Core Space
Core Space Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Game Overview
- Components
- Glossary
- Terrain
- Crew Dashboards
- Key Concepts
- Combat Dice
- Chance and Randomisation
- Line of Sight
- Cover
- Range
- Equipment, Icons and Statistics
- Equipment Tokens
- Weapon Statistics
- Setting Up the Game
- Ending a Mission
- Order of Play
- Trader Phase
- Move
- Assault Actions
- Armour
- Close Assault
- Ranged Assault
- Knock Back
- Search
- Persuade
- Reload
- Interact
- Other Actions
- Effortless Actions
- Throwing Items
- Blast Weapons
- Using Skills
- Defeated Characters
- Purge Phase
- NPC Phase
- Civilians
- Joining Crews
- Missions
- Choosing a Mission
- More Ways to Play
- Example Mission Briefing – Salvage Run (1-4 Players)
- Selecting a Crew
- Campaigns
- Ships
- Upgrades
- Extraction Phase
- Advancement Phase
- Trade Phase
- Trading Posts
- Hiring Crew
- Maintenance Phase
- Reference – Skills
- Reference – Icons
- Equipment Notes
- Quick Reference
Game Overview
Core Space is played in a series of narrative missions. Your group of Traders will be presented with a set of objectives and a map of the area, showing how to set out your terrain. They will need to venture out from their ship, complete the objectives and get back to safety. Objectives may be to collect intel from a local civilian, sabotage equipment, or simply scavenge enough to trade for supplies.
It is up to the players whether they want to work cooperatively with the other crews in the area, or attack them and try to take the objectives for themselves. It's not quite that simple either; allegiances may change as the game progresses as one player realises they need help to escape!
During each round of the game each crew will alternate taking actions with their Traders – moving, shooting and exploring the board. The Traders' abilities are tracked using the game's unique Character Dashboard, and the success of their actions is determined by rolling the various dice.
When the Traders have taken their actions, it's the NPCs' turn. NPCs are non-player characters controlled by the game's mechanics. The most common NPCs are the Purge – the deadly alien enemy sent to destroy all life – but you may also encounter Civilians, Gangers or the troopers of the Galactic Corps.
While all of this is going on, the game's Hostility level will be rising. As each peg is placed into the Hostility Tracker, the Purge will become even more dangerous, as will the unpredictable events coming out of the game's event deck each round.
Components
Here you will find reference images of the game's most common components. These will be explored in more detail in the coming pages.
Crew of the Black Maria: Jace, Lars, Renton, Beck.
Crew of the Ion Hope: Arianna, Roykirk, Gak, Tirgarde.
Purge: Harvesters, Devastators, Assassin, Live One.
Civilians.
Clip Bases – These are supplied in two colours and will fit over the bases of your miniatures to easily tell them apart during a game.
Turn Counter – This counter is based on a Galactic Credit. It is used to mark the controlling player in each round, but can also be flipped like a coin during games to make decisions such as who goes first.
Event Cards.
Range Ruler – This is double-sided – one side showing movement distances, and the other for shooting.
Target Counter – This is used to mark a point on the board, such as for a blast weapon.
Kill Point Counter.
Entry Point Markers.
Dry-Wipe Pen – You will need one of these if you are playing a campaign, allowing you to write on your Character Boards to show your Traders' advancement.
Chance Die – This is used for randomising various game effects, and is also used for activating Civilians.
Combat Dice – These are used for attacking enemies. The blue die is always used first, adding the red dice for more powerful attacks.
Purge Die – This is used to determine the number of Purge characters that will arrive on the board – 0, 1, or 2.
Security Die – This is used when activating Security Wardens.
Trader Boards – These boards are double sided – one side is a playable Trader, and the other a Civilian NPC.
Ship Boards.
Crew Dashboards.
Hostility Tracker – The Hostility Board fits into the Hostility Tracker.
Token Pouch / Equipment Tokens – These represent the various weapons and items that you will find in Core Space. Most of the tokens can be stored together in the token pouch, but there are some that you should keep separately and only use when instructed:
- Large rectangular tokens
- Green objective tokens
- Rare items – any tokens with the rare icon on the back
Pegs – The pegs are used in the Hostility Tracker and Crew Dashboards to track various statistics and effects.
Search/Reminder Counters – These are double sided. They are placed on the board during the game search side up to show that a location has been searched. On the other side, the blue and red reminder faces are used to remind you of certain game effects – blue for positive effects such as extra actions, and red for negative effects such as missing your turn.
Activation/Assistance Counters – These are double sided. They are placed on a Character Board activation side up to remind you that a character has activated. On the other side, the assistance face is used to mark a character that has been defeated and needs help.
Florence
Florence is the Trader term for Universal Assets (UA), Galactic Credits or indeed any form of currency. It is a slang word derived from the term cash-flow, leading to the well-known Trader phrase, "to go with the 'Flo", in other words to always follow the money. Many Trader captains carry old coins in a superstitious belief that it will help them navigate the dangers of Core Space. The Turn Counter represents the coin many captains carry.
Glossary
Throughout this book you will see certain words that have a specific meaning within the context of the rules. It will be beneficial to know them in advance, so they are listed for you here:
- Player: The real-life person controlling a crew.
- Character: Any single miniature.
- Crew: The group of characters controlled by a player.
- Trader: A character that is part of a player's crew.
- NPC: A non-player character controlled by the game's AI, including the Purge.
- Rank: The power level of an NPC. Higher-ranked NPCs tend to arrive after but act before lower-ranked ones.
- Mission: A single game of Core Space.
- Round: A collection of phases that repeat throughout the game, allowing all characters to act.
- Phase: A specific part of a round where certain groups of characters will act and certain rules will come into play.
- Activation: The prompt for a character to take their turn.
- Turn: The time in which an individual character is activated and takes actions.
- Action: A self-contained activity that a character does. The number of actions a character can take in a turn will be limited, unless the action is marked as 'free'.
- Enemy: A character from an opposing crew or group of NPCs. Characters will often be restricted from taking certain actions while enemies are nearby. Civilians are never considered to be enemies except by the Purge, who consider everyone an enemy!
- Engaged: Enemy characters in base contact with each other are engaged.
- Attack: A dice roll made against a character in order to inflict damage. Usually made via an Assault action, but attacks can be generated from other sources as well.
- Target: The focus of a particular attack or action.
- Hit: Potential damage represented by hit icons on the combat dice. Hits can be affected by rules such as armour and cover.
- Damage: Actual wounds sustained from hits after other rules have been accounted for.
- Prone: A character that has fallen or been knocked off their feet. The model will be laid on its side.
- Defeated: A character who is out of the game, at least temporarily. Defeated Traders are laid on their side but left on the board. Defeated NPCs are removed from play.
- Scatter: Moving a character or item in a random direction determined by the Chance Die (see page 13).
- UA: Universal Asset – the game's currency, used for hiring crew members and trading equipment between games.
- May: Any rule that uses the word 'may' is optional, and the player(s) can choose not to use it if they wish. Otherwise, all rules must be applied in full, if possible.
Terrain
The Core Space game is built to work with Battle Systems' modular terrain. It is made from sturdy full colour board and can be assembled without glue or prior hobby knowledge.
Before playing for the first time you will need to remove all of the walls, small terrain pieces, character boards and counters from the card sheets. Some of the small terrain pieces require basic assembly.
The Core Space starter set comes with enough terrain to fill a standard 2 foot by 2 foot gaming area, and to play all of the standard missions.
Each Core Space mission comes with a map showing how to set up the board. The large rectangular pieces are walls, and they are assembled in a simple grid to match the map, using the plastic clips provided.
The edge of the playing area is considered to be a wall for rules purposes, but you do not need to physically place walls around the edges.
Depending on the number of players available to help, you will need to allow approximately 20 minutes to set up the playing area before each game, and a further 10 minutes to set up the rest of the game components.
Standalone Terrain
As well as walls, Core Space also uses smaller pieces of standalone terrain. In the game these pieces are used to provide cover from shooting attacks and can also represent key objectives in your missions.
These standalone pieces often require assembly in order for them to stand upright on the board. The pieces simply push together, but may need to be bent or folded first.
These pieces of terrain have different uses in game.
Pieces such as a conduit, locker or bunk are intended to be fixed in place and will often clip onto the walls. These pieces can be used as cover but usually won't have any additional rules.
Smaller pieces such as chairs, tables and crates will still provide a limited amount of cover, but can also be moved around the board and/or Interacted with, if you wish.
Crates in particular are very important in the Core Space rules. Crates will usually contain equipment that your Traders can pick up and use. At the start of each game you will fill the crates with a random selection of items, and you will need to Search these during the game to see what you can find.
Crew Dashboards
Each Trader has their own Board, which fits into the Crew Dashboard. The dashboard is split into four sections: Trader Board, Items, Class and Pegs.
Trader Board
The Trader Board shows the Trader's statistics and personal details. Note that the reverse of the board shows the Trader in their Civilian guise.
Character species and type. The character's species is listed at the top of the board, and the type (Captain or Crew) at the bottom. Certain rules may refer to these attributes.
Statistics. These are depicted with a series of circles and include the character's Health, Action, Skill, and Career.
- Health represents the character's toughness and stamina and shows how much damage they can take before they are defeated.
- Action shows how many actions the character can make each round.
- Skill shows how many specialised Skills the character can use in a game.
- Career represents everything the character has learned during their time in the crew and affects how many Skills they can learn, as well as improving their other statistics later in a campaign.
Default vs. potential. You will notice that each statistic has some spaces filled out with an inner circle (default), and some left blank (potential).
Default spaces represent the character's starting abilities – the inner circles should be filled in with a dry-wipe pen at the start of a game.
Potential spaces represent the character's ability to improve in a campaign. These spaces can be filled in to add points to the character's statistics.
A character can never exceed their potential, but they can drop below their default!
Points. Points are the value of a character's total worth, used when selecting a crew. The Points value is located at the bottom left corner of the Character Board.
Base abilities. In addition to any Skills granted by their class, some characters also start with some Skills or abilities as standard, shown in the bottom left. Skills will be pre-marked with a certain level (see the Class Board) and work in exactly the same way. You may also see some additional icons.
Armour slot. The Trader Board has an area in the bottom right corner that may be punched out, leaving space for an item, specifically, armour. Armour will grant additional protection to the character when attacked, and its rules will only apply when placed in this slot.
However, don't discard the piece that you have removed! Many characters have an additional base ability in this area which will be in effect whenever they are not weighed down by armour.
Items
The items that a character starts with or collects during a game are stored here. There is an actual, physical limit – the character cannot carry more items than the tray can hold! Larger items such as rifles take up more space, so use this area wisely.
Class
The Class Board represents the character's profession and specialisation, and therefore the type of Skills available to them.
Each of the coloured icons represents a Skill. The spaces around it can be marked with the dry-wipe pen to show the character's proficiency with that Skill, from Level 1 to Level 3. When selecting a crew the player will fill in a number of these spaces equal to the Trader's current Career points to show their starting Skills. As the character's Career advances in a campaign, more points can be allocated to the Class Board to learn new Skills or upgrade existing ones.
Pegs
The statistics on the Trader Board are fixed during play, and the in-game action instead takes place down here. These holes are filled with the plastic pegs to show the fluctuating state of the character's abilities.
The top row shows the character's Health, using the green pegs. At the start of a game pegs are added to match the character's current Health statistic and pegs may be removed or added during the game as the character takes damage. If there are no pegs remaining on their Board, the character is defeated. Unless stated otherwise, a character can never exceed their current Health statistic.
The second row shows the character's Skill, using the purple pegs. Like Health, this is set at the start of the game to match the Skill statistic. If there are no pegs remaining, the character may no longer use Skills.
The bottom row shows the amount of ammo carried by the character, using the yellow pegs. Characters always start the game with a full magazine of ammo, but this will change as weapons are fired and reloaded. If there are no pegs remaining, the character may not fire their ranged weapons.
Example
- Arianna has a default Health statistic of 5 but the potential to raise it to 7. It is currently at 6.
- She has 2 default Actions, but the potential for 3.
- She has a default of 4 Skill points, and the potential for 6, with 5 marked currently.
- She has a default Career of 4 points, currently has 10 points, and has a maximum of 15!
- Arianna's base ability is the Reflexes Skill, Level 1.
- In addition, she has a movement icon in her armour slot. If she is not wearing armour, she will be able to Move an extra inch.
- Arianna is carrying a Common Pistol and an Energy Baton.
- Arianna has allocated her 10 Career points to 7 different Skills in the Hunter class:
- She is Level 1 in Marksman, Disarm, Ambush, Fade to Black, and Evade.
- She is Level 2 in Combat Expert.
- She is Level 3 in Weapons Expert.
- Arianna will start a game with 6 Health pegs (equal to her Health statistic), 5 Skill pegs (equal to her Skill statistic), and 7 ammo pegs (a full magazine).
Key Concepts
Hostility
The Hostility Tracker is used to gauge Purge interference. The higher the Hostility, the more deadly and numerous the Purge become. The tracker increases by 1 point each round, marked using the black pegs, and will increase by a further 1 following the first shot fired by a Trader each round (if any), as the noise draws the Purge closer.
There are 7 Hostility levels:
- Relaxed
- Guarded
- Watch Your Back
- Cover Me
- Charge
- Kill Me
- Purge!
Each of these includes a number of icons indicating the character type(s) that arrive in the Purge and NPC Phases.
If an icon is followed by a number, that many characters will be placed. If the icon is followed by a die icon, roll that die to determine how many characters of that type will appear.
The Hostility level will also determine the effect of Event Cards each turn.
If the Hostility level reaches Purge!, turn the Purge Board over to the 'Charged' side – from now on all Purge characters will have increased statistics.
The Hostility Board
You will notice that the Hostility Board has two sides. The side shown here should be used for any games using only the core set. The reverse side should be used when you want a bit more of a challenge and have incorporated the additional NPC and Purge types into your games.
Icon Key
- Harvester
- Devastator
- Assassin
- Live One
- Annihilator
- Mother
- Civilian
- Ganger
- Galactic Corps
- Purge Die
- Chance Die
Combat Dice
There are two types of combat dice; blue and red. These are mostly used for Assault, but you may sometimes need to roll them for other reasons, as detailed in specific rules.
The blue die is always used as part of a roll. If only a single dice is required, only the blue dice is rolled.
If more than one die is required, all additional dice will be red. Red dice are not quite as powerful as blue dice.
There are two different icons on the dice:
- Each hit icon is a hit.
- Each misfire icon is a misfire, and will often have an adverse effect.
- Blanks are failures and have no effect.
Chance and Randomisation
In Core Space you will often be asked to choose a crew, Trader or item at random. This is done using the numbers on the Chance Die to generate a result. Ignore the icons and arrows on the die for these rolls.
This is a simple way of deciding random actions and keeps the game moving fast. If you come up against a situation not covered by the rules, or something that you can't decide on, just roll the Chance Die to see what happens.
Example
One member of the Black Maria is affected by a technical failure. There are 3 crew members in play. Roll the Chance Die. On a 1-2 it's Jace, 3-4 it's Lars and on a 5-6 it's Renton. If there were 4 members you could roll 1 for Jace, 2 for Lars, 3 for Renton and 4 for Beck, re-rolling the dice on a 5 or 6.
Random Directions and Scatter
The Chance Die can also be used to determine random directions – the chosen direction will be shown by the arrow on the die face after it has stopped moving.
Some rules will ask you to scatter an item or character. To do so, simply roll the Chance Die. The item or character in question is moved a number of inches from its current position using the number and direction shown on the die. If this would cause it to hit a wall, another model, or any other obstruction, it will move as far as it can and stop.
Line of Sight
There are various rules in Core Space that require miniatures to see each other, such as firing a ranged weapon. This is called line of sight (or LoS for short).
For a character to draw line of sight, you must be able to trace a straight line from the centre of their base to any part of the target character. You can use the range ruler to trace this line to ensure it is straight.
If you cannot draw a line to any part of the target without being completely obstructed by another character, wall, or a piece of terrain at least as tall as the target, line of sight cannot be drawn.
Note that all characters are considered to be the same height for LoS purposes unless they are Massive, and the entire area above their base blocks LoS, regardless of their pose.
If you can only draw a line to part of the target, or the line is obstructed by a piece of terrain shorter than the target (such as a crate), check the cover rules to see if line of sight can be drawn.
The exception to this rule is that characters can ignore pieces of terrain shorter than themselves if they are in base contact (so a model in contact with a crate can fire over it without penalty for example). The same applies to other members of their crew in base contact – it is assumed that they will get their comrade to duck!
Diagram Examples
Bio-Tag Rifle example: Character A's LoS to target B is only partially blocked as B can be seen through the window – refer to the cover rules. LoS to target C is completely blocked by the wall. A's LoS to D is clear.
Magnum Pistol example: A has clear LoS to target C. However, A's LoS to B and D is partially obscured by the terrain – refer to the cover rules.
Cover
Often terrain and walls will partially block line of sight, but enough of the target may be visible for a shot to be taken. In this case, the target is in cover. The amount of cover may have an impact on the attack or action being made as follows:
- Insufficient cover: If 25% of the target or less is obstructed, this is insufficient cover. Line of sight can be drawn as normal and no further rules will apply.
- Partial cover: If between 25% and 90% of the target is obstructed (such as them hiding behind a crate or bulkhead), this is partial cover. Line of sight can be drawn, but additional rules may apply (see Ranged Assault, where partial cover will reduce hits by 1).
- Full cover: If 90% or more of a target is obstructed, they are in full cover – line of sight cannot be drawn at all.
Note that prone characters will be affected by cover based on their prone position, so a waist-high crate may provide full cover to a prone character.
If you cannot decide what type of cover a target is in, roll the Chance Die – on a 1-3 it's the larger amount of cover, and on a 4-6 it's the smaller amount.
Range
For most weapons line of sight isn't enough – they will also be limited by range – depending on the distance to the target the weapon may be more or less powerful, or be unable to hit at all. This is measured using the range ruler, from the edge of the shooting character's base to the edge of the target's base.
- Short range is up to 5 inches.
- Medium range is from 5-13 inches.
