New York City, 1929. The liquor is illegal, the city is thirsty, and the cops are for sale. Every basement is a brewery, every back room a bank, and every block worth killing for. Brew it, run it, pour it, and turn the Police loose on anyone in your way. When the shooting stops, one boss will be wearing the crown. Make it you, or vanish like cigar smoke in a hurricane.
3–4 Players
Arnold Rothstein paid for the peace in this town until somebody shot him last November, and the peace went into the ground with him. Back then you were hauling crates for another man. Now the crates are yours, and so are the fifteen hard cases who guard them. Somewhere under the pavement a boiler is ticking over with your name on it, and every bar, pier and back room from the Battery to the Bronx is up for grabs.
In Moonshine Kingdom you are a rising Kingpin, clawing at a city that isn't big enough for all of you.
Dawn comes up grey over the Hudson. Fire your Stills and cook cheap molasses into liquid gold, but every crew drafts from the same handful of dice, and the one nobody takes goes looking for a weak pipe. When the steam clears, the word on the street is out: Jobs, dirty work for any boss with the nerve to claim it. The morning's last word belongs to the Harbormaster, the boss with the most piers: he names tomorrow's Mash, and the town plans around it.
The sun is up, and so is the heat. Around the table, one Play at a time, you run barrels, grab corners, grease aldermen and lean on anyone in your way. Every Play costs Influence, and a boss's clout runs dry faster than his liquor. Know when to quit: step off the street first and you strike first tomorrow. And keep it quiet. Gunfire carries, and the Police are always listening.
Twilight settles over the rooftops like a bruise. The last boss Lays Low, the books are opened, and tomorrow's pecking order is set. Did you build an empire today, or just a body count?
Since November the crown of this town has lain in the gutter, and the first boss to take it wins. The families at the Commission, the table where they carve up the city, will accept one of you, on their terms.
They want a name: 10 Respect, earned one Job at a time, each so brazen the papers set it in ink an inch tall. They want the city: every judge, alderman and precinct captain has a price, and each one you buy is a marker of Influence. Own all ten and you have the Nod. And they want a man nobody owns, so keep Shylock off your books. Then walk your Boss into a High Society Venue and Take the Crown. New York has changed hands before, and never once politely.
Your whole damn operation in miniature. Every piece earns, bleeds, or burns.
The City Map (Game Board): New York, 1929, drawn in gilt and lacquer: 25 Districts across 5 Boroughs, with a boiler on every block. Among them sit 12 Speakeasies (Tumbler Glass), four of them High Society Venues (Crown). A shared Heat Track measures how badly the city wants you gone, and the Tomorrow panel holds the Mash die and tomorrow's Turn Tokens.
The Ledger (x4): Your back-room desk. A slotted player board where the day's Influence sits, gets spent, and comes back. Every move you make starts here.
Mob Pieces (x4 Sets): One color to a mob: take the set matching the Playbook you're dealt. Each holds 1 Boss and 15 Runners (the brains and the muscle), 1 Safehouse, 10 Influence Markers, and 1 Mob Playbook of dirty tricks only your family can pull.
The Cards: The paper trail of your empire.
Turn Tokens (8): Two sets numbered 1–4. One set runs today; the other decides tomorrow.
The Town Planner (1): City Hall's own paperwork: the District roster you carve the map up from at setup. Its reverse holds a quick reference for the Day's phases.
Liquor Barrels (x30 Moonshine, x20 Havana Rum): The lifeblood of your operation. Barrels cycle back to the Supply when sold or Traded away, and the Supply is the ceiling: when a liquor runs out, it's out. Cheap swill and the good stuff; nothing in between.
The Dice (11): 5 White, 5 Red, and 1 grey Mash die. White and Red settle grudges and fire the boilers; the lone Mash die does one job only, and the whole table watches it.
The Bankroll (Cash): Dirty, untraceable bills in denominations of $100, $500, and $1,000. The kind that never sees a bank.
Police Squads (4 Blue Pieces): The blue wall that wants to see you swing. Four patrols prowling the mainland, drawn to noise.
Federal Crackdown Tracker (1) (4-Player Team Variant only): A 10-space pressure clock. Leave it in the box for a standard game.
