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Rules Orange Shall Overcome! Version 5.0

Age:12+

Playing time: 45-90 minutes

Players: 1-5

Content

Rulebook, player boards

and prison card sheet

1 Rulebook

5 Player boards

5 Reference cards

1 Prison card sheet

Meeples

5 Player meeples in

different colors

10 Small meeples, 2 of

each of the player colors

2 Big orange meeples

Tokens 1 Mission track token (OZO)

1 Occupier track token (Stahlhelm)

12 Of each “resource”: money,

network, sabotage and food stamps

26 Mission tokens

3 Standard person in hiding tokens

5 Safe location tokens

12 occupier tokens

Die 1 12 Sided die (= D12)

Cards

18 Mission cards

15 Characters cards

48 Occupier cards

22 Control cards

8 Location cards

Discs and pawns

5 Orange discs for the courage track, 1 disc

per player

5 Black discs for the suspicion track, 1 disc

per player

3 Black mission pion

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Resist! It’s the start of 1943. The occupier becomes more and more dangerous and

treats the Dutch citizens worse and worse. Many house searches and danger

on the street limits the freedom of the people. Family, friends and

acquaintances are taken to Germany. Their fate is unclear, but you suspect

the worst.

You have had enough! You decide to resist these occupying forces. You will

do something about this situation, no matter the consequences. You accept

that it could mean your death, because this has to change.

It is clear you cannot do this alone. You sought out others that shared your view. Together you form a

resistance group that will help to speed up the liberation of the Netherlands.

Goal of the game In Orange Shall Overcome, a cooperative game where you all work together on the same goals, you will play

with 1 character (Solo mode 2 characters) that decided to join the resistance in the final war years. Every

character tries to shorten the occupation, keep themselves and their family safe, make life for the occupier as

difficult as possible and make the Netherlands ready for life after the war. This all comes together in the goal

of the game: accomplish missions and thereby increase the influence of your resistance group.

The mission table on the game board keeps track of the number of missions that still have to be accomplished.

Every time you finish a mission, you get one step closer on the table towards winning the game.

You win the game immediately after you get to the spot on the table.

When the predetermined number of missions have been accomplished before the occupier cards have been

resolved, you win the game, but there are also 3 ways to lose the game.

Losing the game There are 3 ways to lose the game. Players lose directly, when:

1 The occupier track reaches 15: you lose immediately when the occupier influence reaches 15. The

resistance group is then arrested all at once by the occupier.

2 All roads are occupied: every one of the 12 numbered routes have an occupier on them.

3 Reaching the end of the war: If all the occupier cards are finished for and you have to draw a new card

before all the missions have been completed. See occupier cards for more information.

Playing your first game

When you play the game for the first time, as it is with all games, it might be a bit overwhelming and the rules

might seem complex. So to learn how to play Orange Shall Overcome there are some preset setups that are

only used in the first game.

Basic setup for your first game

This is the basic setup for your first game. After your first game you can place the locations in their correct

area (city or countryside) in a random or self-chosen order. See locations (page 10) for more information.

City locations

Location 1: Distribution office

Location 2: Zoo

Location 3: Café

Location 4: Bank

Countryside locations

Location 5: Church

Location 6: Hair salon

Location 7: Meeting place

Location 8: Farm

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Setup of the game

1 Place the locations on the corresponding spots of the board. The setup of the locations for your first game is

explained above.

2 Put the die and all tokens next to the board, easy to reach.

3 Give every player one of the characters of their choice. Give each player the starting item at the bottom of

the card.

4 Give each player a player board of a color of their choice and the correspondingly colored meeple, which is

the representation of the character. Place your character card on the left spot. Put the orange courage disc and

the black suspicion disc on the player board on the orange spots of their respective track. Place the family

members (the small meeples in the player’s color) on the player board.

5 Decide the starting player by rolling the D12, where the person that rolls the highest can decide who starts.

After this, roll the D12 for each character. Place the character meeple on the location of the rolled number.

Place 1 informant on the spot on the occupier cards track above the spot for the cards and 1 on a location

decided by the D12.