- Long range is 13 inches or more – anywhere further than the length of the ruler.
Equipment, Icons and Statistics
Throughout Core Space you will see various numbers and icons – on Trader Boards, equipment tokens, or in this rulebook. Here is a quick guide to explain what they mean.
Base Ability Icons
Some Traders and other characters will have starting abilities that give them bonuses in the game. The most common ones are:
- Move icon: Whenever making a Move action, this character can move an additional number of inches equal to the number inside this icon. They are still limited to the 11 inch maximum.
- Unarmed close assault icon: Whenever making a Close Assault action, this player rolls dice equal to the number inside this icon when unarmed. If they have a weapon, they will use its dice instead.
- Armour icon: This character has a permanent physical armour value equal to the number inside this icon, when they are not wearing armour. If they wear armour, they use its value instead.
- Charge icon: When this character moves into contact with an enemy, it gets an immediate free Close Assault action.
- Climbing icon: Although you will see this icon on a few boards, for your first few games you can ignore it. It is used for the Climbing and Jumping rules.
- Linked actions icon: Characters with this icon have their actions 'linked'. This means that any actions they take in their turn must be of the same type. For example, a character with two actions could move twice or shoot twice, but couldn't move and shoot in the same turn.
NPC Statistics
Unlike Traders, NPCs do not make complex actions or use items, so their statistics are much simpler. There are four values that you will see across all NPC Boards, whether it's the Purge, the Galactic Corps, or the lowly Civilians. These boards should be kept to the side of the playing area in view of all players.
- Actions: This is the number of actions that an NPC can take each turn. Note that NPCs do not always use their actions when they activate.
- Close Assault: This is the number of dice that an NPC will roll for a Close Assault action.
- Ranged Assault: This is the number of dice that an NPC will roll for a Ranged Assault action. All NPCs can shoot at up to medium range, except the Purge who can shoot at any range.
- Armour: This is the physical armour value of the NPC and will modify any hits made against them.
- Persuasion: This value is used when Traders attempt to Persuade the NPC to do something.
While some NPCs can carry items, they cannot use them – they will only use the statistics above.
Equipment Tokens
Equipment is one of the most important features of Core Space, represented by the small square and rectangular tokens in the game – each of these is a weapon or more specialised item that can be carried by Traders as well as other characters.
You will notice that the tokens come in a variety of colours. This denotes their type, as follows:
- Blue: Weapons – these will be held in your item tray and used to make Assault actions.
- Yellow: Armour – can be held in the item tray, but its rules will only apply when in the armour slot.
- Orange: Special Items – this covers any other equipment used during the game, from Ammo Mags, to Medi-Stims, to Sensor Goggles.
- Purple: Non-combat equipment, such as money or ship parts – these items are not used during the game, but they will be very useful for trading and maintaining your ship when the mission is finished, so you'll need to allow space for them in your item tray.
- Green: Objectives – these tokens are only used where specified in missions, to represent a vital asset that the crews are trying to retrieve. Usually a Trader will have to carry this off of the board to win.
On the back of each equipment token you will see the cost of the item. This is used when trading in a campaign.
Weapon Statistics
Like characters, weapons and armour also have statistics, shown below. Many items will have more specialised icons as well. These will each be covered in the appropriate section of the rules and can also be found in the reference section.
Ranged Weapons
This is the number of combat dice used by the weapon in a Ranged Assault action, at short, medium and long range respectively. If there is no number shown, the weapon cannot be used at that range.
Close Assault Weapons
This is the number of combat dice used by the weapon in a Close Assault action, when making a standard or heavy hit respectively.
This is the number of combat dice used when throwing the weapon. If there is no number shown, the weapon cannot be used in that way.
Armour
- Physical: A physical armour value will reduce the number of hits against the wearer by the value shown.
- Shield: A shield armour value will reduce the number of hits by the value shown, but if the value is beaten the shield is inactive for the rest of the mission.
- Combat: A combat value means that this armour allows the wearer to make Close Assault actions with it when unarmed. When using a weapon, they will use the weapon's dice as normal.
Blast Weapons
This is the number of combat dice or effect used on the target of the attack.
The smaller numbers show the number of combat dice used on characters within 1 and 2 inches of the target respectively.
Setting Up the Game
Core Space is played using a series of missions – scenarios with pre-set objectives. These can be played as a continuous narrative (see Campaigns), but most people start out by playing one-off games. That's what we will set up here.
Note: Some missions may have slight variations on these set-up rules. If so, this will be stated in the mission briefing.
To set up a game, follow these steps in order:
- Read through the Missions section of this book, or the mission briefings that come with other Core Space sets, and select the one you want to play. Each has a narrative intro to set the scene, which will help you make your decision. For your first game, we suggest you start with the Salvage Run mission.
- Lay out the gaming mat(s) and terrain as shown on the map. However, do not place the cargo crates just yet. The Set Up Diagram for the mission will show how many of each token to put inside each crate. It may also specify certain 'Key Item' tokens to set aside before starting.
- Take all the large equipment tokens from your collection and put them into the token pouch. Without looking, draw the number shown in the mission's diagram for each large cargo crate on the board and place the tokens inside the crate. The remaining large equipment tokens should be removed from the pouch and put back in the box – they will not be used for this mission. Note that many missions call for specific tokens (usually rare ones) to be part of the random selection before the tokens are placed in the crates.
- Now place all the small equipment tokens into the pouch. Without looking, draw the number shown in the mission's diagram for each small and large cargo crate on the board and place them inside the crates as above. As above, be sure to include any rare or special tokens in this selection as detailed in the mission. Don't forget to put the lids back on. Leave the remaining equipment tokens in the pouch – they will be used during the game.
- The players then take it in turns to randomly place the cargo crates onto the board in the positions shown on the map.
- Choose which Events will be used for this game. Shuffle the Event Cards and place the deck face down at the side of the board.
- Place the Entry Points around the board as shown on the map.
- Place the Purge Board and Purge miniatures at the side of the playing area.
- Decide between the players which NPCs will be used for this game, and place their miniatures and Character Boards at the side of the playing area.
- If there are two players, use the Turn Counter as a coin toss to determine which player will deploy their crew first. If there are more than two players, each player should roll the Chance Die. The player that rolls highest goes first (re-rolling ties). The winning player can choose any airlock door on the map to be their starting point. The other players then choose their starting points, proceeding clockwise around the table. Note that in a campaign, the winner of the previous game can choose their airlock door instead of rolling the Chance Die or flipping the Turn Counter.
- Each player should now select their crew. The players place their dashboards in front of them with the appropriate Trader and Class Boards in place. Their Ship Board should be placed airlock side up in line with their chosen airlock location, and the miniatures should be placed onto the Ship Board.
- Each player should place pegs into their crew dashboards – Health and Skill pegs equal to the characters' statistics, and full magazines of ammo. Unless playing a Rescue Mission, pegs are always reset to their full values at the start of a game, even in a campaign.
- Finally, it's time to start the game. The player that deployed last should take the Turn Counter – they will go first in the first round.
Ending a Mission
Missions will list various objectives, but these do not necessarily have to be completed to end a mission. Sometimes it will be all you can do to escape with your lives!
Unless specified otherwise in the mission briefing, a game will end immediately when all Traders are either defeated or are back on board their ships.
If one crew was entirely wiped out (all of their Traders were defeated), that player automatically loses.
Otherwise, in a one-off game, if the Primary Objective was completed, the player(s) that completed it are the winner(s). If it was not completed, the winner is the player with the most Traders still alive. If it's still a tie, add up the sale price of all of your crew's equipment tokens (the second number on the back of the token). The winner is the one with the most money.
Of course, in a campaign it's not quite so simple – you can lose a game but still come out on top in the end if you play it right! The campaigns section will go into this in more detail.
Order of Play
Each mission is played in a series of rounds, during which all characters on the board will get to act. Each round is broken down into the following phases:
- Hostility
- Trader
- Purge
- NPC
- Assessment
1. Hostility Phase
As the game goes on, Purge interference will increase as they become aware of your presence. In this phase, start by adding 1 black peg into the first empty space on the Hostility Tracker.
Note: In multiplayer games, you must add 1 peg for every three crews, rounding up, so you would add 1 peg per round with 1-3 crews, and 2 pegs per round with 4-6 crews.
Then, the player with the Turn Counter draws an Event Card. Random events may help or impede the players' progress. Some are merely a nuisance, but others can be deadly and you will need to be ready for them.
Depending on the current Hostility level, the card may have different effects. Resolve all the effects detailed for the current Hostility level. Once the card is resolved, place it in a discard pile to the side of the board, face up. If the deck ever runs out, shuffle the discard pile to make a new deck.
Note the following:
- If you draw an Assistance card, found in various Core Space expansions, do not show the other players. These cards are kept by the player with the Turn Counter to use later.
- If a card allows multiple players to make an action, the player with the Turn Counter goes first, proceeding clockwise.
- If there is no target for a rule, the rule has no effect. If part of a card's text can be resolved but not all of it, resolve as much as possible and then discard the card.
- If for any reason, no part of a card's text can be resolved (for example a card that moves a Civilian when there are none), ignore the text. If there is an icon at the end of the paragraph, it will be used to place a new NPC instead, if possible. The NPC will arrive as detailed in the Purge Phase and NPC Phase rules as normal. Whether an NPC is placed or not, shuffle the unresolved card back into the deck and draw another.
2. Trader Phase
In the Trader Phase, players will take turns to activate their Traders.
3. Purge Phase
In the Purge Phase, new Purge constructs will arrive on the board and then the Purge will attack.
4. NPC Phase
In the NPC Phase, all other NPCs controlled by the game, such as Civilians and the Galactic Corps, will act.
5. Assessment Phase
In the Assessment Phase the board is tidied up ready for the following round.
- All Activation Counters are removed.
- Any other effects that state they happen 'at the end of the round' will happen now.
- The Turn Counter is passed to the next player, moving clockwise around the table – they will be in control for the following round.
Trader Phase
In the Trader Phase, the players take it in turns to activate their Traders. The player holding the Turn Counter goes first, and then play continues clockwise around the table, each player activating one character at a time until all Traders have been activated.
The Player's Turn
When it is a player's turn to activate a Trader, they do the following:
- Choose one of their Traders to activate. This cannot be a character that has been marked with an Activation Counter.
- Take actions with the Trader, allowing them to move, shoot, interact with the terrain, and more. The following pages list the available actions in detail.
- When you are finished, place an Activation Counter on the Trader's dashboard to remind you that they cannot act again this round.
- Play passes to the next player clockwise around the table. When all Traders on the board have been activated, move on to the Purge Phase.
Actions
A Trader's Action statistic shows how many actions they can take in a turn. Most characters have two, but some have more. You can choose to use all, some, or none of them when activating your character.
The most common actions that can be taken are as follows:
- Move
- Ranged Assault
- Close Assault
- Knock Back
- Search
- Reload
- Persuade
- Interact
Each of these is detailed on the following pages, along with a few other less common actions. Unless specified otherwise, there is no restriction to the number of times that a particular action can be taken, or the order they can be taken in.
In addition, a character can take effortless actions – these do not count towards your action limit, but you can only take one of them per turn.
Prone Characters
Prone characters cannot take any actions other than to Stand Up, after which they can act normally.
Defeated Characters
Defeated characters cannot take any actions at all until they have been revived by another character.
Move
Movement in Core Space is measured in inches, using the range ruler provided. Characters can Move in any direction, but cannot Move through or over terrain unless specified otherwise. Characters can Move through other friendly characters, but cannot move through enemies without permission (note that enemy NPCs will never give permission).
When a character takes a Move action, they can move up to 4 inches, as marked on the ruler. This is measured from the edge of their base.
You will note however that the maximum Move is 11 inches. No matter how many actions a character spends Moving, and no matter what abilities they may have, they can never voluntarily Move more than 11 inches in a single round (they may still be Knocked Back by an enemy or moved involuntarily by an effect).
Attacks of Opportunity
If a character leaves base contact with one or more enemies, either at the start or during their Move, all standing, engaged enemies can make a free Close Assault action against the moving character, regardless of whether they have already activated this turn. This action is resolved immediately and does not use any of their actions.
Entering and Leaving the Ship
Traders will start the game inside their ship's airlock. To enter the board, their first action of the game must be a Move action, measured from the airlock door.
Traders that wish to return to their ship can also do so with a Move action, again measured to the airlock door at the board edge. Note that once a character has left the board and returned to their ship, they are out of the game and cannot return.
Enemy Traders and NPCs may not enter a player's ship without their permission.
Example
Lars wants to enter the nearby corridor using two Move actions. He cannot move through the wall and the nearby crate, but he can go around them as shown, up to the 4 inch limit per action.
Assault Actions
An Assault action allows one character to attack another. There are two types of Assault action – a Close Assault action made with a character's fists or a hand-to-hand combat weapon, or a Ranged Assault action made with a ballistic, chemical or energy weapon.
Both types are similar in execution, except for the positioning of the attacker and their target. Each allows the character to make an attack.
Attacks
Close Assault attacks can only be made against enemies in base contact with your character.
Ranged Assault attacks are made at a distance, against targets within LoS and range of your character's weapon. They cannot be made against targets in base contact with your character.
Otherwise both types of attack are made in the same way:
- Roll combat dice for the weapon as shown on its token (or on your character profile if fighting unarmed). The number of hit icons rolled are your hits.
- Apply any applicable modifiers to the roll such as cover or armour, altering the number of hits scored. Some special rules and Skills may apply further modifiers.
- Any remaining hits cause damage.
- If targeting a Trader, reduce the target's Health by 1 for each point of damage. If their Health reaches zero the character is defeated – lay the character on their side. They will remain there until moved, revived, or killed.
- If targeting an NPC, unless stated otherwise the character is instantly defeated and removed from play if they take damage. Any items they were carrying are left on the ground where they fell.
Note that certain rules or cards will also call for attacks to be made against a target. These are carried out in the same way, but will specify the number of dice to roll rather than referring to a character or weapon. Unless stated otherwise, such attacks do not have an origin and therefore cover modifiers do not apply.
Misfires
The misfire icon on the dice signifies a misfire or weapon malfunction.
If two or more misfire icons are rolled during an attack, the weapon jams or breaks and no damage is caused.
Ranged weapons are jammed – rotate the token 180° in your dashboard. Clearing a jammed ranged weapon costs 1 action.
Close assault weapons are broken – flip the item face down in the tray in your dashboard.
Broken weapons cannot be used again during this game. They can only be repaired during the game with a Repair action. Otherwise, they will be repaired automatically after the game if playing a campaign.
If you are fighting unarmed, or your weapon has a Reliable icon, misfire results have no effect.
The Live One
Defeating a Purge Live One is a feat worthy of renown. The first Trader to defeat a Live One in a mission takes the Live One Kill Point Counter.
This counter is exchanged in the Advancement Phase after the game.
Armour
Hits sustained in an attack can be reduced by armour. There are two types of armour, physical and shield. Each token will have numbers shown as Physical, Shield and Combat.
Physical armour has a permanent affect while it is worn, reducing the number of hits scored in an attack against the wearer by the physical armour value on the counter. For example, if a character with a Combat Vest (physical armour value of 1) suffers 2 hits, the armour will deflect/absorb 1 of those hits, but the other will get through and cause damage. This will happen each time the character is attacked.
Shield armour, however, is energy-based, and if beaten will be rendered inactive for the rest of the game.
If a character with shield armour takes hits up to and including the shield armour value, the attack is resolved just like physical armour above. However, if enough hits get through to damage the wearer, the shield has been overloaded and cannot be used for the rest of the mission – flip the token face down. It will recharge between missions in a campaign. For example, if a character with a Shield Belt (shield armour value of 1) suffers 1 hit, it will be deflected as normal and the armour will continue to work. If the character suffers 2 hits, 1 would be deflected, 1 would cause damage, and the armour would be rendered inactive.
If for any reason a character has both physical and shield armour at the same time, they will use the highest value available. If these values are equal, the shield armour takes priority.
Some armour will also allow the character to attack with it in Close Assault.
Close Assault
To attempt a Close Assault attack the enemy must be engaged with your character. You may either fight unarmed (if possible) or choose one of your character's close assault weapons to attack with. You will then choose whether you want to make a standard hit or a heavy hit, and roll the number of dice shown.
Standard hits ignore misfire results. Heavy hits have a chance of breaking the weapon and misfire results will apply as normal.
Cover does not apply to Close Assault attacks, but armour will apply as normal.
Note that some armour includes an unarmed combat icon – this can be used in a Close Assault attack like any other weapon. These icons do not stack – a character will use one or the other.
Attacks of Opportunity
Don't forget that if a character is engaged with an enemy and moves away, the enemy can make a free Close Assault attack against it, following all the usual rules. This attack is resolved immediately, does not use any of that character's actions for the turn, and can be done even if the attacking character has already activated.
Example
Roykirk uses his first action to move into base contact with Beck, and his second to attack Beck with his Combat Knife. This gives him one die. The player rolls, but the result is a blank – Roykirk has failed to hit!
When it is Beck's turn to activate, he may choose to spend an action attacking back with his own Combat Knife. However, to give him a chance to really do some damage, he can instead use the weapon's heavy hit option, rolling two dice. One of his hits will be deflected by Roykirk's Combat Vest, but with two dice he has the potential to roll 3 hits! There is a chance that the weapon might break, but the player thinks it's worth the risk.
If the characters survive the attacks, they will remain engaged and continue to make Close Assault actions until one of them chooses to Move away (attracting an attack of opportunity), or one of them is defeated.
Ranged Assault
To attempt a Ranged Assault attack the target must be within range and LoS, and cannot be engaged with your character. If you are engaged with one or more other enemies while making a ranged attack, they may make an attack of opportunity against your character.
You must choose one of your character's ranged weapons to attack with, and roll a number of dice based on the range between the shooter and the target (short, medium and long).
The most common modifier applied to ranged attacks is cover. Partial cover will reduce the number of hits on a target by 1. This is always resolved before any other modifiers such as armour.
Important: Making a ranged attack reduces your ammo – remove an ammo peg from your dashboard.