From the Sicilian Syndicate to the Hell's Kitchen Irish, every family kills in its own accent. You command:
One rule turns headcount into results everywhere it matters. Count the Mobsters (Boss and Runners) in a District, then halve it, round up, and stop at 5: that number brews your barrels, drops your dead in a Blowback, and fills your dice in a firefight. No Mobsters, no result: a Safehouse holds the turf but works no boiler and fires no gun.
Nobody is ever gone for good. However a Mobster leaves the board, he returns to your supply and can be Recruited again; your Boss the same, waiting on a Rise. There's always another kid off the boat who'll stand on a corner for a dollar.
Your empire is a broken city: 25 Districts across 5 Boroughs, each a flavor of poison and profit. Certain key Districts offer unique opportunities:
To rule the city you'll need more than bullets. Two resources fuel the hustle, and a third buys power:
Influence is your political clout. You start with 6 markers and Bribe for more, one at a time, to a hard ceiling of 10 (see The Nod). Day to day, those markers cycle:
Kingpin's Tip: Capacity, Not Actions
However deep your Reserves, the Ledger funds 5 markers a Day, and only a High Society Kickback refills it before dusk. So extra Influence doesn't buy extra Plays. It buys capacity: markers to stake Jobs, and enough left to fill tomorrow's five after the Heat Track keeps a few. You can't out-action your rivals. You have to out-think them.
An empire isn't built on bullets alone. It's built on logistics: moving product, and drawing borders your rivals won't cross.
You can't tax what you don't hold. You Control a District if you have a Mobster (Boss or Runner) or a Safehouse standing on it.
The difference between a payday and a bloodbath:
Two Districts are Connected if they are joined by land or by water, and a Move follows either:
The first boss to Take the Crown wins the game. The families who sit at the Commission decide what it takes, and they won't deal with a nobody, or a man who can't deliver the city: the war is a race for Respect and the Nod.
In this city a reputation outlives any bankroll, and no bullet can take it back. Respect is that reputation made currency, and Jobs pay it for what you do. Beside the board sits the Jobs Market: the word on the street, dealt face-up for every boss to read. A card stays on offer until somebody is man enough to take it.
Every Job names a deed and prints two numbers: its Stake, the Influence you lock up to claim it, and its Respect, what it pays when you pull it off. Respect runs from 1, an evening's work, to 5: the kind they print on the front page and talk about for twenty years. Pay the stake, do the deed, take the respect.
Once each morning, at The Offers, you may take a new Job or walk away from an old one, never both (see Grease the Wheels). To claim one, move markers from your Reserves onto the card equal to its Stake; they stay locked there until the Job resolves. There's no deadline, but the stake is rent, paid in Plays. The Offers come before you fund your Ledger, so a staked marker never reaches it: once your Reserves can't fill all five slots, every marker on a Job is a Play you don't make, every Day you hold the card. Claim a 5 on Monday, pull it off on Thursday, and you've handed your rivals four short days on the street.
No declarations, no paperwork: do the deed with the whole table watching and the Job completes on the spot. Return its stake to your Reserves and add the card to your Respect pile; completed Jobs never return to the deck. When a card says Seize, it means take Control of a District from a rival, by gunfire or by strolling in where they left the door open. Control must actually change hands: slipping into a rival District while they still hold it, as a Viper does on a Stealth, seizes nothing. Standing in a man's hallway isn't the same as owning his house.
A Job is a deed, not a board position, and only your own Play does it, with the fight it starts and any Raid it sets off. Your Ambush or return fire on a rival's Play completes nothing. If your Play did the deed, the Job is done, and it stays done even if the deed didn't survive the Play. Kill a rival Boss, then lose the firefight: nothing un-kills him. The job pays.
A name is earned; the city is bought. Every Bribe puts another judge, alderman or precinct captain in your pocket: one more marker of Influence. The instant all 10 answer to you, claim the Nod from the Supply and keep it where the whole table can see it. It unlocks the one Play that wins the game: Take the Crown (see Winning the Game). The families bring the guns. The new man brings the city.
A Day runs in two phases, Shadows and The Hustle, and closes at Sunset.
The city wakes to the hiss of steam.
The Mash die already sits on the board, set by yesterday's Harbormaster (on Day 1, by the setup roll). The boss holding Turn Token #1 rolls the communal pool: one Red die more than there are players (4 players: 5 Red).
