The Wolves
The Wolves is a pack-building strategy game for 2-5 players. It's survival of the fittest as you compete to build the largest, most dominant pack by claiming territory, recruiting lone wolves, and hunting prey.
Each action requires you to flip terrain tiles matching the terrain where you wish to take your action. These double-sided tiles mean the actions you take this round will set up which terrain types you can act on in the next round. As you take actions to expand your pack's control of each region, you also upgrade your pack's attributes, allowing you to take more aggressive actions as the game goes on.
In three mid-game scoring phases, power is calculated in each region. At the end of the game, players tally points based on VP tokens earned in these scoring phases and the highest VP number revealed in each of the six tracks on your player board. The player with the most VP wins!
Number of players: 2 - 5
Game duration: 61 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
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Play The Wolves and 839 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Overview
Gain the most points before the full moon
Turn
On your turn, take any two actions, or take the same action twice
How powerful an action is, is determined by your attributes which can be upgraded though the Build Den action
All actions are paid for by flipping terrain tiles, which change what other actions you may or may not have access to
If you have them, Bonus Terrain Tokens count as wild Terrain to use during payment, whilst Bonus Action Tokens give you additional actions on your turn.
Actions
The actions are:
Move
Build Den
Upgrade Den
Howl
Dominate
Hunting (Automatic, resolved at the end of another action)
Move
Flip a terrain tile matching the terrain of your destination.
Move up to the distance specified by your your Pack Speed, tiles moved over do NOT have to match the flipped tile.
Any number of wolves may be moved this way up to your Pack Spread value, and can end up on different tiles as long as they share the same terrain as the original flipped one.
Movement also comes with certain restrictions: The Central Chasm and Water Sources (the scoring tile hexes) cannot be moved on or through, spaces with active lone wolf or prey tokens can be moved through but not landed on, each space can hold a maximum of 2 pieces, an Alpha Wolf ending its move sharing a space with an opponent Pack Wolf pushes the opponent Pack wolf to an adjacent empty or friendly space, an Alpha Wolf or Pack Wolf can share a space with an opponent's Den.
Build Den
First pick a hex that is occupied by or adjacent to one of your Alpha Wolves
Flip TWO terrain tiles that match the space you want to build
Pick an Attribute Track of your choice and take the next Den marker to form the Den (this also therefore increases your abilities in one area)
Restrictions: A Den can't be placed on a space with an opponent Pack Wolf, A Den can't be placed with another Den or a Lair, if you desire to upgrade your Den later it has to be placed next to a Water Source
Upgrade Den
Pick a space that contains one of your Dens, is occupied by or adjacent to one of your Alpha Wolves, AND is adjacent to a Water Source
Flip TWO terrain tiles that match the space
Move the Den to the next space on the Moonlight Board
Place the next Lair from your board which reveals some benefits
Restrictions: You can only have ONE Lair per region, if the upgraded Den had opponent Pack Wolves or Alpha Wolves they are pushed out to adjacent empty or friendly space
Howl
Based on your Howl Range, pick a Lone Wolf which is within it from your Alpha Wolf
Flip TWO terrain tiles which match the Lone Wolf's space
Put the Lone Wolf on the next space of the Moonlight Board
Take the next Pack Wolf and place it on the space the Lone Wolf came from
Dominate
Based on your Howl Range, pick an opponent's Den or Pack Wolf which is within range from your Alpha Wolf
Flip THREE terrain tiles which match the opponent's piece's space
Place the opponent's piece on the Moonlight Board
Place the same piece of yours on the space theirs came from following any normal placement rules for that type
Restrictions: If there are two pieces of the same opponent in a hex neither can be dominated.
Hunting
First, have wolves in three hexes adjacent to a prey token
If you have three wolves adjacent to a prey token at the end of an action, take the top token from that prey's stack and place it on your next free Hunting Tracker space.
You will gain a Bonus Action Token if you are playing a 3 to 5 player game. In a 2 player game, you will not gain a Bonus Action Token for capturing any prey.
Restriction: You can only claim one of each type of prey.
Moonlight Board
The Moonlight Board will gradually fill up with different pieces as denoted in the various actions
When a Moon Phase space of the correct player count is reached, the regions with score markers matching that Moon Phase are scored at the end of the current player's turn
Each of these regions are counted for control.
Wolves and Dens are worth 1 Control, while Lairs are worth 3 Control
The player with the most control in a region receives the higher points value on the score marker, the lower vale going to the player with the 2nd most control
If tied, the player with the most Alpha Wolves in the region wins the tie
If still tied for 1st, both get 2nd reward. If still tied for 2nd, no reward for 2nd
Game End
The game ends at the final Moon Phase, Full Moon
After scoring this Moon Phase, add together all VPs gained from Moon Phases and your highest revealed VP on each track
The player with the most points wins!
If tied, the player with the most Region Scoring tokens wins!
If still tied, the player with the most active wolves wins!
