11. Combat

11.1 Declaring Attacks#

Attacking is not gated. Any card with a printed attack may attack. Attacking activates the attacking card, so a card may attack only once per turn, and declares one of its printed attacks when it does.

Movement is the only gated action in the game (§14.4). Combat range is determined by Band, not by movement allowance.

The active player activates each attacking card and declares its target and the attack it is using. Multiple attackers may target the same card.

A Mobilizing card may not attack (§10.4). An activated card may not attack.

A player may attack cards they control. Nothing in the targeting rules limits an attack to an opponent's cards; the Power, Range and Shield rules (§11.2) apply to an attack on one's own card exactly as to any other. Destroying your own card is destruction in the ordinary sense: its destruction triggers fire, a Bound Character destroyed this way destroys its Storyline (§8.11), and destroying a Character you control awards the next opponent in turn order 1 Story Point (§8.12).

An attack is a value plus two tags. Every printed attack has a damage value, a Power and a Range, printed as:

<Weapon name>: <value><power><range>
Cyclotronic Rail: 4{HPWR}{SPACE}

The weapon name is flavour and carries no rules weight. A card may print more than one attack; each line is a separate attack with its own tags.

Two tags are required of a printed attack, and of nothing else. An ability that deals damage is not an attack. Where such an ability aims — where its text chooses a target — it carries both tags as an attack does. Where it simply damages a card it names, by attachment, occupancy, or naming every card of a kind, it carries a Power tag alone and that is complete (§11.2).

So a damage line carrying one tag is either an unaimed ability or an error, and which it is depends on whether the text chooses a target.

A printed attack of 0 is still a printed attack. It states a Power and a Range, it may be declared, and a bonus to its value applies to it normally. A card that prints no attack at all cannot attack, and cannot be given one by a bonus (§19.6). The difference between printing 0 and printing nothing is therefore a real one.

An attack is legal only if it passes both the Power check and the Range check.

Power check. A Low Power attack may target only Unshielded cards. A High Power attack may target only Shielded cards (§11.2). No attack may be aimed at both kinds of card.

Damage arriving at a card that was never aimed at is a separate question and is governed by §11.2, where the two Powers behave differently.

Low Power hits people and small craft; High Power hits ships and buildings. Anti-personnel weapons cannot crack armour, and weapons able to penetrate shields are too cumbersome to hit people.

Range check. All three Range tags state where the target is.

• Close — the target is in the attacker's own Band. A Close attack may not target a card in the Space Band.
• Long — the target is in a Band adjacent to the attacker's Band. A Long attack may not target a card in the attacker's own Band, and may not target a card in the Space Band.
• Space — the target is in the Space Band, and the attacker is in the Space Band or in a Band adjacent to it.

Close and Long are terrestrial: they never reach into orbit. Space is the fleet tag — ship-to-ship guns, fleet battles and anti-ship batteries. A weapon meant to fight in orbit, or to shoot at orbit, is a Space weapon wherever it is mounted.

Long is adjacent-Band only. Artillery has a minimum range and cannot fire into its own Band, so siege weapons come in two kinds: High Power Close for a Location in your own Band, High Power Long for one a Band away.

Two rules sit outside the attack table and modify it: the Space Band boundary (§11.3) and attacks from within (§11.4). There are no others.

Self-targeting. A player may attack their own permanents, provided the Power and Range checks are satisfied. Self-targeting is permitted in Combat only; a player may not declare their own permanents as targets for Liberation (§12.3).

11.2 Shielded#

A card whose DEFENSE value carries the shields icon is Shielded and may be targeted only by High Power attacks. A card with no shields icon is Unshielded and may be targeted only by Low Power attacks. There is no unshielded icon: not having one is the statement.

All Capital Spacecraft, all Surface Locations and all Planetary Locations are Shielded. Characters, Ground Units and Non-Capital Spacecraft are Unshielded.

Targeting is symmetric. Damage is not. The two halves of the partition do different work, and the asymmetry is deliberate.

• High Power may be aimed only at a Shielded card, and damages anything. Its restriction is on targeting alone. High Power damage that reaches an Unshielded card by some route other than being aimed at it is dealt in full, and that card takes it normally.
• Low Power may be aimed only at an Unshielded card, and damages only Unshielded cards. Its restriction is on both. Low Power damage that names a Shielded card, however it got there, does nothing to it.

Armour stops small arms; a mass driver hurts whatever it lands on. This is the partition's central mechanic and not a detail of it.

