Unmatched Adventures: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

How to play TMNT Unmatched Adventures: the quick rules

The heroes are trying to reduce the chosen villain’s health to zero before its objective is completed four times. Shredder conquers New York borough by borough; Krang expands Dimension X. Both use the same underlying cooperative initiative and combat system, but the battlefield objectives are different. Your team wins immediately when the villain is defeated—defeating every minion is not required.

You lose if either the villain finishes its objective four times or all player-controlled fighters have been defeated. A player who loses their hero but still has a living sidekick is not eliminated yet. If at least one player’s fighters survive, continue playing.

Each round, reveal initiative cards one by one. A Turtle gets a standard two-action turn; an enemy instead attempts a single automated attack, possibly moving into range first. After all initiative cards have resolved, apply their end-of-round effects from left to right. The villain’s special track usually advances at this point, so an apparent quiet round can still bring a borough down or push Dimension X farther across the map.

This page explains the standalone TMNT adventure rules and links to the official Adventure Rules PDF and Turtle Set Rules PDF. The two rulebooks should be read together: the core Unmatched game still governs action cards, zones, attacks and sidekicks wherever Adventures does not expressly override it.

Setup: which figures, cards and tokens do you need?

Select Shredder or Krang and turn the double-sided board to that villain’s battlefield. Put the Threat marker at the start of the track. Shuffle the chosen villain’s action cards, put its miniature at the starting space numbered 5, and set its health for your player count. Each villain starts at 14 health for one player, 21 for two, 28 for three and 35 for four.

Choose one minion per player from the six available. Shuffle each selected minion’s own action deck, put its token adjacent to the villain in an available space and set its health to 10. Baxter Stockman needs its Mouser-token supply, Rat King its Rat-token supply, and Slash starts with its Fury cards separate rather than shuffled into the regular action deck.

Every player chooses a Turtle, takes their 30-card deck, matching character card, hero miniature, sidekick token and health dials, and sets up the Hero and sidekick under core Unmatched rules. Select an unoccupied numbered start space and take that number’s player-order marker.

Construct the initiative deck from the participating player cards, chosen villain’s special cards, and selected minion cards. Do not insert initiative cards for enemies that are not part of this game. Add Shredder’s second To the Streets! card or Krang’s Technodrome Traps card as instructed.

The chosen villain also requires its own setup: Shredder uses the five-borough stack and Foot soldier tokens, while Krang starts with three active Doomsday Machines and the stacked Dimension X markers. Do not add optional Allies & Henchmen initiative cards unless intentionally playing the advanced module.

Correct villain health and other player-count scaling

TMNT uses a different villain-health table from the earlier Tales to Amaze game. The health is seven times player count plus seven, which follows directly from the official setup table. The number of minions, by contrast, equals the number of participating Heroes.

Every minion starts with 10 health no matter which villain is chosen. Although the villain health grows with the team, more players also means more initiative cards, more allied turns and more opportunities for enemy actions. Solo is therefore a legitimate separate balancing case rather than simply the four-player game controlled by one person.

Edition warning: a frequently repeated figure of 10 health per player applies to Tales to Amaze, not to this box. Using it for Shredder or Krang can make TMNT significantly easier or harder than the designers intended, depending on group size.

Initiative cards: Right Now, End of Round and repeat enemy turns

Instead of proceeding clockwise, reveal the top initiative card to find out who acts. Carry out its RIGHT NOW effect immediately; normally this activates one Turtle or enemy. Then place the card face up in a row and reveal the next. After every card has been played, resolve all printed END OF ROUND effects in the order of cards in that row, left to right.

Shuffle the initiative cards back together for the next round. A defeated enemy’s card is removed from the game, which improves the group’s future action balance. If a card belonging to an eliminated character would be revealed, simply remove it and draw the next applicable card.

