Dark Souls The Board Game Tutorial 

0:46-3:42 Dungeon setup 3:43-5:23 Hero setup 5:24-6:44 Treasure Deck setup 6:45-6:59 Solo souls bonus 7:00-8:02 Heroic Action/Estus/Luck Token 8:03-8:54 Stats/Level cost 8:55-10:26 Equipment explanation 10:27-12:00 Upgrade cards 12:01-12:49 Ember explanation 12:56-15:47 Encounter setup 15:48-16:17 Aggro Token 16:18-20:18 Enemy's turn/movement 20:19-21:46 Enemy attack/blocking 21:47-22:29 Damage/Stamina explanation 22:37-23:16 Dodging 23:33-24:51 Hero's turn/movement pt1 24:52-25:57 Hero attack 25:58-28:29 Movement pt2/Enemy attack icons 28:30-29:16 Traps 29:16-30:52 After the battle 30:52-32:18 Back to the Bonfire 32:31-35:04 Mini/Main Boss encounter setup/Gravestones 35:05-37:00 Boss movement pt1/attack 37:01-38:33 Hero movement pt1/attack 38:34-39:28 Boss movement pt2 39:29-39:50 Hero movement pt2 39:51-41:03 Boss patterns/Heat-up 41:04-41:58 Death/Victory 41:59-43:11 180 turn/Leaping

dark souls of board games

One rule I change just for fun is the encounter cards. Whenever we rest at a bonfire I put a new encounter card just to keep things fresh and unpredictable

My party died on the first mini boss, the gargoyle. We thought we were ready. We were not.

45 minutes seemed almost as intimidating as the rulebook itself, but this went really fast and answered basically all of my questions, thanks for this!

07:45 - Resetting tokens - The luck token can be reset for 1 soul per character between encounters instead of resting at the bonfire 15:40 - Placing characters - You can't place any character on a spawn node, since those are not considered to be "entry nodes"! 18:22 and 19:33 - Target - The determined target will not remain the same throughout the monsters entire activation! The determined target will only remain the same throughout this monsters currently resolving behavior icon (movement or attack) and will be determined again for each following behavior icon. So, the nearest target for the movement icon, could be different than for the attack icon. 36:45 - Boss movement - The boss would have turned so the node in the upper right corner would be in the center of the back arc (since it is farther away from the target - aggro) and would have moved on that one, facing S! 41:45 - Boss souls reward - They actually add souls equal to 1 x [number of characters] x [sparks remaining] to the soul cache

Super detailed and amazing video! It makes learning the game so much less intimidating. I can't thank you enough for putting so much work into this.

That was perhaps the best play through and explanation of Dark Souls I have watched so far. Looking forward to you future videos.

This was great! love that you took the time to explain everything. I feel like after watching this and other videos I'm ready to open the box and play immediately when mine gets here.

I finally got hold of a copy of this game which I have been wanting for a about a year. Your videos really helped me get going and getting passed some rule hurdles early on, and were able to really just enjoy the game. Thank you and keep up the good work.

Played a couple games of this now and I loved it to bits, after only two games I can tell it's gonna be my favourite bored game largely due to the fact of how true if is to the games! watched this before playing and it was a huge help!

I think this might be the clearest and easiest to follow explanation of a tabletop game I've seen yet. Thanks!

Thanks a lot dude. I've got ADD so i could not make it through the guidebook without losing focus!

Thank you for this vid, it is my first big board game I have ever played and as a fan of the DS series I was very happy to get this but the rules I found were a bit hard to wrap my head around. Very good and detailed, really helped me understand the rules a bit better.

I’m not gonna lie this has been the most helpful video I’ve ever watched ever!!! Maybe it’s the way you explain or the way you show the playing material but I watched this 2 years ago played the game for about 6 months and haven’t touched it for 2+ years but every single rule is drilled into my head like my brain created a spot just for the rules. Thanks for this masterpiece. And do wish to see you play it again on the Chanel. 🙌

“So what’s the deal with traps” I’ve been asking that same question my whole life

Thank you for explaining! It saved us so much time in setting up the game and having to read the manuals while playing!

Can anyone explain exactly how the repeat icon works on player weapons? In the rulebook it says: "The Repeat icon allows the character to use that entire weapon option the number of times indicated in the circle. This represents such effects as combination attacks with a melee weapon or rapidly firing bolts from a repeating crossbow." Does that mean say on the Gotthard Twinswords you can spend 4 stamina to roll 2 blue dice to attack, and then the repeat icon tells you you can spend 4 more stamina to roll 2 more blue dice for an additional attack? Or do you spend 4 stamina for essentially 2 separate attacks both with 2 blue dice. And in either case can you use each attack on separate targets, like for example there are 2 enemies you can attack, therefore you use the first two blue dice attack on one target and kill it, and then use the other 2 blue dice attack to kill the other target on the same turn. I would assume you would have to spend another 4 stamina to repeat the action, since it says the repeat icon allows you to use the "entire" weapon option the number of times indicated. But then again that would mean spending 8 stamina in 1 turn, leaving you with 2 health almost killing yourself. It feels like the repeat icon for players is only talked about in that single spot and not really explained in depth at all.