6 For your first game: Place the 2 missions with the names requested resources and Arbeidseinsatz on the

top right corner of the game board. After your first game, you can use all missions and increase the number

of missions to make the game more difficult, with a maximum of 5 missions. Place the OZO token on the

mission track below the mission cards, and the Stahlhelm token on the bottom on the occupier track on the

spot with the flame.

7 Make a deck from the occupier cards as indicated at the occupier cards section. Put 1 card face up where the

informant is not present anymore and one face down where the informant is still present on the occupier cards

track on the board. Take the control cards and shuffle these to form the control deck. Place the deck face down

on the spot for the control deck on the board.

8 Place 1 occupier on a route decided by the D12.

The board is now fully set up for the game to begin and the first player can start their first turn.

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Mission table

Here you track the number of the accomplished missions to see how close you are

to victory. This also partly indicates the difficulty of the game, as the number of completed missions required

to win is variable, and is decided by the players during setup.

Occupier table

The occupier table indicates how much control the occupier has over the

resistance group, and how willing the resistance group as a whole still is. This table

has 15 steps. It starts with the burning heart of the resistance and ends with total

control of the occupier. This token, a blue Stahlhelm will move up or down through

different actions, completing a mission, house searches, and occupier cards. When

the occupier table gets to 15 or above, reaching the total control spot on the table,

the game is lost immediately.

Length of the game

The maximum length of the game is decided by the number of occupier cards. The number of turns is thus

always the same, no matter the player count. At the end of each player’s turn, 2 occupier cards are resolved.

There are 40 occupier cards in the game for a maximum total of 20 turns. This means each player has:

2 players: 10 turns 3 players: 6/7 turns 4 players: 5 turns 5 players: 4 turns

Character and player board

Characters and player boards have been mentioned with the setup

and you will now hear more in detail how these work. Before the

start of the game, every player chooses one of the 15 characters to

control and play the game with. Every character is a member of

the resistance in the Netherlands. Every player chooses one of the

available colors and takes the corresponding colored meeple and

player board. On the player board, you keep track of your courage

and suspicion. It also lists all the different actions that a player can do with their character. When you play for

the first time, each player chooses one of the following 5 characters: Marcel Kolman, Henk Wolters, Leendert

de Vries, Frans de Vries and Paul van der Zwaag.

Courage

Courage shows how much your character still believes in the resistance, and if they dare to do dangerous

things. The more danger, the more courage it costs. Your courage goes down on your player board from 10

to 0. Courage is used for: certain search cards, for certain location actions and certain special actions from

characters. 3 courage can also be exchanged for 1 extra action point to be used directly. You can replenish

your courage as an action spending an action point. If, at any time during the game, you have 0 courage, you

do not believe in the resistance anymore, or you are too afraid to continue. You immediately lose your

character, including any resources this character had, and then two things happen:

, and every other character . After this you choose a new character and place it on the

board as you would if it were the start of the game. Then you start your turn as normal. You start the game on

9 courage.

Suspicion

This is how much the occupier knows about the resistance activities of your character. Your suspicion on your

player board goes up from 0 till 6 ( ). You start the game on 1 suspicion. At the maximum suspicion of 5,

or if you pass this number, you will immediately go to prison, see prison.

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Cards

Mission cards

On a mission card, a goal is explained that has to be accomplished

to strengthen your resistance group and move the mission track on

step closer to victory. On the front of the mission card there is the

goal of the mission, on the back of the card there is extra thematic

information about the mission. For your first game you use 2

specific missions: Requested resources and Arbeidseinsatz.

You put these face-up in the 2 top right spots on the board. After

your first game you can add the other base game missions. You

can make the game harder by added more missions in, with a

maximum of 5 missions. You place the mission token on the

corresponding number on the mission track.

Character cards

Your character card shows the identity of the character that you play as.

It also contains some basic information, such as name, age, gender and

profession, which is import information for some cards. You can track

the used actions on here during your turn. At the same time, it shows

your character’s specific bonus. The starting items at the bottom of the

card are given out during the setup of the game.

