Forbidden Stars

Setup: Choose base factions, take initial forces and six materiel from faction sheets, and prepare ten-card starting combat decks, event decks, and upgrades. Use the introductory map first; later use full construction rules for systems, initial forces, enemy objectives, and storms. Start the round marker at one.

Planning: Starting with the first player, place hidden orders clockwise until everyone has placed exactly four. A system must contain one of your units or structures, or be adjacent to such a system. Place new orders on top of existing stacks.

Operations: Take turns revealing and resolving one of your orders on top of any stack, then removing it. With none exposed, skip temporarily and act when an order becomes available. A revealed ordinary order may instead go on your event deck, sacrificing its effect for an event draw at refresh.

Deploy: First purchase units in the active system if you have a factory there; then you may buy one structure on a friendly world there. Pay materiel and required forge tokens and meet command requirements based on your cities. Local factory-world capacity limits deployment. The official erratum exempts card- or faction-effect purchases from needing a factory.

Dominate and Strategize: Dominate collects assets from friendly worlds in the active system, then allows your faction ability. Strategize may buy one order upgrade and one combat upgrade if you have a unit or structure there, then goes on your event deck. Combat upgrades replace pairs, keeping the deck at ten cards.

Advance: Move ships first, then ground units into the active system, sourcing from that system and the same single adjacent system. Ground movement needs a legal friendly path and cannot cross storms. One Advance can create only one contested area; an orbital strike is available under its rules only if no combat occurred.

Capacity: Advance may temporarily exceed world or void capacity, but movement may not end with more than five units per area. After the whole order, including combat, destroy excess units. Voids hold three; worlds use their skull icons. Structures do not use unit capacity.

Combat: Roll for unrouted forces, draw five combat cards each, and decide reinforcements. Play up to three execution rounds with simultaneous card selection, attacker resolving first, then damage. If both sides remain, compare final morale; ties favor the defender. The loser retreats legally or is destroyed, and the winner captures remaining structures.

Refresh: Simultaneously collect your own objectives on controlled worlds, then gain materiel and rally routed units. Draw events according to orders on your event deck and choose one for storm movement and its ability. Without an event draw, still reveal a card for storm movement but do not use its ability. Pass first player and advance the round.

Victory: Collecting your faction’s objectives equal to the starting player count wins. Simultaneous qualifiers compare objectives, then friendly worlds, then units on the board, sharing victory if still tied. After round eight without a qualifier, use the same comparisons. A player with no friendly worlds is eliminated; the sole remaining player wins immediately.