Lairs

Here is a general overview of how to play Lairs.

Setup

• Board & Screen: Players sit across from each other with a screen between them, placing their Lair board behind it so the opponent cannot see it (p. 13).
• Building Components: Gather your lair-building pieces, including 20 walls, 3 trap tiles, 3 chests, 3 blobs, the start tile, and the exit tile (p. 13).
• Player Materials: Place a fresh map sheet, a sharpened pencil, your tracker, and your player mat above your map sheet (p. 13).
• Energy & Shared Items: Place 6 cubes (4 white, 1 yellow, 1 green) in the Spent basket of your mat (p. 13). Shuffle the treasures into a face-down deck and lay out a face-up display of three treasures (p. 13). Keep the dice, hungry blob monster card, and greased pit trap card where both players can see them (p. 13).
• Lair Legality: Construct your lair secretly behind your screen following the three lair-building rules: every space must be reachable from the start without passing through a wall, you must use all components (leaving out at most 3 walls), and every goal (exit and three chests) must have at least one path from the start that never passes through two hazards of the same type (p. 12, 18).

How a Turn Works

Players alternate taking turns (p. 11). On your turn, you are the Explorer and your opponent is the Builder, mirroring your movement step by step on their Lair board as you explore their hidden dungeon (p. 11, 17).

A turn follows these steps:

1. Confirm your location: Begin your turn by confirming your current grid coordinate with the Builder to prevent map errors (p. 7).
2. Refresh your energy: Move all Spent cubes to the Fresh basket, then all Fatigued cubes to the Spent basket (Conserved and Fresh cubes do not move) (p. 7).
3. Explore: This is the main part of your turn where you spend cubes from your Fresh basket to the Spent basket to perform actions, encountering hazards and goals along the way (p. 7, 17). When you have no Fresh cubes left, your turn automatically ends, though you may also voluntarily end your turn early (p. 7).

How the Game End is Triggered

• The Exit: To exit the lair and trigger the end of the game, you must be in the Exit's space and have achieved (or surpassed) at least one of the "To Exit" combinations described on your player mat (p. 10).
• Ending Sequence: Simply declare that you are exiting, which immediately ends your turn (p. 10). If you are the first to exit, your opponent gets one final full turn, and then the game ends (p. 10).

(Note: While the evidence explains that you win by having more victory points than your rival at the end earned through treasures, defeated monsters, and exiting (p. 14), a comprehensive final scoring calculation breakdown is not fully detailed in the provided rulebook text.)