Occupier cards

At the start of the game, the deck of occupier cards is made. There are

48 occupier cards in total, 27 for 1943 and 21 for 1944. During the

setup of the game, you use in total the 42 cards without the orange

header to make the total deck. The remaining Orange shall overcome

card you might add, depending on the difficulty of the game. You

shuffle these to piles, 1 from each year and remove the top 3 (or 2 cards

when you use the Orange shall overcome) and put those 2 on top of

each other, with the 1943 cards first, to create a random deck of in total

42 occupier cards.

Because of the unknown order of the cards in the deck, each game is

different and the occupier becomes as unpredictable as during the war. At the end of a player’s turn, during the

occupier phase of the turn, there will be 2 occupier cards resolved. An informant can help you greatly, as he

makes one of these cards visible at the start of a players turn, giving you time to act upon it, see informant.

Control cards

Control cards are used to see what the occupier does when moving

over a route. When moving, the effect of the control cards depends

whether or not there is an occupier present or not. If there is no

occupier on a route, you resolve the red part of the control card.

This can lead to the placement of an occupier on that route. If

there is an occupier on the route, you resolve at the black part of

the control card. Control cards are always resolved by the active

player. After revolving the effect, the used control cards will be

placed on the discard pile. When all the control cards are finished,

the discard pile gets reshuffled and a new deck is made.

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Location cards

Location cards are the cards used for the different locations on the board.

They are either city or countryside cards. Each location card has a top and

a bottom part with the special action or effect between these 2 parts. The

top part is for all people that are not in hiding, the group of resistance

fighters. The bottom part is for the people in hiding, such as family

members, informants and people that are part of missions.

Overview location actions

Every location has 1 special action that can only be done there.

City

Bank: gain money: +1 money token for 1 action.

Café: requesting help: +1 network token for 1 action.

Zoo: safe hiding place: create a safe location for 1 action, 1 money, 1 network and 1 food stamp. After

creation, this safe location token may be placed on a location of your choice.

Distribution office: extra food stamps: +1 food stamp for 1 action.

Countryside

Church: fiery speech: lower the occupier table by 2 for 2 actions and 1 network.

Hair salon: new appearance: -2 suspicion and +2 courage for 2 actions.

Farm: safe location: Each person in hiding that gets arrested while staying here is considered to have been

well taken care of before the arrest and therefore the occupier track moves 1 less when this happens. This

location also starts the game with a safe token in easy and normal mode.

Meeting office: making plans: +1 sabotage token for 1 action.

Resources

There are 4 resources. All these resources are tokens that you store on your player board. The 4 resources are

money, network, sabotage and food stamps. All 4 are used for missions, bonus character actions and location

actions. Every resource also has its own unique advantage:

1 Money: is used for bribes when passing an occupier. If you bribe an occupier, then you do not draw a

control card for that specific movement. You therefore say if you want to bribe before drawing a control card

and cannot be done after the card is drawn.

2 Network: you can use 1 network token to perform action number 2, instead of spending 1 action point.

3 Sabotage: you can use 1 sabotage token to perform action number 4, instead of spending 1 action point.

4 Food stamps: when you spend a food stamp, you gain 2 courage.

Mission “items”

Mission items are specific items or people that are part of a mission. These are:

Items: = newspapers/pamphlets / = suitcases

= camera = bike = radio = fake passport

People: = pilots, = spies, = betrayer, = “Engelandvaarder”,

= male person in hiding

For these items there are specific control cards and there are movement restrictions, see moving items and

people. The resources can also be part of a mission, but use their normal rules for movement and are not

affected by the control cards for mission items.

= 1 Money

= 1 Network

= 1 Sabotage

= 1 Food stamp

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Dice

D12: This die is used to decide the starting player, starting locations of characters, informants and occupiers,

to determine the location of unexpected house searches and when you get in and out of prison, see prison.

When it is used for a location, for example the starting location of a character, or an unexpected house search,

you use the numbers until 8 for the location, and then 9 = location 1, 10 = location 2 etc.

A turn

Every turn consists of 3 phases, the preparation phase, the action phase and the occupier phase. After a

player’s occupier phase, it is the next character’s turn in clockwise order. This character then starts again with

the action phase. This continues until all missions are completed or the players have lost the game through one

of the 3 ways, see losing the game.