After the first Ranged Assault action made by a Trader in each round, place the peg in the Hostility Tracker instead of discarding it. You can easily remember if this has happened already this round because the last peg in the Hostility Tracker will be yellow instead of black. Only one ammo peg is placed in the Hostility Tracker per round.
Shooting at Engaged Characters
Characters that are engaged with each other will be constantly moving, raining down blows or dodging aside, and they make for difficult targets when shooting.
If you want to shoot at an enemy engaged with another character, check the following:
- At short range, you can freely pick your target – you are close enough to pick your moment and aim straight.
- At medium or long range, after rolling to hit you must roll the Chance Die to determine which of the combatants you have hit (even if one of them is your own character!). Modifiers such as cover and armour are worked out based on the actual target hit.
Example
Renton fires at short range with an Outland Pistol, which allows him to roll one die. He is firing at rival Trader, Roykirk, who is in partial cover and has no armour.
The player rolls the blue combat die and gets a single hit. However, the partial cover reduces the number of hits by 1. With zero hits, the attack does no damage.
In the next player's turn Roykirk shoots back. Renton is in clear LoS with no cover, but is wearing a Combat Vest. Roykirk has a Combat Rifle, rolling two dice (one blue, one red this time). He rolls one hit result, and one misfire result.
A single misfire result will not jam the rifle and is ignored. Renton's armour will block one of Roykirk's 2 hits, but the other gets through. Renton takes 1 damage and loses a Health peg.
Common Ranged Attack Icons
- Burst Fire +1: You may add 1 combat die to your attack, but you must remove 1 extra ammo peg.
- Burst Fire +2: You may add up to 2 combat dice to your attack, but you must remove the same number of extra ammo pegs.
- Full Charge Shot: You may empty your weapon in one powerful blast. You must have at least 4 ammo pegs remaining, and all of them are removed. Based on the number of pegs removed, either: add 2 combat dice to your attack if 4-5 ammo pegs were removed, or add 3 combat dice to your attack if 6-7 ammo pegs were removed.
- Infinite Ammo: This weapon does not use any ammo pegs (and can be fired if you have no ammo), but one peg must still be added to the Hostility Tracker from the supply.
- Reliable: This weapon ignores misfire results.
- Target Lock: This weapon ignores partial cover, and can fire at engaged characters at any range without randomising the target.
- Silent: This weapon does not add a peg to the Hostility Tracker.
- Dangerous: After the shot is fired, the user suffers an attack with a number of combat dice equal to the number in the icon.
Knock Back
A Knock Back action allows you to shove or misdirect another character in base contact, pushing them away.
To Knock Back another character, roll dice equal to your character's unarmed combat value, if they have one, or one die if they do not.
For each hit scored, the defending model is pushed 1 inch directly away from the attacker. Armour has no effect. The attacker can follow up to remain in base contact with the defender if they wish, and have not already moved their maximum distance this round. None of these moves attract attacks of opportunity.
If you score 3 or more hits, the defending model is then knocked prone.
If the space directly behind the defender is blocked by other characters or terrain, they are pushed in the closest possible direction instead. If there is no space to push an opponent back, they do not move.
If you roll any misfire, you have misjudged the attack and stumble. The action is not resolved, and the opposing model can immediately make a free Knock Back action against you instead. If they also roll a misfire, there is no effect.
Massive characters (marked with the Massive icon) use the number within the icon like armour against Knock Backs, reducing the number of hits. They also add this many automatic hits to their own Knock Back attempts.
Knock Back Example
Gak is blocking a doorway. Lars wants to get through the doorway to have access to a crate on the other side, and so he decides to knock Gak backwards.
Lars does not have an unarmed combat value, so he rolls the standard 1 die for the attempt. He scores a hit, allowing Gak to be shoved back 1 inch, leaving the doorway clear.
Search
Search actions allow a character to look around and find new items, and will often be the key to victory in a mission. There are two types of Search:
Search a Crate
Characters may Search any cargo crate they are in base contact with, as long as they are not engaged with an enemy.
Open the cargo crate and remove the contents, keeping the tokens hidden from other players. The player can add any or all of the contents to their character's dashboard. Any remaining items, and any of their own items that they no longer want or have room for, are placed back into the cargo crate.
Crates can be Searched any number of times in a game.
General Search
Characters may also do a general Search of the room they are in, as long as they are not engaged with an enemy and there are no enemies in the room. A room is defined as an area completely surrounded by either walls or the edges of the board (ignoring doors and windows). Each room can only be Searched once per mission – add a Search Counter to the room to remind you that it cannot be Searched again.
When you make a general Search, take a random item from the token pouch. If you wish, you may add it to your character's dashboard. If you don't want the item, or you want to swap it with an item you already hold, place the discarded item on the floor, in base contact with your character.
Note: Most of the time the separation of 'rooms' on the board is obvious, but players may agree to separate very large rooms or long corridors into multiple areas that can each be Searched separately.
Persuade
NPCs can often be persuaded to do certain things, such as trade an item with you or even join your crew. To do this you must be in base contact with the NPC you are trying to Persuade and not engaged with any other enemy.
Characters can be persuaded to:
- Trade an item. If they are carrying an item you may swap it for one of your own (small items only). If they are not carrying an item you may draw one at random from the token pouch, and swap that instead. If you don't want the item drawn, leave it in the NPC's item slot and do not make a trade.
- Join your crew. If successful, the NPC will assist your crew by acting as one of your crew members for the remainder of the mission. See Joining Crews for full details. They can be activated in the current round.
- Make a mission-specific action. Some missions will list extra things that you can persuade an NPC to do. For example, you may need to persuade a Civilian in a bar to provide vital intel.
The Persuade icon represents how difficult an NPC is to persuade, and can be found on their Character Board.
You must decide what you are Persuading a character to do before rolling. Persuading a character works similarly to an attack. The number of combat dice rolled is equal to your character's Skill statistic (the value on their Character Board, not the remaining number of pegs). The Persuade value of the NPC works like armour, modifying your roll. If your roll beats their Persuade value and scores a hit, the action is successful.
Example
Roykirk has moved into contact with Kaori and wants her to join his crew. Kaori has a Persuade value of 2, and Roykirk's Skill is also 2 so he will roll 2 dice. The first two hits will be blocked by Kaori's strong will so he will need to roll at least three hits to convince her.
Reload
Reloading can only be done if a character is holding an ammo token and is not engaged with an enemy.
When you reload, add the number of ammo pegs listed on the token to your dashboard, up to the maximum. You will usually have to then flip the token or discard it and return it to the token pouch.
Interact
Some missions will specify additional actions that can be made. These will be specific to the mission or terrain being used – pick a lock, defuse a bomb, call an elevator, etc. Unless stated otherwise, to Interact with an object a Trader must be in contact with it and unengaged.
Other Actions
There are a few other less common actions that can be made by your crew, detailed below.
This list is not exhaustive – there may be other actions that are used in specific missions, or only when a character has a particular Skill. They will be detailed in the appropriate place.
Once you're familiar with the core rules, more actions can be found in the advanced rules section, such as Jumping, Climbing, and Repairing items.
Clear Jam
This action unjams a ranged weapon, and can only be done when not engaged with an enemy.
Don/Remove Armour
Armour cannot be put straight into your character's armour slot – it takes time to put on. When picked up it should be placed in the item tray. This action is used to move or swap an armour token from the tray to the armour slot or vice versa. This can only be done when not engaged with an enemy.
Stand Up
This action allows a prone character to return to their feet, standing the model upright. They act normally from then on.
Effortless Actions
Effortless actions are small things that a character may do while on the run or in the heat of combat, such as ducking out of the line of fire, or swiping an item from the floor as they run past.
Effortless actions are free – they do not count as one of your actions for the turn and can therefore be taken in addition to your regular actions. However, you can only make one of these free effortless actions per turn.
If you have already made an effortless action in your turn, you can make more but they will count towards your action limit instead. Alternatively, you can spend a Skill peg to use a second effortless action in a turn, but this will count as your Skill use for that turn.
Unless stated otherwise, effortless actions can only be made before or after other actions – they cannot be made mid-action.
Effortless actions include:
- Making a Proximity Move
- Using any item marked with the effortless icon
- Throwing an item
- Picking up, dropping or swapping an item in base contact
- Giving, taking or swapping an item with another character in base contact (if the other player allows it)
Just like regular actions, there may be further effortless actions available in certain missions or with certain Skills. Some Skills may even make regular actions effortless!
Proximity Moves
A Proximity Move represents a character ducking into cover, sidestepping an attack, leaning around a corner to shoot, or making the extra effort to charge into combat.
It allows a character to move up to 1 inch. This follows all the regular movement rules, and will still not allow you to move further than 11 inches in one round.
Effortless Items
Certain items will have the effortless icon, allowing them to be used effortlessly. The item token will state the effect that applies; for example:
- Sensor Goggles that allow you to Search effortlessly
- A Combat Stim that gives you 2 extra actions this turn
- A Medi-Stim that adds 2 Health pegs
Once the action is complete you will often have to then discard the token and return it to the token pouch.
Example
Jace uses his first action of the turn to Move into a room packed with Gangers, where there is also a Combat Knife on the floor. He moves into contact with it, and then uses an effortless action to pick it up.
As he still has Skill pegs available, he uses one to take a second effortless action to Throw the knife at a nearby ganger, who takes damage from the attack and is defeated.
Jace then uses his second action to Move out of the opposite doorway, out of LoS of the Gangers.
Throwing Items
Items that can be thrown will have the throwing icon.
Note that this includes many close assault weapons – launching a sword at someone may seem a bit desperate but it can be effective! Throwing an item requires LoS to the target, and most items can only be thrown at short range. If an item can be thrown at a longer distance there will be an M or L next to the icon.
Throwing a close assault weapon is resolved like a ranged attack, using the number of dice inside the icon. Cover, armour and any other modifiers apply as normal. The thrown weapon is removed from the character's dashboard and placed on the floor adjacent to the target. It can be picked up again from the floor like any other token.
Note that thrown weapons can break just like any others following 2 misfire results. Place the token face down as a reminder.
Blast Weapons
Blast weapons affect not only the target, but also anyone in the surrounding two inches.
They also do not have to target a character – their attacks will be resolved even if they hit a point on the floor. They can even be aimed at such a point if you wish, allowing the blast to hit characters that would otherwise be out of sight! These weapons are usually thrown, such as grenades, but there are other items and effects that use the blast rules.
When firing or throwing a blast weapon, first you need to determine the origin of the blast. Choose a target point or character within range and LoS as normal, and then roll the blue combat die as follows:
- Any number of hits: You have hit your target.
- Blank/No hits: You have missed – the origin of the blast is one inch away from your target in a direction of your choice.
- Misfire: You have seriously missed – the origin of the blast is up to two inches away from your target in a direction of the target player's choice (or the player with the Turn Counter if the target was an NPC).
If there is intervening terrain between the shooter and the target, reduce the number of hits rolled by 1.
Once the origin of the blast has been determined, roll combat dice for every character hit by the blast as shown in the diagram:
- Number of combat dice/effect used on target character (if any).
- Number of combat dice used on any character at least partially within 1 inch of the target point or character.
- Number of combat dice used on any character more than 1 inch away, but at least partially within 2 inches of the target point or character.
Blast effects cannot pass through walls. They will however pass through windows (breaking them as they go if appropriate) and across other terrain. Characters on the other side of the terrain hit by the blast will benefit from a cover modifier as usual.
Using Skills
Skills are specialised abilities that allow characters to do things over and above the standard rules.
Each character has their own skill set comprising of the Skills on their Class Board and often one or two on their Trader Board. Each Skill is represented by a coloured icon – a full list of these Skills can be found in the Reference – Skills section. The spaces around each Skill icon will be marked to show the character's proficiency with that Skill, from Level 1 to Level 3.
Once per round, Traders can spend Skill pegs to use one of their Skills. Some Skills are used during other actions, and other Skills will grant actions themselves – these are done before or after regular actions, but not during, and do not count as one of your actions for the turn.
To use a Skill, they must:
- Select which Skill they want to use and at which level.
- Remove a number of Skill pegs from their dashboard equal to the Skill's level. For example, using a level 2 Skill removes 2 pegs.
- Carry out the action listed in the Skill section for that Skill.
Unless otherwise noted in the Skill's description, Skills must be used during a character's turn.
If a Skill contradicts anything in the core rules, the Skill's description takes precedence.
Remember that Skill pegs can also be spent on effortless actions. This counts towards the once per round limit, and you will not be able to use any other Skills until the following round.
Passive Skills
Some Skills have rules marked as passive. Once a character has the relevant level of that Skill or above, this rule is always in effect, and does not require any Skill pegs to use. Passive Skills can still be used if a character has no Skill pegs remaining.
Reactions
Some Skills are marked as reactions. These will usually be used outside of your character's turn, reacting to an event or attack made by another character. The trigger condition for each Skill's use will be detailed in its description. This trigger condition, or any action currently being taken (for example an opponent making an attack) must be fully resolved before your Skill is used. The Skill must then be used immediately, before regular play resumes where it left off.
Reaction Skills can be used even if your character has already been activated this round.
Duplicate Skills
Some characters may have a Skill type on their profile as a base ability, and then have the same Skill type on their Class Board, or granted by an item. When determining what level of that Skill can be used, these are added together.
For example, Tirgarde has Ambush level 1 as a base ability, and can also learn two further levels of the Skill on the Crewman Class Board. If one of these levels was marked, he would be able to add it to the one from his base ability and use the Skill at level 2.
Note that sometimes these Skills might be in the character's armour slot. Therefore, putting armour on may reduce the level of a certain Skill available to a character, even if they also had it on their Class Board.
All Skills have a maximum level of 3.
Example
Arianna has the Fade to Black Skill. Let's assume she has spent some of her Career points on it and can use it up to level 2.
Arianna is in the open and is fired at by a Devastator in the Purge Phase. She only has 2 Health pegs left so the player is worried. The Fade to Black Skill allows the Trader to react and duck into cover when attacked, which could save her life in this situation.
Once the Devastator's target is established, Arianna spends one of her Skill pegs to Move behind a nearby crate. She is now in cover and can ignore one of the Devastator's hits, if it scores any.
To ensure her safety, the player could instead have used two Skill pegs to use the level 2 version of the Skill – Moving, and then ignoring all hits.
Defeated Characters
A defeated Trader is not necessarily dead – they may be unconscious or just too injured to move. Whatever the reason, they are incapacitated and cannot participate in the mission. A defeated Trader miniature should be laid on its side, and an Assistance Counter placed next to them to remind you that they are not just prone.
Hope is not lost however. The other Traders (from any crew) on the board can attempt to help (or not...).
Important: Unless stated otherwise, defeated Traders can never be targeted by an enemy or selected when a rule calls for a random Trader.
Reviving Characters
Items or Skills that restore Health such as a Medi-Stim or Medi-Pack can be used to revive a defeated Trader. However, they must be used by another Trader in base contact – the defeated Trader cannot use items themselves. The Trader using the item can take it from their own supplies, or from the defeated Trader's item tray.
A revived Trader restores the specified amount of Health and removes the Assistance Counter. They are left prone, but can activate as normal in the current round, if they haven't already.
Grab a Leg
If the crew don't have any medical supplies, defeated characters can also be carried or dragged back to their ships. The defeated character can be moved by other Traders using the rules for moving items.
Rob Them Blind
More ruthless players may opt to 'rescue' the defeated character's equipment rather than the character themselves. Other Traders in contact with the defeated Trader can make a Search action as if the Trader were a cargo crate – taking any items they want from the character's item tray. Any discarded items are left next to the defeated Trader.
End of a Mission
In a campaign, characters left defeated at the end of a mission must be extracted. If any of their equipment was stolen during the game, they will not get it back.
Purge Phase
In the Purge Phase, more Purge may arrive onto the board and attack. In each round the Purge are moved and rolled for by the player with the Turn Counter, unless that player's crew are the ones being attacked, in which case another player should roll.
The Purge Phase has two stages:
- Arrival
- Activation
Arrival
Each Hostility level includes a number of icons indicating the characters that could potentially arrive in this phase. While the Hostility is 'Relaxed' no Purge will arrive.
The Purge types are: Harvester, Devastator, Assassin, Live One, Gatherers, Annihilator.
If an icon is followed by a number, that many Purge will arrive. If the icon is followed by a die icon, roll that die to determine how many Purge will appear. Start at the top, and work down the list to see what arrives.
- Purge Die – one character arrives per Purge result.
- Chance Die – a Live One arrives on a Chance Die icon result.
When the Hostility level reaches Purge!, the number of Purge arriving will be the same as in Kill Me, but remember that from now on all Purge characters will use the increased statistics on the 'Charged' side of the Purge Board.
The Purge will arrive at a random location around the board, determined by the Chance Die. The numbers on the Chance Die correspond to the Entry Point counters. Roll separately for each type of Purge arriving.
Once you have determined the number of Purge arriving and their respective Entry Points, place them on the board in contact with their Entry Point. If there is no room because the area is blocked by other models, place them as close as possible.
Note that sometimes Purge will be placed next to Entry Points outside of the Purge Phase (by an Event Card for example). In this case they will be placed onto the board at that Entry Point and then activate in the Purge Phase as normal.
High-Ranking Enemies
The most dangerous Purge are limited in number, and are rarely sent en-masse into a conflict.
Purge of rank 4 and above (Live Ones, Gatherers and Annihilators) will only appear once per game. Once one has been placed, do not roll for that Purge type again for the rest of the game, and any other rule that would generate one is ignored. Once the character has been defeated, it will not return.
If using the Purge Reinforcement cards, a second Purge of each type can appear, but only once the Hostility reaches Purge!.
Not Enough Purge?
In a regular two-player game you will only use the Purge miniatures that come in the core set – 5 Harvesters, 2 Devastators, 1 Assassin and 1 Live One. At times you may find that you need to roll for a type of Purge to enter the board, but there are none of that type left.
If this is the case, use the next lowest ranked Purge character available. For example, if an Assassin (rank 3) is required but unavailable use a Devastator (rank 2) instead; if a Devastator is unavailable use a Harvester (rank 1).
If there are no Harvesters left and you need to spawn more, then none will arrive until some have been defeated.
