Andromeda Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Overview
• Object of the Game
• Box Contents
• Game Setup
  • Anatomy of a Race Card
  • Command Dice Faces
  • Technology Cards
• The Golden Rule
• Playing the Game
• Phase 1 – Assign Commands
  • Example
• Phase 2 – Players' Turns
  • 1. Contamination
  • 2. Take Actions
    • Command Dice Actions
    • Exploring Rooms
    • Room Actions
    • Example of a Player's Turn
  • 3. Check Missions
• Phase 3 – Check Domination Points
• Phase 4 – Clean-Up
  • Anatomy of a Room Tile
  • Anatomy of a Mission Card
• Ending the Game
• Other Rules
  • Limitations of Game Components
  • Sacrificing
• Room Abilities

Game Overview

Andromeda is a strategic boardgame for 2-4 players. Each player becomes a leader of one race. Players collectively explore a spaceship belonging to an ancient civilization thus trying to secure long-forgotten technology that might help their races in dominating the universe. Additionally, each player tries to fulfill missions given by his superiors as they bring him ever closer to victory.

Object of the Game

The winner of the game is the first player to gain a certain number of Domination Points (DP) by controlling rooms and fulfilling missions.

Box Contents

• 11 Room Tiles
• 31 Mission Cards
• 8 Technology Cards
• 8 Race Cards
• 4 Order Cards
• 4 Reference Cards
• First Player Marker
• 12 Teleporter Tokens (3 in each of four colours)
• 10 Vaccine Tokens
• 64 Explorer Miniatures (16 in each of four colours)
• 13 Command Dice

Game Setup

Follow the steps below to prepare the game:

REMEMBER: All changes pertaining to your first game of Andromeda are marked in green. Once you have mastered the basic rules governing the game, you can skip those paragraphs in order to fully experience the depth of the game and increase available possibilities.

1. Search the Room Tiles for the Portal (the Starting Room) and place it in the middle of the table. If 2 players are taking part in the game, remove the Armoury tile and the Laboratory tile from the other room tiles and return them into the box (they are not used in 2-player games).

   Shuffle the rest of the room tiles and place them face-down around the Starting Room (the Portal) as shown in the diagram (2 players: the tiles form a compact block around the Portal; 3 or 4 players: the tiles form a larger block around the Portal). All room tiles form the interior of the spaceship that you will explore during the game. Return the last unused room tile into the box without looking at it.

2. Search the Technology Cards Deck, remove from it the Teleporter card and place it face-up next to the ship. Shuffle the other technology cards and draw 3 of them. Place the drawn cards face-up next to the Teleporter card. Return the remaining technology cards into the box.

   If the Vaccines card is one of the face-up cards, place the Vaccine Tokens next to this card. Otherwise, return those tokens into the box.

   The suggested technology cards for your first game: Cloning, Multitool, Vaccines, Teleporter.

3. Shuffle the Race Card Deck and deal 2 cards face-down to each player. Each player chooses one race card by placing it face-down in front of himself and returns the other card into the box. Once everyone is ready, players reveal their race cards and read aloud any special abilities of their races.

   In your first game deal only one race card to each player and place your cards face-down in front of yourself.

4. Shuffle the Mission Cards Deck, draw 6 cards and use them to form the General Mission Deck. Place this deck face-down. Then, place 1 face-up mission card drawn from the remaining mission cards.

   The remaining mission cards form the Personal Mission Deck. Deal two face-down cards from this deck to each player. Then, players read their cards (without showing them to their rivals), choose one of them to keep and the other to return to the bottom of the personal mission deck.

   HINT: We suggest to place the general mission deck and the personal mission deck as far apart from each other as possible in order to avoid mistakes when drawing new mission cards.

Anatomy of a Race Card

1. Name
2. Race ability
3. Number of Explorers that start the game on the Starting Room
4. Number of Explorers that start the game on the Race card

Command Dice Faces

• Contamination: Remove 1 of your explorers from the ship.
• Full Training: Train 2 explorers.
• Call Support: Call 2 explorers to the ship.
• Improvise: Train 1 explorer or call 1 explorer to the ship.
• Move: Make 3 moves.
• Use Technology: Use any available technology.
• Explore Room: (dice faces showing the Explore Room results), or change any result to 1.

Technology Cards

• Vaccines: Take 2 vaccine tokens. When resolving the Contamination result, discard 1 vaccine token to remove 1 Contamination die from your command dice pool without resolving its effects.
• Multitool: Take any action connected with one of the following results (three results shown on the card).
• Cloning: Take 1 explorer from your pool and place him in a room with at least 1 of your explorers.
• Teleporter: Place your teleporter in a room with at least 1 of your explorers.
• HQ Call: Remove 3 explorers from your race card and place them in your pool.

