Ruling — Maximum Apocalypse

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Maximum Apocalypsebg-188547-en-1e

To play the game, follow these steps:

Setup

1. Each player decides which survivor they are playing and claims the matching figure (or standee), deck, character card, health dial, hunger die, and Player reference card.[1]

2. Players set up their play area by placing their Survivor character card faceup, setting their Health dial to the value on the card, and setting their hunger die to '1'.[1]

3. Players shuffle their Survivor deck and draw 4 cards to create a starting hand.[1]

4. Players place their figure on the starting tile specified by the mission.[1]

5. Select a Mission and follow its instructions to build the map using tiles, setting aside the Van tile.[1]

6. Build the monster deck by shuffling all monster cards from the required sets together and leaving room for a discard pile.[2]

7. Each player draws a monster card (unless the mission specifies otherwise) and attaches it to their character in their play area.[2]

8. Separate Scavenge cards into Red (Fuel), Green (Food), and Blue (Ammo/Gear) decks, shuffle them separately, and place them in the Scavenge tray.[2]

9. Set out the plastic token tray and Spawn dice near the map.[2]

10. Players select a starting player randomly (or by another chosen method) and hand them the Spawn dice.[2]

Turn Sequence

During a turn, a player performs the following steps in order:[3][4]

1. Spawn Monsters: Roll the two Spawn dice; place a Monster token on each faceup map tile where the Spawn number matches the combined roll result (if a '7' is rolled or no tiles match, no monsters spawn).[3][4] If a player is on a tile where a token should be added, they draw a monster card instead.[3]

2. Draw a Card: Draw a card from your Survivor deck and add it to your hand (hand limit is 10 cards).[3][4]

3. Player Actions: Take exactly 4 actions from the following options:[4][5]

* Move to an orthogonally adjacent tile (revealing unrevealed tiles before moving).[4][5]

* Draw a card from your Survivor deck.[4][5]

* Play a card from your hand (such as an Instant Action or Gear).[4][6]

* Perform an action on a card or tile.[4]

* Scavenge (once per tile per turn).[4]

* Discard two Survivor cards from your hand to draw a new card.[4]

* (Free Action) Deliver cards that are part of a Mission Objective to a tile.[4]

4. Monster Activation: Monsters in the current player's play area activate and attack from left to right.[4]

5. Hunger and other Status Effects: Increase Hunger by 1 and suffer damage from Hunger, Poison, and other status effects.[4]

6. Check for Victory.[3]

After a player completes these steps, their turn ends and play proceeds clockwise.[3][2]

[1] RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook · p.6 · 1. Pick Survivors · 2. Select a Mission · 3. Build the Map

[2] RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook · p.7 · 4. Build Monster Deck · 5. Organize Scavenge Decks · A. Card Type & Card Title · B. Quick Reference · C. Range (if applicable) · 6. Set out tokens · …

[3] RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook · p.10 · Playing the game · A. Scavenge Icon · B. Spawn · C. Indoor Icon & Tile Name · D. Trigger · E. Tile Effect · …

[4] RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook · p.24 · 1. Spawn Monsters · 2. Draw a Card from your Survivor deck · Free Actions:

[5] RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook · p.11 · 3. Player Actions · MOVE · Encountering monster tokens · Stealth test · DRAW

[6] RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook · p.12 · Play a Card · Instant Actions · Equipping Gear · Perform a card action · instant Actions · Gear Cards