Arrival Example
For example, in 'Cover Me', the following Purge will arrive:
Firstly, 2 Harvesters are placed. The Chance Die rolls a 3, so the 2 Harvesters are placed onto the board next to the Entry Point.
Next, the Purge Die is rolled to determine the number of Devastators, along with the Chance Die to show their location. The Purge Die rolls a Purge result and the Chance Die rolls a 5, so 1 Devastator is placed at Entry Point 5.
The two dice are rolled again for the Assassins, resulting in a 2 and a 3 respectively. We only have one Assassin, so we will be placing a Devastator in place of the second one. The Harvesters we placed earlier are blocking Entry Point 3, so the Assassin and Devastator are placed as close as possible.
Finally we need to roll for a Live One, but this uses the Chance Die instead of the Purge Die, so there is only a 1 in 6 chance of it turning up. The die rolls a number, so the Traders are safe, for now!
The Hostility Tracker also shows a Civilian icon – we will deal with this in the NPC Phase.
Activation
All Purge on the board will now activate. The highest ranked Purge character on the board will activate first, followed by the next highest rank, and so on down to the rank 1 Harvesters acting last of all. If there is more than one of the same rank on the board, the player with the Turn Counter can choose the order in which they activate.
In the Trader Phase, you were able to decide which actions your crew would take. However, the Purge and the other NPCs in the game are not under your control. They will instead take actions based on the following strict AI sequence. Each Purge character will continue to take actions from this list until they have none left to use.
Targets
Before making their activation, each Purge character will choose a target, and for the Purge the term 'target' applies to everyone on the board!
- By default the target will be the closest non-Purge character within LoS and not in cover.
- If all visible characters are in cover, the target will be the closest.
- If there are no visible characters, their target will instead be the closest non-Purge character. Work this out by measuring the shortest possible distance between the Purge and the potential targets, moving around terrain and through doors as necessary.
- The one exception to this rule is for Purge Assassins. They will prioritise targets with authority, namely Trader Captains. If they can see a Trader Captain, it will be their target even if it isn't the closest character, and they will move around or over other targets to reach it. This includes leaving base contact with another enemy and provoking an attack of opportunity. If an Assassin cannot see a Captain, they follow the normal rules.
- Defeated Traders are never targeted.
Once a target has been chosen, it remains locked for the rest of that character's turn unless it is defeated. This applies even if a closer target came into view part-way through a move. The target is only reassessed mid-turn if the original target is defeated. Otherwise it will be reassessed next time that character activates.
Actions
The Purge can make Move and Assault actions, and will use them in the same way as Traders.
Each time they make an action, the Purge will prioritise the action that causes the most harm possible, using the AI Action Chart below.
Once you've played a couple of times, these actions will become second nature. A few things to remember:
- NPCs that take a Move action always move as far as possible (i.e. the full 4 inches) unless they move into base contact with the target, at which point they will stop.
- Ranged Assault actions taken by the Purge have unlimited range, but follow the normal rules for shooting at engaged characters.
- NPCs are unaffected by misfire results unless stated otherwise.
NPC AI Action Chart
- Is the target engaged with the NPC?
- YES → The NPC will make a Close Assault action against target.
- NO → Is the target in the NPC's LoS?
- NO → The NPC will Move towards target via shortest route.
- YES → Does the NPC have a Shooting statistic?
- NO → The NPC will Move towards target via shortest route.
- YES → Is the NPC's Shooting statistic higher than their Close Assault statistic?
- YES → The NPC will make a Ranged Assault action against target.
- NO → Can the NPC reach and attack the target this turn?
- YES → The NPC will Move towards target via shortest route.
- NO → Has the NPC already moved this turn?
- YES → The NPC will make a Ranged Assault action against target.
- NO → The NPC will Move towards target via shortest route.
Note that Ranged Assault actions taken by the Purge have unlimited range. All other NPCs can fire at up to medium range. They both follow the normal rules for shooting at engaged characters.
Prone Characters
Purge that have been knocked prone must use their first action to Stand Up, before making the rest of their activation as normal.
Purge Phase Example
In this Purge Phase, the Assassin is the highest-ranking Purge on the board, and will act first. Its closest target is Gak. However, Assassins always prioritise Captains if they can see them, and the Assassin will therefore move towards Arianna with its first action. With its second action, while it could reach Arianna by moving again, it wouldn't have any actions left to attack her. Therefore it will instead target her with a Ranged Assault action.
The next highest ranking Purge are the Devastators. Devastator 1 has no enemies in line of sight, and will therefore move towards the closest, in this case Gak. After Moving once it has reached the end of the wall and can now see Gak. However, Devastators' actions are linked – because its first action was to Move, its second action will also be a Move. It moves into base contact with Gak and can make no further actions.
Devastator 2 has enemies in line of sight, and has a superior ranged statistic. Therefore it will shoot the closest target, in this case Tirgarde. Again, as its actions are linked, it will shoot twice. If Tirgarde was defeated following the Devastator's first action, it would choose a new closest target for the second, in this case Arianna. If it had no other target in LoS it would not make an action at all – the linked actions rule means that it could only shoot with its second action.
Finally, the Harvester will act. The closest target is Gak. Harvesters have no ranged abilities, so the Harvester will spend its one action Moving into base contact. Because the Harvesters have the First Strike ability, it will then gain an immediate free Close Assault action against Gak.
That concludes the Purge Phase.
NPC Phase
In the NPC Phase, all other NPCs controlled by the game will act. Most NPCs are optional for the players to select, so you can choose which ones you use for each game. For your first few games you may even choose not to use NPCs at all while you learn the rest of the rules, and this phase can be skipped entirely.
The NPC types available are:
- Galactic Corps
- Security
- Criminal Gangers
- Civilians
Some of these NPCs come in the core game, and others are available separately. Each NPC type also comes with some associated Event Cards. Whenever a certain type of NPC is being used in the game, these should be shuffled into the Event deck.
Like the Purge, NPCs are controlled by the game, but should be physically moved and rolled for by the player with the Turn Counter, unless that player's crew is being attacked, in which case another player should roll.
Order of Activation
NPCs are always activated in the same order, as listed above – Galactic Corps, Security, Gangers, and finally Civilians. Each type of NPC effectively has a sub-phase within the NPC Phase.
NPCs are ranked, like the Purge. For example, the Galactic Corps have Directors (rank 3), Juggernauts (rank 2), and Guards (rank 1). This is shown on their Boards.
For each type of NPC activated, the highest ranked one on the board will activate first, followed by the next highest rank, and so on. If there are multiple NPCs of the same type and rank on the board, the player with the Turn Counter can choose the order in which they activate.
NPCs that have been knocked prone must use their first action to Stand Up, before making the rest of their activation as normal. If an NPC's turn is determined by a die roll instead of by taking actions (such as a Civilian), Standing Up replaces the die roll and they will do nothing further this round.
NPC Statistics
NPCs always use the statistics on their Boards. While they are able to carry items, they cannot use them.
Unless a die roll defines a specific action (such as the Chance Die roll for Civilians), NPCs will use the number of actions shown on their Boards.
NPC Arrival
NPCs can appear on the board in various ways. Sometimes they may start the game in a position shown on the mission map. Otherwise, they may appear via the Event Cards, a special rule in a mission, or via the Hostility Tracker just like the Purge.
When you activate a certain NPC type, you should first check the Hostility Tracker to see if any will be automatically spawned, indicated by their icon.
Like the Purge, NPCs will arrive at a random location around the board, determined by the Chance Die. The numbers on the Chance Die correspond to the Entry Point Counters.
If there are NPCs of multiple ranks eligible to arrive at the same time, place the lowest rank available.
Once you have determined the NPCs arriving and their Entry Point, place them on the board, in contact with the Entry Point. If there is no room because the area is blocked by other models, place them as close as possible.
Once the NPCs are all on the board, activate them as normal.
If there are multiple NPC types shown on the Hostility Tracker, do not place the next type until you have finished activating the current one.
Note that just like the Purge, if you are required to place an NPC and there are no more available, none are placed.
Targets
When an NPC is required to attack or interact with another character, it must select a target, just like the Purge.
The process is very similar, but NPCs will prioritise certain targets over others. Each type of NPC has a target priority list that should be used alongside the following steps.
- If the NPC is in base contact with any enemies, their target will be the highest priority of the characters in contact that they can damage. If they cannot damage any of the engaged enemies, they will attack the highest priority target with no effect.
- If the NPC has no enemies in base contact, but there are enemies in LoS, the target will be the highest priority of those visible.
- If there are multiple enemies of the same priority, the target will be the closest of those not in cover.
- If all are in cover, the target will be the closest.
- If an NPC needs to shoot its chosen target but is unable to damage it (a Galactic Guard shooting at a Live One for example), it will instead target the next highest priority enemy in LoS. If there are no other enemies in LoS, it will still attack the original target but with no effect.
- If there are no enemies in LoS, the target will instead be the closest, highest priority target available. Work this out by measuring the shortest possible distance between the NPC and the enemies, moving around terrain and through doors as necessary.
- Defeated Traders are never targeted.
NPCs that need to move past other enemy characters to reach their target or fulfil their designated action must do so without entering base contact. If they cannot, they will instead enter base contact with the character that they could not get past, and stop.
Remember:
- NPCs that take a Move action always move as far as possible (i.e. the full 4 inches) unless they move into base contact with the target, at which point they will stop.
- NPCs can fire at up to medium range, and follow the normal rules for shooting at engaged characters.
- NPCs are unaffected by misfire results unless stated otherwise.
Civilians
People can carve out a life for themselves in the most forsaken places in the galaxy. Sometimes these civilians get caught up in the crossfire. They can be a nuisance, they can be meat-shields, or they can be vital allies.
Civilians will try to go about their daily duties as normal, but with all the fighting going on around them they may act irrationally.
Each time you activate a Civilian, roll the Chance Die. The result will determine the action they take this round as follows:
1 – Move: The Civilian makes a Move action in the direction indicated on the Chance Die, moving around terrain where necessary.
2 – Attack: The Civilian will make an Assault action against the closest target, if any (Close Assault if engaged, Ranged Assault otherwise). Then they will panic, making two Move actions in the direction indicated on the Chance Die, moving around terrain where necessary.
If there are no targets in LoS, the Civilian will make a Move action in the direction indicated on the Chance Die.
3 – Hide: The Civilian makes a Move action, moving the shortest distance possible that would put them in cover from the nearest visible enemy, moving around terrain where necessary.
If there is no cover available, or there are no visible enemies, the Civilian makes a Move action in the direction indicated on the Chance Die instead.
4 – Join: If there are any Traders within short range and LoS, the Civilian will join the crew belonging to the closest of these Traders. See Joining Crews.
If there are no Traders within short range, the Civilian will make a Move action in the direction indicated on the Chance Die.
5 – Trade: The Civilian makes a Move action towards the nearest Trader in LoS that is not engaged with an enemy.
If they move into contact with the Trader, they will offer them a trade. The player must draw a random equipment token from the pouch. They may choose to keep it, swapping it with an item they already hold, or reject it. Any items swapped or rejected are placed in the item slot on the Civilian board, or in the token pouch if the item slot is full.
If the Civilian does not reach the Trader, they will stop.
If there are no Traders in LoS, the Civilian will make a Move action in the direction indicated on the Chance Die, moving around terrain where necessary.
6 – Live One: If the Hostility Tracker is high enough for a Live One to appear, the Civilian throws off its disguise – it was a Live One all along! Replace the Civilian with a Live One, if available.
If the Hostility level is too low for a Live One to appear, or there are no Live Ones available, nothing happens.
The Purge
When a Civilian gets it into their head to attack, they will throw caution to the wind and even attack the deadly Purge.
Under normal circumstances however they will avoid the Purge wherever possible. Unless a Civilian rolls an Attack result, they will not move within 4 inches of the Purge.
If they start their activation within 4 inches of the Purge, any movement they make (if any) must first be made directly away from the Purge, and only once they are out of range will they continue their selected actions as normal.
Civilians leaving base contact with the Purge provoke attacks of opportunity as normal.
Target Priority List
- The Purge
- Gangers or Traders, whichever is closest
Civilians will not attack Galactic Corps, Security, or each other and do not consider these groups enemies.
Civilians are never considered to be enemies except by the Purge, who consider everyone an enemy!
Attacks of Opportunity
Moving out of base contact with Civilians will not attract an attack of opportunity.
Extra Civilians
The core set comes with three Civilian characters, and normally, when these run out you will not be able to bring any more onto the board.
However, if you have additional Trader crews you will notice that the backs of their Trader Boards show them in their Civilian guise. You can use any spare Traders as Civilians in this way – just choose one at random from those available when required.
Conversely, you will note that the Civilian Boards have Trader profiles on their reverse sides. Any of them can be hired as Traders as normal, in which case they will not be available to use as Civilians in your games.
Joining Crews
It is possible for all types of NPC (except the Purge!) to join Trader crews. Perhaps a Civilian wants a taste of adventure, or maybe a Galactic Guard is bored of their day job. Civilians may choose to join following a Join result on the Chance Die, whereas other NPCs can only join after being Persuaded by a Trader.
Once an NPC has joined a Trader crew, they are part of that crew for all purposes. They are no longer considered an NPC – they are now a Trader and therefore a potential target for other NPCs where they might not have been otherwise. They will be activated in the Trader Phase by that crew's player and can make all available actions as normal. They will retain their normal statistics for now – do not flip their Character Board. You could add one of the coloured base clips to the model as a reminder, if you have a spare. If defeated, they are removed from the board and cannot be revived.
Most NPCs will stay fighting with you for the duration of the game. Civilians, however, are still unpredictable. The Chance Die must still be rolled for them in the NPC Phase each round, alongside any other Civilians.
- If a Join result is rolled, they will change their minds and revert to being a Civilian.
- If a Live One result is rolled, and the Hostility is high enough, the Civilian will become a Live One as usual.
All other results are ignored while they are part of a Trader crew.
Carrying Items
When an NPC joins a crew, you will have the use of their item slot, for small tokens only. If they were not already carrying an item, draw one at random from the pouch and place it in their item slot. The NPC cannot use any items themselves, but they will be available to your other Traders using the rules for swapping items. NPCs can also make Search actions and collect additional items for you during a game.
If a Civilian leaves your crew, any item they are carrying remains in their Character Board. You can still try to Persuade them to trade it or attack them and take it by force as normal.
If an NPC is defeated, any item they were carrying is left on the floor where they fell.
Permanent Hires
In a campaign, Civilians and Gangers that are still part of your crew and get back to your ship at the end of a mission can be permanently hired.
They are still considered part of your crew even when they are the only Traders left on the board, so if you wanted to keep them you would continue playing until they escaped onto your ship or were defeated, as normal. If you don't want to hire them permanently, you can end the game prematurely, leaving them to their fate...
Note: Galactic Corps and Security cannot be hired permanently.
NPC Phase Example
In this NPC Phase, there are three types of NPC on the board – Galactic Corps, Gangers and Civilians.
The two Galactic Corps Guards will activate first, and they act according to the AI Chart. Firstly, they must select a target, and there are two enemies in the room – a Purge Harvester and a Ganger. Normally, the closest enemy will be the target, but killing the Purge is a higher priority.
Guard 1's line of sight to the Harvester is blocked by the Civilian, and therefore its target for this round will be the Ganger. As Galactic Guards have a superior ranged statistic, the Guard will shoot the Ganger with both of its actions. If the Ganger was killed by the Guard's first action, target priority would revert to the Harvester. As the Guard can't see it to shoot, its second action would be to Move towards it. Galactic Guards will not target Civilians, and will move around them.
Guard 2 can see the Harvester clearly, and will shoot it. If between them the two Guards managed to defeat the Harvester and the Ganger, any remaining actions would be spent Moving towards the next closest target, Tirgarde.
The Ganger, Evangeline, will activate second, if still alive. Her close assault statistic is superior, so she will spend her actions moving towards her target and making a Close Assault action against it. The target will be either the Harvester or Guard 1, depending on what else has happened so far.
Finally, the Civilian will act. The Chance Die is rolled, revealing a Trade result. However, Civilians are terrified of the Purge. If the Harvester has not yet been defeated, the Civilian must move directly away before resuming its action. Running away would take the Civilian too far from Tirgarde to trade this round. However, if the Harvester had been defeated, the Civilian would instead move towards Tirgarde, reaching him and offering him an item.
Missions
Each game of Core Space is a mission – a narrative scenario with a series of objectives. When using the campaign rules, missions can be played one after the other, with your crew's performance in one game affecting the next. Alternatively, each mission can be played as a one-off.
Either way, before you start you will need to select a crew.
Mission Structure
Each mission will be presented as a mission briefing, and each will follow the same format. Each mission has the following sections:
Introduction
Each mission will have a title and a narrative introduction. This will set the scene, explaining why your crews are here, what they are looking for, and the dangers that may lie ahead.
Objectives
All missions will have a Primary Objective, and some may also have Secondary Objectives. Completing these will determine how successful you have been at the end of the mission.
Primary Objectives are the main purpose of the mission, and the player(s) that complete them can claim victory in the game. They will often have a large cash reward as well. This cash will be critical for maintaining your ship and purchasing equipment.
Secondary Objectives are lucrative side-jobs that you can complete while in the area – taking out a specific enemy to claim a bounty on their head, or destroying a server bank to disrupt the activities of an evil corporation for example. They will usually have a small cash reward.
Note that unless stated otherwise, objectives do not have to be completed to finish a game. What's important is that your crew lives to fight another day – it's perfectly reasonable to decide to cut your losses and escape – it might put you in a better position in the long run!
Furthermore, there is nothing to stop you sabotaging a mission by destroying the objective. Regardless of victory, every game will be worthwhile for your crew in terms of gaining experience and salvaging equipment. Of course, don't expect your fellow players to take it too well if you sabotage an objective – they might want revenge on you in a future game...
Objective Tokens
If your objectives involve finding items specific to your narrative, rather than weapons or other existing equipment, the game includes objective tokens for this purpose that can be carried as normal.
Three of these tokens have values – 3, 5, and 7UA, and can be sold in the Trade Phase like any other item.