The checks apply to abilities as they do to attacks. Damage dealt by an ability is tagged exactly as an attack is — a Power and a Range — and an ability that chooses a target must choose a legal one. Without this, any targeted damage ability would be a way around a shield.

Damage that is not aimed is not checked for targeting. Where an effect names what it damages some way other than choosing it, no targeting check applies to it.

No Range check applies either. An effect that simply damages a card it names is ignoring range deliberately — there is no distance to measure to a card nobody aimed at. A Power tag alone is complete on such an effect, and is not an omission to be corrected.

The common forms are

• a card attached to another, damaging its host;
• a card occupying another, damaging it, or being damaged by it;
• every card of a kind — each permanent a player controls, every card aboard a Spacecraft, all Characters on the Map;
• damage redirected onto a card that stepped in front of it, which is what a garrison does (§11.5).

Low Power's damage filter survives all of that. Being unaimed excuses a card from the targeting check; it does not make small arms punch through armour. So:

• A High Power effect attached to a Character damages that Character, though no High Power attack could have been aimed at it.
• A Low Power effect that strikes every permanent a player controls damages their Characters, Ground Units and Non-Capital Spacecraft, and does nothing at all to their Locations.

An ability with no range in the ordinary sense prints a Power tag alone, and its own text says what it can reach. Flak (§18.83) is the clearest case: it answers a card that has already declared an attack on it, so there is no distance to state.

An ability may offer a choice of differently tagged effects, and this is how one effect reaches targets on both sides of the Shielded line:

Pay 2: Deal 2 damage to target Ground Unit or 2 damage to target Spacecraft.

11.3 The Space Band Boundary#

From a Band adjacent to the Space Band, only Capital Spacecraft may be targeted in the Space Band. This applies to Liberation as well as to attacks: from an adjacent Band, only a Capital Spacecraft may be declared as a Liberation target in the Space Band.

From a planet you can see the battleship and nothing else. A Non-Capital Spacecraft in orbit, and any card aboard any Spacecraft, can be reached only by something that is in the Space Band with it.

Because Capital Spacecraft are Shielded, the only legal attack from the ground into orbit is a High Power Space attack. A Low Power Space attack has no legal target when fired from a terrestrial Band; it is a space-only weapon.

Orbit is a sanctuary, and landing gives it up. A Non-Capital Spacecraft in the Space Band cannot be reached from the ground at all. One that has landed on a Location is in a terrestrial Band and is Unshielded, and any Low Power Close or Long attack in range reaches it. A landed craft keeps its Space attacks — its Band is adjacent to orbit — but this boundary means they reach only Capital Spacecraft.

11.4 Attacks from Within: Storming and Boarding#

A card occupying a Location or Spacecraft may attack that Location or Spacecraft with any Low Power attack it has, regardless of the attack's Range tag and regardless of whether the target is Shielded.

Shields face outward, and range does not apply to something you are standing inside. The attack is called Storming against a Location and Boarding against a Spacecraft; they are the same rule.

Boarding presumes you are already aboard. An opponent's Capital Spacecraft is closed to your units until it is Contested (§14.6), so Boarding an enemy ship is available only once the ship has been broken, or to an infiltrator who walked aboard while it was still Prime. Storming and Boarding are equally the way to scuttle a card you hold yourself.

This is the denial option. Occupying a card is how you take it (§14.11). Attacking it from within is how you destroy it instead — when you would rather not leave a garrison behind, or need the card gone rather than held. It is also the only way to empty an opponent's Band for a siege, because a captured card does not leave its owner's Band (§14.11): capturing their Surface Locations leaves their Surface Band full, and only razing them brings their Planetary Band into reach of orbit (§14.2).

Destroying a Spacecraft you are aboard has a price. Characters have Escape Pod and may leave. Ground Units without a printed Escape Pod are destroyed with the ship (§11.7, §18.11). A Character can scuttle a ship and get off; a Ground Unit that scuttles one goes down with it.

Damage does not accumulate between combats for any card but a Character (§11.6). Destroying a Location or Spacecraft from within therefore takes enough attackers to deal its DEFENSE in a single combat.

11.5 Declaring Intercepts and Garrisons#

A card may intercept an attacker only if the interceptor is a legal target of that attacker — that is, it passes the attacker's Power and Range checks (§11.1).

Garrison. A card occupying a Location or Spacecraft may intercept an attack declared against that Location or Spacecraft regardless of the attack's Power. This is not an exception but a consequence: the Power check governs what an attack may be aimed at (§11.2), the attack was aimed at the host, and the garrison was never targeted. The shell was not aimed at the garrison; it was simply in the building when the shell landed, and it takes the damage like anything else that was.