Some special effects put an enemy initiative card back on the bottom of the deck. That enemy may then take a second turn in the same round. If it happens after the last normal initiative reveal, carry out the extra activation immediately rather than skipping it.

The players may discuss their hands openly. This is a cooperative title, not a concealed-information partnership game. A clear plan for who can reach a Doomsday Machine, who can survive the next attack and who will damage the villain can prevent inefficient double-commitments.

A Turtle’s two actions: Maneuver, Scheme and Attack

When a player’s initiative card is revealed, they take a normal Unmatched turn with two actions. You can use the same type twice where legal. The three choices are Maneuver, Scheme, and Attack.

Maneuver draws a card and then moves your Hero and sidekick up to their printed move value, optionally boosting movement by discarding a card. Positioning is essential in TMNT: maneuvering can also remove patrolling Foot soldiers for Shredder or permit deactivating a Doomsday Machine for Krang.

Scheme plays a Scheme card from your personal deck and resolves its printed instructions. A Scheme can move a fighter, gain cards, deal damage or create an ongoing effect depending on the Turtle’s individual design. Schemes are not attacks merely because their effects affect an enemy.

Attack plays a valid combat card against a legal enemy target: melee generally requires adjacency, while ranged attacks follow the colored-zone and line-of-sight rules. The enemy reveals the top card of its deck as an automated defense. Resolve combat values and all card timing normally.

In a game with sidekicks, special abilities may apply to one or both of a player’s fighters. Read whether the card names a particular hero, sidekick or fighter; the rules use those words deliberately.

Automated enemy turns and defense-card timing

Enemies do not get two freely chosen actions. When a villain or minion is activated, it tries to make exactly one attack. If a player fighter is already adjacent, attack that fighter; with multiple adjacent fighters, the players choose the target. Otherwise, find the closest player fighter reachable using that enemy’s initiative-card movement allowance, move along a shortest legal route, and attack.

If no player fighter is reachable within that movement allowance, the enemy does not move or attack. Instead, the Threat marker advances one space. This creates a useful but counterintuitive decision: running away from all enemies may speed up Shredder’s takeover or Krang’s incursion rather than safely waiting out their turns.

Each enemy has its own deck of cards with separate attack and defense values. When that enemy attacks or defends, play the top card of its deck facedown. The player chooses any legal combat card from their hand as usual. Reveal together and resolve card effects in their specified order, paying attention to whether an enemy effect applies on attack, defense or both.

An enemy’s Deception card reshuffles its discard pile back into its deck, including that card. This automatic reshuffle cannot be canceled. Enemy action decks do not suffer normal player exhaustion, so attempting to wait until all of Shredder’s or Krang’s cards are gone is not a win condition.

When an enemy is defeated, remove its miniature or token, health dial, action cards and initiative card. The group wins immediately upon defeating the main villain; clearing the minions is optional rather than a prerequisite.

Shredder vs Krang: two entirely different objectives

Both villains lose their health as Heroes attack them and both can win by completing their objective four times. However, their objectives use different pieces, maps and pacing:

For either side, if Threat reaches the end of its track, resolve that objective immediately, ignoring excess Threat spaces. If fewer than four objectives have been completed, reset the marker and continue under the new board state. Completing an objective once makes the game more dangerous, but does not automatically end it.

Shredder’s New York: the five boroughs and Foot soldiers

Shredder begins with the five borough tiles shuffled, Under Threat side up. The top tile is the borough currently under threat. At setup, deploy one Foot soldier per player into empty Foot circles in that borough, using the patrolling side of the tokens.

Foot circles are printed between normal board spaces. They are not spaces where a fighter can finish movement, and Foot soldiers are tokens, not fighters: you cannot attack them with an Attack action. Their board position nevertheless matters. Each borough containing at least one Foot soldier causes Shredder’s end-of-round Threat advancement to increase.