In addition, there is one token with no value, to be used as a MacGuffin, or where an objective requires the crew to transport something without the temptation to just keep it!
Objective tokens cannot be broken or destroyed.
Special Instructions
This section will list any rules that apply to the game over and above the core mechanics.
For example, it may list alternative deployment locations, specific equipment to place in the crates to represent objectives, or certain NPCs that will not follow the normal rules, such as an overly hostile Civilian.
This section will also list any specific terrain that can be Interacted with, such as a computer console you need to access or some machinery you need to Repair.
Map
Each mission will have a diagram showing how to set up the mission map, detailing the location of rooms, corridors, crates and other scenery. The Special Instructions section will often refer to highlighted areas on the map to indicate objectives or other key locations.
Note that unless stated otherwise, the edge of the playing area is considered to be a wall for all rules purposes.
Set Up Diagram
Finally, each mission will have a set up diagram, detailing the following:
Maximum Starting Crew: Crews can contain up to 7 Traders, but you won't always be able to use all of them in every mission. The maximum number of Traders you can have on the board at once is listed here.
Event Card Allocation: You won't use all Event Cards in all games. Depending on the location of the mission, the NPCs being used, and the length of the game, you will only use a certain subset of the cards. Use the icons in the bottom corners of the cards to check against the card types listed here, and once you have them all shuffle them together to create the deck for the game. The icons are as follows:
- Environment
- Purge
- Assistance
- Galactic Corps
- Criminal Gangers
- Civilians
- Purge Annihilator
- Purge Gatherers
- Purge Reinforcements
The Purge Reinforcement cards are to be used when you want to make your game more dangerous by adding a second set of Purge miniatures, so you'll have 10 Harvesters, 4 Devastators, 2 Assassins, and 2 Live Ones!
If there are 4 or more crews in play, it is recommended to always use the extra set of Purge miniatures and the Purge Reinforcement cards.
Key Items: These are items that should be put aside before the crates are filled – they will usually be required for specific objectives, detailed in the Special Instructions section.
Search Allocation: This section will show how to allocate equipment tokens to the crates for this mission. As detailed in the components section, the large, rare and objective tokens should be kept separately – this section will tell you how many of each to include before the tokens are allocated to crates. Sometimes a mission might require a specific token, and sometimes it may specify a number of tokens chosen at random.
Starting Hostility: This will tell you how many pegs to put into the Hostility Tracker before the game begins. Some missions are set in especially hostile environments so the game may start at a higher level.
NPCs in Missions
Some missions, such as those in the various expansions, will specify that certain types of NPCs must be used, as they may be key to the mission's story. The Purge from the core set are always used, and it is recommended to always use Civilians once you are comfortable with the rules.
Otherwise it is totally up to the players which NPCs are used in each game, depending on their collection, and their preference. If the players want to use a certain NPC type, they should place the appropriate Character Board at the side of the playing area, and have the miniatures to hand.
When shuffling the Event Deck at the start of each game, the Event Cards for the NPCs being used should be shuffled in along with any others required for the mission.
Choosing a Mission
Now you know how missions work, you'll need to know which one to play! For new players, we recommend starting with the Perseus Arm Campaign. This is a narrative campaign with pre-generated missions. It is for two players and is designed for the Ion Hope and Black Maria crews from the core set.
You can play the missions individually, or you can join them together as one continuous story following the campaign rules.
Once you've completed the campaign, you can find more missions in the Core Space expansions, and more missions will be hosted for free on the Battle Systems website.
If you're not ready for a full campaign just yet, or if you've got a couple more players, you can get started with the standard 1-4 player Salvage Run mission.
Of course, Core Space has one foot in the creative world of RPGs, and has everything you need to design your own missions and tell your own stories. You can create missions with any parameters you wish – be it solo or up to 6 players; for rookie crews or veterans; fighting just the Purge or with a full complement of NPCs – it's up to you!
Replaying Missions
Mission objectives do not need to be completed for a mission to end. All that's important is that you get out alive.
Especially when playing a campaign, if you finish a mission without achieving the objective you may wish to replay it and try again, so that you can continue the story. If so, we recommend that you make a few tweaks to the mission, to represent the area being a little different during your next visit! It's generally worth making the game a little harder, as even if you failed the first time you will still have gained some experience and salvaged some equipment, so you'll be in a better position to try again.
Rescue Missions
Sometimes, part of your crew will manage to get back to your ship but one or more of your Traders will have been left behind. In a campaign you will probably want to do something about this! There are plenty of options available to you in the Extraction Phase, one of which is to perform a Rescue Mission.
This allows you to go straight back into the game you just played and save your fallen comrade. You reload your guns, patch your wounds and hit yourself with the best combat stims money can buy.
Immediately start a new game with the following rules:
- The board and all non-Trader components remain in place from the end of the original game, including the Purge and any other NPCs in play. The Hostility Tracker will resume where it left off.
- All Traders fully reload their ammo and may swap any equipment amongst their crew.
- All Traders restore two Health, up to their maximum.
- The player making the rescue may place their Ship Board in contact with any airlock door on the map – it does not have to be the one they used in the original mission. If multiple crews are taking part in the Rescue Mission, the winner of the original game will place their ship first, continuing clockwise around the table.
- The game will end as normal – once all Traders are either defeated or back on board their ship.
You may only make a Rescue Mission once after each game. If a Trader is left behind during a Rescue Mission, you will need to extract them in a different way.
Rescue Missions can be played solo, or other players can join in, either to rescue their own Traders, or to help you rescue yours. Of course, they may want payment for such a service...
More Ways to Play
There are plenty of things you can do to switch up how your games work. Here are a few ideas:
Single Crew Co-op
If you're not a competitive person and are into your roleplaying games, you may prefer to just take a single crew and play 'solo' missions. However, instead of playing on your own, you and your friends could take a single Trader each as your own personal character, with each person responsible for their character's actions and decisions.
Trying to keep a cohesive battleplan together within a group of people is much harder than you'd think – it adds a whole new dynamic to the game.
Even when playing with multiple crews, you can still split them up and play in teams if you wish.
Adding a Game Master
Some players, especially those that have designed the mission and its storyline, may prefer to take more of an overseer role, and not control a crew themselves. Instead you may choose to ignore the AI rules, and this player would take control of the Purge and other NPCs themselves. Again, this can make for some really exciting games.
Tweaking Missions
The nature of Core Space's mechanics, with the unpredictable dice rolls and Event Cards, mean that in theory you could play the same mission a dozen times and every game will be different. So, if you want a quick game without investing time into designing a mission, you don't have to!
Just by making small tweaks to the pre-generated missions, you can create a wildly different experience and massively increase the game's replayability.
Here are some examples of things you could do:
- Change the starting Hostility Level.
- Adding in different NPCs.
- Switching out Event Cards.
- Changing the number of starting crew.
In short, you can do anything you want, as long as you and your opponents agree to it beforehand.
Co-operative Play – Or Not?
The Trader crews in Core Space are all struggling to stay alive, and it can get quite competitive. However, sometimes the crews will have a shared objective that will be easier to achieve if they work together, or one crew may decide to help another out, for the right price...
It is totally up to the players how they want to play the game – go in guns blazing or make a truce with the other players for the greater good. The players can come to any agreement they like in terms of what it may be worth for one of them to help another – there are no hard and fast rules. One crew could allow another crew to use their ship to escape the board in return for a certain item for example, or a player could ask for a cash payment in return for reviving a defeated opposing Trader.
If you have made a deal to join forces with another crew and are playing co-operatively, your crews will no longer be considered enemies, and can therefore ignore rules that reference them, such as attacks of opportunity.
Of course, there is no restriction on backstabbing and reneging on a deal once it's done, so be careful. Just be aware that if you build up a reputation for such things, you may become a primary target in future games...
Example Mission Briefing – Salvage Run (1-4 Players)
Primary Objective
Reward: Whatever you can find
The aim of the game is money, pure and simple. Get in, grab as much as you can carry, get out. Don't die.
There are some rare items to be found in this warehouse, but don't take too long finding them – there are reports of the Purge in the area...
The crew that escapes this mission with the highest total value of new items is the winner. Players should make a note of the value of any equipment they started the mission with, to compare their total to at the end.
Secondary Objective
Reward: 3UA
While you're here, you might as well make the most of it. If you can hack into the corporation's computer systems you can access their shipping schedule. With that information you'll know exactly what to hit and when on your next supply run. Of course, the information itself is valuable enough...
The shipping schedule is represented by the 3UA Objective token. In a campaign, the token can be traded during the Trade Phase as normal to gain the 3UA reward.
In addition, the player that claimed this token will gain some benefits in their next game:
- They may choose to automatically be the first crew to choose their airlock location and deploy their Traders.
- They may choose to automatically take the Turn Counter in the first round.
Special Instructions
Set up. The shipping schedule is represented by the 3UA Objective token. Set this aside at the start of the game.
The shipping schedule. To access the shipping schedule, a Trader must Interact with the computer console highlighted in red in the centre of the board. Once they do this they can take the Objective token.
Once you've got it, be careful not to let anyone else steal it!
Set-Up
- Maximum Starting Crew: 3
- Event Cards Allocation: Purge – x4 Random; Civilians – All Cards; Environment – All Cards
- Hostility Tracker: Starting Level 3
- Search Allocation: large cargo crates – 1 large equipment token and 2 small equipment tokens each; small cargo crates – 3 small equipment tokens each; rare items – include 1 small and 1 large rare token in the selection
- Key Items: the valueless Objective token and the 3UA Objective token
Selecting a Crew
Before you can undertake a mission in Core Space, you'll need to assemble your crew.
Crews are hired based on a points limit, agreed in advance between you and any other players taking part. These points will be spent on Traders using the values in the corner of their Trader Boards. For example, Jace costs 57 points.
For your first few games you don't need to worry about selecting a crew – the crews of the Black Maria and the Ion Hope from the core set are balanced against each other, and against any other pre-built crew available separately. Just pick your favourite and get playing. You will still need to select some starting equipment – see Rookie Crews.
However, once your collection grows and you learn more about the game you may decide to mix and match all the characters available and build your own crew. To do this, we recommend starting with a limit of around 180 points, but you can agree any limit you like with your opponents.
You must select Traders based on the following rules:
- You must select one Captain. No more, no less.
- You can select up to six Crew.
- You can choose from any of the Traders available, including Civilians and Gangers, using the reverse side of their Boards.
Class Boards
Once you have selected your characters, you will need to give them jobs. For each Trader in your crew, select any Class Board from those available. Slot it into your dashboard with your Trader Board, and allocate the Trader's Career Points to the Skills on the board, up to the default value.
It is recommended that all crews have at least one Trader with the Tech or Machine Class, just in case you need to Repair something during a game.
Note that some Traders may be locked to a specific class. MAC for example can only take the Machine Class, shown by the icon on his Trader Board.
Rookie Crews
Most games and campaigns will start with a rookie crew – a group of inexperienced Traders with basic equipment – and it will be up to you to develop their skills and find new gear as you play through the missions.
Rookie crews do not start with any Career advancements and will have their starting statistics. They can be equipped from the range of zero-cost items. Each Trader may take a single ranged weapon, a single close combat weapon, and a single Medi-Stim (maximum two Medi-Stims per crew).
Experienced Crews
If you don't have time for a campaign, but you want to play with some more powerful equipment and skills at your disposal, you can put together an experienced crew instead.
Select your Traders as normal, but then agree with your opponent a starting Career level. Advance each of the Traders that many times as detailed in the Advancement Phase.
You can then agree a number of UA for each crew to spend on equipment – around 20UA should give you a good mix but you can decide on any value you like. These items are selected as described in the Trade Phase, but can be chosen from any of the Trading Posts.
You can also use these rules if you want to play with an experienced crew against a rookie crew – just allow the rookie player to advance and equip their crew to the same level as the experienced player.
Campaigns
Campaigns are the thing that take a game and turn it into a story, and are the best way to play Core Space.
A campaign is a series of games linked together with a continuous narrative. Players will select their crew before their first game, and hopefully keep the same characters from start to finish, possibly even taking on new recruits along the way! Your Traders will learn new Skills and acquire new equipment, all the while striving to keep their ship in good working order.
Of course, in a campaign Traders can be killed and their valuable Skills and equipment lost, so players will need to think twice before throwing a character into certain death situations!
In a campaign missions are carried out as normal. However, after the mission is complete the game is not over – there are some extra steps to carry out to see how the mission's success or failure has affected your crew and their ship.
Campaigns work best when you have a group of fellow players who are available to play fairly regularly and keep the story ticking along, but you can play with just one opponent or even solo if you wish – just change your story to fit!
Campaign Length
The first thing you will need to decide for your campaign is its length. Generally players tend to play out a campaign over a few months in real-time, meeting up once a week or so to play. The winner at the end is usually the one with the most money, but you may instead choose another way of determining victory.
Alternatively you may want to create a narrative goal for the campaign – maybe there are reports of a Purge Annihilator in the area and the crews are battling over the chance to take it down and claim the bounty. Maybe you need to fight your way to the spaceport to escape an apocalyptic event about to befall the planet. Maybe a lucrative opportunity has come up in another sector, and the crews must upgrade their ships so they can be the fastest one to get there. These are just a few examples – what's best for your campaign is up to you.
Once you've decided on your story you should work out the end point – using the examples above, that may be completing a mission where the objective is to take out an Annihilator, or getting to a shuttle bay after various missions infiltrating the space port, or being the first to fully upgrade your ship. Your campaign will then go on for however long it takes for this end point to be reached.
Campaign Structure
Once you know how and when your campaign will start and end, you will need to establish a structure.
League-style. More competitive players may prefer a strict, turn-based structure, where every player in the campaign plays the same number of games. This way all crews will have the same opportunities for advancement at each stage, keeping the game balanced.
Campaigns like this should be arranged in a series of 'campaign turns', in which players will be paired up, play games, and resolve the results. Pairings could be made in a 'Swiss' tournament fashion, or as a round-robin, where every player plays every other player. The exact manner of arranging games is up to you.
Free-form. For those who prefer the more narrative approach, a more open structure can be adopted, where games are arranged based on the story that you've put in place, or simply on the players that are able to meet up at any given time. This may mean that players play different numbers of games to each other, but does make the campaign much easier to manage, and is much more realistic.
Playing Catch-up
Although battles between unevenly matched sides can be far more exciting to watch, this is still a game and it needs to be fair to all players. A situation may arise in your campaign where one or more players are significantly behind the others, or a new rookie crew joins in halfway through. In these cases, where the difference between crews is at least 10 UA worth of Traders and equipment, it's recommended that these players run through some extra missions to catch up.
Use the Salvage Run mission between your regular games – this represents these underdog crews stocking up on supplies before re-joining the story. The players can play it solo or together; just once or a few times, until they are fully caught up.
Between Games
In a campaign it will be important to keep track of your crew's progress between games. The dry-wipe Boards will hold all of the necessary information so you don't have to remember anything, but it may be a while between games.
It is recommended that you keep your Ship Board, Character Boards, and current equipment tokens together in a box or ziplock bag between games so you can easily set them up again ready for the next mission.
Post-Game Sequence
Unlike one-off missions, after a campaign game there are some additional steps to work out the impact of the game on your crew.
These additional steps should be carried out while the players are still together, so that you can witness each other's dice rolls and make trades with each other.
The post-game sequence has four phases:
- Extraction. In this phase, players must decide what to do about any comrades left behind. They may get arrested by the Galactic Corps, you may mount a daring rescue mission, or they may be simply left for dead...
- Advancement. This phase is where your characters will advance, learning new Skills and becoming more powerful.
- Trade. Next, you will get a chance to head to the trading post to buy and sell equipment, and even hire new crew members, ready for your next mission.
- Maintenance. Finally, in the Maintenance Phase, you will need to assess the state of your ship and make repairs if necessary. You will also be able to upgrade your ship, allowing it to play a part in your games!
Win Bonus
If a player wins a game, they will get first choice of which airlock door to set up at in the following game, instead of rolling the Chance Die or flipping the Turn Counter.
Ships
The ship is the Traders' home, their transport and their livelihood. Without a ship a Trader is just a drifter with their thumb out. Of course, with the state of the galaxy ships need constant maintenance to keep flying and that needs Flo, Galactic Credits, the old Universal Asset.
Ships are represented in game by the Ship Board, which can be filled in with a dry-wipe pen just like the Character Boards. In one-off games the Ship Board is only needed as a deployment area – you can ignore these rules for now.
Maintenance Status
This area shows the current state of repair of each of the ship's essential systems: Propulsion, Life Support, Supplies and Hull Integrity. At the start of a campaign, your rookie crew will only be able to afford a second-hand ship and it won't be in full working order – only the first three boxes on each row should be filled. With use, the ship will degrade further and so repairs must be made – this will happen in the Maintenance Phase. If any of a ship's systems reach zero the ship becomes damaged beyond repair and uninhabitable. Unless repairs can be made immediately the crew will disband and will be out of the campaign, so be sure to save some credits for vital repairs!
Ship Name
Each Core Space crew has its own ship – the two in the core set are the Ion Hope and the Black Maria. You can of course come up with your own ship name too. Once you've decided, write it in this space.
Hold
The hold works exactly like the item tray on the character dashboard – perfect for keeping items that you may not want to sell just yet, but that you don't want to waste dashboard space on during a mission. In the Trade Phase you can freely swap items between your Traders and the ship's hold.
Assets
This is where you will note down how much money you have to spend. This will fluctuate as you buy and sell items and hire new crew in the Trade Phase. Once all purchases have been made, the remaining amount should be written here ready for the following game.
Note that it's wise to keep some funds available, just in case you need to pay a release fee for a captured crew member, or for other expenses that can crop up during missions.
The Airlock
On the back of the Ship Boards you will find the airlock. This is the area where Traders are deployed at the start of the game. The edge with black and yellow hazard markings is the door, and should be placed in contact with the edge of the board. The Designation box is a space to write your name, or the ship's name, just in case the ships get mixed up if they move around the board.
You will note that this side of the board also shows the Hold and Upgrades sections. Any upgrades made to your ship should be marked on this side of the board too, for quick reference during the game.
