1. Lay the Playing boards in a row with the Night time side up, ensuring that the Blue Forest Playing board (1) is at one end and the Shogun’s Palace (7) is at the other.

2. Each player chooses a Ninja miniature and sets it beside the start locations at the Blue Forest (Playing board 1).

3. Place a Clear Lantern Cube on each lantern tile marked on the board.

4. Place a Red Senjutsu/Buki Cube on each tile marked with the Senjutsu symbol.

5. Place a Black Guard Meeple on each tile marked with the black Guard symbol

and

6. Place a Red Patrolling Guard Meeple on each tile marked with the red Patrolling Guard symbol.

7. Place the Alarm Tracker on the timer track on ‘0’.

8. Shuffle the Movement Cards and deal 4 decks of 12 cards. Set the remaining cards to one side. Give one deck of 12 cards to each player.

In a 2 or 3 player game: Set the unused deck/decks beside the Playing boards. They become the Interchange Decks.

9. Shuffle both the Senjutsu (Green) and Alarm decks (Red) and set them separately beside the playing board.

10. Give the First Player Token to one of the players.

11. Each Ninja is given a Throwing Star Token.

12. Set any surplus Guard Meeples beside the Playing boards.

13. Set the Buki Cards and Fire tokens to one side as they are not used in the cooperative game.

14. If playing Super Speedy Ninja: Prepare a timing device, usually a mobile phone.

Once the game is set up for MIDNIGHT RAID, the players start with the first Movement Phase (see related rules).