How to Play: Haspelknecht

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Hi! This is Ambie from Board Game Blitz, and today I’m gonna show you how to play Haspelknecht.

The goal of the game is to get the most points.

The game consists of 3 years, each with 3 action phases and a scoring phase.

The three action phases, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, work similarly. At the beginning of the action phase, every player will take action disks. Then, after player order is determined, players simultaneously plan their actions by placing disks and resources on their player boards. Then the actions are resolved in player order. 

Right before the spring and autumn phases, each player receives a pit water on their board. Whenever you get pit water, it’s placed on the pinge or in the shaft. If your pinge is not exhausted, meaning there is still coal there, then the pit water is placed there. Otherwise it’s placed in the shaft.

At the beginning of each action phase, all players return their action disks and the resource boards are refilled.

In player order, players take action disks over two steps. On your turn, you choose one action pool and one color and take all the disks of that color in that pool, placing them on your 1 cart. If the pool has a water symbol, you also receive a pit water on your board. After everyone has taken one step, the second step happens. If you took fewer than 5 disks, you get to again choose one pool and color and take all those disks, up to a maximum of 5 total disks taken, and place them on your 2 cart. You do not get pit water in the second phase. For example, on step 1, red could take all 6 black disks here and also take a pit water. Blue could then take 3 yellow disks here. Since red has 5 or more disks, they don’t get a step 2, but blue does. Blue chooses brown here, and must take 2 disks, since they cannot have more than 5 total for step 2. In the first phase of the first year, if you take less than 5 action disks total, you get to return one pit water from your board to the supply.

Turn order is determined after everyone has taken disks. Using the values shown here, black is 1, brown is 2, yellow is 3, everyone adds up the points of their action disks in their 1 cart. The player with the lowest value goes first, with the next lowest going next, and so on. If there’s a tie, the player who was later in the previous turn order goes first.

Next, all players plan their actions. This can be done simultaneously or in player order. To plan actions, place action disks or resources on your workers and buildings on the designated spaces. 

You start with the Farmer, Farmhand, and Coal-Digger. The Farmer and Farmhand can each do one type of action per phase - either the resources or the coal action. You can also do a development with the Farmer instead of one of his other actions. You can place multiple action disks of the same color on the Farmer or Farmhand, but not different colors. The only time you can place multiple colors is if you’re using the develop action.

Everyone plans their actions during a planning phase, and then everyone executes their actions in player order.

When executing actions, you can choose the order that your workers and buildings are activated, but each worker completes his actions before the next activates.

Most workers and buildings must be prepared during the planning phase, so resources gained that phase cannot be used to perform actions with those workers and buildings.

Development tiles give you points or bonuses during the game. Using the Farmer, you can get a development tile once per phase as his action. To do this, when you’re planning put the required action disks for that development on the farmer - the colored disks must match the colored disks on the tile. Any color can be used for a grey disk. You can only get each development once, but multiple players can own each development. When you get a development, place one of your player disks on that development, stacked on top of any other player disks, showing that you own it. You then get the advantage of the development tile, as well as victory points based on the level of the development tile and in what player order you get the development. For example, if I got this level 3 development, since I would be the second player to get it, I would get 2 victory points after getting the bonus of the tile. You can own a maximum of 9 development tiles. 

There are some rules for the development tiles that you’re allowed to get. For the top row, you can always get any development tile. For the later rows, you can get any development tile that is adjacent to a development tile you already own. Alternately, you can get a development tile that is not adjacent if another player owns it, by paying a resource to the player whose disk is on top of that development. For level 2 gray developments, the cost is a coal cube, a wood, or a food. For level 3 green, the cost is a coal cube. For level 4 brown, the cost is a food.

To get resources, put one or more disks of the same color on the Farmer or Farmhand. You’ll get one resource per disk - yellow gives you food and brown gives you wood - and put them in your farm area. During the summer phase, if the Farmer produces at least one food you get a bonus food.

To do the coal action, you use one or more black disks. The Farmer and Farmhand can do the coal action in either the Pinge or the Tunnel locations, but each worker can only do the action in one location per phase. In order to take coal, the mining area needs to be available and unhindered by pit water. 

At the beginning of the game, you can only get coal from the pinge. You need fewer than 2 water in the pinge to get coal. With the coal action, you can either remove 1 or 2 pit water from the pinge, or get one coal block. You take coal from left to right - one cube per disk, and place it in your farm area. If there is an empty wood symbol to the left of the next coal, you cannot take coal until there’s a wood token there. You can place wood from your farm area onto the wood symbols of the pinge at any time. Once all the coal from the pinge is gone, then the pinge is exhausted. You get 2 victory points if this happens during the first year and one point if it happens in the second year.