Upgrades
In the Maintenance Phase assets can be spent to install the various upgrades shown here.
Ship upgrades work exactly like Trader Skills – they have multiple levels that can be unlocked, and their abilities are used by spending Skill pegs in the Trader Phase. Any member of the ship's crew can spend their Skill pegs to use the upgrades – this will count as their Skill use for that round as normal.
The cut-out removed from the hold area of the Ship Board contains easy reference for these upgrades.
Scanners
- Level 1: Choose a cargo crate within medium range of the airlock door (LoS not required). Look at the contents and then put it back.
- Level 2: Choose a cargo crate anywhere on the board. Look at the contents and then put it back.
- Level 3: You may reduce the Hostility by up to 2. Then, based on the current Hostility, roll for the number and arrival location of all Purge and NPCs due to turn up this round. You may modify any of the location rolls by 1, up or down. Place them next to the appropriate Entry Point, off of the board for now. They will not be rolled for again in the Purge and NPC Phases – they will just be placed onto the board and activated as normal.
Airlock Auto-Defences
- Level 1: Make a ranged attack, drawing LoS and range from the airlock door, with the following stats: 3/2/1 combat dice at short/medium/long range, Reliable, Infinite Ammo.
- Level 2: Make a ranged attack, drawing LoS and range from the airlock door, with the following stats: 4/3/2 combat dice at short/medium/long range, Reliable, Infinite Ammo.
- Level 3: Passive: Once this upgrade is in place, the ship may activate once in each Trader Phase of the game just like the rest of the crew. It can make a single ranged attack with the following stats: 3/2/1 combat dice at short/medium/long range, Reliable, Infinite Ammo.
Docking Thrusters
- Level 1: You may move your Ship Board to any other point on the same side of the gaming area as its current location.
- Level 2: You may move your Ship Board to any point along either side of the gaming area perpendicular to its current location that had an airlock starting position on the map.
- Level 3: You may move your Ship Board to any other point on the opposite side of the gaming area to its current location that had an airlock starting position on the map.
There must be a crew member left on board the ship to use Docking Thrusters.
Extraction Phase
So, you've managed to get back to your ship, but you've left a comrade behind. The fate of the fallen is now in your hands. Your defeated crew members have been left defenceless, and will need to be rescued, or left for dead...
In this phase you will deal with any crew members that did not make it off the board by the end of the mission. Of course, if your crew all made it out, you can skip this phase.
For each defeated Trader, first roll the Chance Die. If you roll a Live One result your character has been dragged off by the Purge for processing and will meet a grisly end. You can consider them dead. The character can no longer be used for the rest of the campaign. All of their equipment is lost with them. You'll need to hire a replacement.
If they manage to dodge this fate, instead choose one of the following options:
- Rescue Mission
- Emergency Teleport
- You're On Your Own
Note: Traders apprehended by the Galactic Corps do not get this choice – they automatically follow the rules for an Apprehended result.
Furthermore, if none of your crew made it out, and you have no other crew members on board your ship, you will not have the Rescue or Teleport options. All of your Traders must roll on the 'You're On Your Own' table.
Rescue Mission
You may decide to mount an immediate Rescue Mission to get your Trader back.
Emergency Teleport
All Traders carry an emergency teleport beacon just in case, but they all dread actually using it. In fact, the less bold specify that they're not to be rescued by teleporter under any circumstance!
If you choose to teleport the Trader out, roll the Chance Die to see what happens:
- The Trader dies in transit. They may have been turned inside out, beamed into space, or maybe they've been merged into the fabric of the ship. Whatever awful fate befell them, the Trader and their equipment are lost forever. They can no longer be used in this campaign.
- Teleporters are notorious for pulling cruel tricks on the unwary. The character arrives safe and well, but they are not the same person they were when they left! Shuffle all Trader Boards not being used for the current campaign, including those for Civilians and Gangers. Pick one at random – this is your Trader's new identity – swap out the model and Trader Board for the new one. The new Trader will retain the same number of Career points as they had before, but the player can choose a different Class Board and allocate the Career points differently if they wish. The character's equipment remains the same.
- The character is teleported safely, but to the wrong ship! It will take a while to find and retrieve them. Either the Trader misses the next two missions, or the player can pay 4UA to have Galactic Central Data locate the lost Trader and re-teleport them immediately.
- The Trader has survived the trip, but there has been an accident and they are in a poor way. They take longer to recuperate than normal and they must miss the next mission. However, the character learns from the experience – they gain 1 Career Point.
- The Trader is teleported safely onboard, but their equipment did not survive the trip. Their equipment is lost and must be discarded.
- The Trader is teleported safely onboard along with all of their equipment. There is no further effect.
You're On Your Own
Maybe you don't want to risk the teleporter, but don't have the resources for a rescue mission? In that case you will have to leave your companion to fend for themselves, and hope it works out.
Roll the Chance Die to see what happens:
1-2 Ransom: The unconscious Trader is picked up by one of the many roaming gangs. You will need to pay a ransom of a number of UA equal to their Skill statistic to get them back. If you do not pay immediately you can pay later, but the ransom will increase by 1UA per mission.
- If you don't want to pay, you may choose to leave the character to their new life as a criminal. From now on the character may be used as a Ganger NPC, using the Civilian side of their card.
3-4 Apprehended: The Galactic Corps have arrested your fallen crewmate and placed them in a local holding facility.
To see what trumped-up charges they are given, roll the Chance Die again:
- 1: The Trader is released without charge and sent back to your ship.
- 2-3: The Corps demand a 2UA release fee.
- 4-5: The Corps demand an extortionate 5UA 'release fee'.
- 6: There is no bribe big enough – your Trader is going down. Roll the Chance Die – your Trader misses that many missions while they serve their time. All of their equipment is lost.
- If you have to pay a release fee and you can't or don't want to, treat this as if you had rolled a 6 instead.
5-6 Escaped: Your crewmate wakes up just in time and manages to slip away on an evacuation shuttle. They make their way to an agreed pick-up point and you retrieve them. You will have to pay 1UA for fuel and other expenses. In addition, one random equipment token they were carrying is lost/sold for safe passage.
- If you do not want to pay the 1UA, you can leave them behind. The character is left for dead and can no longer be used for the rest of the campaign. All of their equipment is lost with them.
Permanent Crew Loss
Traders that are lost permanently following the Extraction Phase are removed from your crew. Their Trader Board may appear again in a future Trade Phase when hiring new crew, but just think of it as a similar-looking Trader rather than the exact same person! The new Trader can of course have a completely different Career path.
If your Captain is ever permanently lost, you have two choices.
- If another Captain becomes available in the Trade Phase of the current game, you can hire them as your new Captain.
- Alternatively, you can promote one of your other Traders to Captain. Immediately advance their Career by an extra point, and from that point on all rules that apply to a crew's Captain will apply to them.
It's unlikely, but in the event that every member of your crew is permanently lost, you are out of the campaign and must start afresh with a new crew.
Advancement Phase
Finding new equipment isn't the only way to improve your Traders' abilities on the table. As they survive missions and gain experience they will also learn new Skills.
Each Trader's Board lists their Career statistic, representing their current ability level. The default spaces will be filled in at the start of every standalone game or campaign, but it is in this Advancement Phase where the potential spaces can be filled in too!
Each time a character survives a mission and makes it back to the ship during the game (regardless of whether they completed their objectives or not) they gain 1 Career point – fill in the first empty space on their Trader Board.
This additional point can then also be allocated to the character's Skills on their Class Board. Pick a Skill that you want to advance and fill in one of the spaces next to its icon. You will be able to use this Skill at a level equal to the number of marked spaces from your next game onwards.
Characters that fail to make it back to their ship during the game and require extraction afterwards do not gain any Career Points.
Kill Points
Defeating a Live One can make a Trader's Career, so to speak. The first Trader to defeat a Live One in a game takes the Live One Kill Point Counter.
This counter is exchanged in the Advancement Phase after the game for an additional Career point.
Level Up!
You will notice that the Career Points on each Trader's Board are in rows. Each of these rows is a level. Filling all of the spaces on a row allows the character to level up, which has added benefits.
- When level 1 is complete, the Trader gains 1 Health Point and 1 Skill Point (and the relevant pegs) for all future games.
- When Level 2 is complete, the Trader gains 1 further Health Point and 1 further Skill Point for all future games.
- When Level 3 is complete the Trader gains 1 further Health Point, 1 further Skill Point, and 1 Action for all future games. This character is now maxed out and will not advance any further.
- Once a Trader's Career track is full, any Career Points they gain thereafter will be added to any of their other stats with spaces remaining (player's choice).
Note that some Traders do not have all three Career levels – they can only level up as far as their Trader Board will let them. Also note that statistic increases are only gained where the potential spaces are available on their Board – if all spaces are filled the Trader will not advance any further.
Trade Phase
The next stage of each mission is for the Traders to take their salvage, and any reward for completing their mission objectives, to a trading post where they can buy and sell items, and hire new crew!
Items are bought and sold using the game's currency – UA. The cost of buying and selling items is shown on the back of the token:
- The first value is the number of UA you must spend to purchase this item from a store.
- The second value is the number of UA you will gain when you sell this item in a store.
You will note that you will usually get back less than you spent if you were to buy and then sell the same item, so make sure you get some use out of it!
Items with the rare icon are rare and cannot be bought. These items can only be found during missions, or received as rewards. Be careful when you sell them, as you may never find them again!
When buying an item, reduce your assets by its cost, and then take it and add it to your ship's hold, or to a Trader's item tray. If you do not have space for any more items, you cannot purchase any.
When selling an item, increase your assets by its sale price, and then return the token to the item pouch. If it is a rare, large, or objective token, shuffle it back in with the other items of its type.
Trading Posts
The galaxy has a huge variety of trading posts, and not every store will sell every item that you want. After each game you will need to choose one (and only one) trading post to visit from the following list:
- Up Close & Personnel
- Claw Store
- Armourote
- Tech Noir
- Giger's Emporium
All items can be sold at any trading post, but only certain items can be bought.
Stock is limited to the available tokens. If two players choose to go to the same trading post after a game, the winner will get first pick of any items, alternating thereafter. If there was no winner, flip the Turn Counter to decide who can pick first.
Raw Blue
Raw Blue is the unique energy source that powers the Purge. Normally it disperses once a Purge dies but it can be captured in an Energy Flask that can be sold on the black market.
You may find some Raw Blue during a mission. You will see that its sale price is listed as 'SP' – Special. To determine its value, roll the Chance Die:
- 1-2: You can make a quick sale and gain 2UA.
- 3-5: You find a trustworthy buyer and make 5UA.
- 6: You find someone desperate to get their hands on it and make a tidy 9UA.
You do not have to sell the Raw Blue after rolling the die – you can instead choose to hold onto it and try for a better deal in the next Trade Phase. Just remember it will be taking up valuable space in your hold, and you might need the money sooner than you think!
Barter
Money isn't the only thing you can trade with of course. At any time during this phase you can choose to barter with your fellow players – maybe they have a rare item that you will pay over the odds for, or you've got too many items and are willing to give some better prices on them to make space.
What and how you trade in this manner is completely open – it's up to the players to strike a deal in whatever way they see fit. You could let someone else hire the Civilian you just rescued, or throw in some ammo for free to sweeten a deal, or even trade one of your crew members, for the right price. The only thing you can't trade is your Captain.
Trading Posts
BS-Mart General Store
BS-Mart is essentially a supermarket for combat supplies; relatively inexpensive and with a wide variety. There's pretty much nowhere in the galaxy that doesn't have a BS-Mart.
No matter which trading post you pick, you can always visit the General Store as well.
The General Store stocks items of all types with a cost of up to 4UA.
Up Close & Personnel
The first port of call for all serious military personnel (or wannabes), Up Close & Personnel specialise in finely crafted close combat weaponry. They stock Close Assault weapons costing between 5-9UA.
Any Close Assault weapons with a 5-9UA purchase price that you sell while visiting Up Close & Personnel will earn a 1UA bonus per item.
Claw Store
Claw Store, aimed at the discerning gun nut, offers superior firepower at a decent price. They stock Ranged Assault weapons costing between 5-9UA.
Any Ranged Assault weapons with a 5-9UA purchase price that you sell while visiting Claw Store will earn a 1UA bonus per item.
Armourote
Armourote is the place to go if you're one of the unlucky species who don't have a built-in flak jacket. Armourote specialises in personal protection and stocks armour costing between 5-9UA.
Any armour with a 5-9UA purchase price that you sell while visiting Armourote will earn a 1UA bonus per item.
Tech Noir
Tech Noir specialises in the cutting edge of technology for combat accessories. They stock special items (orange tokens) costing between 5-9UA.
Any special items with a 5-9UA purchase price that you sell while visiting Tech Noir will earn a 1UA bonus per item.
Giger's Emporium
Giger's Emporium provides high-end goods at a high-end price. They specialise in exclusive top-of-the-line equipment for the discerning buyer. They stock items of all types costing 10UA or more.
Giger's can only be visited if your crew contains a Trader with Career level 3 that survived the preceding mission. In addition, a maximum of one item can be purchased from Giger's Emporium per phase.
Any rare items or items with a 10UA+ purchase price that you sell while visiting Giger's Emporium will earn a 1UA bonus per item.
Hiring Crew
Inanimate objects aren't the only things available in the galactic marketplace – there are plenty of mercenaries out there who will join your crew for the right price.
Note that you may never have more than 7 crew members.
There are three ways of hiring crew, as follows:
Hire 'On-Mission'
During a game you may have persuaded a Civilian or Ganger to join you temporarily. However, if you can safely get them back to your ship they can become a permanent member of your crew.
As a reward for keeping them safe during the mission you will be able to hire them permanently at a reduced rate – see the Costs table.
Standard Recruitment
While at a trading outpost, you can visit the local bars or mercenary agencies to scout out new talent. Each player should take all of the Trader and Civilian Boards from their collection that they have not yet purchased, shuffle them, and draw the top 5 (or fewer, if you don't have 5). Note that you will use the Trader side of the Civilian boards. These are the Traders available for hire at this time.
Any or all of these Traders can be hired in two different ways – either as a permanent member of the crew, or as a temporary hire, fighting with you for the next mission only. The costs are as detailed in the table below.
Remember that a crew can only have one Captain. Any Captain Trader Boards that come up in this phase can only be hired if you lost your Captain in the previous game.
Traders hired temporarily will stick around until the following Trade Phase and will be added to the selection of Traders available at that time. This will allow you to hire them again if you wish, either temporarily or permanently, and they will retain any advancements they gained during your previous mission. If you choose not to hire them again, they will lose any advancements and become available as part of the random selection in future games.
Costs
All costs are based on the points value of each Trader, and will change depending on whether the Trader is hired on-mission, temporarily or permanently, as follows:
| Points Cost | On-Mission | Permanent Hire | Temporary Hire |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-22 | 2UA | 5UA | 2UA |
| 23-34 | 4UA | 7UA | 2UA |
| 35-39 | 7UA | 10UA | 3UA |
| 40-44 | 9UA | 13UA | 4UA |
| 45-49 | 10UA | 15UA | 4UA |
| 50-54 | 11UA | 17UA | 5UA |
| 55-59 | 12UA | 19UA | 5UA |
| 60-64 | 13UA | 21UA | 6UA |
| 65-74 | 14UA | 24UA | 8UA |
| 75-84 | 18UA | 30UA | 10UA |
| 85+ | 24UA | 40UA | 14UA |
Maintenance Phase
Trader crews rely entirely on their ships. They require constant maintenance to keep them running – if they become damaged beyond repair they must be abandoned, and the crew will be out of the campaign.
The Maintenance Status section of the Ship Board shows the ship's current state of repair across its four systems: Propulsion, Life Support, Supplies and Hull Integrity. These levels will rise and fall during this phase.
Degradation
First, each player must roll the Chance Die and consult the following table to see which of the ship's systems has deteriorated with use.
- Roll twice more on this table and apply both results (re-rolling further results of a 1)
- Propulsion reduces by 1
- Life Support reduces by 1
- Supplies reduces by 1
- Hull Integrity reduces by 1
- Equipment Malfunction – choose one random equipment token worth up to 5UA from those held by your crew and in your hold, and discard it.
Don't forget, if any of a ship's systems reach zero the ship becomes damaged beyond repair and uninhabitable. Unless you can repair the ship in this phase, the crew will disband and will be out of the campaign.
Repair
After you have rolled for degradation, you will have a chance to repair your ship. Making a repair will fill in one space of your choice in the Maintenance area of the Ship Board, and will cost 2UA. There is no limit to the number of repairs you can make during a phase, and repairs can be made across all four of the ship's systems.
Note that Ship Parts tokens can be found during missions, and can also be spent to make the number of repairs stated on the token, to the same or different systems.
Upgrades
When a ship is fully maintained, with no spaces left unfilled, you can instead turn your attention to upgrading your ship. The available upgrades are:
- Scanners
- Airlock Auto-Defences
- Docking Thrusters
Each has three different levels. You can only purchase a new level for an upgrade once all previous levels of that upgrade have already been purchased. The cost to apply upgrades is as follows:
- Level 1: 1UA
- Level 2: 2UA
- Level 3: 3UA
A maximum of one upgrade can be made in each Maintenance Phase. Once an upgrade has been applied, you should mark it on both sides of your Ship Board for reference during your games.
You cannot apply upgrades to your ship while any of the maintenance spaces are left unfilled. Upgrades that have already been applied will not degrade.
Reference – Skills
This section contains all the rules for the Skills shown on each Trader's Class Board (and in some cases their Character Board). Each is represented by a colour-coded icon that matches one of the Skills in this section.
Ranged Skills
Sure Shot
- 1: Make a ranged attack at short range. This attack does not roll any dice – it scores 1 automatic hit, ignoring cover. Armour modifies the hit as normal. You cannot Move in the same round that you use this Skill.
- 2: Make a ranged attack at medium range, even if you have Moved. This attack does not roll any dice – it scores 1 automatic hit, ignoring cover. Armour modifies the hit as normal.
- 3: Make a ranged attack at medium range, even if you have Moved. This attack does not roll any dice – it scores 1 automatic hit, ignoring cover and armour.