The restriction above still governs who may choose to step in front of an attack. Interception outside a garrison is a card electing to become the recipient, and for that it must be something the attacker could have aimed at.

Outside a garrison, the Power partition means an Unshielded card cannot intercept a High Power attack and a Shielded card cannot intercept a Low Power one. Covering a card you are not standing on is therefore rare. Garrisoning is the deliberate exception, and it requires having put the unit there.

A card declared as the target of an attack cannot intercept. Once a card has been declared the target of any attack during a combat, it cannot intercept another attack for the remainder of that combat. A card already under fire cannot also cover someone else. The restriction lasts for that combat only; the card may intercept normally in a later combat.

A card must be readied to intercept; an activated card may not. Intercepting does not activate the card — defending is a free action. A Mobilizing card may intercept. Each card may intercept only one attacker per combat, and several cards may intercept the same attacker, so three occupants may block three attacks or double up on one.

If an attack is intercepted, all of its damage is assigned to its interceptors. There is no overflow damage. If an attack has several interceptors, the attacking player assigns its damage across them as they choose.

11.6 Resolving Combat#

Combat resolves in the following order.

1. Volley step. Attacks marked Volley deal their damage now, before regular damage. Volley is purely a timing tag: it means an attack deals its damage in the Volley step instead of the regular damage step, and nothing more. It may be carried by an attack of any Power and Range, and it is not an attack of its own.

All damage dealt in the Volley step is dealt simultaneously. Two cards firing Volley attacks at each other deal their damage to each other at the same time; neither one prevents the other. Casualties from the Volley step are removed before the next step.

2. Fast Maneuvers. Both players may play Fast Maneuvers, the active player having priority first. Fast Maneuvers that are Character Actions require a Character to execute, and activate that Character.

3. Regular damage step. Each remaining attack deals its damage to its target, or to its interceptors. All regular damage is dealt simultaneously.

Return fire. A readied card that was attacked, or that intercepted, may return fire once per combat. It chooses a single card among those that attacked it or whose attack it intercepted, and deals all of the damage of one of its attacks to that card. The attack must pass the Power and Range checks from the defender's own position. Returning fire does not activate the card.

Return fire resolves in the timing of the attack used to return fire. An attack marked Volley returns fire in the Volley step, simultaneously with the damage it answers; any other attack returns fire in the regular damage step. So:

• A card killed in the Volley step is removed before the regular damage step, and cannot return fire with an attack that is not marked Volley.
• A defender returning fire with a Volley attack deals its damage before a non-Volley attacker's damage lands. If that kills the attacker, the attacker's damage is never dealt.
• A garrison of infantry soaks a bombardment and cannot answer it. A garrison holding anti-ship guns makes bombarding it expensive.

Flak (§18.83) is a special case of return fire: automatic, against Non-Capital Spacecraft, at its own printed value.

4. Damage outcomes. Damage received in a single combat is totalled against each card. It does not accumulate between combats for any card but a Character, whose damage is taken from CP.

If a Ground Unit receives damage equal to or greater than its DEFENSE, it is destroyed and placed into its owner's Depleted Pile. This includes Ground Units that have a Reverse face; a destroyed Ground Unit does not flip like a Character.

That rule is about the Map. It means a destroyed Ground Unit does not survive in play on a new face the way a Character does. It does not govern what happens to the card once it has reached the Depleted Pile. An ability that acts on the card there — Prototype (§18.73) — sets only which face the card shows in the pile and never returns it to the Map, so the two rules do not conflict and a Ground Unit may carry both.

A Character subtracts CP equal to the damage it receives. If it receives damage equal to or greater than its current CP, it is destroyed and placed in its owner's Depleted Pile, whichever face it is showing. Combat never flips a Character (§7.7).

If a Planetary Location or Surface Location receives damage equal to or greater than its DEFENSE, a Prime Location flips to its Contested face, and a Contested Location is placed in its owner's Depleted Pile.

If a Capital Spacecraft receives damage equal to or greater than its DEFENSE, a Prime Capital Spacecraft flips to its Contested face, and a Contested Capital Spacecraft is placed in its owner's Depleted Pile. Capital Spacecraft break before they die, exactly as Locations do.

A Non-Capital Spacecraft that receives damage equal to or greater than its DEFENSE is destroyed (§11.7). A Non-Capital Spacecraft never gains a Contested face by being shot.