Thanks for the video. It's not easy for me to learn things by reading to myself. But when I have the book and someone to explain it, it makes everything so easy to understand.

Cleared up some loose ends and just little things we missed. Thanks for the upload.

Thank you so much for this, I read the manual last night and was thinking this was all a little daunting!

Excellent tutorial, this is just what I needed to set everything up. :)

This was perfect! Thank you so much! Very well said, you spoke clearly and to the point. Awesome.

Thank you. Great clear concise tutorial for a great dark souls board game.

super instructive video, a great way to learn the game(after a couple runthrough)! thank you great job.

Thank you for the detailed explanation of the game! You helped me get through my first play run:) Cheers!

Just bought the game and waiting for it to be shipped, man I am hyped to play it!

Hey, thank you for this great tutorial, it helped a lot ! :)

I was really confused when I first tried to play this. It was pretty daunting. Thanks for breaking this down so well. Now it doesn't seem so bad.,

This is very helpful. Thank you for doing this video!

Great video! This was the only way I was able to trully understand the push mechanic.

This tutorial is amazingly good. Well done and thanks.

Good summery. Just spent two hours learning this and came here to check if I missed anything! Great video.

awsome! thank you so much - your video answered so many open questions for me!

This video is really helpful to visualize the rules, thanks!

Very well instructed tutorial!

I have watched other playthrough videos, buy this one is good for learning specifics. Good video!

The way you shuffled at 6:33 is amazing! I can't shuffle fast...

According to the rule book itself, bosses do not face the player when moving. They stay facing however they are facing unless they get a turn movement on their behavior cards. Or am I crazy

Great video. I used it to verify a few questions I had with boss movements and arcs. This is a fun game, but it needs a tiered treasure deck. So many wasted souls drawing high level gear at the start.

Great video! Made me understand the game much better! Thanks!

This is fantastic, thank you so much!

Pushes are confusing and a visual example like this is super helpful.

Awesome video, thanks. That really cleared up the boss fights for me. Two things though... 1) Adding time jumps to the info section for stuff would be awesome. 2) It would be really helpful to see a S&O boss battle play out... I didn't understand how they worked.. They have behavior cards for each of them, then behavior cards for both of them. I just guessed that once the first one dies, then you start using the combined behavior cards, as well as the heat up cards (since the heat up value was 0??)...

INCREDIBLE! Thank you so much!

thanks a lot I couldn't really understand the instructions and this really helped.

i came here to double check that I was in fact missing a boss tile. i got my copy of the core game yesterday, and it was missing the tile with the spark dial, boss health dials, 5 souls token etc. As well as missing the boss encounter tile. i can still play by making paper icons, and i can't call steamforged customer service until tomorrow, but i swear if they tell me I'm out of luck i will not rest until i burn them alive

Yo, nice tutorial. Could you maybe put the chapters into the video-timeline?

Thank you. This video was immensely helpful. Sharing.

So crazy! Thank you for sharing

Fantastic video my dude!

thank you for this, the game certainly has a large learning curve

Nice video. Something I wish you'd covered: when you beat a mini boss, you reset the maps and set up with the main boss in mind. The rule book mentions grabbing two different sets of cards and shuffling them or something. But it was a bit confusing. Look at "setup after mini boss" in the book.

Fantastic job! Thank you!!

Great tutorial. Thank you.

Dude. Awesome video!!!!

Hey, got my copy today. Looking over the rulebook, on page 19 it says about souls gained from a boss encounter, "if the encounter is a boss encounter, add 1 soul per character to the soul cache for each spark remaining on the bonfire". So it would be 3 souls, one per character, times 3 sparks, so 9 souls. Unless I missed something. I'm trying to get the rules down before playing as best as I can. I don't mean to keep arguing with you. I really did enjoy your video.

surprisingly helpful. Good video.

my first though of this board game is if i roll a die i lose instant

Insanely deep game but seems like a lot of fun once you do get it down

So: not a Full-on roleplay game, no DM required, but a lil too expensive (still worth) I am thinking of gathering money for this. Do you guys approve?

thanks so much for this you are the man!

Great video man

Really great overview. Nicely done! I am still unclear on the push mechanics, they seem a bit fiddly. I will need to watch that segment a few more times along with reading the rule book over again.

Me and my boys steamrolled this game.

thanks this video really helped

Very good video.

So I wonder, would dual wielding weapons be a thing? i.e. left hand sword, right hand axe, perform with both weapons an attack (which would give you more dices to kill an enemy)

You're a freaking life saver.