The Golden Rule

If card rules or room rules are contradictory to the general game rules found in this rulebook, rules from cards or rooms always take precedence.

Playing the Game

A game of Andromeda lasts up to 7 Rounds, but may end earlier if any player gains a certain number of DP thus winning the game.

Each round is divided into Phases described below and is played according to the following order:

• Phase 1 – Assign Commands
• Phase 2 – Players' Turns
• Phase 3 – Check Domination Points
• Phase 4 – Clean-Up

Players have to completely resolve one phase before they can proceed to the next phase. After the end of phase 4, the current round ends and the next round begins starting from phase 1.

Phase 1 – Assign Commands

In the first phase of the game the first player rolls all available command dice (the number of command dice depends on the number of players).

If there are 3 or more Contamination Symbols rolled, set aside all command dice with different results and 3 command dice with the Contamination symbol. All the remaining Contamination dice should be rerolled. Keep setting aside all command dice not showing the Contamination symbol and keep rerolling dice showing the Contamination symbol until you obtain a maximum of three command dice with the Contamination symbol and the rest of the command dice showing different results.

This way you form the Command Dice Pool common for all players, which is used by the first player to prepare an Offer. In order to do this, the first player takes the lowest numbered order card currently available, chooses any command dice and places them on the order card. The first player can place any number of command dice (even one) on the order card, but once the offer is prepared, the command dice pool must contain at least twice as many dice as there are order cards still available on the table.

The first player proposes the first offer to the player sitting to his left. This player can accept or reject the offer.

If the player accepts the offer, he places the order card with all the command dice on it in front of himself. Then, he chooses any one die from those remaining in the command dice pool.

If the player rejects the offer, this offer is proposed to the next player to the left. This player can also accept or reject the offer.

If the offer returns to the player who prepared it, this player must accept it. In such a case, he places the order card with the command dice in front of himself normally and then chooses one additional die from the command dice pool.

If the offer is accepted by a player who does not have the first player marker, the first player must prepare another offer. He just takes the next lowest numbered order card, places chosen command dice on it and presents the offer to the first player to his left who has not accepted any offer yet.

If an offer is accepted by the first player and there are still command dice and order cards in the middle of the table, a new offer is prepared by the player without any order card sitting to the left of the first player.

REMEMBER: When a player accepts an offer with an order card, he DOES NOT take the first player marker! This marker is passed between players only during the Clean-Up Phase at the end of the round.

Once there is only one order card left on the table, it is taken by the player who has not accepted any offer this round. This player takes the order card and all the command dice still remaining in the command dice pool.

Example

There are four players in the game: John, Matthew, Stan and Michael. John is currently the first player, so he rolls the command dice. As there are more than 3 Contamination results, John sets aside 3 of them and rerolls all the dice with the Contamination symbol. This time he gets two Improvise results and a Contamination result. He sets aside both dice with Improvise symbols and rerolls the Contamination die again. Finally, John gets the Full Training symbol, so he can start preparing his offer.

John takes the 1st Player order card and places on it three command dice (Contamination, Improvise and one more result), thus creating the first offer. Matthew sits to the left of John, so he is the first to decide whether to accept the offer or not. He is not interested and now Stan decides. He accepts the offer and adds one command die showing Improvise.

John has to prepare another offer. He takes the 2nd Player order card and places on it two command dice (Contamination and Improvise results). Again, Matthew decides first if he wants the offer, but he rejects it. Michael is not interested, too, so the offer returns to John who must accept it. He adds one more command die to it.

As John has already received command dice and an order card this round, the next offer must be prepared by the next player. In this case it is Matthew. He takes the 3rd Player order card and places on it command dice with Contamination and Improvise results. He proposes this offer to Michael who accepts it and adds one more command die to it.

Matthew takes the last remaining order card (4th Player) and all the remaining command dice.

Phase 2 – Players' Turns

The second phase of the round comprises of players' turns. They are resolved using the order cards starting from the player with the 1st Player order card. This player takes all actions and fully resolves his turn. Once he finishes, the player with the next order card takes his turn. Players keep resolving their turns this way until everyone finishes.

A player's turn is resolved in 3 steps as shown below:

1. Contamination
2. Take Actions
3. Check Missions

1. Contamination

The player who is currently resolving his turn has to remove one of his explorers from the ship for each command die with the Contamination symbol he has. Removed explorers are returned to his pool. If the player has no explorers on the ship, he does not remove any.

After resolving the contamination, the player removes all command dice with the Contamination symbol from his order card and places them in the middle of the table.

