Story

Corporal Union has spent a lifetime bringing super villains to justice and every megalomaniac and sociopath in spandex tights he apprehends ends up in the same place - Doom Asylum; the most secure psychiatric ward / scientific institute of the paranormal in the world.  What could go wrong?

Mastermind

Each player starts with one random villain who is his mastermind.  At any point he may make another villain in his team the mastermind, although once a villain has been unmade mastermind, he may not be made mastermind again until the current mastermind is defeated.
It is suggested that players select their starting masterminds from the villain cards marked with stars, instead of choosing from the full set of villains.
The Mastermind is sometimes referred to as the “Master”.

Gameplay overview

Move around the Asylum to a number of unique ‘plot’ locations collecting doomsday points and seeking out potential henchmen. 
On your turn your party must move one space. 

• If that space is occupied by another party, a Conflict ensues
• If it is a plot room you have not visited, you earn 5 Doomsday points
• If it is the yard, nothing happens
• If it is none of the above, an event is generated

If an event is generated, roll on the Event Table (this could generate an Ambush, Cunning Trick or Calculated Risk).
If there is to be a Conflict in a Plot Room, you will only score the Doomsday points if you are victorious and push the rival team out.

Doomsday points

Are earned by winning Conflicts, Calculated Risks and visiting Plot Rooms (each plot room awards 5 points the first time you visit it)

• Each player begins the game with 1 Doomsday point.
• A player may never have more than 8 Doomsday points.

Doomsday points are spent on recruiting villains, upgrading villains and 8 points are needed to buy ‘Doom Ready’ status.

Upgrading Villains
Doomsday points can be spent to upgrade villains.  Each villain starts at level 1 and has 2 upgrades: level 2 and level 3.  Upgrades represent new weapons or powers.  Each upgrade costs 1 DD point and level 2 must be bought before level 3.
Each villain may be upgraded by one level at the start of any turn.  Mark level upgrades with counters (such as pennies)

Ambushes and Recruiting Henchmen

Potential henchmen are spawned by Ambush events and instigate a Conflict between the ambusher and the party.  If the party is a lone mastermind, the mastermind goes first, otherwise the ambusher goes first. 
To claim a henchman you will have to either defeat him physically or mentally.  If he is defeated you may spend one DD point per villain already in your party to claim the new villain.  If he is not defeated, or if the points can not/ will not be spent, the ambushing villain escapes.
To expedite Gameplay later in the game, do not bother to fight out ambushes if the ambushed player has no desire to recruit the ambusher.

Death

Nobody ever dies, they are just ‘defeated’.  A defeated villain may be lost to the party but becomes active again if he is re-spawned by an Ambush event.  See Conflicts for more details.

Conflicts:

If two teams meet, they will fight one round of combat.  The attacker goes first and each player will alternate acting with one villain at a time until all villains have acted.  A villain has one action per conflict which may be used to:

• make a Mental Attack
• make a Physical Attack
• use a Special Ability against any opposing villain
• perform a tactical maneuver.
• Block an attack against a team mate or finally (done out-of-turn)

Mental Attack

To attack mentally, the attacker rolls D6 and adds his Mental Attack, the defender rolls D6 and adds his Mental Defense.  If the attacker beats the defender, he is defeated.  Mental attacks may not (usually) be blocked.
Physical Attack
To attack physically, the attacker must first ‘catch’ his target.  Attacker rolls D6 and adds his quickness and the defender rolls D6 and adds his quickness, if the attacker has a higher total he catches the defender.
If the defender is caught, the attacker rolls D6 and adds his Physical attack and the defender rolls D6 and adds his physical defense. If the attacker beats the defender, he is defeated. 

Blocking

Before a declared Physical attack begins, the defender may substitute in any other villain to defend in place of the targeted villain, assuming the stand-in has not already taken an action this turn.  The attacker does not need to ‘catch’ the blocker so no quickness contest is made.  Blocking will consume his action but not take the place of the player’s turn in the alternating sequence.

Flying & Ranged Attacks

Flying villains may not be attacked by normal melee physical attacks, only ranged attacks or other flying villains.  If Ranged attack is a villain’s level 1 special ability, all of his standard attacks are always ranged.

Automatic Special Abilities
Defensive special abilities that help a villain defend himself happen automatically and do not take an action.  The same applies to stat increases.

Tactical Maneuvers

Instead of attacking or using a special ability, a villain may make a tactical maneuver.  To succeed, he simply needs to beat a target of 8 with either his P Attack, M Attack or Quickness, plus D6 (special abilities do not count!).  Tactical Maneuvers do not threaten the rival villains, but they do score victory points…

Victory in Conflicts

In a player-vs.-player Conflict, one team must ‘win’
Points are scored for the following:

• Defeating a rival villain – 5
• Attacking the rival mastermind – 1 (special abilities do count but does not count if blocked, the master mind does not have to be defeated)
• Tactical Maneuver – 3

Concluding a Conflict

Whichever team scores more victory points wins the Conflict and may ‘push’ the loser to any adjacent space. 
In the event of a tie, the attacker is pushed back into the space he came from.

Doomsday points for winning:
The winner also receives one Doomsday point.  Once anyone has become ‘Doom Ready’ this bonus becomes three Doomsday points (the situation at the asylum has become desperate).

Bonus for sound defeat:
If one team wins by 5 points or more, the defeat has been sound, and the team scores one additional Doomsday point.

Draws:
If both teams score the same amount of victory points, neither team scores doomsday points and the attacking team must return to the space they began the turn in.

Defeated villains

If only one villain in a team is defeated in a Conflict, he recovers and may be used in future Conflicts.  If more than one villain in a team is defeated in a single Conflict, only the last villain to be defeated survives, all of the other villains are lost (although they may now turn up in Ambushes again) – discard their cards and any upgrade counters.  Note that Oscar’s special ability should be rolled before counting defeated villains.

‘Doom Ready’ & Winning the game

To win, a player must first become ‘Doom Ready’.  There are two ways to do this:

To become Doom Ready the party must be in a Plot Room (Nuclear Reactor, Psychoactive Chemical Lab, Tactical Center, or Rocketry Facility) and must have 8 DD points.  Once a player becomes Doom Ready he remains Doom Ready so long as he has 8 Doomsday points and his mastermind is alive.

A player may also become Doom Ready if he defeats another player who is Doom Ready and has 8 DD points after winning the conflict – in this case both players are possibly now Doom Ready. 

A Doom Ready player must then move his team into the Yard where his mastermind can then activate the device and escape from the Asylum (or quell the jailbreak in the case of Corporal Union) thus winning the game.  The player must end his turn in the Yard.  If another team is in the yard, a conflict will occur and the player will only win if he is victorious there. 

If the Doom-ready player’s mastermind is lost, the player will need to take his new mastermind back out to a Plot Room to become Doom Ready again before he can attempt to re-take the Yard.

If a player spends Doomsday points and falls below 8 points, he will need to return to a Plot room to become Doom Ready again.

Knowing your Villains

Each villain has 5 stats:
Physical attack
Physical defense
Mental attack
Mental defense
Quickness

• Villain levels (use counters)
  
• Total doomsday points (use an 8 or 10-sided die)
• Temporary victory points (count on your fingers)