Beat Em Up · How to play
Clear the zone. Beat the boss.
A tile-based co-op miniature game in the style of the side-scrolling fighting games of the 80s and 90s. Up to four heroes battle zone by zone through hordes of thugs and goons, until the bosses turn up.
Players
1 – 4 + GM
Play style
Co-op
Scale
28mm
Zone tiles
20cm × 20cm
Squares per zone
36
Turns
None
The rules in five ideas
Everything you need for your first fight
Five ideas run the whole game. Get these and you're ready to brawl; the Compendium fills in the rest.
Team up or get swamped
Up to four players each control a hero. One more player runs the bad guys.
The heroes win or lose together. Plan who goes where, share power-ups and look out for each other, so nobody gets swarmed.
The final player is the Games Master, who controls every thug, goon and boss. It's usually the most experienced player, or whoever wrote the scenario.
Clear it, then move on
Get knocked back into a cleared Zone and it respawns. Welcome to the Double Zone.
The game is played across 20cm tiles called Zones, each split into 36 squares. When the heroes enter a Zone, the Games Master draws a Spawn card and sets the enemies up on the far side.
You can't move on until a Zone is cleared. Get knocked back into an old one and it fills with bad guys again, joining up into a Double Zone. Knocked back twice? A Triple Zone is almost certain death.
No turns, just a loop
Characters act from lowest to highest Strategy Rating, then loop straight back round.
There are no turns in Beat Em Up. Every character activates in Strategy Rating order, in one continuous loop. It's the strangest part of the game for veteran gamers.
Things that would normally reset at the end of a turn, like abilities and power-ups, reset when the heroes move into the next Zone instead.
Rising Dragon Punch!
Spend Heroic Tokens on Rising Dragon Punches, suplexes and Tiger Leaps.
It wouldn't be Beat Em Up without big fighting moves. Every player, and some of the bad guys, get Heroic Tokens to pull them off.
Tokens can be shared around the team. Spend them wisely, though: you need enough to last the whole Zone.
Smash everything
There's a power-up or a weapon hiding under most terrain.
All terrain is interactive. Pick it up and throw it at your enemies, or smash it to see what's underneath: a rare 1Up extra life, medical kits, super strength, or money to spend on new moves.
Grab a sword or a knife and really deal the damage. Just don't get knocked back while you're holding it, or you'll drop it and the bad guys can pick it up.
And there's more
Everything else that makes it Beat Em Up
Dice
Keep a medical kit handy
The same swingy D3 dice as every Traders Galaxy game. Blanks miss, and combat is a dice-off between attack and block dice.
Activations
Two moves, any order
Each character gets two Activations, in any order: move twice, attack then move, or move then attack.
Bosses
Then the boss turns up
In certain rounds the bosses arrive. Spawn the secret boss alongside the mid-level boss and it gets messy.
Flip the tiles
Into the dungeon
Turn the tiles over and take your fantasy miniatures into the Snake Cult dungeon, against skeletons and barbarians.
The Compendium
The definitive rulebook
The Digital Compendium has the lore for the five-level C.O.I.L.S campaign and six levels of rules, with every stat and spawn card you need, plus a bonus level for the Green Tentacle Ninja Clan.
Want to design your own fights? The Make Your Own Stat & Spawn Cards PDF makes it as easy as 1, 2, Uppercut.
The short version
You'll be talking about the boss fights for days.
Every Traders Galaxy game is built for big moments. The more of them per game, the better.
The bat
The time you found a bat and took on the Thugs and Goons single-handed while your team sat back.
Two bosses
The time the secret boss spawned at the same time as the mid-level boss.
The Triple Zone
Knocked back twice into cleared Zones. Almost certain death.
From the Compendium
Take a look inside
A few pages and pieces from the game. Click one to enlarge it.
Ready to brawl?
Start with the boxed game
5 heroes, 8 thugs, 2 goons, 3 bosses and a civilian, plus 18 terrain pieces, double-sided floor tiles and walls, stat and spawn cards, dice and the rulebook. Everything for your first fight, in one box.