players.
So let's see how that works. For the Expeditions player, their mech needs to be in a location with a Scythe mech and or character, and then they need to resolve the vanquish benefit, declaring that they intend to target the Scythe player to start combat rather than target corruption. The Scythe player initiates combat if they just finished a move action with at least one mech and or character on the Expeditions mech location. They can even initiate this combat if the related pieces didn't move during that action, but are there now. However, initiating combat is still a choice. Even if the required pieces are in the same space, the Scythe player can decide not to begin combat. That said, assuming combat is initiated, you then and the same steps no matter which player caused it. First, the players each select the amount of power they will spend for the combat by secretly selecting that value on their power dials. They also secretly add up to one of their combat cards for each of their characters and or mechs involved in the combat. For the Expeditions player, they only have a single mech, so they can only select at most a single combat card. If the Scythe player has multiple mechs and or their character in the combat, they could add more cards, but as always, adding them is optional.
When both players are ready, they reveal their power dials and any chosen combat cards. The attacker totals the value of their dial and played combat cards, applying their effects first. Remember, in Duel of Mechs, you do not use the original Scythe combat cards, but instead the deck that comes with this game. When used in combat, add the value on a combat card here to your total power and resolve the effect listed at its bottom. In this case, we draw a combat card from the deck and add its value to our total power. And then you discard it without resolving its effect. Combat cards also show an icon in the top right-hand corner, but you ignore it during combat. We'll see how it's used a little later. So, after the attacker totals and resolves their played combat cards, the defender does the same afterwards. Then the player with the higher power total wins, with the attacker winning ties.
The players then pay the power shown on their dials and discard their used combat cards. The winner of the combat then adds one of their stars to an empty space of the triumph track with this symbol, if one is available. If the Expeditions player wins the combat, they get to do this without needing to boast, which is normally how they add stars here, as we'll see. There's only one available space for a combat victory on this side of the triumph track, but if you're playing on this side, you'll see that there are two spaces. If all of the combat spaces have been claimed, then no stars are added here for future combat victories. If you lose a combat, you retreat all of your units on that location to your home base. When the Scythe player retreats, they leave any resources in that combat space behind. If the losing player spent at least one power, either on their dial or from a combat card, they now draw one new combat card. Speaking of combat cards, I had mentioned that they have a symbol in their top right-hand corner.
On your turn, outside of combat, you may discard any number of combat cards to gain the benefit showing in that card's right-hand corner. Just ignore its power value and the combat effect at the bottom. All right, this brings us to one of the most important things, the triumph track. Over the course of the game, players are trying to accomplish goals that will allow them to add their stars to these spaces. Be the first to add four of your stars here and you win. What's special about this track is that there's only room for one star on each objective. So, if the Scythe player gained eight workers, which completes the requirements of this objective for them, then they'd add their star there and now the expeditions player can't. The side of the track with these symbols in the corner face the Scythe player and their requirements for each space are listed here, which can be different from the requirements of the Expeditions player, which is shown on the other side. Just be aware, the Scythe player adds a star to the Triumph track as soon as they meet its requirement, but the Expeditions player must use the boast benefit to place a star on any one completed requirement.
So, if they currently satisfied two of the star requirements, a boast benefit would only allow them to place one star. They'd need to boast again to place the other. The exception is winning combat, which allows the Expeditions player to place a star without boasting. Whenever your opponent places their first, second, or third star, immediately after you draw the top card of this Meloch deck and orient it however you like, placing it so it covers the top half of the most recently played card. Remember, during setup, one of these cards begins face up on the table. The top half that you cover is relative to your position at the table. So, seated on this side, the top half would be here. The player adding the card then gains all of the benefits showing on the sections with arrows pointing towards them. So, in this case, they'd resolve these two effects. The opposing player, however, doesn't gain anything. That said, if this player later gains a star, then the player on this side would flip a card and put it over top of this half because this would be the top for them, and then they would gain the benefits in the sections pointing towards them. I should mention, if the Scythe player gains a worker from effects like these, they place one, if available, on any territory they control or on their home base. The symbols found on the Triumph
track will be familiar to you from Scythe and Expeditions, but I just want to point out that the hero worker does count towards the expedition players requirement of gaining six workers. As soon as a player adds their fourth star to this track, they immediately win. I should point out that on this B side of the triumph track, there is a very rare scenario that can occur when both players have three stars, but only combat stars are left to claim. A player could cause a stalemate by keeping their combat units on their home base, preventing the other player from getting their fourth star from combat. If that happens, and the player has not moved on to a hex territory space for at least two turns, then players may attack units on home bases for the rest of the game, treating home bases as locations. And that covers the rules for playing Duel of Meloch. The game comes with an appendix sheet that gives you extra details on the new Scythe faction and expedition characters, along with further details on the included combat and factory cards if you have questions while playing. You'll also find variants in the rule book that allow you to bring in further components from Scythe and Expeditions to modify the game, along with a method for playing Duel of Meloch in a tournament format. There are also included components and rules for solo play, but those I'll leave for you to discover on your own. Otherwise, that's
everything you need to know to play Duel of Meloch. 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 game's page at BoardGameGeek, 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.