It may nonetheless be one, where it is printed as the reverse face of another card (§11.7). Such a face is destroyed outright when it breaks: there is no third face to turn to.

11.7 Destruction Outcomes#

• If a Drone is destroyed: sent to the Burned pile (§18). Drones do not flip and cannot be returned.
• Ground Unit or Device destroyed: If a Ground Unit or Device is destroyed it is placed in the Depleted Pile unless there is explicit text on the card that says the card flips or another action is taken.
• Capital Spacecraft broken: A Capital Spacecraft on its Prime face that is destroyed flips to its Contested face, unless it has Final (§18.91). It breaks the same way a Location does, and by the same routes: damage equal to or greater than its DEFENSE (§11.6), Liberation (§12.8), or any card effect that destroys it. An effect that says "destroy" breaks a Prime Capital Spacecraft rather than removing it, exactly as it would a Prime Location; it takes a second destruction, from the Contested face, to put the ship in the Depleted Pile. It is not destroyed by the first. It does not leave the Space Band, and the cards aboard it are untouched — nobody escapes, nobody is destroyed, and occupancy does not change. A Capital Spacecraft already on its Contested face is destroyed as below.
• Flipping is the normal outcome; Final is the printed exception. A Contested face exists so that a card can change hands: §14.11's control test asks who is occupying it, and that test has nothing to work on where nobody can stand on the face. So a Capital Spacecraft prints a Contested face, with its own stats and attacks as a Location does, only where its reverse face is itself occupiable — a Location, or a Spacecraft that can be boarded. Where the reverse face is a Character, a Device, or any other face that cannot be occupied, the ship carries Final (§18.91) instead. A Final card that is destroyed is placed in its owner's Depleted Pile and does not flip. Such a ship has no Contested state and no second life in combat: its reverse face is reached only by the card's own printed trigger, never by being broken. The captain ships are the pattern. Complete a Storyline Chapter and the officer steps off the bridge; let the hull be shot out from under them and both are gone. A Final ship that breaks is destroyed in the full sense, so the Spacecraft destroyed bullet below governs everything aboard it — Escape Pod and all. A Capital Spacecraft Drone is outside all of this. It has no reverse face of any kind; a destroyed Drone is burned and never flips (§18.26), and that rule is unchanged.
• Spacecraft destroyed: If a Spacecraft is destroyed it is placed into the Depleted Pile, it does not flip unless there is explicit text on the card that says otherwise. Characters deployed on the Spacecraft use the "Escape Pod" ability automatically, moving to a Planetary Location or Capital Ship their controller controls (§18.11). Ground Units deployed on it are destroyed unless they have the Escape Pod keyword. Non-Capital Spacecraft deployed on it are destroyed; they do not have Escape Pod (§14.8).
• Planetary and Surface Locations destroyed: If a Planetary or Surface Location on its Prime face is destroyed they flip to their Reverse face. If a Surface Location is on its Reverse face and is destroyed it is placed in the Depleted Pile. If a Planetary Location on its Contested face is destroyed it is placed in the Depleted Pile. Whenever a Location is placed in the Depleted Pile, every card occupying it is displaced (§14.12). This applies to Surface Locations as well as Planetary ones; earlier revisions addressed only the Planetary case.
• Loss of a Planetary Location reduces the controller's Surface Capacity. If the controller is left over Capacity, the state-based check in §10.6 applies immediately and they must destroy Surface Locations of their choice until they are within Capacity. Surface Locations are no longer associated with individual Planetary Locations, so a Planetary Location's destruction does not by itself destroy any Surface Location.

Because a Capital Spacecraft now carries a Contested face, a broken Capital Spacecraft counts as a Contested permanent for the Lose condition (§16) and for any ability that scales on Contested permanents (§19.5). It may be flipped back to Prime by Restore (§18.49) — but only where its Contested face prints a Restore cost. A ship whose Contested face prints none is broken for good.

State transition triggers ("becomes Prime," "becomes Contested," "becomes Fallen") fire regardless of the source of the transition. See §19.2.

11.8 Attacks in Common Terms#

A player never needs this table — they read the two icons. It gives a common name to each thing the tags produce, for talking about the game.

Fleet and space actions — attacker in the Space Band

Orbit to ground — attacker in the Space Band, target one Band down

Ground to orbit

One row, and that is the point: the Space Band boundary (§11.3) leaves a Capital Spacecraft as the only thing targetable in orbit from the ground.

On the ground