User Guide

8
3. Launch
e offense takes the hyperspace gate and points it at one
planet in the system indicated by the drawn destiny card.
e offense then takes one to four ships from any of his or her
colonies, stacks them, and places them on the wide end of the
hyperspace gate. e offense may take ships from his or her
home colonies or foreign colonies. Ships may all be taken from
the same colony or from different colonies. A player should be
careful not to remove all of the ships from a colony, however,
as he or she will lose the colony by doing so (see “Stripping a
Planet of Ships” on page 13).
e defense may not add or subtract ships from the targeted
planet. Note that, in a home system, the defense may not
have any ships on the targeted planet, in which case he or she
defends the planet with zero ships.
Can Macron Attack
Clone’s Colony in
Zombie’s System?
No, not normally. Drawing a special, a wild, or
another player’s color only allows the offense to
attack another player in that player’s home sys-
tem. Drawing the offense’s own color only allows
the offense to attack another player’s colony in the
offense’s home system. Barring special abilities,
there is no way for the offense to attack another
player’s colony when it is located in a third player’s
home system.
“Main Players”
e offense and defense are also known as the
main players.
Defending with Nothing?
Even though a player may no longer have a colony
on one of his or her home planets, that player
must still defend it. is can result in some un-
usual encounters.
For example, assume Filch and Parasite each have
two ships on one of Macron’s planets. Macron
has no ships on the planet – those ships have
already been sent to the warp by the other two
in a dastardly attack. So, when Clone has an
encounter with Macron in Macron’s home system,
Clone can aim the hyperspace gate at that planet
and face zero defending ships. Although Filch
and Parasite are present on the planet, it is still
Macron’s planet, and Macron is the defense. Of
course, since Macron has nothing to lose in the
encounter, it’s quite possible for Clone to gain an
easy colony. However, Filch and Parasite aren’t
defending the planet, so their colonies are safe
as well (see the “Bystanders” sidebar below for
further details).
Bystanders
Colonies on the defense’s planet which are not
part of that home system (that is, they are not the
color of the home system) do not count towards
the defensive total and are not affected by the
outcome. ey are simply bystanders. When a
player is attempting to drive a foreign colony from
his or her home system, only one player’s colony
can be chosen to be the defense in the encounter.
All others are ignored.