Great video. This really helps as the instructions are kinda vague. Seems like there may be some flexibility with "house" rules.

What are you using to hold the sparks dial together

very nice!

Quick questions: did you play the card game? And, if yes, do you prefer it to the board game?

14:45 can I get pushed on a barrel knot? And if so does it cost me 1 stamina?

I have one question that might be stupid but is bugging me out. If I'm in the same boss node in his front arc and I want to move in the adjacent node on his back how many movement I have to do? 3 because I move between: side arc, back arc and then adjacent node or just one because (as the handbook says) you can choose if move on an adjacent node or in one of the boss arc as your walk/run phase... The answer could be crucial for all the 1 range attack weapons obviously :P 2nd answer mean free weak spot, black dice bonus

What about the split nodes in the boss encounter? If you are in a green and black/orange arcs do you get hit if in range? if you are in 2 greens do you get hit twice? If you attack while being in a half orange node do you get an additional black dice?

Thx for explaining. However i m wondering do the bosses' behavior decks need to be shuffled when they heat up? I remember that it is the way Dancer of the Boreal Valley working, and only does her.

When a boss leaps on you, you get pushed off of the node and have to defend against damage. If you don't dodge that damage, do you then get pushed a second time? i.e. is the first push a 'set up push' like it is for the Hollow Axe Soldier? Also, do you get to choose any node to get pushed onto if the push is an attack push rather than a movement push (I remember reading that in a FAQ).

Good video

Boss question Do characters get also hit by the boss if they are in Boss' weak arc? . or they only get hit on green

So can I move onto the bosses node and move around his arcs in the same turn?

Question about character activation: it says only at the very start of activating, players can choose the order of characters to activate. And from then on the activation goes clockwise around the table. I guess thats the... Con? I guess...compared to other DC where you can choose any order of characters to activate. Comes with the planning and strategy of defeating an enemy. Back to my question, so if we have to go clockwise, do players have to physically move around the table to activate a plan/strategy?

33:48 How many cards do you have in the gargoyle general behaviour deck? I have only 5 on my copy. And 3 heat up s. You look like you have many more.

main that rotate 45 degrees tip completely confused me, I thought you were saying you can only move left right up down and not diagonally...

wait, after beating the mini boss you said set up the game again for the main boss. does that mean you gain back any Sparks you lost? does your tokens and estus flask reset as well?

i thought my first playthrough was a bit easy, i wasn't adding a stamina for every dodge i made. welp, now i know.

I must have missed it. How do you detirmine who has the agro token? Simply by choice of players ? Does it stay on them through the entire encounter ?

At 26:27 the enemy pushes him once, moving him to another node. Then pushes again for an attack. How did he know to do that first initial push off the node? When I look at the behavior card it makes it seem like it just pushes the character to an adjacent node for 5 damage.

Similar to how a player can choose to move before or after their attack, can they do the same with using Estus and swapping backups? For example can someone move, attack and then swap backup since they didn't do at the beginning of their activation?

So if there's only one player playing, he gets a bonus of 16 souls to the cache. Does the party get anything if there's only 2 players? It seems like a party of two players is the hardest setup for this game.

So I have a question, one of the behavior cards on the titanite demon, Vaulting Slam, allows him to leap to the aggro character for 6 damage and then faces the aggro character to end its behavior. Say if there's a second person with the agro character, does he also take damage or just pushed?

I'm pretty sure the person that breaks into the room first stands in front of the doorway and gets the aggro token, and the other players have to go to the sides. I saw Yogs play this and they had someone from Steamforged in the room too. So I'm fairly certain that's how you choose the player to get the token.

the spells are considered as Weapons?

If i have a warrior thats dual wielding with a shield in the backup slot, when im ending my turn could i just equip the shield to defend better during enemy activation? Or can switching equipment only be done at the very beginning of an activation?

I have a question, can you dual wield two one-handed swords? If yes, do I combine both required dice on each weapon to attack?

Hello again. I was curious about class specific weapons, like the Lothric's Holy Sword which is specific to the Herald I believe. Are these weapons tradable with your party? Like if I don't want to use Lothric's Holy Sword anymore as the Herald, can the Knight equip it or do the class specific weapons have harsh restrictions?

Awesome video. I was curious. Say the monster has range zero and it has a 1 movement with say push. Monster moves 1 space to the targeted hero, pushes him (lets say its not a damaging push) away 1 space. The hero decides where to be pushed. NOW the Monster is 1 space away and has Range 0 so he cant hit the hero..... Is this correct??? Seems silly that a monster would push a hero out of his range!

Can you tell me what pictured on eac type of dice (how many damage on side) ?

Question: after you defeat an encounter and cleared an area thus returning to the bonfire, you reset everything at no cost, right? Including estus?

So how do spells work? The assassin can use Poison Mist with only one level up and I'm curious as to how poison and what-not works