How to play
The Saltings are a storm coast of salt flats, drift banks and tide channels. Up to five houses (Swell, Gale, Rime, Haze and Squall) sail canvas wind-sleds around it. Each house has a pilot, rakers that make resources, four sleds to raise and four structures to build. The goal: win six pennants first. The sixth pennant of any house ends the season at once, and then the house with the most coins wins.
A turn
- Pick a column. Your mat has four columns (five once you hold a wreck card). The mats are dealt apart from the houses, so each game mixes them. Pick one, but never the column you picked on your last turn.
- Do its top. Take the top action of that column, or skip it.
- Do its bottom. Then take the bottom action of the same column, if you can pay its resources, or skip it. Each bottom action also pays its coins.
Every house starts with no resources. Resources lie on the fields where they were made. They are yours while you hold the field (a piece or a structure of yours there), and those on your home count too. When you pay, the table takes each resource from your field that holds the most of it.
The four tops
- Travel
- Walk 2 pieces one step each (3 when improved), or gather 1 coin.
- Rake
- Each raker on up to 2 chosen fields (3 improved) makes one resource of its land; on a camp it brings a new raker. It costs more once many rakers are out.
- Barter
- Pay a coin: 2 resources of any kind (3), or 1 renown (2).
- Rally
- Pay a coin: 2 drive (3), or 1 drive card (2).
The four bottoms
- Improve (salt)
- Move a peg from a top slot down to a bottom action: that top gives more, that bottom costs less.
- Raise (driftwood)
- Put a sled on a field with your raker. Its ability works from now on.
- Build (shell)
- Put a salt shed, a cistern, a lookout or a lighthouse on a field with your raker. Each helps one top action.
- Recruit (reed)
- Put a helper on a bottom action and take a one-time bonus. From then on, when you or a neighbour takes that action, you gain a little more.
Travel and standoffs
- A step goes to a next hex, or from one mast to any other. Channels stop every piece unless a sled ability fords them; lagoons are for the Swell (and one Gale sled); nobody walks onto a home. A sled carries rakers and resources along.
- Rakers never walk onto another house's hex. A pilot or sled that walks onto rakers alone sends them home, and you lose a renown for each.
- A pilot or sled that meets another house's pilot or sled starts a standoff after the travel. Both sides set a drive dial in secret (up to 7, and never more than their drive) and may add one drive card per pilot and sled there. The higher total wins; a tie goes to the side that started it. The loser walks home; the winner pins a Standoff pennant (twice at most).
Castaways and the Wreck
Eight castaways wait on the map. When your pilot ends a travel on one, you meet them: pick one of their three offers you can pay (or none) and keep the card. The first time your pilot ends a travel on the Wreck, you look at a few wreck cards and keep one: from your next turn it is a fifth column. Each house also holds two secret errands; show one that holds to pin the Errand pennant.
Pennants
All six pegs moved, all four sleds raised, all four structures built, all four helpers placed, all eight rakers out, an errand shown, a standoff won (twice), renown at 18, and drive at 16. That is ten pennants in all; the sixth ends the season.
The end
Your renown sets what everything is worth. Final coins are your coins, plus each pennant, each hex you hold (the Wreck counts as three) and each pair of resources in your fields, by the table below, plus the harbour tile, which pays for your structures that meet its condition. Equal coins share the place. The season also ends after day 40.
| Renown | 0–6 | 7–12 | 13–18 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A pennant | 3 coins | 4 coins | 5 coins |
| A hex held | 2 coins | 3 coins | 4 coins |
| Two resources | 1 coin | 2 coins | 3 coins |
At the online table
- Point at an action of your mat, a peg, a recruit spot, a track or a pennant, or hold a finger on it, to read what it does.
- Tap a column of your mat; then the plaque above the map offers the top, and the sheet under the map the bigger choices: fields, goods, the dial, a castaway's offers, a bottom action.
- In a travel, tap a piece (on the map or in the list), then a ring where it may go. On a phone, a tap on the map shows that part of the coast bigger; “Whole coast” goes back.
- On a keyboard: 1 to 5 pick a column; T travel, G gather, L rally; D ends a travel; S skips; H rake and A barter go to their choice; 0 to 6 set the dial and C adds a card; F switches the focus view; E shows an errand; M turns the sound off; ? lists the keys.
- Each decision has a 90-second timer (45 s for a dial, a castaway or a wreck card). When it runs out, the table plays for you and spends nothing.
- A game takes about 75 minutes. A game lives on the server: if the server restarts, the table closes.