When Shredder’s objective triggers, the borough marked Under Threat falls. Flip its tile to Fallen, flip its Foot soldiers to entrenched, and deploy one new patrolling soldier per player in the next borough Under Threat. Any of the five boroughs may be selected by the shuffled order; four fallen boroughs ends the game in Shredder’s favor.

A patrolling Foot soldier can be removed if you move one chosen fighter across its Foot circle during a Maneuver. You do not need to spend a card for each soldier. You cannot remove Foot soldiers through a non-Maneuver movement effect, and you cannot remove entrenched ones by any normal action.

An entrenched Foot soldier deals one damage to a player fighter passing through its circle, including movement forced by card effects. It remains in place after dealing the damage. Because these hazards become permanent when a borough falls, managing early patrolling soldiers is usually more efficient than navigating around entrenched soldiers later.

Shredder strategy: slow the takeover without abandoning combat

At the end of each round Shredder advances Threat by one plus one for every borough currently containing Foot soldiers. That is not one Threat for every individual soldier. Removing the only patrolling soldier in a borough can reduce the base threat pressure, while removing a second or third soldier in the same borough may have less immediate effect on the end-of-round count.

Planning example: suppose there are Foot soldiers in three separate boroughs. Shredder’s end-of-round effect advances the Threat marker four spaces: one baseline plus three for the occupied boroughs. If the team completely clears soldiers from one of those boroughs before the effect resolves, that advancement becomes three. This is an example of the printed formula, not a board setup instruction.

Because your main victory is still the villain’s defeat, spending every action running across the map to remove soldiers is rarely ideal. Use a Maneuver that improves positioning and collects a patrolling Foot soldier along the same route, then attack or deploy your Turtle’s Scheme when the villain is reachable.

The To the Streets! initiative card and several action-card effects add more soldiers. Watch which borough is next in the stack and plan safe routes before the current borough falls. Once a route contains entrenched soldiers, crossing it may require spending health rather than just movement.

Krang’s Technodrome: Doomsday Machines and Dimension X

Krang starts with all three Doomsday Machines active. At the end of each round, its initiative effect advances Threat by one plus one for each active machine. With all three active, that is four spaces, which can accelerate the incursion quickly if nobody reaches the machines.

To deactivate a machine, finish a Maneuver with one of your fighters adjacent to the machine, then discard one action card. You may deactivate only one machine per Maneuver. Adjacency is shown by the printed yellow wires, but those wires are not walkable paths and cannot be used as a shortcut or attack route.

When Krang completes its objective, place the next Dimension X marker on the indicated numbered position. Spaces on the engulfed side are in Dimension X, and both allied and enemy fighters can cross the boundary normally. Being inside Dimension X causes no automatic damage by itself, but it makes certain action and trap effects stronger.

Once the fourth Dimension X expansion has occurred, the Heroes immediately lose. This is separate from Krang’s personal health. A team may have Krang nearly defeated and still lose if it lets the machines advance the track uncontrollably.

Disabled machines are not permanently safe: at the end of Krang’s initiative effect, if any machine is inactive, roll the Die of Ultimate Destruction. On results 3, 4 or 5, the leftmost inactive machine reactivates. Players may want to keep a fighter positioned for repeated deactivations rather than assuming an early shutdown lasts for the whole game.

Technodrome Traps and the Die of Ultimate Destruction

Krang adds a special Technodrome Traps initiative card to the game. When it is revealed, flip the next Trap card and roll the Die of Ultimate Destruction. The result determines which effect on the trap card happens. A result of X means the trap fails to trigger and has no effect.

After resolving a trap, discard it. If the deck of traps becomes empty, shuffle that discard pile into a new trap deck. This is a separate recycle rule from the villain’s action-card Deception mechanism; the two decks serve different functions.

Any player may discard one action card from hand to reroll Krang’s special die before its effect resolves. The team may spend cards for further rerolls if needed. This gives players a risk-management option: is losing a valuable defense or attack card worth avoiding a trap or preventing a machine from reactivating?

