Clank! : Setup and Rules

Clank! is a deck-building board game where you sneak into a dragon’s lair to steal the most treasures. It has a simple, but rather long setup:

Start off by unfolding the board with the blue sky face-up.

Separate the 3 different kinds of cards:

– Starting Cards (Gray Banner)
– Market Cards (Blue Banner); shuffle these
– Reserve Cards (Yellow Banner)

Put the Dragon token on the Dragon Track

on the number of players and put all the dragon (black) cubes (24) in the felt bag.

Randomly put the Major Secrets face down on the board (9 areas)
Repeat for Minor Secrets (9 areas)
Put the Artifacts (7) in the appropriate areas
Put the 3 Monkey Idols in the appropriate places (bottom left area)
Place each player’s Meeple on the flag in the top left of the board along with the 4 Mastery tokens.
Put the Backpack, Key, and Crown tokens in the Market area.
Place the 4 Reserve cards at the top of the board

Place 6 Market cards below the board in a row, remove any with the Dragon symbol

Each player should get their color’s 30 cubes and their starting cards and shuffle them.

Starting cards include:
6 – Burgle
1 – Scramble
1 – Sidestep
2 – Stumble

Determine who goes first; first player puts 3 cubes on the Clank! banner (top right), second player puts 2 cubes and so on.

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How to Play

Objective: you are a daring burglar who is exploring for treasure in a dungeon under a castle, which is guarded by a dragon. Your goal is to escape with more treasure than any of your opponents.

Each turn you use your hand of 5 cards to determine your actions which include:
Move
Buy

To Move between any room, a player needs a card with a boot symbol: 
Some passages have footprint symbols; each of these increase the boot requirement by 1 each:

(In this case, to move from the Major Secret room to the Monkey room, the player needs 2 Boots)

Any passages with the Monster Head symbol requires a card with a Sword symbol.

If a player doesn’t use a Sword symbol, they take 1 damage per Monster Head.

Some passages have the Key symbol which requires a Key (unlimited uses) which is bought at the Market for 7 gold.

Whenever a player moves on top a Major/Minor secret, Artifact, or Monkey Idol, they choose whether they want to pick it up. A player may hold more than one of all items except for the Artifact; a player can hold only 1 Artifact unless they have a Backpack in their possession.

Buying
Certain cards will have this symbol

(called Skills) which allows a player to buy cards from either the Reserve or Market Areas.

The number on the bottom right is the cost of the card.

Cards that are played and purchased are put into the player’s discard pile. When the player runs out of cards to draw, the discard pile is reshuffled.

If a Market Card is purchased, it will leave an empty spot. At the end of the player’s turn, it will be replaced by the top card of the Market card deck.

If a Market card comes up that has the Dragon symbol on it:

The Dragon Attacks!
All cubes on the Clank banner is put into the felt bag. Players check how many cubes are to be drawn from where the dragon market is and any additional cubes from any special cards face up on the Market area.

Any cubes drawn from the bag is damage to the appropriate player.

Black cubes are put aside (as if the Dragon missed).

End game is triggered when the first person makes it back to the start (flag in top left) with an Artifact. That player receives a Mastery Token (worth 20 points)

and moves to the Countdown track:

Any players that make it to the flag (with an Artifact) after this, gets a Mastery Token, but do not move their Meeple anywhere.
Whenever play gets back to the player on the Countdown track, they move their Meeple to the right and immediately triggers a Dragon attack, adding X amount of cubes drawn, depending on the number of “+” symbols below. (Players that have gotten a Mastery Token, do not take damage) When the player on the Countdown track gets the furthest right with the Skull symbol, the Dragon automatically eliminates any player that hasn’t reached the Flag. A player can only escape the dungeon if they possess an Artifact.

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If a player ends the game above the grass line (Castle area):

Then their points counts (even if eliminated before reaching the Flag).
If a player ends the game below the grass line (dungeon area), then their points do not count.

Points are calculated by:

Value of the Artifact
Points from any of their other tokens (Monkey Idols, Dragon eggs, Crowns, Backpacks etc)
Points equal to the amount of gold accumulated
Points awarded by cards in their deck (denoted by the number in the green circle at the top right)

The player with the most points win. In cases of ties, the player with the more valuable Artifact wins.

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Areas of Interest:
Castle Area
– above ground/grass line
– if a player dies above this area, their points count

Dungeon Area 
– below the grass line
– has better treasures the deeper the player gets
– if the player dies here, their points do not count

Ice Caverns
– players halt all movement when they enter this until their next turn
– there are specific cards that allow the player to ignore this

Heart Rooms
– heals 1 cube of damage

Pointing Hand
– go to the opposite side of the board (similar to Pac Man)

Market
– if a player lands here, they may pay 7 gold to purchase one of the following from the Market:

— Key: as mentioned before, it allows travel through passages with the key symbol, is worth 5 points and has unlimited uses
— Backpack: allows the player to pick up 1 additional Artifact and is worth 5 points
— Crown: valued at 10, 9, 8 points, and some cards interact (become stronger) with it

Monkey Idol Room
– a player may enter this room multiple times to take 1 Monkey Idol
– each are worth 5 points
– similar to the Crown, some cards have added effects if the player possesses a Monkey Idol