You’ve stolen plans from a barbaric raider base and now must traverse the wasteland to bring them back to your camp. You win if you make it home alive.
Dustrunner is played in rounds, which represent a portion of your journey across the wasteland. Each round is made up of 6 turns, which represent your interactions with the world. The end of the round is triggered after you resolve the 6th and final turn within that round.
There are two types of exploration cards in Dustrunner. The first is straightforward and will present you with text that you will have to resolve, sometimes offering you two options. These cards include the ambulance, gas station, outpost, farm, clear path, crags, and the dust worm. It should be noted that the dust worm MUST always be resolved. The second type of card are enemy cards and will require combat to resolve. These include the spybot and raiders.
Some exploration cards will have you gain (or lose) resources like health, ammo, and fuel. When this happens simply adjust the corresponding tracker to indicate such.
Other cards will allow you to spend fuel to move your vehicle a number of spaces on the road cards. In these scenarios simply adjust your fuel on the appropriate tracker and then move your vehicle the number of spaces indicated on the exploration card.
Some cards will have you move the raiders. Move the raiders equal to the number shown. Raiders ALWAYS follow the path you take, and if they ever catch you, you lose the game immediately.
Gain 3 victory points every time you land on, or pass, a star icon.
The resolution deck will be called upon throughout the game to resolve all sorts of matters. It is a multi-function card. Let’s break down each portion of the card for a clearer understanding.
Whenever the resolution deck is exhausted, shuffle the discard pile, and form a new draw pile.
Raiders and the spybot are the two exploration cards that will require you to engage in combat. The strength of the foe will be altered depending on if you are resolving the first card during the turn or the second card. Fighting enemies as the second card is always more difficult. Here is the process for determining your enemies health and finding out who attacks first.
Once the enemy health and combat initiative are determined, you are ready for combat. Combat resolves in turns, starting with whoever got initiative attacking first, and then the other attacking second. This back and forth continues until either the enemy or yourself loses all of their health. If you lose all your health, the game ends immediately. If you defeat the enemy, you will gain loot and then discard the enemy card and continue play.
Raiders always inflict damage to your health. The ✸ Icon next to the die icon on the enemy card tells us how many cards to draw from the resolution deck when they attack. Typically 1 card. On a raider’s turn to attack, simply draw resolution cards equal to the ✸ icons shown on their card. Refer to the upper-right box to see how much damage they inflict. This is represented by a number of skulls ranging from 0-3. If the raider attacks twice, just add the two results together. Adjust your health on your health tracker accordingly. If you are still alive, it becomes your turn to attack!
The spybot on the other hand does not damage your health, but instead moves the raider mini on the road cards. When the spybot attacks draw a resolution card and refer to the blue triangle icon on the bottom-left. Move the raider mini the value shown. If the raider mini ever catches your vehicle mini, the game ends immediately.
On your turn to attack you must decide how much ammo you want to spend on your attack. For each ammo spent, you will be allowed to reveal one resolution card. You may spend up to 4 ammo. You will deal damage to your enemy’s health equal to the sum of all the skulls shown on the revealed resolution cards. In addition you will add your vehicle’s damage bonus (bonus shown on the middle section of your vehicle) to the total. Adjust the enemy’s health dice accordingly. If the enemy is still alive, they get to attack again. If you defeat the enemy you gain 2 victory points and some loot.
You may always deal damage equal to your vehicle’s damage bonus without spending ammo.
Two additional things happen when an enemy is defeated. Draw a resolution card to determine the loot you have gained and also see if the raider mini gets to advance on the road cards.
To determine your loot, look at the lower-right icon on the resolution card. You gain whatever is show here. Refer to page 10. If the moon icon on the enemy card matches that of the moon icon on the resolution card, you also gain the loot shown on the enemy card. If however the enemy you defeated was the second card revealed during the turn, you gain the loot from both the enemy card and resolution card no matter what, and ignore the moon icons.
If a raider card does not have a loot icon, but instead has the words “WILD! WILD! WILD!”, you may choose from any of the loots listed on page 10, including a modification.
Referring to the same resolution card that you used for determining your loot, look at the lower-left icon to see if the raider mini advances on the road cards.
Move the mini if required.
The end of the round is triggered once you have resolved the last set of cards in the exploration deck. You must then do the following.
Victory points are tracked on the tracker card. Your total is used at the games end to determine how well you did. However they can also be spent during play as a resource to re-draw a resolution card whenever you are asked to draw one. Spending 2 victory points will allow you to take this action. You may repeat this until you get the result want, or run out of victory points. Here is a list of ways you can use this to your advantage:
The game ends immediately in three different ways:
Regardless as to if you managed to reach the base (“F” space on the road cards) or not, you still may score your run.
If you did reach your base you gain 10 bonus victory points. Add these to the number indicated on the tracker card.
Refer to the chart below.
Dustrunner is Copyright 2023
By Grey Gnome Games & Jason Glover
All Rights Reserved.
Designed & Illustrated by Jason Glover
A video tutorial and play through are available on our YouTube channel at: https://youtube.com/@jasonglover6615