The Guardian

The Guardian is a copyrighted, licensed product. This is merely a fan site.

Mayday!!! Mayday!!! Two teams of U.S. Coastguard helicopter pilots, spotters, and rescue swimmers are racing aginst time as a large storm wreaks havoc across the high seas. Each team is attempting to rescue as many victims as possible.

The team with the most rescues after 52 turns wins.

• 8×8 board (the sea)
  
• 8-sided die
  
• 6-sided die
  
• 2 standard decks of cards (”search & rescue” and “operations” decks)
  
• 25 Coast Guard event cards
  
• 2 Coast Guard team tokens
  
• 6 Disaster tokens (numbered 1-6)
  

• Place 2 rescue team tokens, one representing each team on opposite corners of the 8×8 board.
  
• Remove jokers from the operations deck.
  
• Remove and set aside all jokers & aces from search deck. These will be vessel in distress cards.
  

Setup 6 disasters on the game board (the sea):

• Roll 2d8 to determine location of each disaster on the 8×8 board.
  
• Place disaster tokens numbered 1 through 6 at each location. More than one disaster can be located in the same square.
  

Setup 6 piles of cards below the game board:

• Add 1 vessel in distress card to each pile.
  
• Roll 2d6-1 to determine the number of search cards to add for each pile. Ignore the excess result if you run out of search cards.
  
• Roll 1d6 for each pile and indicate the result on the top of the pile. This is the number of victims to be rescued.
  

• Disaster Phase
  
• Operations Phase
  
• Event Phase
  
• Search & Rescue Phase
  

Return any disasters back to the sea (see “Disaster Setup” above).

• One player draws a card from the operations deck (players alternate each turn). When the deck runs out the game is over.
  
• If the suit is a club then roll 1d6 and remove the corresponding disaster token from the board and remove the cards from the corresponding search pile. The search cards & vessel cards will be recycled.
  
• If the card is a face card then draw one event card.
  
• If the card is a number 2 then you must refuel immediately (return to any corner of the board to refuel).
  

• The player who drew the operation card moves first.
  
• Move up to one space in any direction.
• If on a disaster token and if not required to refuel the player may attempt a rescue.
  
• To attempt a rescue the opposing player shuffles the search pile corresponding to the number on the disaster token.
• The player then picks a card at random.
• If the selected card is not the vessel card then the card is removed from play to be recycled later.
• The player may play an aid card at any time to retry.
• If the player picks the vessel card the opposing player may decide to play a hazard card. In this case the vessel card is returned to the pile and reshuffled, the hazard card is discarded and the player must try again.
• If there is only one card in the search pile and the opposing player plays a hazard card the rescue attempt automatically fails. The player however may still play an aid card to try again.
• If the player sucessfully selects the vessel card without any hazards then the number of victims rescued is recorded on the score sheet and the disaster token & search pile are removed from play to be recycled.
  

• Lots of dice helps this game move along. When setting up disasters I roll 2d8 & 2d6 all at once. The 2d8 are different colors. With one roll I can then determine location and the number of search cards.
• To determine the number of victims I just roll a d6 and leave it on top of the search pile showing the result (one die per search pile).