That choice is particularly important when the team has low health or few cards. A reroll is not guaranteed to improve the result. Preserve enough hand resources to survive enemy attacks and advance toward Krang while using rerolls for truly dangerous outcomes.

The six minions: distinctive threats and counters

The TMNT box contains six selectable minions. With one player choose one; with four players select four. You do not face all six in a normal game. Each selected minion has its own seven-card action deck plus any extra special cards noted by its setup.

Some ability tokens have exact movement or timing effects. Baxter’s Mousers force you to discard the top card of your deck when a player fighter enters their space. Rat King’s rats reduce the defense value by two, down to zero, while a player fighter shares their space.

Slash has five separate Fury cards at setup. At each end-of-round effect, a Fury card is moved into Slash’s discard pile. When Slash’s Deception reshuffles that discard, Fury cards re-enter its action deck; on revealing a Fury card, immediately discard it and reveal another until a regular action card appears. These special rules should not be applied to the other minions.

The four Turtle heroes: abilities and sidekicks

The four included Hero decks each use a different fighting style, and their partners are specific sidekicks:

These are more than thematic descriptions; they change your decisions. Leonardo’s movement can put a friendly fighter adjacent to a Doomsday Machine before their turn, or alter which fighter is closest for an enemy attack. Raphael may gain an extra action from losing a combat he initiated, meaning low card value does not always make an attack pointless.

Michelangelo draws cards more frequently than the others but has a much smaller hand limit. Donatello plays longer-term equipment: his three special Inventions activate persistent bonuses after their main effects are resolved, instead of entering the discard pile. The official Set Rules PDF explains exactly how those inventions are tucked and how canceled card effects interact with them.

Donatello inventions and Michelangelo’s three-card hand

Two Hero powers create especially frequent rules questions. Michelangelo’s Pizza Party is a printed exception to normal Unmatched hand management. At the start of play he takes three cards instead of the usual five. At the end of his own turn, he discards down to three cards instead of the normal seven.

During Michelangelo’s turn, each time Michelangelo or April O’Neil attacks or plays a Scheme card, he must draw one card. This includes attacks with a versatile card. The extra draw can replenish a thin hand or trigger useful card access, but it increases the importance of which three cards you retain for defense.

Donatello has three Invention cards with purple bottom-box bonuses. When he plays one, carry out the main card effect and then tuck it beneath his character card. Its purple bonus stays active for the rest of the game and benefits both Donatello and Metalhead.

Some Invention main effects remove cards from his discard pile permanently to strengthen an action. Removing those cards does not improve the persistent bonus. If a played Invention’s effect is canceled, its main effect is canceled but the card is still tucked and the lasting bonus activates. A card discarded from hand without being played does not become an invention bonus.

These are precisely the kind of character-specific exceptions worth reading before selecting Turtle decks. A broad guide to Unmatched cannot replace the printed sidekick, invention and hand-size rules in this edition.

Advanced mode: Allies and Henchmen

TMNT introduces an optional Allies & Henchmen system. These characters appear on initiative cards rather than occupying fighter spaces on the battlefield. Allies help the Heroes; Henchmen add trouble to the villain’s side.

To use this advanced mode, shuffle the Ally and Henchman decks separately. Reveal the top Ally card. Add two random facedown Henchmen cards and the Friends in Odd Places initiative card to the initial initiative deck. This is a deliberate advanced-setup choice, not part of the basic recommended first game.

At the end-of-round resolution of Friends in Odd Places, check whether a player fighter is standing in the numbered start space shown on the revealed Ally. If so, that Ally joins the initiative deck for the next round. Otherwise discard the Ally and add an unknown Henchman instead. Then reveal the next Ally for a future opportunity.

This creates extra positional incentives. Sometimes one Hero can spend a Maneuver to reach an Ally’s meeting place without disrupting the team attack, giving everyone an additional useful effect. But if no fighter reaches the location, the failed opportunity can strengthen the villain’s initiative instead.