Cheap pipes, high pressure, and the boilers blow. One Red is always left undrafted: add it to the Mash for the Blowback Number. Unlike the brew, the Blowback hits everyone: every active Still with that number bursts, whoever Controls it. In each bursting District, remove as many Mobsters as its Muscle Ratio, Runners first; the Boss dies only if no Runner is left there to take the hit. The survivors patch the boiler and hold on: they keep their barrels and their turf, and the Still runs again tomorrow.
Kingpin's Tip: The Mash die has been public since yesterday, so every Red in the pool is a Blowback waiting to happen. Sometimes the smart draft isn't the die that fires your best Still; it's the one you daren't leave behind to burn it down. The first seat brews richest. The last seat is left holding the match, and takes first pick of the morning's Jobs for its trouble.
The Offers: In reverse Turn Order (the highest token picks first), each boss does one of three things:
You may hold as many Jobs at once as your Reserves can stake.
Fund the Ledger: Then everyone moves what's left in their Reserves into the Ledger, up to its 5 slots. Staked markers stay locked on their Jobs, and any beyond five wait in Reserves. Stake first, fund second.
Set tomorrow's Public Mash: The molasses comes ashore on somebody's piers. The boss who Controls the most Dock Districts is today's Harbormaster: he names any Mash face 1–6 and turns the Mash die to show it, where it stays until tomorrow's Brew. If the lead is tied, nobody holds the piers, so roll the die instead. Either way the whole table plays the Day knowing tomorrow's Mash: seize the Stills it will fire, and Lay Low early so you draft first when it does.
Setup: Day 6, and a Raid has long since moved the Squads off the starting Speakeasies. Yesterday's Harbormaster set the Mash at 3. Turn Order is Sicilians #1, Irish #2, Knights #3, Vipers #4, so the Sicilians roll 5 Red for the pool: 1, 4, 4, 5, 6. Four bosses, five dice: one Red will be left holding the match.
The Mash is 3. Every number this morning starts there. Each boss already knows which Red he needs; the only question is whether he gets it.
Each boss drafts, brews and takes his barrels before the next man touches a die. Shown as a table for space; at the table it happens one seat at a time.
| Boss | Their Still | Takes | Brew Number | Brews |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sicilians (#1) |
Sugar Hill The Cotton Club, Still 7 |
4 | 3 + 4 = 7. Fires. | Boss + 3 Runners = 2 Barrels, then Split the Batch carries the run to West Side (Still 11, 3 Runners) for 2 more: 4 Barrels. |
| Irish (#2) |
The Bowery Dock, Still 9 |
6 | 3 + 6 = 9. Fires. | 4 Runners = 2 Barrels. |
| Knights (#3) |
Fordham The Penny Whistle, Still 8 |
5 | 3 + 5 = 8. Fires. | 5 Runners = 3 Barrels. |
| Vipers (#4) |
Canarsie Dock, Still 4 |
1 | 3 + 1 = 4. Fires. | 3 Runners = 2 Barrels, if the Supply still holds them. |
The last seat's choice: The Vipers were left the 1 and the second 4. The 4 would have brewed them nothing (they own no Still 7) and left the 1 behind, blowing their own Canarsie. So they took the 1, fired their own Still, and walked away leaving a 4 on the table. They knew exactly what it was worth to the man in the first seat.
The Sicilians brewed the richest run of the morning, 4 Barrels, and took them out of the Supply before the Irish had touched a die. Nothing could reach an 11 today: a Mash of 3 tops out at 9. Had the Supply been thin, the Vipers in the last seat would have been the ones counting dregs.
One Red went undrafted: the 4. Add it to the Mash: 3 + 4 = 7. Every active, Controlled Still numbered 7 bursts, whoever owns the block, and the Cotton Club is lit.
Sugar Hill holds 4 Mobsters, so The Muscle Ratio tallies 2 casualties, both Runners: the Boss is safe while a Runner stands beside him. The Sicilians keep their 4 Barrels, keep the turf, and the Cotton Club runs again tomorrow.
The Moral: The Sicilians brewed richest and lost two Runners to the very same number. 7 paid them and bled them, and they could see the second 4 sitting in the pool the whole time. The first seat brews richest. The last seat holds the match.
