Stellar Conflict Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• 1. Contents
• 2. Gameplay
  • 2.1 Setup
  • 2.2 Phases
    • 2.2.1 Preparation Phase
    • 2.2.2 Deployment Phase
    • 2.2.3 Battle Phase
    • 2.2.4 Scoring Phase
  • 2.3 Racial Abilities
  • Ship Card Reference
• 3. Multiplayer Games
• 4. Variants
• 5. Credits

1. Contents

• 48 Damage tokens
• 16 Cargo cubes
• 12 Delay tokens
• 20 Wiss Ship cards
• 20 Vak Ship cards
• 23 Tetrakori Ship cards
• 20 Hexai Ship cards
• 5 Meteor cards
• Rubber bands
• Rulebook

2. Gameplay

The following rules are for the 2-player game. For 3 and 4-player games, check the corresponding section.

2.1 Setup

Choose a large, open table as your playing surface - the bigger it is, the better. We advise you to have a cloth on the table since cards may slide on a polished surface. Keep the included rubber bands nearby. They are there to help you check your laser shots - use either the rubber band itself or its shadow to trace straight lines. Just be careful when doing so, not to disturb the cards in play, as their position will probably matter later.

Each player chooses a race to play with and takes all of that race's cards. He also receives all damage tokens from a color of his choice.

Players agree on the scale of the battle:

• Dispute - 10 Credit value
• Conflict - 15 Credit value
• War - 30 Credit value

Initiative

The number in the top left corner of a ship is initiative. Lower numbers shoot first, and ships of the same initiative fire at the same time. This means that a slower ship may even be destroyed before it can shoot.

Victory Points (VP)

VP represent the value of the ship once destroyed.

Shooting

There are three sizes of laser beam.

• Thin White laser with Purple aura - 1 damage
• Medium Red laser - 2 damage
• Thick Green-White laser - 3 damage

When you fire a laser, extend the line of that weapon using a rubber band until it hits any part of another card or leaves the table. All ships are assumed to be the entire size of the card. Friendly fire also causes damage as normal.

• When a ship shoots at another ship, regardless of who it belongs to, the shooting ship's owner must put damage tokens of his color equal to the value of his shot on the ship that was hit.
• When a ship shoots a Cargo Ship, remove Cargo cubes equal to the damage it received and put them on the ship that made the shot. This is called "stealing" from the Cargo Ship.

When a player's ship shoots at his own Cargo ship, any Cargo cubes that would be Stolen, are instead vaporized.

Hull Points

Hull Points are found below the Initiative on each card. When a ship takes damage equal to or greater than its hull points, it is destroyed. However, this happens only after all simultaneous lasers have been fired. This means that a ship that is destroyed by another ship of the same speed, does get to fire before it is destroyed. To time this properly, you must fire all lasers from every ship at the current initiative, then check all ships to see if they have taken lethal damage. Remove the destroyed ships from the table and put them in the appropriate kill pile. Any Cargo cubes on these ships are vaporized.

2.2 Phases

The game is played in 4 phases:

1. Preparation (players choose which ships will be used in this game)
2. Deployment (players deploy their ships on the table)
3. Battle (each ship fires its lasers damaging or destroying other ships)
4. Scoring (player count the Victory Points (VP) earned, to determine the winner)

2.2.1 Preparation Phase

In the Preparation phase, the players secretly choose their fleet's ships that will participate. The total credit value of the chosen ships must be equal to or less than the credit value of the chosen battle. After each player has finished choosing his cards, he shuffles them and forms a face-down pile in front of him. He then adds his race's Cargo ship on top of the pile and his Flag ship on the bottom of it - this will now be the deck he will be using during the game. All the remaining ships that will not be participating in the battle are returned in the box. Players then hold their deck face-down in one hand so that they can draw cards off it with the other.

Take a digital timer or a cellphone with a timer application and set it to a countdown based on the scale of the battle:

• Dispute – 30 sec
• Conflict – 60 sec
• War – 120 sec

2.2.2 Deployment Phase

When the countdown begins, both players draw immediately the top card of their deck and they play it anywhere on the table face-up, pointing in any direction they want and making sure it doesn't touch or overlap with another card. While a card is being played, the player may keep his finger on it and move it on the table or change its orientation in any way he likes. As soon as he lifts his finger from the card, the ship is considered to be deployed - the player may no longer touch it again and change its position or orientation. The player then draws the next card from his deck and plays it, following the same rules. This goes on until the timer alarm goes off, at which point both players immediately stop drawing more cards. If they are in the process of playing a card, they immediately stop moving it and may either lift their finger, deploying it where it is, or choose to remove it and not deploy it at all. Return the rest of the cards in the player's deck to the box - they will not be used in the game.