There is no need to use the module until the basic enemy targeting and both villain objectives feel familiar. Players seeking a harder challenge may begin with more Henchmen, as the rulebook explicitly allows.

Solo play and scaling the difficulty

Yes, one person can play solo with one Turtle. Follow the one-player setup numbers: Shredder or Krang starts at 14 health, choose one minion, and include the appropriate one-player initiative card plus the villain’s special cards. Use that Turtle’s normal deck and sidekick setup.

You also may manage more than one Turtle yourself as a multi-handed experience, provided you apply the equivalent player-count setup and initiative scaling. This means using the correct health and number of minions for the number of active Hero positions rather than mixing solo-villain health with four Hero turns.

To learn the system, begin with one villain and one manageable minion before adding Allies & Henchmen. When the game feels too easy, change the villain, choose a harder minion combination, or enable the advanced module.

Unlike cooperative games with a score target, Unmatched Adventures is a direct win-or-lose challenge. You can track your own efficiency, health remaining or number of objectives lost as a personal record, but these are not official competitive points for beating another player.

Beginner strategy: five things to monitor each round

1. Damage the main villain whenever a safe opening exists. Defeating minions may help, but only the villain’s health reaching zero ends the game in victory.
2. Protect against the objective rather than just the next attack. Against Shredder, watch the number of boroughs with Foot soldiers, not just the total soldiers. Against Krang, watch how many machines are active before his end-of-round effect.
3. Avoid complete withdrawal. An enemy with no reachable fighter advances Threat. Sometimes leaving a durable Hero in range is better than a coordinated retreat.
4. Use the Turtles’ specialties. Leonardo changes positioning, Raphael can gain a return action after losing an attack, Michelangelo cycles cards and Donatello grows stronger through permanent inventions.
5. Consider minion escalation. Rat King worsens defense in marked spaces, Baxter erodes decks with Mousers, and Slash gains Fury. Eliminating a particularly disruptive minion may save more actions than ignoring it.

Turn-level example: against Krang, a Turtle might Maneuver into position adjacent to an active machine, discard a spare card to deactivate it, then use their second action to attack Krang if in legal range. That turn directly lowers both future Threat pressure and villain health. Against Shredder, the comparable efficient turn is moving over patrolling Foot soldiers while positioning for the next fight.

These recommendations are original editorial interpretations of the rules, not claims of personal playtesting or added house rules.

TMNT vs Tales to Amaze: which Unmatched Adventures game?

Both titles use the same cooperative foundation: a shuffled initiative deck, automated enemies, normal Unmatched combat and a villain objective that can end the game before the villain is defeated. Both support one to four players and allow the included heroes to be used in competitive Unmatched.

Tales to Amaze (2023) features Nikola Tesla, Dr. Jill Trent, Golden Bat and Annie Christmas against Mothman or Martian Invader. It uses bridges, Doom tokens and alien fields. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles instead brings four Turtle Hero decks, Shredder’s Foot soldiers, Krang’s Dimension X machines and its own six TMNT-themed minions.

The two games also use different starting villain health scaling: Tales to Amaze generally uses 10 health per player, while TMNT’s official one-to-four table is 14/21/28/35. For an accurate setup, never transplant the earlier game’s villain table to this one.

Explore our Tales to Amaze guide for its minion abilities and bridge rules. For cooperative encounters with different scenario structures, see Horrified: Universal Monsters, Horrified: World of Monsters and Spirit Island. These comparisons help readers choose a style without duplicating those individual guides.

Optional Shredder and Krang Hero Decks: included or separate?

Shredder and Krang are automated villain opponents in the base box, not additional competitive character decks included for you to use as heroes. Restoration Games separately offers the Shredder & Krang Hero Decks add-on. It contains two 30-card character decks that turn those villains into player-controlled fighters in normal competitive Unmatched matches.