Players act in Turn Order, one Play each, around and around the table until everyone has Laid Low for the Day.
| Standard Plays (Cost: 1 Influence) | |
|---|---|
| Move | Send any number of Mobsters and/or Liquor barrels from one District to one Connected District. You cannot Move into a District held by a Police Squad. Barrels travel alone: your distribution network runs them, so a Move can send barrels with no Mobster beside them. Barrels sent alone start no Standoff, and in a District you don't Control they are no longer yours (see Barrels Hold Nothing). Sell a rival his stock, or plant the evidence the Squads come looking for. Into rival turf: The Occupier answers first, and unless they Fold, your Mobsters are Pinned (see Combat). Barrels ride in with them. Undefended HQ: Move onto a rival Safehouse with no Mobsters guarding it and it's yours to take over or raze: no Standoff, no shots fired. |
| Recruit | Hire any number of Runners from your supply into the District holding your Safehouse, paying the bank $300 per Runner. No Safehouse on the board, no Recruiting. |
| Secure | Place your Safehouse in any Safe District for $500, relocating it if it was already on the board. Placing a Safehouse grants immediate Control, but an unguarded Safehouse is a rival's for the taking (see Move). |
| Trade | At a Dock District you Control, swap any number of the Moonshine barrels sitting there for Havana Rum, one for one. It is the only way Rum enters the game. Rum sells for $500 at any Speakeasy you Control, so every swap is a $200 raise on a barrel you already own. (Dry Dock: the Rum pool is 20 barrels; when it runs out, the docks stay dry until sold Rum cycles back.) |
| Beg |
When the walls close in, go see Shylock. One deal per visit: The Loan: Take $1,500 and one of his Marks. Hold as many as you like, but Shylock has only 7 in his book; while all 7 are out, nobody borrows until one comes back. Square Up: Pay $2,000 and hand one Mark back. Shylock lends in fifteens and collects in twenties. While you hold any Mark, you cannot Take the Crown. |
| Collect | A quiet day's work while you wait out the street. Take $100 from the bank; nothing else moves. That is exactly what the marker would fetch if you Laid Low, so the cash is a wash: Collect buys time. Hold your seat, let your rivals move first, and take a later Turn Token: last to draft tomorrow, but first to the Offers. |
| The Free Play (Cost: 0) | |
| Lay Low |
End your Day. Flush, it's how you step off early; out of Influence, it's the only Play left. When you Lay Low:
|
The moment the final player Lays Low, taking the last token and uncovering SUNSET beneath it, the books open: any promise still unmet earns its breaker a Welsher, and the Turn Tokens claimed today become tomorrow's Turn Order. The next Day's Shadows begins.
Power Plays cost double, but still count as a single Play in the turn cycle.
| Power Plays (Cost: 2 Influence) | |
|---|---|
Unload  |
Sell the Barrels: At a Speakeasy you Control, sell any number of your barrels sitting in that District: the liquor has to be at the bar to be sold across it. Moonshine pays $300 per barrel and Havana Rum pays $500. A High Society Venue buys Havana Rum only: no swill crosses those bars. The High Society Kickback: At a High Society Venue you Control, every barrel of Havana Rum Unloaded also moves 1 Influence marker from your Reserves into an empty Ledger slot (no marker in Reserves, or no empty slot? That Kickback is lost). The Unload's own markers leave the Ledger first, so their slots count as empty: pour five Rum on your last two markers and the Ledger empties, then refills to five. A refilled slot spends again, so the Kickback is the one thing in the game that stretches your Day past the five markers your Ledger held at dawn. Rich men tip in favors, and they drink imported. The Greed Tax: Unloading 4+ barrels in one Play generates Heat, wherever you sell. Move more than three and the cops come sniffing. |
| Bribe | Every judge, alderman and precinct captain has a price, and you pay it in cash. Pay the bank and take 1 permanent Influence marker for your Reserves. Each man you buy charges more than the last: $2,000 for your 7th marker, $3,000 for your 8th, $4,000 for your 9th and $5,000 for your 10th. The 10th earns you the Nod (see The Nod). Your Boss makes the drop in person, so he must be on the board. |
| Extort |
Shake down the locals. Once per Day, earn a flat $200 for each District you Control anywhere on the map. Brutal, profitable, and loud: the Heat comes however many Districts pay. |
| Rat |
There's no honor among thieves when the sirens wail. Drop a dime on your rivals: trigger an immediate Police Raid, and the Squads come for whoever made the freshest noise (see Police Raids). The Mark of the Snitch: Making this Play, you take the Rat Card from the Supply (or snatch it from the rival who holds it). While you hold it you are −2 Respect, and you cannot Rat again. The Card leaves you only when a rival Rats and takes it off you, on his schedule and not yours. The word's out that you talk, and the street prices you accordingly. |
| Rise | The chair never stays empty for long. With your Boss in your supply, place him in any Safe Ward: a successor takes the chair, and the family has a head again. |
Four families, four ways to make a killing. Each runs on an always-on Trait, the thing that makes them them, plus two signature tricks no rival can copy. Those marked In a Firefight are made inside a fight you are already Pinned in: they cost Influence but never a turn. The rest are ordinary Plays, and cost you your turn.