1. Preparation phase

In the preparation phase of the turn you put the 2 occupier cards ready on the occupier cards track next to the

occupier deck. Depending on the number of informants on the board, you put these cards face up or face

down.

2. Action phase

During the action phase of your, turn you use your action points ( ). In some cases, players may also need

use to resources together with action points to perform certain actions. Each action phase, a character has 3

action points in a game with 3 to 5 characters, and 4 action points in a game with 2 characters. You can track

the use of your action points on your character card using the red disc.

Different actions

There are 5 different actions that you can choose from during the action phase of your turn. You can choose

any of these actions multiple times if you have the action points and any other requirements to do so.

1 Move to another location.

2 Move another character or a person in hiding to or from your location.

3 +1 .

4 Look at the top card from the or deck and put it back.

5 Action of the location that your character is on. This might also require resources and courage besides the

action point.

Each character has, besides these 5 actions, its own special action or bonus rule it can use.

It does not cost action points to:

- Give or receive mission items or resources with a character you share a location with.

- Spend 3 courage to gain an extra action point. This extra action point has to be used in the same turn it

is gained, and can only be gained after the original 3 actions of your turn are resolved.

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Moving

To move from one location to the next you use the

connection road. Moving over 1 route cost 1 action

point. You can take people or mission items with you

when you move, but there are certain restrictions for this.

See moving items and people for more information.

When a character moves over a route, or when another

character or person in hiding is moved, you draw a

control card and resolve this. Which part of the card you

resolve depends if there is an occupier on the route or not.

Empty route: Resolve the red part of the card, directly

under the picture.

Occupier on the route: resolve the bottom black part of

the card.

Move along an occupier and bribes

When you move over a route with an occupier you draw 1 control card, resolving the bottom

black part of the card. If you have to go to prison as a result of a control card, and you have

a mission item or person with you, these are also considered captured.

You can also decide to bribe the occupier. When you bribe an occupier, you move over a route but you do not

draw a control card. To bribe an occupier, you pay 1 money. Money can be acquired by spending actions on

the bank location, where each action point gives you 1 money.

The costs of a bribe are also stated on the board.

Moving people and items

Every character can take people or items when they move.

There is no limit in the number of resources (money, network, sabotage and food stamps) that a

character can have.

Besides the resources, you can take with you 1 person in hiding or 1 mission item for every

movement you do. This means, for example, that if you are already taking a suitcase with you, you

cannot take with you another suitcase or person in hiding. You cannot take 2 people in hiding, or a

person in hiding and a suitcase with you at the same time.

You cannot take another character with you, as the risk is too high that both of you get captured.

Moving another character or a person in hiding

You can move any person that is on a location adjacent to the location you are on, or that is on the same

location as you. The same rules with this movement apply for control cards as with other control cards and the

effects and conditions are always for the currents player. If you, for example, move another character and you

draw a card where the effect only has effect when you have a certain amount of resources, you look at how

much the current player has, not the player that gets moved. The person you move cannot take a mission item

while performing this movement.

Example movement: Kees moves from location 1 to location 2 via route 1

and after that from location 2 to location 6 via route

6. Route 1 is empty, route 6 has a soldier on it. Kees

draws a separate control card for each route he uses.

As his first card he draws control card number 8.

Because Kees moved over a route without an

occupier, he checks the red part of the control card.

This card says he has to place an occupier on the

route, so that is what he does. On the second route,

where a soldier watches everything, he draws control

card number 6. Because of the occupier on the route,

he resolves the black part of the card, which only

effects character with a mission item/person. Because

he has no mission items with him, there is no effect

for him with this specific control card.

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Gain courage

You can gain courage for each action poin you spend.

Looking at the top card of a deck

You can look at the top card from the occupier or control

deck and put it back on the top of that deck. You cannot

look at any occupier cards that will take effect at the end

of your turn. You are allowed to tell others what effects

you saw on the card.

3. Occupier phase

The occupier phase is the last phase of a players turn.

