Scramline field manual

Your turn

Move

Tap a soldier, then a highlighted tile. Each step costs 1 AP and you can walk in eight directions; walls and crates block the way, and a diagonal step cannot cut a corner. The highlight shows what each tile costs.

Shoot

Tap an enemy to preview the shot: hit chance, damage and backfire risk. Tap Fire, or tap the enemy again, to commit.

AP

Soldiers have 4 action points (a Servo or the Runner perk adds 1, Plating takes 1, never below 2). Steps, shots, Vent, Patch and Jump all spend AP. Facing is free. Unspent AP is lost when you end the turn.

Patch

1 AP heals 3 HP, once per sector (a Medkit carries three patches of 4). Not at full health.

Camera

Drag to orbit, pinch or scroll to zoom, Q and E rotate in quarter turns.

Undo

Takes back moves, jumps and turns, up to 12 steps within your turn, while nothing else has happened since. A shot, Vent, Patch, Overwatch, a contact or a newly seen tile clears it. Not available on Ironman.

Heat and backfire

Heat

Every shot adds 1 heat (2 when overcharged). Your weapon is cool for a set number of shots: the gauge shows it, with a marker at the limit.

Backfire

Past the limit each shot risks a backfire: 20% plus 20% for every extra point of heat, up to 90%. A backfire loses the shot, drops your heat to 0, jams the weapon for 2 turns and hurts you for 3.

Plasma lance

Gets one cool shot. Past it the odds start at 35% and climb 25% per point of heat, and a backfire deals 4 to you and 2 to everyone next to you.

Cooling

Heat drops at the start of your turn. Vent spends 1 AP to shed 2 heat (3 with a Cooler).

Overcharge

Multiplies damage by 1.5 for 2 heat and one step more backfire risk. The preview shows the new numbers. Only a weapon that heats can overcharge, so not the mortar or the Cutter.

Heat signature

The Rime can sense every soldier with heat above 0, anywhere on the map. A cold soldier is seen only the usual way, by a creature with a line of sight to it.

Hitting things

Hit chance

Weapon accuracy, minus 6 per tile beyond half range, minus 25 for cover, plus aim bonuses. Always between 5% and 95%.

Focus

Each miss adds +10 aim to your next shot (up to +30). A hit resets it.

Cover

A crate beside the target, on the line between you and it, costs 25 aim. Crates do not block sight. Walls block sight, and so do two walls that meet corner to corner: nothing sees, shoots, bites or grips across that seam. A unit on a wall top sees over both, and is seen over them. Sight is the same both ways: if you can see a creature, it can see you.

Armor

Each point takes 1 off every hit, but a hit always deals at least 1. Splash, bursts, burning tiles and backfire ignore armor.

Flank

Hit a unit from behind and its armor counts for nothing. Everyone faces the way it last moved or shot; the preview shows FLANK when you have the angle. Soldiers can turn in place for free.

Blast and fire

The Arc mortar lobs over walls and lands every time; its 3×3 blast hurts friends too and flattens crates. The Flamer ignores cover and leaves the tile burning for 2 rounds: nothing can enter, anything standing there takes 2.

Overwatch

Spends all your remaining AP, and needs at least enough for one shot. You then fire one shot at the first enemy that steps into your range and sight, as it moves; the shot builds heat and can backfire like any other. Not available to the mortar or a jammed weapon, and it ends when your next turn starts.

Fog of war

Sight

You see a tile when one of your units has line of sight to it within its sight range. Teammates share what they see.

Hidden enemies

Unseen enemies are not shown and cannot be shot directly. A grey ghost marks where you last saw one.

Contact

A move stops the moment it reveals an enemy, with the rest of your AP kept. A jump onto a hidden enemy is blocked where you stand and costs its 1 AP.

Blind fire

The mortar may aim at a tile it can reach but nobody can see. The shell lands whatever stands there; the preview says BLIND.

What the Rime sees

Blooms are always on your map; one out of sight is marked MAPPED. In return the Rime senses every soldier that is running hot.

Wall tops

Getting up

A Jump pack can land on any free wall tile up to 3 tiles away; the soldier is then perched on the wall top. The core carrier cannot: the core is too heavy.

What a perch gives

+1 sight, and you see and shoot over walls. Weapon range does not change.

What it costs

No cover: a crate beside a wall top does not protect it. Anyone in range sees you over the walls too, and the shot preview says PERCHED TARGET: NO COVER.

Getting down

Step to an adjacent floor tile for 1 AP (grip applies as usual), or jump off. A soldier never walks from wall to wall.

Who can reach you

Spit, blasts, splash and bursts reach a wall top. Of the biters only the Clamber and Sovereign can strike it; every other bite stops at the foot of the wall.

The Clamber

A Rime creature that walks over walls and stands on them, and sees one tile further up there. It is the hive’s answer to a perch, so watch the walls once it appears.

