How to play Scythe

How to play

Setup: Shuffle the decks, set out face-down Factory cards equal to the players plus one, draw a structure bonus tile, and place an encounter token on each of the 11 marked territories. Deal everyone a random faction mat and player mat. They set your starting tracks, coins and cards, including two secret objectives. Your character starts on your home base, with a worker on each land territory beside it. The lowest player-mat number goes first.

Taking a turn: Your player mat has four sections, each a top-row action over a bottom-row action. Move your action token to a different section from last turn, then take the top action, the bottom one, both (top first) or neither, paying the cost in the exposed red boxes first.

Top-row actions: Move shifts up to two different units one territory each, or gains $1. Bolster costs $1 for 2 power or a combat card. Trade costs $1 for any 2 resources, placed with one of your workers, or for 1 popularity. Produce lets each worker on up to two territories you control make one of that land's resource, or a new worker on a village; the cost rises as workers leave your mat.

Bottom-row actions: Pay with resources on territories you control. Upgrade (oil) moves a technology cube from a top-row box to a bottom-row box: one action gives more, another costs less. Deploy (metal) puts a mech where you have a worker and unlocks its ability for your character and mechs. Build (wood) places a structure, one per territory. Enlist (food) gives a one-time bonus plus an ongoing bonus whenever you or a neighbour takes that action. Most also pay coins.

Moving and combat: Units can't cross rivers or enter lakes without an ability, tunnels count as adjacent, and mechs can carry workers. A character or mech entering a territory held only by enemy workers stops and sends them home, costing you 1 popularity each. Meeting an enemy character or mech means combat: both secretly dial up to 7 power and may add one combat card per unit in the fight. Higher total wins, ties go to the attacker, and both pay the power dialled. The loser retreats all units there to its home base, leaving the resources, and draws a combat card if it revealed any power.

Encounters and the Factory: A character that steps onto an encounter token stops; after any combat, draw an encounter card and pick one of its three options. The first time your character ends a move on the Factory, keep one Factory card as a fifth section of your mat.

Stars and game end: Place a star for all 6 upgrades, all 4 mechs, structures or recruits, all 8 workers on the board, a revealed objective, 18 popularity, 16 power, and each of up to two combat wins. A sixth star ends the game at once.

Scoring: Your popularity band (0–6, 7–12, or 13 and up) sets the pay: $3, $4 or $5 per star, $2, $3 or $4 per territory you control, and $1, $2 or $3 per two resources you control. The Factory counts as three territories. Add the structure bonus and your coins; most coins wins.

Strategy

Read your pairing: Your faction mat and player mat together decide your game. The player mat fixes which top action sits over which bottom action, what each costs, and where you start on the tracks; the faction gives you a home, a special ability and four mech abilities. Before turn one, find which top action feeds which bottom action and plan to use both halves of a section on most turns. Pick your six stars: There are ten ways to place stars and you only need six, so choose them early. Deploying all four mechs, building all four structures, enlisting all four recruits and completing all six upgrades are the steady routes. Workers, objectives, 18 popularity and 16 power are there to fill the gaps, and combat stars are for players who are winning fights anyway. Popularity is the multiplier: Every star, territory and pair of resources is worth $1 more for each popularity band you climb. Dropping from 13 to 12 at the end can cost more than a whole turn earns. Trade for popularity, favour encounter options that raise it, and count the cost before you push enemy workers off their land, since that costs 1 popularity per worker. Enlist early: A recruit's ongoing bonus pays you every time you or either neighbour takes that bottom-row action, so an early recruit pays out for the whole game. Watch what your neighbours do most often. The threat of combat: Mechs deter attacks even when they never fight. A player with plenty of power and combat cards is hard to attack, because you can't know what they will dial. When you do fight, remember that winning costs the power you dialled, the loser draws a card, and combat cards are worth nothing at the end, so spend them. Get to the Factory: Its card adds a fifth section with a Move on its bottom row, so you can move almost every turn. The first visitor sees the most cards. Controlling the Factory at the end is worth three territories. End on your terms: Whoever places the sixth star stops the game at once, and others may get one turn fewer. Before you place it, spread units across territories and gather resources so your final score is as large as possible.

Tips

- Two pairings are banned: if you're dealt Rusviet with the Industrial player mat or Crimea with Patriotic, redraw the player mat. - Use both halves of your chosen section on most turns; a turn with only one action should be a deliberate choice. - You can't choose the same section twice in a row (Rusviet can, but not for its Factory card), so plan in pairs of turns. - Take the coins printed on bottom-row actions every time; they are easy to forget. - Announce your bottom-row actions so your neighbours can claim their recruit bonuses. - Moving a mech or character onto enemy workers isn't combat, but it costs you 1 popularity per worker you send home. - Resources belong to whoever controls their territory, so don't leave a large pile where a rival can walk in. - You may play one combat card for each of your units in a fight, even when you dial 0 power.

Player count & time

The base game plays 1–5 and is listed at 115 minutes; experienced groups usually play faster. Solo play uses the Automa, an automated opponent with its own rulebook in the box. In a two-player game, a recruit bonus your opponent triggers pays you only once per action. The Invaders from Afar expansion adds two factions and takes the game beyond five players.

Expansions

Invaders from Afar adds two factions, Albion and Togawa, plus two player mats. The Wind Gambit adds two modules: airships, a new unit with its own abilities, and resolution tiles that change how each game ends. The Rise of Fenris is an eight-episode campaign that is fully resettable and replayable, and its 11 modules can also be used outside the campaign. The Modular Board accessory gives you a variable map, and the Legendary Box is storage for everything, with no game components of its own. The story continues in two standalone games: Expeditions (2023) and Duel of Meloch (2026), a 45-minute two-player duel in which one player uses Scythe rules and the other uses Expeditions rules.

Component quality

The box is known for its production: Jakub Rozalski's paintings of farmers beside giant mechs, a large board whose back works with a separately sold extension for bigger hexes, plastic character and mech miniatures, and wooden workers, structures, recruits and resources. Pieces that can fight are plastic and everything that can't is wood, which is a useful reminder when you're learning. The base game uses cardboard coins; metal mechs and other upgrades are sold separately.

Common beginner mistake

Treating Scythe as a war game. Combat stars are limited to two (unless you play Saxony), winning a fight spends power, and pushing workers off their land costs popularity, which lowers every payout at the end. Most games are won by building an efficient engine, placing six stars quickly and keeping popularity high, with mechs used mostly as a threat. A second common slip is spending all your coins early: several actions cost $1, and without coins, popularity or power you can find yourself with no action you can pay for.