How Wax Eaters Work in The Night Cage

Wax Eaters are the only Monsters in the standard game, and the rules say to avoid them at all cost. They are not hunters. They do not move. They wait, and they react to motion. That makes them more like a trap than an enemy, and traps can be read. This lesson is about reading them.

What a Wax Eater sees

A Wax Eater is drawn and placed like any other tile. Once it is on the board, it watches in all four directions at once, in straight lines, as far as an uninterrupted pathway runs. Its sight follows the board’s wrapping edges, so a line that leaves one side continues from the opposite side.

Three things stop that line:

• An empty space. With no tile there, the Monster cannot see past it.
• A Pit. Pits interrupt the pathway, so a Monster will not trigger on, or strike, a Prisoner across a Pit.
• A break in the path. In the official example, an attack running up a column stops at a T tile and cannot reach the four-way beyond it, because the path is interrupted.

When you look at a Wax Eater, trace each of its four lines until one of these stops it. Anyone on those lines is in danger.

What sets it off

A Wax Eater is triggered in three ways:

1. A Prisoner Moves within its line of sight: along, into, or out of a pathway connected to it in a straight line.
2. A Prisoner Falls onto it.
3. A chain reaction, when another Monster’s attack hits it.

Staying never triggers a Monster. That is worth remembering when a Prisoner sits in a line and nobody needs to go anywhere. The official FAQ adds that moving into a Pit from across it or from the side will not trigger a Monster, since it cannot see past the Pit.

Normally you cannot Move onto a Monster at all. The one exception is the Charge, which costs a Nerve. Lesson 8, on Staying and spending Nerve, covers it.

Who gets hit

Triggering and hitting are two separate steps in the turn. First, any Monster you Moved or Fell in line of sight of is triggered. Then anyone still in a triggered Monster’s line of sight is hit.

That word “still” is the whole trick. If your Move takes you out of the line, the Monster triggers, but you are not there when the attack lands. The rules compare it to taking a side Passage. Falling works the same way: leaping into a Pit or falling through a Crumbling tile can trigger a Monster, but the Fall carries you clear of the strike.

The cooperative sting is that other Prisoners in the line are hit too, even though they did nothing. Your clean sidestep can cost a friend three tiles and their light.

Sidestepping well

When you are in a Wax Eater’s line and need to Move, look for a Passage that takes you out of it. Before you go, check the line for friends. If one is standing in it, your sidestep will hit them. In that case, ask whether anyone needs to Move this turn at all, or whether a different Prisoner can go first. Sometimes a Stay costs one tile where a careless Move costs three or more.

You also get some say when a Wax Eater first appears. When you draw a tile while lighting new Passages, you look at it before choosing which open space to put it in, as long as it connects to your tile. If you draw a Wax Eater, that choice matters: put it where its lines cross the fewest friends. If the Monster turns up from a Stay instead, it must replace a tile connected to you, so expect it right beside you and plan your next Move around it.

Chain reactions

If a Wax Eater’s attack hits another Monster, that Monster attacks too, and its attack can reach a third. So one Move can wake several Monsters at once. When Monsters share a line, treat them as one long trap and trace every line they open, not just the nearest one.

Penalties count per Prisoner

Each Prisoner hit discards the top 3 tiles of the Draw Stack face up and goes Lights Out. The penalty applies to every Prisoner a Monster hits, and one Prisoner can be hit by more than one Monster. A single bad Move can strip a large part of the Draw Stack, and any of those tiles might be a Key or Gate you needed.

Each Prisoner who is hit may spend a Nerve to Block, discarding 2 tiles instead of 3. Block only changes the discard from 3 to 2; nothing in the rules lets it stop Lights Out.

Falling onto one

If you Fall and the tile you draw to land on is a Monster, it attacks at once, hitting you and anyone in its line of sight, before you light anything beyond that tile. After the penalties, you scramble onto an adjacent existing tile or a newly drawn one. The official FAQ adds that the Monster is then discarded. Lesson 6, on Crumbling tiles, Pits, and Falling, covers the rest of the Fall.