Primal: The Awakening

To set up, each player selects a hunter and corresponding weapon, placing their hunter miniature on the game board and setting up their individual player board with starting health, stamina, and a hand of five action cards. The monster's board is prepared with its initial health tokens for three stances (18, 24, and 28 health for a two-player game) and a set of face-down reaction cards. Terrain tokens are placed on the main board, and various other tokens like struggle tokens and damage tokens are kept in a general supply.

The primary objective is to defeat the monster, which is accomplished by dealing enough damage to deplete its health across three escalating stances. Players must coordinate their attacks and abilities to overcome each stance. The game is lost if all hunters are knocked out (their health reaches zero) or if 10 rounds pass without defeating the monster. Successfully defeating the monster leads to victory and progression in the campaign.

Each round begins with the monster phase: the monster draws one struggle token per player, and its lowest-numbered reaction card(s) are removed and replaced, potentially changing its behavior. Then, players take their turns. On a player's turn, they can optionally move to an adjacent sector by spending one stamina. Players then play a sequence of cards from their hand, spending stamina (generated by other cards) to activate effects like dealing damage (red cards), removing struggle tokens (blue cards), or mitigating damage (yellow/green cards). At the end of their turn, players draw back up to their hand limit, and if they didn't move, they take a threat token.

Damage dealt to the monster is tracked on its health dial, progressing through three distinct stances. Each stance has a specific health value that must be depleted before the monster transitions to the next, more challenging stance. When a stance's health is fully depleted, any excess damage does not carry over to the next stance; instead, the monster's health resets to the full value of its new stance, and players continue to deal damage from there. Objective cards can also provide opportunities to deal large chunks of damage to the monster by completing specific tasks.

The game concludes in one of two ways: either the players achieve victory by successfully defeating the monster across all three of its escalating stances, or they suffer defeat. Defeat occurs if all hunters are knocked out (their health drops to zero), or if the game reaches the end of the tenth round and the monster has not yet been vanquished. The outcome determines progression within the larger campaign narrative.