During this part of the turn, the occupation forces (the

board) reacts in various ways to the actions of the

resistance. To see what they do, you resolve the 2

occupier cards present in the row to finish the turn of a player. See occupier cards for more information on

these cards.

Maximum number of people in hiding on 1 location

Every location has a maximum of 4 people in hiding that can stay at any location at a certain time. If a location

has reached this maximum number of people, you cannot bring any more people in hiding to this location,

until one is brought to another location or removed from the location. This also means you cannot use that

location temporarily when you are moving with a person in hiding towards another location, as this would

mean there are temporarily 5 people there. If a 5th

person has to be placed on a location, because of an

occupier card, then this person has to be moved immediately to an adjacent location that has space.

Informant

Informants are spies that give insight into the plans of the occupier. This means that you can put the next

occupier card face up instead of face down. If you have multiple informants, there will be multiple cards face

up, with a maximum of 2 cards, as there are maximum 2 informants. This means you can know 1 or 2 of the

cards of the occupier phase of the next player. The number of face up occupier cards therefore always

corresponds with the number of informants on a location. And if not active are placed on the occupier cards

track above the cards. Informants become active and thus placed on a location through specific control cards.

The informants have to be kept safe to keep this information and effect. An informant is seen as a person in

hiding for control cards, house searches etc. As soon as an informant is arrested, for example, because of a

successful house search, the occupier table goes up by 2 and every character loses 1 courage. The next

occupier card will be put face-down. Starting with the next players turn, there will be one less occupier card

placed face up.

House searches

There are occupier cards with house searches on specific locations. When there is a green safe token on that

location, it is removed and no other effect is done. If there is no safe token on the location where a house

search is happening, that house search is successful. When there is a successful house search, then all people

in hiding are arrested, all mission items are captured and all characters on that location gain 1 suspicion. So if

there is no safe token, a person in hiding (including informants), mission item or character on that location,

then nothing happens.

Example of a turn: John is the blue player and is part of a 3 player game.

He therefore has 3 action points per turn. He is on

location 1, the Distribution office and the 2 occupier

cards are placed. Because there are 2 informants, both

cards are face up. He therefore knows that there will

be a house search at the end of his turn on location 1.

He spends 1 action point to get 1 food stamp. There is

also a person in hiding on location 1, a family member

of the yellow player, so John spends 1 action point and

moves to location 2, while taking the family member

with him. John moves over route 1 and draws a control

card. There is no occupier on the route, so he resolves

the red part of the card. He leaves the yellow family

member. With its third action point of his turn and also

spending 1 courage, he draws a card that corresponds

with the color of the location he is on. To finish his

turn, he goes to the occupier phase and resolves the 2

occupier cards present in the occupier row.

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Overview of house search effects

- House search on a location without a safe token, character, person in hiding or mission item: no effect,

ignore this occupier card.

- House search on a location with a green safe token: unsuccessful house search, nobody has been found.

Remove the token and no other effect. You can gain Safe tokens at the Zoo.

- House search on a location without a green safe token and with a character, person in hiding or

mission item: all people in hiding are arrested, mission items are captured and all characters gain 1 suspicion.

Occupier influence table steps after a successful house search

Standard person in hiding arrested 2 steps (pilots and spies also fall in this category)

Family in hiding arrested 2 steps and -3 courage for the character of that player

Informant arrested 2 steps and every character -1 courage

Mission item captured 1 step, person on location gain 1 suspicion and loses 1 courage.

Character arrested Roll the D12 on the prison table

Prison

When you reach your maximum suspicion you are arrested and you go directly to prison. When you are in

prison, you remove your character from the board. If you are arrested during your turn, you also immediately

end your turn. After your character is removed from the board, you roll the D12 and check the prison chart to

see the effect. If your character gets released, then you place it on a location determined by the D12 at the start

of your next turn with 1 suspicion, just like at the setup of the game. You then start your turn as normal.

Placing family and arrested family

Every player has 2 family members in their color that you place on your player board at the start of the game.

Some actions and events on occupier cards give your family members so much danger that a family member

has to go into hiding. When a family member has to go into hiding, you take it off your player board and place

it on the location where your character currently is, on the bottom hiding part of the location. When there is a

successful house search on the location of the family member, it is immediately arrested. When this happens,

the player who just lost its family member loses 3 courage, and the occupier table is also raised by 2 steps.

