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The Herald
2013
Rules assistance for The Herald
Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.
- 1 player
- 40 min
- 12+
- Complexity 1.8/5
For 1 player
Rules assistant for The Herald
What would you like to know?
Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.
The Herald is a board game released in 2013 for 1 player, 40 minutes per game, and ages 12 and up. It was designed by Paolo Pellegri and its main mechanics are Push Your Luck, Dice Rolling, and Point to Point Movement.
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About the game
You are Captain Sama Kollin, commander of the U.N.S. Herald, the first human spaceship capable of trans-light-speed travel. Your mission is to guide your ship in its voyage of exploration, accomplish results that repay humankind of the efforts that made the voyage possible, and come back to Earth to ignite enthusiasm for the New Frontier. The Herald is a strategy/adventure game. Each turn you roll the five Reading Dice, and allocate them to the Chaos-Entropy Boundary Readings, which determine the next step in your journey, your ability to Resupply, the activity of the infiltrated Isolationist Cells, and the Event that unfolds in the current turn. Different die results cause different outcomes, and your choices must strike a balance between immediate needs and long-term goals. You then choose whether to direct two of your Officers to deal with the Event, or accept the consequences of not dealing with it; Events present Opportunities that you must exploit to achieve the goals of your mission or Threats that can hinder you, and your Officers' Effectiveness decreases as they face the Challenges posed by Events. Meanwhile, the Isolationists on Earth are trying to stop the Space Program: if you can't come back before the Final Countdown ends, you lose the game. -- The Herald is a print-and-play game that uses a Captain’s Pad and an Event Pad (both A4-/US Letter-sized); the player must supply 2 pawns, 6 tokens (small euro-discs or similar), 15 track markers (small euro-cubes or similar), and 6 six-sided dice. 24 additional tokens are required for the Linear Timeline variant of the game. The Herald was an entry in the 2013 Solitaire Print and Play Contest.
Designers
Publishers
- (Web published)
Questions and answers
The Herald supports 1 player according to the catalogue. This is the publisher’s listed player count, so the game is designed for exactly that number of participants. Variants for other group sizes, if any, are described in the rulebook of your edition, so check it before setting up a different configuration.
The listed playing time for The Herald is 40 minutes. This is the publisher’s estimate for a full game. The actual duration depends on the group, the player count and familiarity with the rules: first sessions usually run longer, while experienced groups often finish faster. Setup and teaching time are not included in this estimate.
The catalogue lists The Herald for ages 12 and up. This is the publisher’s recommendation and reflects reading demands, rule complexity and small components rather than theme alone. Younger players can often join with help from an adult, so check the age guidance on your edition and consider your group’s experience with board games.
The Herald has a complexity rating of 1.8 out of 5 from BoardGameGeek players, which makes it a light game. The rating reflects how much rules knowledge, planning and decision-making a typical game demands. Expect a longer first teach for heavier games, and use a preparation guide before game night.
The Herald belongs to these categories: Print & Play, Dice, and Travel. Its main mechanics are Push Your Luck, Dice Rolling, and Point to Point Movement. Categories describe the theme and setting of a game, while mechanics describe what players actually do on their turns. Each mechanic links to a catalogue hub with similar games, which helps when you want something comparable.
The credited designers of The Herald are: Paolo Pellegri. These credits come from the published game data and name the people responsible for the game’s design, not its illustrators or publishers. Designer pages on MeepleRules collect other titles by the same designers, which helps when you enjoy a game and want to find similar ones.
The catalogue lists The Herald as a base game. It can be played on its own with the components in the box and does not require any other title. Expansions, if any exist, add new content or rules on top of it and are listed separately in the catalogue with a link back to this base game.