Old blood, older rules. An insult to the family is a death sentence, and the family is Untouchable: Police Squads never enter the Sicilian Safehouse District. A Raid bypasses it as if it were out of reach, taking the Sicilians' next District in reach if they have one, or else chasing the next marker on the Heat Track.
| Hit (Cost: 2) In a Firefight |
The family doesn't fight foot soldiers; it goes for the head. While Pinned in a rival District, Open Fire with a twist: both sides roll as normal, but if you score any hits, the rival Boss takes the first one instead of a Runner. With no rival Boss in the District there is no head to go for, and the Hit lands as an ordinary Open Fire. Either way it draws the fight's Heat only if it's the first shot. |
| Consigliere (Cost: 1) | One phone call and the trouble disappears. Remove 1 Influence marker of your choice from the Heat Track and return it to its owner's Reserves (slide the rest down to close the gap). |
They brew it strong and fight dirty, and they always come heavy. That's their Firepower: whenever the Irish Open Fire, they roll 1 extra attack die (up to the max of 5). Strictly an invader's tool: it never fires on defense, not even in an Ambush. Why buy bullets when a brick works just fine, and why bring one gun when you can bring two?
| Plunder (Cost: 1) In a Firefight |
While Pinned, roll your dice as for Open Fire, but each of your hits steals 1 Liquor barrel of your choice from the District instead of killing. The Occupier rolls back as normal, and their hits kill. Carry the barrels off if you Advance; they are dropped if you Fall Back. No Heat: nobody fired a shot, so the fight's first shot, and its one Heat marker, still wait for whoever shoots next. |
| Peddle (Cost: 1) |
Rotgut sells itself in the tenements. In any Ward you Control, sell any number of the Moonshine barrels sitting there at the $300 street rate. Only Moonshine: Rum wants a proper address, and the bars are Unload's business. The Greed Tax bites at 4+ barrels. |
They move like smoke and strike like snakes. Nothing happens in this city that the Vipers don't overhear first, and those Whispers are their edge: the Vipers may look at the top card of the Jobs deck at any time, and keep what they see to themselves.
| Stealth (Cost: 1) | A Move by another road: send up to 5 Mobsters (no Liquor) into a Connected rival District. You are Pinned, but you come in too quiet to answer: the Occupier can only Hold Fire, never Ambush, never Fold. |
| Tunnel (Cost: 1) | The city runs on rails the cops forgot. Move up to 5 Liquor Barrels between the District holding your Safehouse and any other District you Control, Connected or not, in either direction. |
Dressed to kill, literally. The Knights work the water, and no crew moves liquor like they do, because their Network runs every pier from Havana to Harlem. Whenever the Knights Trade at a Dock, they take 1 extra barrel of Havana Rum free, on top of the barrels they swap, while the Supply has one to give. The gift rides along with a real trade: no swap, no gift. Friends on every wharf, and a fresh cask waiting at each one.
| Skiff (Cost: 1) | Move up to 5 Mobsters (no Liquor) from a Coastal District you Control to any other Coastal District. A Coastal District is any District touching water, so this reaches far beyond the Docks. If you enter a rival District, the standard Standoff applies (the Occupier may Ambush, Hold Fire, or Fold). |
| Torch (Cost: 1) In a Firefight |
Burn down a rival's Safehouse. To strike the match you need at least one Runner Pinned in its District; sacrifice one of them, and he goes up with the flames (return him to your supply). The Safehouse is destroyed at once (return it to its owner's supply). Rival Mobsters and Liquor in the District are unharmed, and the rival keeps Control. Torching always draws Heat. |
Every boss in New York wants the crown. Hold the Nod, and one Play puts it on your head.