After your first game

When you have played the game once and have a feeling you understand most things in the game you can

change the difficulty of the game.

Difficulty of the game

There are 3 difficulty levels for Orange Shall Overcome: easy, normal and hard. The difficulty level changes a

small part of the setup of the game. The number of missions and occupiers at the start of the game is different

for each difficulty level. At the same time, you start the easy and normal game with 1 informant, see

informants. The hard level can be made even harder by placing a family member on the starting location of

your character. You also have the option to mix parts of these difficulty levels up if you like that more, these

are the 3 recommended difficulty levels.

Number of missions with starting position of mission token

2 missions, mission token on green 3 missions, mission token on blue 4 missions, mission token on red

Number of occupiers at the setup of the game, randomly determined by the D12 and extra setup rules

Easy: start with 1 occupier, 1 informant, no people in hiding and 1 safe token on the farm and the zoo.

Normal: start with 2 occupiers, 1 informant, 1 person in hiding and 1 safe token on the farm.

Hard: start with 3 occupiers, no informant, 1 person in hiding and no safe token on the farm.

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Solo variant

For the solo variant you use the same rules as for a 2 player game, and therefore you control two different

characters. In the solo version, you change the active character every time a new turn starts. Place a character

of another color in front of the player board of the active player, to keep track with which character you are

currently playing as.

Quick overview of the game

Winning and losing

- You immediately win the game when you reach the end of the mission table.

- You immediately lose when the occupier track reaches 15, when all the occupier cards are finished, or

when all numbered roads have an occupier on them.

A turn

Every turn has two phases, first the action phase and then the occupier phase:

- During the action phase you use 3 actions with 3-5 characters and 4 with 2 characters.

- During the occupier phase you draw 2 occupier cards and resolve them.

Action phase

During the action phase there are 5 different actions you can take:

- Move, either alone or take somebody or something with you.

- Move somebody that is on your location or a location connected to yours.

- Gain 1 .

- Look at the top or card and put it back. You are only allowed to tell vaguely what you saw.

- Perform an action that is indicated on your location.

Moving

When you move, you draw a control card and resolve the effect. It depends if there is an occupier on the route

or not what part of the card you resolve:

- Empty route: Resolve the red part of the card, directly under the picture.

- Occupier on the route: resolve the bottom black part of the card.

House search

When there is a house search, resolve as indicated on the house search table on the board.

Credits:

Designer: Marcel Köhler

Publisher: ...

Proofreaders rulebook: Jorick Houg, Paul de Goede, Brian Compter, Aaron Franco, Sebastian Peady

Playtesters: Marcel Köhler, Ben Köhler, Köhler, Anastasiia Myronenko, Arvid van Ulzen, Floris Vaneveld,

Peter Smidt, Gerben, Jeroen, Ron Strobos, Mirjam, Coen, Rian, Rik, Paul, Marc, Shirley Polman, Ronald

Polman.

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Symbols overview

: Occupier table symbol : Mission table symbol

: 1 Step in the positive direction : 1 Step in the negative direction

Characters

: Courage : Suspicion

: Action point : Character or person in hiding arrested or

mission item captured by the occupier.

: Male or only for male characters : Female or only for female characters

: Active character : Non-active character

House searches

: Location is safe from the next house search : House search. The number or icon in the

magnifying glass indicates the location. This is

followed in some cases by a special condition for it.

Occupier cards

: Occupier card : Effect for player of that color : Informant

Control cards

: Control card : Occupier

: Empty route : Occupier present on the route

: Bribe

Mission symbols

: Mission item : Character or person in hiding arrested or mission

item captured by the occupier.

/ : Suit case(s) : Camera : Newspaper : Bike : Radio : Betrayer

: Fake passport : Spy : Male person in hiding : Pilot(s) : “Engelandvaarder”

Other symbols

: Resources : Person in hiding

: Applies to each character

: Look at the top card of either the or

deck and put it back.

: D12, 12 sided die