The Rime

Spawners

Blooms and the Sovereign birth a creature every few rounds. A spawner turns ripe when its countdown ends, and births on an adjacent tile. Deeper sectors tend to bring more Blooms, and tougher ones.

Telegraphed strikes

A creature never hits on its own turn. It moves, then marks a frosted tile with the damage it will deal. At the start of the Rime turn every mark lands.

Dodge or stop it

Step out of the tile, kill the striker before the Rime turn, or let something sturdy stand there. Creatures caught on a marked tile get hit too.

Grip

Stepping off a tile next to a creature that can strike costs 1 more AP. Breaking away is slower than walking up. A jump ignores grip, and Blooms have none.

Husks

Burst on death for 3 to everything next to them. Shoot them from range.

Playing the Rime

In a skirmish you can take the hive. You choose what each ripe spawner births and where; unused spawners birth something random at turn end.

Objectives

Purge

Burn every spawner to win: without its roots the Rime withers, and the creatures still standing die with the last one. If the round limit comes first, the sector is lost: in the campaign the squad is extracted, in a skirmish the Rime wins. Every 4th sector a Sovereign guards the Blooms.

Retrieve

Step on the core (that ends the move), then carry it to the ward socket, the marked plate on the squad's start line. When the carrier steps or jumps onto the socket, the core is seated, a heat ward drives the Rime off and the sector is won. The core is heavy: its carrier pays 1 more AP a step, and it runs hot, so the Rime senses the carrier anywhere. If the carrier falls, the core drops where they died.

Beacon

End a round with a soldier on the beacon as many times as the briefing asks, before the round limit. A Rime strike on an empty beacon frosts one signal off; a soldier standing on it blocks that and takes the hit instead.

Rescue

3 stokers, the plant's crew, are sealed in frost refuges across the sector. A sealed stoker cannot act and cannot be hurt. A soldier that ends a step or a jump next to a refuge, diagonals included, frees the stoker in it; it joins the squad and acts from your next turn. A stoker has 6 HP (8 on Easy), 3 AP and no weapon: it only moves. Walk 2 of them onto the lift on the squad's start line, where each rides out, before the round limit. Lose 2 and the sector is lost. Below the Well 4 are sealed in deeper and 3 must ride out. The Rime goes for freed stokers.

Elimination

Squad vs Squad. The last squad with soldiers wins. From round 20 every soldier takes 1 damage each round. With Hive interference on, two Blooms on the flanks send the Rime after both squads.

Losing

Lose the whole squad and the campaign ends. A sector lost on time, or a Rescue that loses too many stokers, costs 1 plant integrity (Easy 4, Standard 3, Ironman 2) and is fought again on a new map, with the survivors. At 0 the plant falls.

Difficulty

Easy gives every soldier +2 HP, starts the Rime one creature short and makes Blooms 2 HP weaker. Ironman starts the Rime with 3 more creatures, makes every Bloom 2 HP tougher and has no Undo.

Winning

Win sector 12, the Core Well, and the campaign is won and plant integrity is restored. Below the Well, 8 more sectors lead down to the Taproot at sector 20; the deep sectors go on after it, as far as the squad can last.

Large sectors

Some sectors Below the Well are large: they are fought one map size up, Compact on a Wide 10×13 board and Wide on a Vast 12×16 one. The Rime starts in more back rows, the squad gets more rounds for the walk, and the briefing says when a sector is large.

Ranks and perks

XP

A kill is worth 1 XP, 2 for a Bloom, Brute, Bulwark or Sovereign, and 3 for a soldier. Winning a campaign objective gives every survivor 2 more. Rank thresholds: 5, 12, 22, 36.

Promotion

Each rank gives +1 max HP, +1 HP and +5 aim, and one perk to pick at the next briefing. Titles: Rookie, Warden, Senior Warden, Sergeant, Veteran.

Carry-over

Survivors keep rank, perks and kills into the next sector, and start it at full HP, cold, with a full mortar magazine and a fresh Absorber. The fallen are replaced by rookies on standard issue, and the kit they carried is lost with them. Weapon and gear can change at every briefing.

Unlocks

The campaign opens new kit as the squad goes deeper: Plating at sector 2, Flamer at sector 3, Jump pack at sector 4, Arc mortar at sector 5, Absorber at sector 6, Cutter at sector 7. Skirmish has everything from the start, free.

Salvage

Campaign kit costs salvage. A sector won pays 4, every spawner burned 1 more (won or not), and a large sector won 2 more. The Carbine and the Cooler are standard issue, free for everyone; every other item is a copy in the armory. Picking an item the armory lacks buys one at the price on its chip, and a spare sells back for half (in full if it was bought at this briefing). A fallen soldier's kit is lost with them; their replacement arrives with standard issue.

Co-op

Two players each command two soldiers on the same side and take turns. The cover screen hides the board between turns.

Reference

Weapons

Gear (one per soldier)

Perks

The Rime