A Power Play (Cost: 2 Influence) that only the Nod unlocks. Make it on your turn, with all three of these in place:
Make the Play, and the war is over. The families at the Commission rise to their feet, and the game ends on the spot, in the middle of the Day. Nothing else is settled: every promise still due at Sunset dies with the war.
Respect is the pile of cards in front of you, and anyone at the table can count it:
There are no shared victories in Moonshine Kingdom. One boss wears the crown, and the rest bleed out in the gutter.
Trust is fleeting, but no Kingpin rules alone. Every favor granted might be a knife in the back.
A Mobster's word is cheap. When a deal needs teeth, seal it the old way: look the man in the eye and shake his hand, where the whole table can see it.
Example: "Shake on it. If you let me pass through your Borough unharmed, I promise to give you $1,000 before Sunset."
Promise whatever you like, but only Cash crosses the table. Pass it at any time: no Play, no Influence, no questions asked. Liquor changes hands on the board, by a Move into the buyer's District.
Violence isn't a backup plan; it's the cost of doing business. Smart Kingpins know a drawn gun beats a fired one. When talk fails, step inside and clear the room.
Violence runs on two numbers: The Muscle Ratio (how many dice you roll) and Threat (what number kills).
| Mobster Count | Dice Rolled |
|---|---|
| 1–2 Mobsters | 1 die |
| 3–4 Mobsters | 2 dice |
| 5–6 Mobsters | 3 dice |
| 7–8 Mobsters | 4 dice |
| 9+ Mobsters | 5 dice |
| Threat Level | Kill on Roll |
|---|---|
| Level 1 (Base) | 5–6 |
| Level 2 | 4–6 |
| Level 3 | 3–6 |
| Level 4 (Max) | 2–6 |
Your Base Threat is Level 1 (kill on 5+). Bonuses stack, to a maximum of Level 4:
These bonuses ride on the situation, not the Play: they apply to every roll you make from that position, Open Fire, Hit or Plunder alike.
Every firefight is just two questions, asked in order:
The Move that walked in the door is the Play. Every choice after it, from the Ambush to the last volley and the signature tricks between, happens inside that Play. Each choice is paid from the Ledger of whoever makes it, but none of them costs a turn, so a fight of any length is still one Play.
That is why the crew holding the block always answers, even one that went home hours ago. The free answers are always open; the paid ones need a marker in your Ledger. Spent out, or already Laid Low, you cannot Ambush, but you can still Hold Fire or Fold, and your men shoot back whenever the Invader Opens Fire.
When an opponent Moves into a District you Control, the game pauses on Step 1. Set each crew along the edge it crossed from, so it stays clear whose Mobsters and barrels are whose.
| Ambush (Cost: 1) |
Greet the invaders with lead. Paid from your Ledger: spent out or Laid Low, you can't Ambush.
|
| Hold Fire (Cost: 0) | Stand your ground but don't shoot. Maybe they're just passing through. The Invaders are now Pinned. |
| Fold (Cost: 0) |
Surrender the District. Your Mobsters flee to one Connected Safe District, across water via Docks if you like. With nowhere safe to go, you cannot Fold.
|
A Pin stops the city where it stands: it is fought out then and there, and no Play is made anywhere, by anyone, until it resolves. While Pinned you do nothing else: spend Influence to Open Fire or Advance, or Fall Back for free, and keep choosing until the Pin is resolved, or you run dry and must Fall Back. Hit, Torch and Plunder are open to you here too, if your Ledger can pay for them (Irish Firepower adds its die to Open Fire only, never to a Plunder). None of it costs a turn.
The Cost of Pride: A real Kingpin knows an all-out firefight is bad business. Burning 3 or 4 Influence to keep opening fire on one stubborn alley may win it, but it leaves rivals free across the city. Talk is cheap; bullets cost time.
| Open Fire (Cost: 1) |
Fight for the District. Both sides roll simultaneously.
|
| Advance (Cost: 1) | Push on through. Move your Pinned Mobsters, with any barrels they carried in, to any Safe District Connected to this one, across water via Docks if you like. Hostile turf is closed to you. |
| Fall Back (Cost: 0) (Invader Only) |
Cut and run. Retreat to the District you came from, across water if that's how you came. Carried Liquor is left behind for the Occupier.
With no marker left in your Ledger, you must Fall Back. |
Combat ends when one side is wiped out or flees, or the Invader Advances.