The player can protect his explorers from the contamination using vaccine tokens (if he has any). For each discarded vaccine token the player can cancel one Contamination symbol. Then, all used vaccine tokens are returned next to the Vaccines technology card.

REMEMBER: All command dice showing the Contamination symbol must be used as the contamination. They can never be used to resolve any other effects (i.e. mission cards or special abilities of a race).

2. Take Actions

In this step, the player can take any number of actions based on the command dice results at the player's disposal and the rooms containing his explorers. Each command die can be used only once and the player must fully resolve one action before he can take another action.

The player does not have to use all the command dice – he may voluntarily resign from resolving any of them. In such a case, he removes those dice from his order card and places them in the middle of the table.

Once the player resolves an action from a command die, he removes that die from his order card and places it in the middle of the table.

Instead of using a given result from a command die, the player can just ignore the result shown, place the die in the middle of the table and make 1 move with any of his explorers currently present on the ship.

Command Dice Actions

Full Training: The player can train up to 2 of his explorers. If he decides to do this, he takes up to 2 explorers from his pool and places them on his race card.

Call Support: The player can call to the ship up to 2 of his explorers. If he decides to do this, he takes up to 2 explorers from his race card and places them on the ship in any of the rooms with his teleporters.

If the player has more than one of his teleporters on the board, every time he calls explorers (using his command dice or as a result of any other action), he can divide called explorers between any number of rooms as long as those rooms contain his teleporters.

Improvise: The player chooses one option:

• he trains 1 explorer (taking him from his pool to his race card) OR
• he calls 1 explorer to the ship (taking him from his race card to any room with his teleporter)

Move: The player can make up to 3 moves with his explorers. As part of one move the player can move one of his explorers currently present on the ship from one room to another adjacent, explored room. Rooms are considered adjacent if they share one side i.e. they are situated vertically or horizontally next to each other. Rooms placed diagonally are never adjacent.

The player cannot move his explorers into unexplored rooms i.e. he cannot enter face-down room tiles. In order to do this, a given room must be explored first.

Use Technology: The player uses one of the available, ready technology cards currently in the game.

After using a given technology card the player turns this card 90 degrees thus marking that this card is used and it cannot be used again until the end of the current round.

Exploring Rooms

In order to move into new rooms on the ship, players have to explore them first by taking the Exploration Action.

If a player wishes to do this, he chooses one explored (face-up) room where he has at least one of his explorers (this is the room from where he is starting the exploration) and one adjacent, unexplored (face-down) room – this room is about to be explored.

Next, the player removes one unused command die from his order card (without taking any action from this die) and places it in the middle of the table.

Finally, the player reveals the room tile by placing it face-up and places one of his explorers from the room in which he started in the explored room.

Room Actions

During his turn the player can also take actions connected with rooms containing his explorers. The player can take only one Room Action per turn. This action can be taken before, in between or after resolving actions from command dice.

In order to take a room action the player needs to control a given room i.e. he must have more explorers in this room than any other rival.

A given room can be used any number of times per round as long as no player uses it more than once. Using the same room more than once per round might happen if, for example, the control over the room changes during the round or one of the players has the opportunity to take any room action thanks to some other card effect.

Example of a Player's Turn

During the Assign Commands Phase Stan accepted the offer with a set of command dice including a Contamination result, a Full Training result, an Improvise result and a Move result. During his turn he must first resolve the Contamination. Because of this he removes one of his explorers from the ship and returns him to his pool.

Then, Stan takes the Full Training action, thus training 2 new explorers – he takes 2 explorers from his pool and places them on his race card.

Next, Stan uses the Improvise die and chooses to call 1 explorer to the ship. However, as he is currently in control of the Engine Room, he uses this room's action and calls not one but two explorers – he takes both miniatures from his race card and places them on a room with one of his teleporters.

Finally, he uses the Move result in order to explore a new room. After revealing the room tile (by placing it face-up), he moves one of his explorers into this room.

3. Check Missions

During the last step of his turn, the player checks if he meets any requirements from mission cards.

If he does, he reveals the mission card he wishes to fulfill, pays the cost shown on the card (displayed as one or more red alien figures on the left side of the card) and places this card face-up in front of himself next to his race card. From now on, this mission card provides him with DP needed to win the game.

Any explorer can be sacrificed after checking the requirements of a mission card. In other words, the player can pay the cost of the mission by sacrificing any explorer that was used to meet the requirements of this mission card.

If the player can fulfill more than one mission, he chooses the order in which missions are fulfilled. After paying the cost of fulfilling one mission he checks whether he is still able to fulfill another mission. Players can fulfill any numbers of missions in their turns.