The sage rests. The game continues.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 208 ms · ask 5396 ms · total 5606 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5606 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 12, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Spend 1 action to play a card from your hand. There are two types of cards that you can play on your turn: Instant Actions and Gear. When you play an Instant Action, resolve the card effect. Then, if the card played was a Scavenge card, discard it to the common Scavenge cards discard pile; if the ca", "headingPath": "Play a Card · Instant Actions · Equipping Gear · Perform a card action · instant Actions · Gear Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 17, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "If you're up for playing two characters at the same time, select two different Survivors, place their character cards in front of you, and shuffle their decks together. Then draw 8 cards as your starting hand. Your max hand size is 20. You can play any card from your hand on either character. Otherw", "headingPath": "Multi class Variant", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.046343, "snippet": "Before we get into Mission 0: Tutorial, each player must decide which survivor they are going to play. When choosing a survivor, players claim the matching survivor's figure (or standee), deck, character card, health dial, along with a hunger die, and a Player reference card. Each player then procee", "headingPath": "1. Pick Survivors · 2. Select a Mission · 3. Build the Map", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.044658, "snippet": "You must take exactly 4 actions each turn, selected as any combination of the actions listed below. You may take the same action several times in the same turn, each time counting as 1 action. Move to an orthogonally adjacent tile. Draw a card from your Survivor deck. Scavenge: Draw a Scavenge card ", "headingPath": "3. Player Actions · MOVE · Encountering monster tokens · Stealth test · DRAW", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 24, "score": 0.044071, "snippet": "Roll Dice to Spawn Monsters: Place a Monster token on each faceup map tile whose Spawn number matches the combined roll result. Each player on a tile matching the roll, draws a monster card. Player Actions (take 4 actions) Move to an orthogonally adjacent tile. Draw a card from your Survivor deck. P", "headingPath": "1. Spawn Monsters · 2. Draw a Card from your Survivor deck · Free Actions:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.043461, "snippet": "Each Mission will indicate which monster sets are to be used in the current game (an indicator of the set to which each monster belongs can be found in the bottom right corner of a monster card). Take all monster cards for each used set and shuffle them together to form the monster deck. Leave room ", "headingPath": "4. Build Monster Deck · 5. Organize Scavenge Decks · A. Card Type & Card Title · B. Quick Reference · C. Range (if applicable) · 6. Set out tokens · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.041757, "snippet": "During their turn, a player will perform all of the following steps. Then, their turn ends and the game proceeds clockwise. This icon indicates which Scavenge decks (Red, Blue, Green) you can draw from when performing the scavenge action on this tile. If there is more than icon, you may choose from ", "headingPath": "Playing the game · A. Scavenge Icon · B. Spawn · C. Indoor Icon & Tile Name · D. Trigger · E. Tile Effect · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030415, "snippet": "After resolving Hunger, if you have any status effects such as Poison or Insanity cards, trigger these effects in any order of your choosing and suffer the necessary damage.  Damage from Hunger and other Status Effects (Poison, Exposure, etc) cannot be reduced by equipped gear and other cards. Chec", "headingPath": "Other Status Effects · 6. check for Victory · end of game · Saving your progress", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Pick Survivors · 2. Select a Mission · 3. Build the Map", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4. Build Monster Deck · 5. Organize Scavenge Decks · A. Card Type & Card Title · B. Quick Reference · C. Range (if applicable) · 6. Set out tokens · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Playing the game · A. Scavenge Icon · B. Spawn · C. Indoor Icon & Tile Name · D. Trigger · E. Tile Effect · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 24, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Spawn Monsters · 2. Draw a Card from your Survivor deck · Free Actions:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3. Player Actions · MOVE · Encountering monster tokens · Stealth test · DRAW", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Play a Card · Instant Actions · Equipping Gear · Perform a card action · instant Actions · Gear Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 1232}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1232 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1232 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.88062 of 2203 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 6, 2026 13:43 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Play a Card · Instant Actions · Equipping Gear · Perform a card action · instant Actions · Gear Cards	p.12	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Multi class Variant	p.17	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	1. Pick Survivors · 2. Select a Mission · 3. Build the Map	p.6	0.046343 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	3. Player Actions · MOVE · Encountering monster tokens · Stealth test · DRAW	p.11	0.044658 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	1. Spawn Monsters · 2. Draw a Card from your Survivor deck · Free Actions:	p.24	0.044071 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	4. Build Monster Deck · 5. Organize Scavenge Decks · A. Card Type & Card Title · B. Quick Reference · C. Range (if applicable) · 6. Set out tokens · …	p.7	0.043461 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Playing the game · A. Scavenge Icon · B. Spawn · C. Indoor Icon & Tile Name · D. Trigger · E. Tile Effect · …	p.10	0.041757 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Other Status Effects · 6. check for Victory · end of game · Saving your progress	p.15	0.030415 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 33 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Multi class Variant	p.17	#2	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Playing the game · A. Scavenge Icon · B. Spawn · C. Indoor Icon & Tile Name · D. Trigger · E. Tile Effect · …	p.10	#7	0.041757 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	1. Spawn Monsters · 2. Draw a Card from your Survivor deck · Free Actions:	p.24	#5	0.044071 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	4. Build Monster Deck · 5. Organize Scavenge Decks · A. Card Type & Card Title · B. Quick Reference · C. Range (if applicable) · 6. Set out tokens · …	p.7	#6	0.043461 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Glossary	p.22	#10	0.029031 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	1. Pick Survivors · 2. Select a Mission · 3. Build the Map	p.6	#3	0.046343 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	3. Player Actions · MOVE · Encountering monster tokens · Stealth test · DRAW	p.11	#4	0.044658 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Play a Card · Instant Actions · Equipping Gear · Perform a card action · instant Actions · Gear Cards	p.12	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	1. Pick Survivors · 2. Select a Mission · 3. Build the Map	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	4. Build Monster Deck · 5. Organize Scavenge Decks · A. Card Type & Card Title · B. Quick Reference · C. Range (if applicable) · 6. Set out tokens · …	p.7	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Playing the game · A. Scavenge Icon · B. Spawn · C. Indoor Icon & Tile Name · D. Trigger · E. Tile Effect · …	p.10	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	1. Spawn Monsters · 2. Draw a Card from your Survivor deck · Free Actions:	p.24	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	3. Player Actions · MOVE · Encountering monster tokens · Stealth test · DRAW	p.11	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Maximum Apocalypse — Rulebook (corpus doc 1232)	Play a Card · Instant Actions · Equipping Gear · Perform a card action · instant Actions · Gear Cards	p.12	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 208 ms · first delta 2091 ms · total 5606 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 208 ms · ask 5396 ms · gateway work 5606 ms · total 5606 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3142
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 686
tok/sec: 200.9 tok/sec — 686 output tokens in 3.414 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 10s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 0s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1162), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.