Players then put 8 Cargo tokens on each Cargo ship on table.

If you do not have access to a timer, or simply prefer it, you may use the "original Light Speed's rules for deployment": Instead of using a timer, players start playing cards from their decks without any time limitations. When a player deploys his last card, he immediately calls "stop". The other players then immediately stop - they may not play any more cards and the rest of their decks are returned to the box. Any cards that were already being played when stop was called, are either deployed exactly where they were or removed from the game as well.

2.2.3 Battle Phase

In this phase, all ships fire their lasers, with the faster ships going first. When a laser hits a ship, it damages it or destroys it. When it hits a Cargo ship, it "steals" cargo off it. Destroyed ships go into the opponent's "kill pile" regardless of whose lasers destroyed them.

Destroying the Cargo Ship

When the Cargo Ship loses its last Cargo cube, it is removed from the game. If multiple ships are shooting at the same Cargo Ship simultaneously, and if they are trying to remove more cargo cubes than the Cargo Ship has left, you distribute the Cargo cubes as follows:

• First, all lasers (regardless of color) fire once. Give one Cargo cube to each laser, or vaporize all Cargo cubes if there aren't enough for every laser that fired.
• Then, the Red and Green lasers fire again. Give one Cargo cube to each laser that fired or vaporize all Cargo cubes if there aren't enough for every laser that fired.
• Finally, the Green lasers fire once more. Give one Cargo cube to each laser that fired or vaporize all Cargo cubes if there aren't enough for every laser that fired.

In any case, the Cargo ship card remains on the table until all these lasers have fired, no matter how few Cargo cubes it had left.

Shields

Some ships have shields. A laser that hits a shield does no damage.

2.2.4 Scoring Phase

Every destroyed ship goes into the opponent's kill pile no matter who killed it. Each ship in a kill pile is worth the number of VP found on the top right corner of its card. Every ship that stole Cargo cubes and is still alive at the end of the game is also worth 1VP for each stolen Cargo cube. Each Cargo cube remaining on a Cargo ship is also worth 1VP to the owner of that ship. The player with most VP is the winner of the game.

2.3 Racial Abilities

There are 4 different fleets included in Stellar Conflict:

• Wiss: Some of their ships feature Ion lasers (Blue color). Whenever an Ion laser hits a ship, if that ship hasn't already fired its lasers, place a Delay token on it. That ship's initiative is increased by 2. Ion lasers do not cause damage.
• Vak: Some of their ships feature Shield Penetrating lasers (Orange color). These weapons penetrate shields (treating them as if they weren't there) and do 1 damage.

Ship Card Reference

Each ship card shows, at a glance:

• Race and Type (top of card)
• Ship's Name
• Initiative (top left)
• Hull Points (below Initiative)
• Victory Points (VP) (top right)
• Credit Cost (below VP)
• Green Laser - 3 Damage
• White-Purple Laser - 1 Damage
• Ship's Ability (text describing any special rule for the ship, e.g. "Cannot be damaged by STR 2 Lasers.")
• Shield (if the ship has one)

3. Multiplayer Games

With 3 players add 5 Cargo cubes on each Cargo ship. With 4 players add 4 Cargo cubes on each Cargo ship.

In a game with more than 2 players, whenever a ship is destroyed, it goes into the kill pile of the player who did the most damage to it. This is true even if that player is the owner of the ship. Any ships on a player's kill pile that belong to him count as negative VP. If there is a tie on the amount of damage each player did, the ship is considered vaporized and no one receives any VP for it. However, a player's own damage counts slightly higher than others', so if the owner of a ship is tied with one or more other players, he always wins the tie and ends up killing his own ship.

4. Variants

Meteor

Instead of adding the Cargo ships into the game, place 1-5 Meteor cards on the table before the Deployment Phase and put an equal amount of Cargo cubes on them. A Meteor is considered neutral ground from which each player can Steal Cargo cubes. Once a Meteor is depleted, it is removed from the playing area.

Stolen Goods

In the normal game, whenever a ship with Stolen Cargo cubes is destroyed, the cargo is vaporized. In the Stolen Goods variant, if a ship with Stolen Cargo cubes is destroyed, those cubes are transferred to the ship that fired the final blow. If more than one ship hit that ship at the same time, the Cargo cubes are vaporized and no one receives any.

5. Credits

Stellar Conflict is based on Light Speed, designed by Tom Jolly and James Ernest, first published by Cheapass Games in 2003.

Developers: Anastasios Grigoriadis, Konstantinos Kokkinis Illustrators: Jim Francis, Antonis Papantoniou Illustrator and Graphic Designer: Konstantinos Kokkinis

© 2014 Artipia Games. All rights reserved.