Those add-on decks are not required to play either of the cooperative scenarios. The normal TMNT box already contains the four playable Turtle decks, the two villains’ automated action decks, six selectable minions and the necessary board.

The add-on also changes the villain characters’ mechanics to suit competitive play. For example, Krang as an adversary begins with three active machines in cooperative play, while the optional competitive hero version begins with one active and two inactive. Do not treat a product description or video about the competitive add-on as an erratum to the main cooperative rules.

The publisher’s explanation of the two add-on heroes distinguishes the versions and shows what is purchased separately. This distinction prevents common confusion when searching for ‘how to play as Shredder in Unmatched.’

Unmatched Adventures: TMNT frequently asked questions

Is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a standalone Unmatched game?

Yes. The base game contains the four Turtle decks, two cooperative villains, six minions, battlefields and cooperative rules. Other Unmatched sets are optional.

How many people can play?

One to four players, using the corresponding health, initiative and minion setup.

Which Turtle characters are playable?

Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo. Their sidekicks are Splinter, Casey Jones, Metalhead and April O’Neil, respectively.

Which villain is in the box?

Two: Shredder and Krang. Choose one for a game, rather than normally fighting both together.

How much health does Shredder start with?

The same health table as Krang: 14/21/28/35 for one/two/three/four players.

What are the six minions?

Bebop & Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, Wingnut, Leatherhead, Slash and Rat King.

Do you need to defeat every minion?

No. Your team wins the moment the chosen villain reaches zero health, regardless of remaining minions.

What happens when Shredder fills Threat?

The currently threatened New York borough becomes fallen. Four fallen boroughs cause immediate defeat.

How do you remove Shredder’s Foot soldiers?

Move a selected fighter through patrolling Foot circles during a Maneuver. Entrenched Foot soldiers in fallen boroughs cannot be removed normally.

How do you deactivate a Doomsday Machine?

Finish a Maneuver adjacent to it and discard one card. Only one machine can be deactivated per Maneuver.

What happens when Krang’s Threat reaches the end?

Dimension X expands. Four expansions cause immediate defeat. Reactivated machines can continue speeding up Threat.

Can you reroll Krang’s special die?

Yes. Before the die’s effect resolves, any player may discard one action card for a reroll, and the team can repeat this.

Does Michelangelo really have a three-card hand limit?

Yes. He begins with three cards and discards down to three at his turn end, but draws during his own attacks and Schemes.

Does Donatello discard his inventions normally?

No when he plays them. They are tucked under his character card to provide lasting bonuses; discarding one without playing it follows ordinary discard rules.

Can you use TMNT heroes in competitive Unmatched?

Yes. The four Turtle decks are compatible with ordinary competitive Unmatched, and the TMNT board can be used without the co-op-specific tokens.

Are Shredder and Krang playable as competitive heroes in the base game?

No. Their separate Hero Decks add-on is required to use them that way.

What is the Allies & Henchmen advanced mode?

An optional addition to the initiative deck that recruits allies at numbered start spaces and adds henchmen when recruitment fails.

Official sources and editorial disclosure

• Restoration Games — official TMNT game listing, contents and included heroes
• IELLO / Restoration Games — official English Adventure Rules (PDF)
• IELLO / Restoration Games — official English Character Set Rules (PDF)
• Searchable first-printing English adventure rulebook text
• IELLO — March 2026 regional release, 60 minutes and age 9+
• Restoration Games — Shredder and Krang optional Hero Decks explained

Editorial research checked October 17, 2026. BoardGameGeek catalogues the game as a 2025 release, while Restoration announced US retail availability in January 2026 and IELLO lists March 2026; the dates represent different edition/distribution milestones. Rule explanations and examples are independently written rather than copied from the manual; no claims of hands-on playtesting are made. Licensed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles names are used solely to identify the game, and no game card or box artwork is reproduced without permission.