Star Realms: Colony Wars

Game identity and setup: Colony Wars is a complete two-player standalone box and does not require the original Star Realms set. Each player takes a 10-card starter deck of eight Scouts and two Vipers and begins with 50 Authority. Set aside ten Explorers as a public pile, shuffle the box’s 80-card Trade Deck, and reveal five cards as the Trade Row. Randomly choose the first player; the first player draws three cards and the second player draws five. Explorer counts differ between core sets, so do not copy the Frontiers or Box Set setup.

Three phases: Players alternate turns. Each turn has a Main Phase, Discard Phase, and Draw Phase. During the Main Phase, a player may play cards from hand, use abilities on bases already in play, trigger Ally or Scrap effects, spend Trade to acquire cards from the Trade Row or Explorer pile, and spend Combat to attack the opponent or their bases. Resources may be used in any order. A purchased card goes to the player’s discard pile and does not trigger its abilities merely because it was bought.

Playing ships and faction abilities: Ships are played from hand at no cost; resolve their primary ability, then leave them in play until the Discard Phase. An Ally ability can trigger when another card of the same faction is also in play. The order cards entered play does not change the faction condition, but each Ally ability may be used only once per turn. Scrap abilities require the card’s printed Scrap effect to be used; if another effect scraps a card, that does not also trigger the scrapped card’s own ability. Scrapped Explorers return to their public pile, while a scrapped Trade Row card is immediately replaced to restore five cards.

Buying and resources: Trade and Combat accumulate in separate pools during the current turn. Trade buys ships or bases from the Trade Row and may also buy an Explorer. Pay the cost and put the new card in the discard pile; immediately refill the Trade Row to five after buying from it. Purchasing is not playing a card. Some Colony Wars cards can put a purchased card directly into hand when their faction condition is met, but that is a card-specific effect, not the general purchase rule. Any unused Trade and Combat are lost in the Discard Phase and cannot be saved for a later turn.

Attacks and bases: Combat may be assigned to the opponent’s Authority or to one or more bases, and can be split among targets. A base is destroyed by paying Combat equal to its Defense; an attacked base that survives recovers at the end of the turn. A destroyed base goes to its owner’s discard pile. An Outpost is a special base: while the opponent controls any Outpost, the attacker cannot attack the player directly or target their non-Outpost bases. All Outposts must be destroyed first. A card that explicitly destroys a base follows its own text.

Discard and draw: At the end of the Main Phase, unused Trade and Combat are cleared. Put ships played that turn and unplayed cards remaining in hand into the owner’s discard pile; bases stay in play. During the Draw Phase, draw until holding five cards. If the draw pile runs out, shuffle the player’s discard pile to form a new draw pile and continue drawing. Card effects may increase Authority above the starting 50 with no upper limit; reducing the opponent to zero or less wins the game.

Version boundaries: Colony Wars uses standard Star Realms rules for Main Phase actions, Trade, Combat, bases, Outposts, Ally, and Scrap, together with the abilities printed on this box’s cards. Wise Wizard’s 2016 release note describes it as a standalone new Trade Deck and says it can be combined with the original set. Do not add Double Ally, Tech, Heroes, Missions, Events, challenge cards, automations, or other mechanics from later sets to the base game. No Colony Wars-specific official FAQ number was found; general rules answers should be identified as such.