When the pinge is exhausted, the pit water moves to the shaft, the “Coal miner” and “Haspelknecht” tile goes on the player board, and you can get coal from the tunnel and shaft.

Now, you can place wood from your farm area to the wood symbols in the tunnel at any time, and you need fewer than 5 water in the shaft to get coal. The coal mining action can no longer remove pit water - only the Haspelknecht can do that. The coal mining action gets one coal cube from the tunnel, similar to taking it from the pinge, except it goes to the shaft instead of your farm area. Getting the coal from the shaft to your farm area requires an action from the Haspelknecht.

If the Farmer and Farmhand both produce the same resources or both do the coal action, then you get a synergy bonus - one more of the same action from the last worker. For example, if I used yellow action disks on both the Farmer and Farmhand, got two food from the Farmer and another food from the Farmhand, I would get a fourth bonus food from the Farmhand because of the synergy.

The Coal-digger, Coal-miner, and Haspelknecht workers can each only be activated once per phase.

Coal-Digger [5:36] - The Coal-digger costs 1 yellow disk, 1 food, or 1 coin during the planning phase, and he performs two actions. If there is more than 1 pit water in the Pinge, he removes 2 pit water per action. If there’s less than 2 pit water in the pinge, he excavates one coal cube per action. When the pinge is exhausted, the Coal-Digger is replaced by the coal-miner and the Haspelknecht.

Coal-Miner [5:54] - The Coal-miner costs 1 food or 1 coin and his action is excavating up to 3 coal cubes from the tunnel to the shaft, only if there’s less than 5 water in the shaft.

Haspelknecht [6:02] - The Haspelknecht is the only worker that can remove water from the shaft. He costs 1 yellow disk, 1 food, or 1 coin, and he performs up to 3 actions. For an action, the Haspelknecht can either remove 2 pit water from the shaft or move 1 coal from the shaft to the farm area. You need fewer than 2 pit water in the shaft in order to move the coal to the farm area.

At the end of each year, you score victory points based on the coal on your farm - 2 points for 3 cubes, plus 1 point per each extra cube. Then you pay the cost for the year - 2 food in year 1, 2 food and a coin in year 2, and one food and 2 coins in year 3. You must pay the cost if you can, and you take a debt chit for each commodity you cannot pay. You can store a single resource - food, wood, or coal - in your farm area, and you get a point if you store one wood. Developments can give you more storage and points. Then you return any resources that were not stored in your buildings, and a new year starts. At the end of the 3rd year, the game ends.

At the end of the game, you get 1-3 points for each empty section of your tunnel, indicated by the player board. You also get bonus points for development tiles you own. Also, if you have development tiles with building symbols, you’ll get additional points - 1 point for 1 symbol, 3 points for 2 symbols, 6 points for 3 symbols, and 10 points for 4 symbols. You get one point for each unused action marker you have. You get 2 points if you have 1 coin left, 5 if you have 2, 9 if you have 3, and 14 points if you have 4 coins. If you have more than 4 coins left, you get 6 points per each additional. You lose points for debt chits and pit water - if you have one debt chit you lose 1 point, and you lose 2 points for each additional debt chit. If you have more than 1 pit water, lose points equal to the number of pit water minus one. The player with the most points wins. The tiebreaker is the player who removed the most coal from the board, and then the player who is first in player order.

And that’s how you play Haspelknecht. Click the link for setup and development tile explanation. Check out our website for more videos, podcasts, and blogs. Thanks for watching Board Game Blitz!

Place the year wheel board in the middle of the table with the phase marker on the first pit water field and the year marker on the first year.

Set up the development board with 4 rows of the hexagon tiles, one row of each color - yellow, gray, green, and brown. Place the assist tiles next to each row. In a 2 player game, set up 3 tiles of each color, 4 of each in a 3 player game, and all 5 of each in a 4 player game. There are also advanced variant setups in the back of the rulebook.

Get the action markers and buildings that correspond to the development tiles in play and place them near the board.

In a 2-3 player game, return the extra development tiles and corresponding action markers and buildings to the box.

Put the coins, debt chits, resources, pit water, and the “Coal Miner” and “Haspelknecht” tiles in piles near the board. Resources and pit water are unlimited.

Each player gets a player board, 18 coal cubes, and 11 player disks of their color. Put the coal cubes on the indicated spaces on the player board. Each player puts one of their player pieces on the 0/50 spot of the year wheel board. Randomly determine the player order and place player disks on the turn order chart accordingly.