Counter Shot
- 1: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a ranged attack. Make a ranged attack against the attacker.
- 2: Reaction: Use at any time after a target enemy has taken its first action in the current round. Make a ranged attack against the target.
- 3: Reaction: Use at any time. Make a ranged attack against an enemy with one extra combat die, and then make a Move action.
Marksman
- 1: Make a ranged attack.
- 2: Make a ranged attack with one extra combat die. After rolling the dice, you can split the hits scored between up to two eligible targets within range of your weapon and within short range of each other.
- 3: Make a ranged attack with two extra combat die. After rolling the dice, you can split the hits scored between any number of eligible targets within range of your weapon and within short range of each other.
Weapons Expert
- 1: Passive: You may Reload as an effortless action. / Make a ranged attack, rolling 2 additional dice. You cannot Move in the same round that you use this Skill.
- 2: Passive: You may make a Ranged Assault action with a pistol as an effortless action. / Use when making a ranged attack. You may fire two different pistols as a single action – add their dice together and subtract one die.
- 3: You can shoot a weapon from an enemy's hand. Make a ranged attack. This rolls two dice regardless of the weapon's statistics but must be within range and LoS as normal. If at least one hit is scored, no damage is done, but a weapon of your choice is removed from their dashboard and scattered. The weapon is broken but can be Repaired as normal.
Close Assault Skills
Kata
- 1: Use when making a close assault attack. Add 2 dice to the attack.
- 2: Use when making a close assault attack. Add 3 dice to the attack.
- 3: Use when making a close assault attack. Add 4 dice to the attack. After rolling the dice, you can split the hits scored between any number of enemies in base contact.
Disarm
- 1: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack in which you took no damage. The weapon that the attacker used is removed from their dashboard and scattered.
- 2: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack in which you took no damage. The weapon that the attacker used is removed from their dashboard and added to yours. If you do not have space for it you may place it on top of your current items and use it until you are no longer engaged with that enemy, at which point it must be dropped or swapped with your items.
- 3: Reaction: As level 2. In addition you can make an immediate Close Assault action with the stolen weapon, followed by a Move action with no attacks of opportunity allowed.
Reflexes
- 1: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack. Ignore all hits scored.
- 2: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack. Ignore all hits scored. Then, make an immediate Close Assault action against the attacker, rolling 1 additional die.
- 3: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack. Ignore all hits scored. Then, make an immediate Close Assault action against the attacker, rolling 2 additional dice, followed by a Move action with no attacks of opportunity allowed.
Combat Expert
- 1: Passive: Ignore one hit scored against you during any attack of opportunity. / You sweep your enemy's feet from under them. A target enemy in base contact is knocked prone.
- 2: Passive: You may make a Close Assault action as an effortless action. / Use when making a close assault attack to use a pistol or rifle instead of a close assault weapon. Roll to hit as normal using the weapon's short range statistic, and add 2 dice to the attack. This uses ammo as normal.
- 3: You burst out of combat. All enemies engaged with your character can be pushed up to 2 inches away in a direction of your choice, stopping if they hit a wall or other obstruction. No attacks of opportunity are made, but each enemy pushed back suffers an attack with 2 dice (armour applies as normal). Then, you may make a Move action.
Endurance Skills
Walk it Off
- 1: Restore 1 Health.
- 2: Reaction: Use after being targeted with an attack. Reduce damage sustained by 2.
- 3: Reaction: Use after being defeated. You are no longer defeated – restore 1 Health, Stand Up, and you may then make a Move action.
Onslaught
- 1: Reaction: Use after scoring one or more hits on an enemy in close assault. Make another Close Assault action.
- 2: Reaction: Use after scoring one or more hits on an enemy with any attack. Make a Move if you wish, and then make another Close Assault action.
- 3: Use during a Move action. You may ignore attacks of opportunity during this Move, and you may make a close assault attack against each enemy you come into contact with while moving.
Stubborn
- 1: Make a Move action.
- 2: Make a Move action followed by an Assault action.
- 3: Reaction: Use after being targeted with an attack. Ignore all hits scored, and then make a Move action and an Assault action in any order.
Impervious
- 1: Reaction: Use when another rule or Skill causes you to lose any actions or miss your next turn. Ignore the effect.
- 2: Consider your physical armour value to be 2 higher than it currently is until the end of the round.
- 3: Restore 1 Health. This may take you above your starting level as long as there is space on your dashboard, for this game only. In addition, you may not take any damage, be Knocked Back, or be affected by any rule that causes you to lose actions or miss your turn until the end of the round after the current one.
Stealth Skills
Hard to Hit
- 1: While in cover, you cannot be damaged by ranged attacks until the end of the round, although you can be targeted as normal.
- 2: While in cover or at more than short range, you cannot be damaged by ranged attacks until the end of the round, although you can be targeted as normal.
- 3: Make a Ranged Assault action followed by a Move action. You cannot be damaged by any enemy ranged attacks until the end of the round, although you can be targeted as normal.
Ambush
- 1: Reaction: Use when an enemy ends a move within 4 inches of you and you are in full or partial cover. Make a Ranged Assault action against that enemy. You may make a Proximity Move before or after this action.
- 2: Reaction: Use when an enemy ends a move within 4 inches of you and you are in full or partial cover. Make a Move action and then an Assault action against that enemy. You may make a Proximity Move before or after these actions.
- 3: Reaction: Use when an enemy ends a move within 4 inches of you and you are in full or partial cover. Make a Move action, an Assault action against any enemy, and then another Move action. You may make a Proximity Move before, during or after these actions.
Camouflage
- 1: While you are in base contact with any wall you cannot be targeted for the rest of the round. Enemies cannot enter base contact with you. You do not block LoS to other characters in any way.
- 2: Make a Ranged Assault action. While you are in base contact with any terrain you cannot be targeted for the rest of the round. Enemies cannot enter base contact with you. You do not block LoS to other characters in any way.
- 3: While you are not engaged with an enemy you cannot be targeted for the rest of the round. Enemies cannot enter base contact with you. You do not block LoS to other characters in any way. / Reaction: At any time during the round you may interrupt play to make a Ranged Assault action.
Fade to Black
- 1: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a ranged attack if you are within 4 inches of cover. Move into cover.
- 2: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a ranged attack if you are within 4 inches of cover. Move into cover, and ignore all hits scored in that attack.
- 3: Reaction: Use at any time. Make a Move action into cover, ignoring any attacks of opportunity, and make a Ranged Assault action, in any order. You cannot be targeted for the rest of the round.
Cunning Skills
Distraction
- 1: Use when making a Ranged Assault action. The target loses 1 action in its next turn in addition to any damage caused.
- 2: Make a Ranged Assault action. Any one enemy within short range of the target misses its entire next turn in addition to any damage caused. Then make a Move action.
- 3: Make a Ranged Assault action. You may then make a Move action with the target model (you cannot use this Move to enter base contact with an enemy), and it will miss its entire next turn in addition to any damage caused. Then make a Move action yourself.
Evade
- 1: Reaction: Use when an enemy moves into base contact with you. Make a Move action, ignoring attacks of opportunity.
- 2: Reaction: Use when an enemy moves into base contact with you. In any order, make a Move action, ignoring attacks of opportunity, and an Assault action.
- 3: Reaction: Use when an enemy moves into base contact with you. In any order, make two Move actions, ignoring attacks of opportunity, and an Assault action. The attacker cannot do anything further this round, including using Skills.
Light Fingers
- 1: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack in which you took no damage. Take any item from the attacker's item tray other than the one they attacked with. If you do not have space for it, it or another item you are holding must be dropped.
- 2: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack. Take any item from the attacker's item tray other than the one they attacked with. Items with the effortless icon can be used immediately. Otherwise, if you do not have space for it, it or another item you are holding must be dropped.
- 3: Reaction: Use after being targeted with a close assault attack. Take any item from the attacker's item tray. Items with the effortless icon can be used immediately. Otherwise, if you do not have space for it, it or another item you are holding must be dropped. Then make an immediate Move or Assault action, ignoring attacks of opportunity.
Persuasion
- 1: Make a Persuade action against an enemy Trader (with their own default (not current) Skill statistic counting as their Persuade value) within short range and LoS, to try to dissuade them from their mission. If successful, they miss their next turn.
- 2: Make a Persuade action against a non-Purge enemy within short range and LoS, with 1 additional die. Targeted Traders use their Skill statistic as above. The normal options apply (although enemy Traders will not join you), and in addition you can Persuade a character to miss their next turn.
- 3: Make a Persuade action against a non-Purge enemy within short range and LoS, with 2 additional dice. Targeted Traders use their Skill statistic as above. The same options apply as above, except that Trader crew (not captains) can be persuaded to join you, for the rest of this mission only. They will never attack their old crew members. Like Civilians, you must roll the Chance Die each round before activating them. On a Live One result they will return to their old crew.
Tech Skills
Disrupt
- 1: Target an enemy Trader with the Tech Class within medium range. They cannot use any Tech Skills this round. OR: Target up to 2 Purge (rank 1-3 only) within medium range. They miss their next turn.
- 2: All enemy Traders with the Tech Class within medium range cannot use any Tech Skills this round. OR: All Purge (rank 1-3 only) within medium range miss their next turn.
- 3: Target an enemy Trader with the Tech Class within medium range. They cannot use any Tech Skills for the rest of the game. OR: Target an enemy Trader with the Tech Class anywhere on the board. They cannot use any Tech Skills for the rest of the round. OR: All Purge (rank 1-3 only) within medium range miss their next two turns. OR: All Purge (rank 1-3 only) on the board miss their next turn.
Assist
- 1: Target yourself or another member of your crew. They cannot be harmed by ranged attacks for the rest of the round.
- 2: Target yourself or another member of your crew. They restore 2 Health.
- 3: You co-ordinate your team with vital intelligence. Target yourself and two other members of your crew. Each character may make 1 action, resolved in any order.
Regulate
- 1: You can jam enemy sensors to remove a peg from the Hostility Tracker. OR: You can apply one Repair Point to any item or machine in base contact.
- 2: Choose a Purge Entry Point and turn the counter over. Purge will not enter from this point until the next Hostility level is reached. If this Entry Point is rolled, roll again.
- 3: You hijack the Purge data stream and disrupt their mission intelligence. Choose a point anywhere on the board. All Purge (except Live Ones) within medium range of that point immediately move as far as their actions will allow toward that point (ignoring all targets and generating attacks of opportunity if they leave base contact) and will not act further this round.
Hack
- 1: Shut down a Purge character (rank 1-2 only) within medium range. Remove it from play. OR: Lock or unlock any door you are in base contact with.
- 2: Shut down up to 2 Purge characters (rank 1-2 only) within medium range. Remove them from play. OR: Lock or unlock any door within medium range.
- 3: Shut down up to 2 Purge characters (rank 1-3 only) within medium range. Remove them from play. OR: Take control of any Purge character (rank 1-3 only) within medium range (place a Reminder Counter on them to remind you). It is treated as part of your crew until it or this Tech character is defeated or until the mission is over. OR: Lock or unlock any one door on the board.
Augmented Skills
Accelerate
- 1: Make a Move action.
- 2: Make two extra Move and/or Assault actions this turn. You may make your other actions before, during or after these actions.
- 3: Make three extra Move and/or Assault actions this turn. You may make your other actions before, during or after these actions.
Blast
- 1: You expel a focused percussive blast of energy from your limbs. Make a ranged attack with the following statistics: 3 dice at short range, 2 at medium, 0 at long.
- 2: You expel the energy behind you to propel yourself up and forward. Make two Move actions ignoring all intervening cover and characters.
- 3: You expel energy in all directions. All characters within short range suffer an attack with 3 dice and are pushed away a number of inches equal to the hits scored, with no attacks of opportunity.
Manipulate
- 1: You disrupt the mind of the enemy. Target an enemy in LoS. They miss their next turn.
- 2: You disrupt the enemy's equipment. Target an item held by an enemy in LoS. That item immediately breaks.
- 3: You alter the environment around you. Perform one of the following: Move any small terrain item (such as a cargo crate or table) or loose item token in LoS up to short range from its current location. OR: Hurl any small to medium terrain item (like a vending machine or table) in medium range and LoS up to short range from its current location. If it hits a character, it will stop and an attack roll of 4 dice is made against the target.
Energise
- 1: Boost your vitality. Make a Move action or Ranged Assault action. OR: Restore 1 Health.
- 2: Boost your senses. Look at the top two Event Cards and then place them back onto the deck in the same order. Then make a Move action.
- 3: Boost your speed and strength. Make a Move action, and before or after it, either: Make a close assault attack with 6 combat dice. OR: Make a ranged attack with 4 combat dice. OR: Make a ranged attack with 6 combat dice, but then lose 1 Health.
Machine Skills
Reroute
- 1: Reaction: Use after being defeated. You are no longer defeated – restore 2 Health and Stand Up.
- 2: You can activate self-repair systems and restore 2 Health.
- 3: Use when in base contact with a wall that does not contain a door or window. You can patch into the internal substructure to recharge. Restore your Health to its maximum.
Scanners
- 1: Target a cargo crate within short range and LoS. Inspect the contents and then put it back inside.
- 2: You can intercept Purge sensors and relay false data. Target any 2 Purge characters (rank 1-3 only) within medium range and make a Move action with them in a direction of your choice.
- 3: You can send out a jamming pulse that blocks all transmissions and micro control data. Reduce or increase the Hostility Tracker by 2 points. All other Traders with the Machine Class and Purge of rank 1-3 miss their next turn.
Bodyguard Protocol
- 1: Reaction: Use at any time. Make a Move action.
- 2: Target a friendly character in base contact. They restore 1 Health. While in contact, you may take any or all hits that they suffer on yourself instead until the end of the round.
- 3: Reaction: Use at any time. Make two Move actions and a Close Assault action, in any order. After the Close Assault action, if the enemy has not been defeated, roll a combat die. If you score one or more hits, the enemy is knocked prone.
Repair
- 1: Make a Repair or Clear Jam action on yourself or any other character or equipment in base contact, with one automatic hit added to the roll.
- 2: You can apply three Repair Points to yourself or any item or machine in base contact.
- 3: Release a cloud of repair nanites. Fully Repair one object/heal any Machine character in short range (including yourself), without rolling. Any other objects, items or Machine characters in short range can apply 1 Repair Point.
Overdrive
- 1: Take any action.
- 2: Take any two actions and then lose 1 Health.
- 3: You overload your power cells and self-destruct. Make a ranged attack against each character within short range with 5 combat dice. Make a ranged attack against each character in medium range with 2 combat dice. After resolving the attacks roll the Chance Die:
- 1-2: Every part of you and your equipment is destroyed. This character is no more and is removed from the campaign permanently.
- 3-4: Every part of you is destroyed and this character is no more, as above. However, each of your equipment tokens is scattered from the point where you stood. This equipment is broken, but can be Repaired.
- 5-6: Every part of your body and your equipment is destroyed, but remarkably your AI chip-set is intact. Take the Objective token and scatter it from the point where you stood. The character can be restored in the Trade Phase.
Merg Skills
Charge
- 1: Make a Move action that ends in base contact with an enemy, and then make a Knock Back action. Any hits on the Knock Back action are applied as damage to the enemy in addition to the normal effects. Armour applies as normal.
- 2: While making Move actions this round you can make a free close assault attack on up to 3 characters that you enter contact with during your Move, ignoring attacks of opportunity from these characters.
Disconnect
- 1: You allow your natural rage to flood your body. For this turn you can Move an additional 2 inches and roll 2 extra combat dice in Close Assault. At the end of the turn, you become disconnected from your handler.
- 2: You fill your body with unbridled rage. For this turn you gain an extra action. You can also Move an additional 2 inches and roll 2 extra combat dice in Close Assault. Any enemies that you enter contact with during your Moves this turn are knocked prone. At the end of the turn, you become disconnected from your handler.
Heel
- 1: Make a Move action towards your handler via the shortest possible route. If you enter base contact with your handler, any hits that your handler suffers from attacks this round are taken on you instead (armour applies as normal).
- 2: Make up to two Move actions towards your handler via the shortest possible route. If you enter base contact with your handler, any hits that your handler suffers from attacks this round are taken on you instead (armour applies as normal). Your handler also restores 1 Health.
- 3: Make up to three Move actions (up to the normal 11 inch limit) towards your handler via the shortest possible route. You may move through other characters, making a free Knock Back action on each one you pass through. If you enter base contact with your handler, any hits that your handler suffers from attacks this round are taken on you instead (armour applies as normal). Your handler also restores 1 Health.
Sonic Roar
- 1: You use your modulated vocal chords to unleash a powerful blast. All characters within short range suffer an attack with 1 combat die that ignores armour. Augmented, Machine and Purge characters are not affected.
- 2: You use your modulated vocal chords to unleash a powerful blast that affects all matter. A single character (of any type except Purge rank 4 and above) within medium range and LoS suffers an attack with 2 combat dice that ignores armour. If the target survives they are knocked prone.
Vocational Skills
These Skills are suitable for characters whose abilities are not limited to the battlefield.
Some of them are used between games. Doing so will require a Trader to use Skill pegs as usual, meaning that they must have pegs spare at the end of a mission. Each Trader may only use one Skill between games for each Career level they have. The phase they can be used in is marked in bold. If not used between games the Skill points are wasted.
This Skill type can be used for creating custom Traders and Classes as detailed in the Deluxe Rules, and can also be found in some of the new Classes in this pack.
Negotiation
- 1: Passive: Re-roll one die on any Persuade roll.
- 2: Extraction Phase: Use before rolling on the 'You're on Your Own' or Apprehended tables for yourself or any other member of your crew. You may ignore any UA cost associated with the extraction. Any other effects will apply. You then gain a Career Point.
- 3: Use this Skill when an enemy Trader Captain is unengaged and in medium range and LoS. Your crew and the other Captain's crew treat each other as friendly for the rest of the round – they cannot attack each other and can move through each other's Traders. In addition, pick one of your Traders. That Trader cannot attack or be attacked by the other crew until the next Hostility level is reached, and can escape via the other crew's airlock during this time. The other crew will return your Trader at no cost after the game.