If the Occupier Holds: The District remains theirs, along with any Liquor the Invaders left behind.
If the Invader Wins: The moment the last of the Occupier's pieces falls or flees, you claim Control of the District.
Setup: The Knights (1 Boss, 3 Runners) move into a Dock District held by the Sicilians (1 Boss, 2 Runners, Safehouse), aiming to seize the pier and the Trade it controls.
The Sicilians (Occupier) refuse to Fold, choosing to Ambush, spending 1 from their Ledger. They fire first; the Knights do not roll yet.
| Faction | Strength | Threat | Roll & Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sicilians (Occupier) |
3 Mobsters (2 Dice) |
Level 4 (Hit 2+) (Base + Boss + Ambush + Safehouse) |
Roll: [1, 5] 1 Hit |
Result: Knights lose 1 Runner. The Sicilians fired first, so this Ambush is the fight's one
Heat marker : their spent marker locks onto the Track.
Knights are now Pinned.
The Knights choose to fight. Both sides roll simultaneously.
| Faction | Strength | Threat | Roll & Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knights (Invader) |
3 Mobsters (2 Dice) |
Level 2 (Hit 4+) (Base + Boss) |
Roll: [4, 6] 2 Hits |
| Sicilians (Occupier) |
3 Mobsters (2 Dice) |
Level 3 (Hit 3+) (Base + Boss + Safehouse) |
Roll: [1, 5] 1 Hit |
The Knights spend another Influence to Open Fire.
| Faction | Strength | Threat | Roll & Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knights (Invader) |
2 Mobsters (1 Die) |
Level 2 (Hit 4+) (Base + Boss) |
Roll: [5] 1 Hit |
| Sicilians (Occupier) |
1 Mobster (1 Die) |
Level 3 (Hit 3+) (Base + Boss + Safehouse) |
Roll: [1] 0 Hits |
is theirs. The Knights took the pier and drew none: if a Raid comes, it chases the losers.With combat resolved, the Play comes to an end. The player with the next Turn Token now takes their turn.
Heat measures how hard the law is breathing down your neck. The Heat Track is a 5-space powder keg: draw Heat and your spent marker goes there instead of home to your Reserves. Played right it's a weapon; played wrong, a noose.
Every noisy Play (marked with the flame ) adds one marker:
, and it belongs to whoever fired first: the Occupier if they Ambush, otherwise the Invader on his first Open Fire. One marker, however many volleys., however many Districts you squeeze., wherever you sell.A Raid triggers two ways: the 5th marker lands on the track, or someone makes the Rat Play. Either way, pause the turn. Heat lands as the Play that drew it ends, so a firefight always finishes before the sirens start.
A Raid puts every Squad on the move. Resolve them one at a time, in the numbered Borough order printed on the board, each finishing before the next stirs.
Each Squad hunts within reach and chases the freshest gunshot it can hear. Its reach is only the Districts directly Connected to it inside its own Borough, never the Sicilian Safehouse District (see Untouchable). Find the target in two steps:
The Squad takes one step onto the chosen District and kicks the doors in:
The Squad now holds the District as an impassable wall, padlocking any Speakeasy or Still beneath it until a later Raid.
The Aftermath: Once every Squad has moved, all Heat markers return to their owners' Reserves and the turn resumes.
When the heat boils over, enemies become brothers. The Feds are kicking down doors and lone wolves get slaughtered. The Blood Oath is the recommended 4-player mode: a cutthroat free-for-all where escalating police pressure eventually forces the city into two permanent 2v2 alliances.
Set up as a standard 4-player match, with one addition: place the Federal Crackdown Tracker near the Heat Track with a token on space 1. Every time a Police Raid triggers, advance the token one space.
The moment the token reaches space 10 on the Crackdown Tracker, the underworld snaps. Pause the game. The four independent mobs immediately form two permanent alliances.
One goal, two crews. You still run your own operations.
The Commission only sits down with unified power. A partner holding the Nod may Take the Crown for his Alliance when his Boss stands in a High Society Venue, neither partner holds a Shylock's Mark, and the two of you hold 20 combined Respect: first family to the finish takes the crown.
There are no truly shared victories, even in a team, and your partner's Boss is a target like any other man's. Whoever Takes the Crown is the family's Capo, and wears it on the combined total the two of you built. Your partner doesn't get a crown, just the privilege of kissing your ring.