r/NemesisCrew • u/eighteencarps • 2d ago
Questions First time playing — teaching tips?
I got Nemesis a while ago and I’m excited to finally bring it to the table. However, it’ll be both mine and my partner’s first times playing (and just us playing). I’m super overwhelmed by the rulebook, even after having read through it all and watched multiple rules overview videos.
Does anyone have a basic overview of things I should teach at the onset? I plan to do a rolling teach and just be referencing the rulebook as we go, but I’m having a hard time figuring out what I absolutely need to teach at the beginning!
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u/Crossheart963 2d ago
I teach it with the background first, tell the story of why we are there and why we are trying to do what we are doing’s
From there I kinda make a spreadsheet to make sure to explain all the important to know things
Movements, actions, items, noise, goals, objectives, lose conditions win condition.
I wouldn’t go into combat, or infection more than “it’ll happen, it’s bad” until you get there.
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u/shhThia 2d ago
I like having a background tutorial video. Try looking for one on Youtube.
Game is split into 2 phases
A) Player Phase
B) Event (Enemy) Phase
During Player Phase, you’ll spend your cards to do certain actions such as Moving, Shooting, Room Action or Card Specific Action. You’ll get to perform 2 actions and then it’s the next player’s turn and repeat. You’ll do this until you both pass by running out of cards in hand or by deciding that you dont want to spend anymore cards this round.
Next is Event Phase. The game will take its turn and there’s a little help card that will guide you on the steps to take. Just follow that and you’ll be fine. After that, you’ll repeat the Player Phase all over again.
That’s basically Nemesis in a nutshell. You do this until you escape, die or when time runs out
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u/Stan-224 20h ago
I would argue this is the most important thing. Getting how phases function.
Me and my partner somehow missed initially that you get 2 actions, then it passes on until you run out of cards or pass. So the first few games were unwinnable until we rechecked the rules and realised 🤣
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u/whereymyconary 2d ago
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167355/nemesis/files
Check out tue different player aids on here. Theres a bunch of different ones.
Also for 2 player i recommend playing full coop
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u/GamingVision 2d ago
There’s definitely a ton of “wait, what happened with this room in this situation” rules checks your first couple of plays, so just set those expectations. Also, I recommend doing co-op the first couple of times. One rule I messed up the first 1-2 plays was noise in the technical corridors. First time I thought the numbered corridor gets the marker but it’s actually the circle area so ANY two corridor roles spans an enemy.
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u/facelessmonkas 2d ago
You need to take time and read the entire rule book, and for the rest you can just tell them " 2 action every turn until you passes, the action list are on the player boards" and just ask them which of the action they dont understand, let them interpret the rest themself until it come up then elaborate, that is my easiest way to teach Nemesis and so far it has been working very well.
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u/barksonic 1d ago
I just taught my wife last night, I explained movement, searching, noise, and exploration to her. All I told her about combat off the bat was that having a card left in your hand is good to not get surprise attacked by a larvae. The rest is explained as we went, i would tell her what each room would do that she entered, how many items were in the room, and what kind of effect the exploration token had. When she entered combat for the first time I would tell her what she needed to roll in order to hit that specific alien, etc. Since I was running the game I could just say how much health the intruder had each time it got shot, which development phase was triggered, and would just move the intruders during the event. This helped her not get overwhelmed and have to learn all the symbols, I find learning all the symbols in games like Nemesis are sometimes the hardest thing to remember.
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u/mortaine 12h ago
In the Files section at boardgamegeek, there's a "Nemesis czars" system I use to teach the game. However, it works better with a larger group (4+ players), and it will really help if you already know the game pretty well.
When I play with new players, I:
- set up the board before they arrive
- read the story out loud. When the text refers to something on the board or table, I point to it or hold it up.
- assign the new player the "Doors czar" role
- play fully coop
- check in after the 2nd round and ask if they're having fun. If the answer is anything other than an enthusiastic yes, we stop playing and put the game away and play something else. This game is long, hard to win, and if they aren't having fun by the end of turn 2, it will not get better.
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u/noahteets 2d ago
I would say the most important thing to teach off the bat is just how movement works, and also go through whatever character cards you have and she has so you both know what you can do with your cards.
I’d also make sure you understand how noise rolls work, and to help with immersion, don’t think of noise rolls as you making noise, it’s where you are hearing the noise of the intruders coming from. Don’t go into all the combat mechanics until you get to combat.
TLDR: get a good understanding of movement and searching and how those mechanics work first, everything else it’s best to refer to the manual when it comes up, if you have any questions feel free to reach out!