Horror on the Orient Express: The Board Game

Here is an overview of how to play the game based on the rules provided.

Setup

• Place the Main board in the middle of the table (p. 10). Place the Locomotive at the far right spot with its Speed dial set to "1" and the Locomotive Action plaque in its designated spot (p. 10).
• Assemble the 6 Cars, randomly select 3 Action plaques with the Action side facing out (and 3 facing in), and place the Cars behind the Locomotive in a random order (p. 10).
• Place Passenger Dice according to the "Starting Passengers" Help card, hang the vampire mini outside the indicated Car, and set up the Landscape tiles with 1 face-up Starting Landscape tile and face-down Landscape tiles to the right (p. 10).
• Set up the Conversation bag with 21 tokens, place 3 Monster cards with their matching minis next to the rearmost Cars, choose a Ritual sheet and resolve its setup steps, and place Essence tokens next to the Main board (p. 13).
• Place the Grimoire board, the shuffled Spell cards, and 12 Occult tokens on the Grimoire board as specified (p. 13).
• Decide together who will be the first player, and play proceeds clockwise starting with that player (p. 15).

How a Turn Works

The order of play is decided before the first turn and followed until the end of the game, with each player finishing their turn before the next player starts (p. 20). Each turn consists of these four steps:

1. Actions: Take 1 mandatory Main Action and up to 2 Basic Actions in any order (p. 20). Main Actions let you use your investigator's unique Skills, while Basic Actions allow common tasks like moving around the Orient Express (p. 16).
2. Draw an Event token: After your investigator is done with actions, you must draw an Event token from the Event bag and resolve its effect (p. 20).
3. Resolve the Event board (conditional): If there are 3 different Event tokens on the Event board, the game tries to actively hurt everyone on the train (p. 20).
4. Move the Train forward: Move the small train on the track at the bottom of the Main board forward by 1 space (p. 20). Moving the train is the last thing you should do on your turn before the next player takes their turn (p. 16).

How the Game Ends

• Winning: When the train arrives at its destination (the front of the train mini reaches track #0), the game ends immediately (p. 42). Investigators must then unanimously decide whether each suspect is a Cultist or not using special tokens, reveal all clues, and check if their accusations were correct; if all suspects have been identified correctly, the investigators win (p. 42).
• Losing: The game can be lost instantly if any of the following failure conditions occur:
  • An investigator loses their last point of Sanity and goes insane, or their Health drops to the skull icon and they die (p. 42, 25).
  • The Coffin pool, Essence pool, or Monster pool becomes completely empty (p. 42, 25).
  • Any endgame suspect identification is incorrect (p. 42, 25).