Phase 3 – Check Domination Points

During this phase players check whether any of them has managed to gain the minimum number of DP necessary to win the game. The number of DP depends on the number of players in the game as shown in the table below:

Number of players	DP necessary to win
2	8
3	7
4	6

Players gain DP for fulfilling missions during the game and for controlling certain rooms on the ship. A given player controls a room if he has more explorers there than any other rival. In case of a tie, all tying players divide any DP gained for controlling this room between themselves (rounding down).

If, in this step, no player has the necessary number of DP, players should proceed to the Clean-up Phase.

REMEMBER: DP gained by players during the game are not accumulated. Instead, you check their number at the end of each round. Although players cannot lose DP for fulfilling missions, controlling rooms is a different thing. Every round another player might control a particular room and it has impact on the number of DP a given player currently has.

Phase 4 – Clean-Up

During the Clean-Up Phase do the following:

• Ready all used technology cards by turning them upright to their original, vertical positions
• Reveal one new card from the top of the general mission deck
• Pass the first player marker clockwise to the next person to the left of the current first player
• If a player has fulfilled his personal mission this round, he draws 2 new mission cards from the top of the personal mission deck. He keeps one of them (this is his new personal mission) and places the other card at the bottom of the deck. The player keeps the card secret from his rivals.
• If a player has not fulfilled any personal mission this round, he can discard the personal mission card he currently has (he places it at the bottom of the personal mission deck) and then he draws a new mission card from the top of the personal mission deck. Each player can make such exchange only once per round.

Anatomy of a Room Tile

1. Room ability (can be used by a player who controls the room)
2. Minimum number of Explorers, that player has to have in the room to control it
3. DP gained at Phase 3 by player who controls the room

Anatomy of a Mission Card

1. Name
2. Mission requirements
3. Number of Explorers (0, 1, or 2) player has to sacrifice in order to fulfill the mission
4. DP for fulfilled mission

Ending the Game

The game of Andromeda can end in two ways:

• At the end of any round in which at least one player has gained the necessary number of DP
• At the end of the 7th round (when players can no longer reveal a new mission card from the general mission deck)

The player who has the most DP wins the game – he has managed to scavenge from the ship all the valuable knowledge and technologies that will enable his race to gain the upper hand and dominate other inhabitants of the universe.

In case of a tie, the winner is the player who has more DP for controlling rooms.

If there is still a tie, all the tying players share the spoils of the ancient civilization and dominate in the galaxy together (at least until another opportunity to gain advantage over the rival arises).

Other Rules

This part of the rulebook contains the detailed description of all rooms and the explanation of rules which have not been clarified up to this point.

Limitations of Game Components

Explorer miniatures and teleporter tokens at any player's disposal are limited to the game components from the box (16 explorers and 3 teleporters per player). If there are no explorers in a player's pool, he cannot train new explorers. If a player has no trained explorers on his race card, he cannot call any explorers to the ship.

Once a given player has placed his third teleporter on the board, he can still use the Teleporter technology card, but it will not result in placing a new token on the ship. However, it still counts towards fulfilling certain mission requirements.

Sacrificing

In order to fulfill most of the missions, players have to sacrifice their explorers. In order to do this, a given player has to remove the required number of his explorers from the ship and place them in his pool (later during the game, any sacrificed explorers can be trained and called to the ship normally).

Room Abilities

Armoury (0 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can remove any explorer from the ship. The explorer being removed should be returned to his owner's race card. (This room is not used in a 2-player game.)

Portal (1 DP) (Starting Room): This is the Starting Room. Players start exploring the ship from here and they place their first teleporters here. Both sides of this tile are identical.

Captain's Bridge (1 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can draw 2 cards from the personal mission deck. Then, he must choose 2 mission cards from his hand and place them at the bottom of the personal mission deck.

Reactor (1 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can switch places of two explorers in adjacent rooms.

Comm Centre (1 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can train 1 explorer OR call 1 of his explorers to the ship (to any room with his teleporter).

Contaminated Zone (2 DP): Whenever a player has to remove his explorers from the ship due to the contamination, he has to start removing his explorers from this room. This rule pertains to all players who have at least one explorer present here. In order to control this room, a player needs to have at least 2 of his explorers present here.

Crew Compartments (1 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can make 2 moves with his explorers present on the ship.

Hibernation Chamber (2 DP): This room has no special ability, but in order to control it, a player needs to have at least 3 of his explorers present here.

Docking Bay (1 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can take one of his explorers from this room and place him in any explored room on the ship.

Laboratory (2 DP): Players can neither place nor move teleporters into this room. In order to control this room, a player needs to have at least 2 of his explorers present here.

Engine Room (1 DP): During his turn the player controlling this room can call 1 more explorer to the ship whenever he calls his explorers.