Barter
- 1: Trade Phase: You may perform one of the following: Re-roll a Ship Repair Cost result; Re-roll a Raw Blue sale price result; Sell one item for its buy value, to a maximum of 10UA.
- 2: Trade Phase: Deduct up to 2UA from the buy prices or add 2UA to the sale prices of up to three items, in any combination.
- 3: Passive: Deduct up to 2UA from the cost of an item, ship repair or crew bonus in each Trade Phase. / Trade Phase: Increase the number of UA gained from any primary and secondary objectives (if applicable) by 50%, rounding up.
Training
- 1: Use after taking an action. Another Trader in your crew within short range and LoS immediately makes the same action for free.
- 2: Advancement Phase: Add one Career Point to any other Trader in your Crew (level 1-2 only).
- 3: Advancement Phase: Add one Career Point to any two Traders in your Crew. One can be at any level; the other is level 1-2 only.
Engineering
- 1: Make a Repair action. Do not roll – apply up to two Repair Points automatically. Additional Repair Points may be applied by spending additional actions.
- 2: Passive: Up to one Ship Repair can be made each game without visiting the Scrap Merchant (see Dangerous Days), although you must pay for parts as normal. / Maintenance Phase: Use this Skill to re-roll a Degradation result.
- 3: Maintenance Phase: Use this Skill to either: Cancel a Degradation roll before rolling; or Apply a ship upgrade (following all the usual rules and costs) while your ship is not fully repaired.
Slippery
- 1: Make a Move action with +2 inches of movement.
- 2: Passive: You may use an effortless action to ignore an attack of opportunity. / This Skill may be used while the Trader is Apprehended to remove the Apprehended Board and restore one point of Health.
- 3: Make a Move action. This and all of your other Move actions in this turn ignore attacks of opportunity. Make an attack with one die against each enemy contacted during your moves. Any hits will also knock them prone, even if no damage is caused.
Hack and Grab
- 1: Make any two of the following actions, in any order, before, after or between your other actions this turn: Move; Unlock and open a door or Searchable terrain piece in short range; Lock and close a door or Searchable terrain piece in short range (may be the same one).
- 2: Make a Move action into base contact with another character, and roll a die to attempt to pickpocket them as follows:
- Misfire: You fail. There is no effect.
- Blank: One of the target's items, chosen at random, is scattered.
- 1 Hit: Take a small item of your choice from the target's tray.
- 2 Hits: Take any item of your choice from the target's tray and knock them prone.
- Then make another Move action, with no attack of opportunity.
- 3: You may use a homemade miniaturised portal device to inspect the contents of any Searchable terrain piece within medium range. Then roll a combat die:
- Misfire: Return all the items.
- Blank: Take or swap a small item of your choice.
- 1 Hit: Take or swap any item of your choice.
- 2 Hits: Take or swap all items, and distribute them between your own equipment tray and your ship's hold.
- You may then lock the terrain piece if you wish.
Scientific Mind
- 1: Use either of the following: Reaction: Use when this or another Trader in the same room neutralises an Infestation to place a Reminder Counter in the room. In the following Assessment Phase, this room cannot be chosen as the one to spread the infestation, and if an infestation would be placed in this room nothing will happen. See Infestations in Purge Outbreak/Dangerous Days. / Reaction: Use when a Rogue Purge NPC in LoS gains one or more pegs. Add one black peg to your own Skill track. This may be used as described in the Rogue Purge expansion.
- 2: Passive: If this Trader is in the room when infection rolls are made to damage friendly Traders, the Traders may re-roll the dice. / Reaction: Use when retrieving Rogue Purge remains to add up to two pegs to the collected AI chip, up to the character's maximum.
- 3: Passive: This Trader may neutralise Infestations as an effortless action. / Reaction: Use after defeating a Purge character in Close Assault to take a Raw Blue token.
Bounty Hunter Skills
These new Skills are used for the new Bounty Hunter and Mercenary Class boards.
Gunslinger
- 1: Make a ranged attack with one extra combat die. / Passive: You may make Ranged Assault actions at any point during your Move actions.
- 2: Make two ranged attacks and then Move. / Passive: Once per round, when firing a pistol at a target within 2 squares, you may add one die to the attack.
- 3: Make up to five ranged attacks with a single pistol at up to short range. Each shot is resolved separately. You may add one combat die to any three of these attacks. / Passive: You may fire two pistols of the same type as a single action. Resolve each shot separately.
Survivor
- 1: Reaction: Use after being damaged by a ranged attack. Reduce damage sustained by 1. Then make a Move action.
- 2: Reaction: Use when engaged by an enemy, before they attack. Make a Close Assault action and then a Knock Back action against the enemy that engaged you. You may then Move.
- 3: Reaction: Use at any time. Take three actions. Any Assault actions will each benefit from a single re-roll.
Shady Contacts
- 1: Trade Phase: Purchase one item from Giger's Emporium/VIP Area regardless of your Traders' Career levels, paying all costs as normal.
- 2: Trade Phase: One NPC that joined your crew in the preceding game will join your crew for half the normal On-Mission rate, or you can force them to pay you their full On-Mission rate to release them.
- 3: Place two random rank 1-2 Gangers (or Civilians if you don't have Gangers) at any Entry Point. They are considered to be part of your crew for the rest of the mission. / Passive: Any Persuade rolls made against Gangers automatically succeed, without rolling.
Uncanny Skills
- 1: Use when diving through a window to count as rolling a 6, without rolling the die. Alternatively, use during a fall to ignore up to 2 damage caused and end the fall standing up.
- 2: Choose a target in short range. Make a ranged attack against them. If they survive, make a Move into contact with them and make a close assault attack. If they survive, mark them with a Reminder Counter – they will miss their next turn.
- 3: Move into contact with an enemy, and then mark your Trader with 3 Reminder Counters. Until you disengage, you may spend one Counter per action to either add one die to an attack roll against that enemy, or ignore a point of damage when attacked by that enemy.
Ship Commander Skills
These Skills are used for the new Helmsman and Skipper Class boards.
Pilot
- 1: Battlefield Overview – look at the top card of the Event Deck. / Passive: +1 Commander Skill Peg at the start of the game.
- 2: Make a daring manoeuvre to get a headstart on your mission. At the start of the game, before setup, choose one: Be the first to choose your airlock and be first player in the first round; +3 Commander Actions in the first round; +/-1 Reputation. / Passive: This Trader can spend two actions to equip a Combat item into a Utility Dashboard during a game.
- 3: Maintenance Phase: Ignore all effects of a Catastrophic Chain Reaction result.
You're in Charge
- 1: Until the end of the round, you can use all zones on your ship as if this Trader was in that zone.
- 2: Trade Phase: You will get first pick of any items available, regardless of mission outcome.
- 3: Move a Trader on your ship to any zone. Until the end of the round, any time you would place a Ship Counter you may place two (on the same or different targets as applicable).
She Can Take It!
- 1: Makeshift Hardware – choose any improved zone, whether you have it on your ship or not. You may use its abilities from the helm this round.
- 2: Reaction: Use at any time. Make one ranged attack with a rifle weapon or two ranged attacks with a pistol weapon. / Passive: Once per round, you can use any number of fuel points as actions for a single ship ability.
- 3: Make up to five Commander actions. Roll a die for each action taken after the first – there is a chance the zone used will degrade. The zone will not degrade on a 2+ for the second action, a 3+ for the third action, and so on. Abilities that require multiple actions could require multiple rolls at once.
If multiple players activate Skills that allow them to choose something first (e.g. airlock position or Trade Phase), each should roll a die, adding the Trader's Skill statistic to the roll. Resolve the abilities in order, highest score first.
Reference – Icons
Character Abilities
- Move: Whenever making a Move action, this character can move an additional number of inches equal to the number inside this icon. They are still limited to the 11 inch maximum.
- Clear Jam: This character can Clear a Jam as an effortless action.
- Unarmed close assault: Whenever making a Close Assault action, this player rolls dice equal to the number inside this icon when unarmed. If the Trader chooses to use a weapon, they use the weapon's statistics instead.
- Unarmed ranged assault: Whenever making a Ranged Assault action, this player rolls dice equal to the number inside this icon when unarmed. If the Trader chooses to use a weapon, they use the weapon's statistics instead.
- Physical armour: This character has a permanent physical armour value equal to the number inside this icon, when they are not wearing armour. If they wear armour, they use whichever value is highest.
- Massive: This character is massive.
- Massive characters can be seen past/over smaller characters. Any character with a lower number in their Massive icon, or no Massive icon at all, will not block LoS to a Massive character, but may provide cover following the normal rules.
- Massive characters reduce Knock Back attempts against them by the number shown in the icon. They also add this many automatic hits to their own Knock Back attempts.
- Massive characters increase their safe distance by a number of inches equal to the number in their icon. They also cannot dive through windows unless the players agree that a particular window is big enough for them.
- First Strike: When this character moves into contact with an enemy, it gets an immediate free Close Assault action.
- Get back up: Once this character has been defeated, the player can roll the number of combat dice shown in the icon in each Trader Phase. If a hit is scored, the Trader may stand back up and restore Health equal to the number of hits. This is their activation for that round. This can only be done once per game.
- Rank: This is the rank of an NPC.
- Linked actions: Characters with this icon have their actions 'linked'. This means that any actions they take in their turn must be of the same type. For example, a character with two actions could move twice or shoot twice, but couldn't move and shoot in the same turn.
- Carry ranged weapons only: This character can carry ranged weapons, but cannot use them.
- Carry close assault weapons only: This character can carry close assault weapons, but cannot use them.
- Climbing and Jumping: This is used with the Climbing and Jumping rules. The top number is the maximum height or width in inches of objects that the character can move up or across as part of a normal Move action – they do not need to Climb them or spend any actions. The bottom number is the character's safe distance for Jumping down or across. Characters with this ability can Move through open windows without penalty – they do not need to dive.
- Carry equipment only: This character can carry equipment tokens, but cannot use them.
Item Attributes
- Thrown: This item can be thrown at short range with the indicated number of dice. If the icon has an M or L next to it, it can be thrown at medium or long range respectively.
- Effortless: This item can be used as an effortless action.
- Rare: This item is rare and cannot be bought. It can only be found using the Search action during a mission.
- Burst Fire +1: You may add 1 combat die to your attack, but you must remove 1 extra ammo peg.
- Burst Fire +2: You may add up to 2 combat dice to your attack, but you must remove the same number of extra ammo pegs.
- Full Charge Shot: You may empty your weapon in one powerful blast. This removes all ammo pegs. Either: add 2 combat dice to your attack if 4-5 ammo pegs were removed; or add 3 combat dice to your attack if 6-7 ammo pegs were removed.
- Infinite Ammo: This weapon does not use any ammo pegs (and can be fired if you have no ammo), but one peg must still be added to the Hostility Tracker from the supply.
- Reliable: This weapon ignores misfire results.
- Target Lock: This weapon ignores partial cover, and can fire at engaged characters at any range without randomising the target.
- Silent: This weapon does not add a peg to the Hostility Tracker.
- Dangerous: After the shot is fired, the user suffers an attack with a number of combat dice equal to the number in the icon.
- Sustained Fire: If this weapon hits, you may immediately make another ranged attack with the same weapon as an effortless action. The second attack must target the same enemy, or an enemy within short range of them.
- Flip: When this item has been used, flip the token face down. There will often be an alternate effect on the back.
- Discard: When this item has been used, discard it and return the token to the pouch.
- Effortless reload: This weapon can be Reloaded as an effortless action.
- No reload: This weapon cannot be Reloaded during the game – it is only Reloaded between missions.
- Not this mission: This item cannot be used in the same mission that you find it – turn it face down to remind yourself.
- Freeze: This weapon freezes the target and they miss their next turn. No dice roll is needed. Roll dice as shown for any characters within 1 and 2 inches respectively. Any hits will freeze them too, regardless of armour or cover.
- Jam: All characters within short range of the target, regardless of LoS, armour or cover, may not make Ranged Assault actions this round. No dice roll is needed.
- Scatter: This weapon scatters the target, with no attacks of opportunity allowed. No dice roll is needed. The target can be scattered through a wall or terrain piece, but cannot end its move on top of it. They cannot be scattered off of the board, but can be scattered into mid-air if using multi-level terrain, in which case they will fall from their current height. Roll dice as shown for any characters within 1 and 2 inches respectively. Any hits will scatter them too. Note that this can be used on a friendly character.
Equipment Notes
Here you will find a few additional notes on various items to clarify their use.
Separating Items
Note that certain items are used separately during games of Core Space, and should therefore be kept separately between games, in tubs or ziplock bags, for easy access. The item types are:
- Small items: These are always used, and can be kept in the item pouch.
- Large items: These are only used when filling large crates and should be kept separately.
- Rare items: These are only used where indicated by the mission and should be kept separately.
- Objective (green) items: These are only used where indicated by the mission and should be kept separately.
Using Items
Note that items do not have to be used on the character holding them – they can also be used to benefit a friendly character in base contact. For example, you can use a Medi-Stim to restore a comrade's health directly, without having to pass it to them first.
Specific Item Notes
- Ammo Box: This item contains two batches of ammo. On first use the token is flipped, and on second use it is discarded. If this item has not yet been discarded at the end of a campaign mission, it is refilled automatically and placed face up in the next mission.
- Loose Ammo: The term 'D6' refers to a six-sided die. Roll the Chance Die to see how much ammo you restore with this token.
- Target Laser: This allows the character to re-roll a single die rolled as part of each ranged attack before determining the result. This can avoid, or cause, a jam.
- Laser Cutter: When using the rules for doors, this allows a character to use an action to unlock and open a locked door in base contact.
- Data Pad: When using the rules for doors, this allows a character to use an action to hack into and open or close a door within medium range (LoS not required).
- Tech Pack: This allows a Tech or Machine character to add one die to a Repair roll.
- Ship Parts: Ship Parts can be spent in the Maintenance Phase to make the number of repairs stated on the token, to the same or different systems.
- Base Abilities: Items such as the Empathic Cuffs (Impervious Skill) apply base abilities to a character exactly as if they were on the character's Trader Board.
- Exclusive Items: Some weapons and items are exclusive to a character, species or Class, such as the Storm Bracers exclusive to the Merg. This will be marked on the token.
Quick Reference
Order of Play
- Hostility Phase
- Trader Phase
- Purge Phase
- NPC Phase
- Assessment Phase
Hostility Phase
- Add 1 peg per 3 crews.
- Draw Event Card.
Trader Phase
Take turns activating Traders. Each Trader makes actions equal to their Action statistic each turn.
- Prone characters must Stand Up first.
- Defeated characters cannot activate until revived.
Actions
- Move: Up to 4", max 11" per round. Enemies may make an attack of opportunity if character leaves base contact.
- Ranged Assault: Make a ranged attack against target in range and LoS. Discard ammo peg(s). One peg per round added to Hostility Tracker.
- Close Assault: Make a close assault attack against target in base contact.
- Knock Back: Roll unarmed combat value against target in base contact. Push target back 1" per hit, can follow up. 3+ hits = prone target. Misfire = no effect, target can Knock Back attacker.
- Search: EITHER look in crate in base contact, take or swap items; OR place a Search Counter in room and take token from pouch.
- Reload: Use ammo token to refill Ammo pegs.
- Persuade: Roll dice equal to Skill statistic against target in base contact. Hits must beat target's Persuade value. Success = target swaps item, joins crew, or other (see mission).
- Other: Interact, Stand Up, Don Armour, Clear Jam.
Effortless Actions
1 free per round, spend an action or Skill peg for more.
- Proximity Move – Move 1"
- Use any effortless item
- Throw item
- Pick up or drop item
- Give/take/swap item with other character
Skills
During turn, spend X Skill pegs to use available Skill at X level. Max one Skill used per round (incl. effortless actions).
- Passive Skills do not need pegs.
- Reaction Skills only used when trigger condition occurs.
Attack Rolls
- Roll dice, 1 blue, others red. Hit icons = hits.
- Reduce hits by cover.
- Reduce hits by armour value.
- Reduce target's health by remaining hits / any hits will defeat NPCs.
- 2+ misfires = weapon jammed/broken.
Blast Weapons
Roll the blue combat die. Any hits = on target; blank = move target point 1"; misfire = opponent moves target point up to 2". Then resolve like an attack roll.
Weapon Statistics
- Ranged weapons: short range, medium range, long range.
- Close assault weapons: standard hit, heavy hit, thrown weapon.
- Armour: Physical, Shield, Combat.
- Blast weapons: target point, within 1", within 2".
Purge Phase
Arrival. Roll the Purge Die or Chance Die for each type, top to bottom. Roll the Chance Die for entry point. Place characters as close to entry point as possible. Rank 4+ – max 1 per game.
Activation. Highest rank first. Choose target, then take actions as per NPC Action Chart.
Target closest non-Purge character. Prioritise targets in LoS and not in cover. Target is locked for the turn.
Assassins will target Captains if in LoS.
NPC Phase
Galactic Corps, Security, Gangs, then Civilians. Each arrives and then activates, highest rank first.
Target highest priority enemy in base contact, then in LoS and not in cover, then those in cover, then elsewhere.
If shooting a target the NPC cannot damage, it will choose another if possible.
Civilians
Roll the Chance Die:
- Move in the Chance Die direction.
- Make Assault action against closest target. Then Move twice in the Chance Die direction. If no target, Move in the Chance Die direction.
- Move into cover from nearest visible enemy. If no cover or no enemies, Move in the Chance Die direction.
- Join crew of closest Trader in short range and LoS. If no Traders, Move in the Chance Die direction.
- Move towards nearest unengaged Trader in LoS. If they reach, may swap item with target. If no Traders in LoS, Move in the Chance Die direction.
- If Hostility high enough for a Live One, replace Civilian with Live One, if available.
Target priority: 1. Purge; 2. Gangers/Traders.
Will not move within 4" of Purge unless attacking. If they start within 4" of Purge, any movement must be directly away until more than 4" away. Other actions taken as normal.
Assessment Phase
- Remove Activation Counters.
- Other 'end of round' effects.
- Pass Turn Counter.