Take the resource boards with the player symbol less than or equal to the number of players and set them in the middle of the table. To set up the drawing bag, take a number of action disks depending on the number of players and place them in the bag. For 2 players, take 7 black, 7 brown, and 4 yellow. For 3 players, take 10 black, 10 brown, and 7 yellow. For 4 players, take 13 black, 13 brown, and 10 yellow. Shuffle the disks in the bag.

For each reserve pool on the left of the resource boards, draw 3 action disks from the bag and place them in the reserve pool. For each action pool on the right, draw 6 action disks from the bag and place them on the action pool.

Before Spring and Autumn, each player receives a pit water. The pit water either goes in the player’s pinge, if the pinge has not been exhausted, or in the shaft area. At the beginning of each action phase, all players return all their used and unused action disks into the drawing bag. Move the 3 disks in each reserve pool to the corresponding action pool. Then for each reserve pool, draw 3 action disks from the bag and put them in the reserve pool. For each action pool that has less than 6 disks, draw disks from the bag and put them in the action pool until there are 6 disks there. If one or more boards has more than 6 disks, then the final resource board will have fewer than 6 disks.

When a player’s pinge is exhausted, which means all the coal is removed, the player receives 2 points if it was the first year, and 1 point if it was the second year. Move the pit water from the pinge to their shaft, and return all the wood to the supply. The player receives the “Coal miner” and “Haspelknecht” tile, placing it on their player board over the coal-digger and pinge area. Now the player can excavate coal from the tunnel.

These are the development tiles you can get during the game. The action disks required are shown in the top - either specific colored ones or gray, which can be any color. When you get the development tile, you get the bonus from the tile. The bonuses are one-time bonuses, prolonged bonuses, actions, buildings, and/or end-game scoring bonuses.

This gives you one coin.

You choose to either get 3 wood and 1 pit water, or 1 coin.

You can immediately exchange either 1 coal for 1 coin, or 2 coal for 1 coin and 1 food. In either case, the coal comes from your farm area.

You get one coin. At the end of the game, you get 1 additional point for each mining symbol on development tiles you own.

You get 2 coal cubes and a wood from the general supply. The coal cubes go in your shaft. At the end of the game, you get 1 additional point for each empty section in your tunnel with the lorry symbol.

You get 1 food. At the end of the game, you get 1 additional point for each fork symbol on development tiles you own.

You get 3 coins.

You get the tile with the Improved Farmhand, replacing the Farmhand. This worker can either get resources, do the coal action, or get a development tile for his action. You cannot use the Improved Farmhand until the next phase.

If you own this, you do not get a pit water during the pit water phases before spring and autumn.

You get 1 coin and 1 food. Each winter phase, instead of scoring coal normally, you get 1 point for each coal you have on your farm.

These tiles give you buildings. When you get one of these developments, take the associated building and add it to your player board. You can begin using the building in the next phase.

This building allows you to store one additional wood, coal, or food unit in the winter. If you store a food here, you get 2 points.

Once per phase, you can use this building to exchange 2 wood for 2 coal and 1 victory point. You get the coal from the general supply. You do not need to do this during the planning phase, so wood that you got from a resource action can immediately be used if you have a charcoal burner.

The coal storage building lets you store one unit of coal and one unit of wood in the winter phase. If you store coal here, you get one point.

The Water Mill can be used in action phases by placing action disks on it during the planning phase. You can either use 2 yellow action disks to get 1 food and 2 points, or 2 black action disks to get one coin.

These tiles give you action markers. When you get one of these, you get the associated action marker, which can be used once at any time in a later phase. Once you use the action marker, return it to the general supply.

This action lets you remove one pit water and get one point.

This action marker can be used as a yellow action disk. Also, at the end of the game, you get 1 additional point for each empty section in your coal tunnel with the cart symbol.

This action marker can be used as a brown action disk.

When you get this development, you can immediately remove one pit water. The action marker can be used to activate the Haspelknecht to do 3 reeling actions without pay - this is moving the coal from the shaft to the farm area. This means he could be activated twice that phase, if he was also paid.

You get 1 coin. The action marker can be used to exchange one action disk in a reserve pool with one action disk in the corresponding action pool. Also, at the end of the game you get 1 additional point for each empty section in your coal tunnel with the oil lamp symbol.

You get 1 wood. Then you can immediately move either 1 coal from the pinge to your farm, or 1 coal from the tunnel to the shaft. In either case, the coal must be accessible. You also get this action marker, which can be used as a black action disk.

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