Locations & Movement

Open the path, pay entrance costs, and place Hostiles correctly.

Range and adjacency

Range 0 means the same Location. Range 1 means one path space away, Range 2 two spaces away, and so forth, in either direction. Mission and Objective are Locations too. A Soldier’s ordinary Move reaches one adjacent played Location; an empty path slot is not a Soldier destination.

Moving a Soldier

Spend one Action, satisfy the destination’s entrance requirement, and move that Soldier’s counter. Each Soldier may Move only once per Soldier turn, even if it has more Actions. You may leave a Location containing Hostiles; their mere presence does not pin you there.

Read the printed Entrance Cost, add applicable Location/Hostile penalties and apply that Soldier’s Movement benefit. Discard Action cards for any remaining cost. Player Soldiers must pay from their own hands. A Non-Player or Squad Soldier may be funded by Player Soldier discards. Do not spend another Player Soldier’s hand to move your own Player Soldier.

Playing the next Location

A Player Soldier may play a Location from its hand into the next empty path space when at least one Soldier occupies the frontmost played Location. The playing Player Soldier does not itself have to be that frontmost Soldier.

Pay the Location’s printed play cost, resolve its text and draw Hostiles. Soldiers may attack the new Hostiles straight away. The team may play one new Location per Soldier turn regardless of the number of players or Soldiers. Do not play a Location beyond the slot immediately before the Objective; activate the Objective when eligible instead.

If at the start of the game no Player Soldier holds a Location card, spend Actions on Discard and Draw until someone finds one.

Drawing Hostiles

Use the Location’s chart row for the team’s current Resource value. Draw one card at a time from the matching Hostile deck, adding printed XP values until the total meets or exceeds that row’s Hostile value. A 0-value card contributes zero but still enters play and can affect the situation.

If the adjusted required value is zero or less, the Universal rules still require exactly one Hostile card. Reshuffle the discard pile when a deck runs out.

Modern Event cards count their printed XP toward these draws and toward reinforcement checks. Resolve their effects and any cancellation cost at the specified time; they yield no earned XP. Resolve all Events for the Location before continuing Soldier Actions.

Placing Hostiles and assigning targets

Normal Hostiles enter at the new Location. Follow placement keywords such as Front-most, Rear-most, Beyond or Place in Targeted instead when printed. Give each Hostile its random targeting counter and resolve any placement that depends on that target.

Hostiles can occupy empty path slots and move through them. A placement beyond the Objective stops at the Objective; one behind the Mission stops at the Mission. Escape reverses directional interpretations as described in its mission rules.

Environment and Hardy

At the start of the Soldier turn, each Soldier in a Location with an Environment condition rolls a d10 against the printed threshold. Failure means choose a Wound or a Suppress, or spend a matching Hardy counter to avoid that consequence. If several conditions affect a Location, check each separately.

Hardy is attached to the Soldier that received it; do not freely move counters between Soldiers. Not every Keyword-sheet condition belongs to the core box: use this procedure when your selected cards introduce it.

Passing Gear and Lightening the Load

Player Soldiers in the same Location can freely exchange Weapons, Equipment and compatible Ammo, within the receiving Soldier’s Loadout. Each Weapon or Equipment card can be used by only one Soldier per turn, and a card used this turn cannot be passed this turn. Dropped Gear remains available in that Location for legal later recovery; dropping is different from removing an item from the game to Lighten the Load.

Non-Player Soldiers cannot exchange their fixed Gear normally, but can receive matching-caliber Ammo without exceeding their Weapon’s printed ammunition allowance. Squad Soldiers follow their printed rules.

Lightening the Load discards Gear from the game and recalculates the team’s Resource value. A lower current value can select a lower Hostile row on future Location/Objective draws; it does not erase Hostiles already placed. Downed/Removed Soldiers also require recalculation.

Sources

Universal Rulebook, pp. 27–28, 32–38, 45, 49–50; Modern New Recruit Manual, pp. 15–20.