Game Overview

Earth stands on the brink of destruction: an alien Horde has established a base beneath the lunar surface. As elite warriors of the Solar Sentinels, you launch a last-ditch assault on the moon, armed with plasma-based weapons powered by the sun's harvested energy. Fight through three stacks of enemy conflict cards until you are strong enough to face one of the mighty bosses. Choose your dice wisely, roll, assign hits – and hope your Health holds out.

Objective

Defeat one of the 4 bosses to win the game. The Endgame can only be triggered once at least one of the three conflict stacks has been completely cleared. If your Health ever drops to 0 or below, you lose immediately.

Setup

• Dice Pool: Place the 17 unit dice into the pool.
• Conflict Stacks: Shuffle the 45 conflict cards and divide them face-up into 3 stacks of 15 cards each.
• Choose Your Hero: Select one of the 6 hero sides (3 double-sided cards) and set the 3 stat dice to the starting values shown (Health, Strategy, Recovery).
• Bosses: Shuffle the 4 boss cards into a face-down deck.
• Missions (optional): Draw 4 mission cards, lay them out left to right, then discard 1. Complete the remaining 3 missions in order from left to right.

Round Structure

Each round consists of Activation and Engagement.

Activation

Choose 1 conflict card from the top of any stack and place it in the active area. If an activated card shows the additional enemies icon, immediately activate the indicated number of additional cards.

Mandatory Enemies: Enemies with an orange name and border are mandatory. If a mandatory enemy is on top of any stack, you must choose one of them to activate.

Engagement: Strategy Phase

Repeat the Strategy phase up to as many times as your Strategy stat die indicates.

• Commit Dice: Choose any number of dice from the pool and place them in the active area.
• Roll Dice: Roll all uncommitted dice in your active area.
• Apply Dice: Assign hits (Basic Hit = 1 damage, Crit = 2 damage) one at a time in any order to enemy cards. You are not required to apply all hits. If damage on a card meets or exceeds its Health, it is defeated – rotate it sideways.

Engagement: Resolve Phase

1. Suffer Damage: Total the Damage values of all undefeated active enemies and reduce your Health die by that amount.
2. After Effects: Resolve all after effects of active cards (including defeated ones).
3. Exhaust Dice: Move all committed dice to the exhausted area.
4. Recover Dice: Return up to as many dice from the exhausted area to your pool as your Recovery die shows.
5. Gain Item Rewards: Optionally take item rewards from defeated enemies into your inventory (max capacity = your Strategy value).
6. Cleanup: Discard all active cards (defeated and undefeated). Then choose 1 non-mandatory conflict card from the top of a stack and discard it. If only mandatory enemies are on top, skip this discard.

Rewards & Enemy Effects

Dice Reference

Endgame

Once at least one stack is empty, you may start the endgame. If all three stacks are empty, you must start the endgame.

• Activate a Boss: If a boss is already revealed, activate it. Otherwise, activate one of the 4 bosses at random.
• Activate the Entourage: Activate the number of additional enemies shown on the boss card (mandatory enemies first).
• Missions: For each incomplete mission at the start of the endgame, 1 additional enemy is added to the boss's entourage.

In the endgame, the boss remains active across rounds (skip Activation from the second endgame round onward). Undefeated enemies remain in the active area. Defeat the boss and you win – even if entourage remains.

Difficulty Ranks

From Rank 2 onward, for each rank above 1, during setup you must either banish 1 die or exhaust 3 dice.