Last Starfleet
Last Starfleet Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Planet Cards & The Game Board
Pick a planet board and place it in the middle of the table. Shuffle the planet's deck and the orbit deck together, placing it next to the planet. The planet board has numbered spaces on its corners, representing the planet's atmosphere docks, and numbered spaces around the planet itself representing surface spaces. When a card is docked on top of another one in an atmosphere dock, the original card is removed along with any hit points it may have had on it. On the cards, surface spaces are abbreviated; S4 means surface space 4, for example. Whenever a deck runs out, reshuffle the discards.
Ship Decks and People
Players choose a ship deck, shuffle it, place it in front of them on the corresponding ship mat and draw three cards. Players should set discards in a stack to the left of their deck. Up to 3 cards can be docked to each ship; played face up on the ship docks of each player's ship mat. If a player docks a fourth card, they have to choose one to remove. Each ship starts with a different number of people; which come in denominations of 1, 5 and 10. Players should set these people tokens on their ship mats. When a ship is damaged, the player loses people from this pool. Cards will call for either adding or landing people. When landing, people are moved from this pool to a specific surface space, whereas people that are added come from the game box. Each turn, players may play one of the cards in their hand and draw another from their deck. When you run out of people, you have gone ghost ship. Pick up and shuffle all the cards that belong in your deck. You don't draw or play cards, although there are a couple ways to come back from ghost ship. The rest of the players continue playing and the #P remains the same as when you started.
Cards & Symbols
Player cards have one of two symbols in their upper left-hand corner, which show when they can be used.
- Play cards must be used during a player's turn; they go into effect immediately.
- Reaction cards can be played when their requirement is met, even out of turn order.
Player cards have icons in their upper right hand corners that guide where or how they are played.
- Discard
- Dock to Ship
- Dock to Atmosphere
Cycle Turn Order
Step 1: Play cards on behalf of the planet, one at a time. *2 cards per turn for 2 players, 3 cards for 3-4 player games, and 4 cards for 5-6 player games.
Step 2: Cards docked to atmosphere slots take effect.
Step 3: Each player takes a turn, starting with the chosen first player and moving clockwise. Each player will play a card and then draw a card.
Damage, Damage Bonuses & Armor
When an action calls for dealing damage, people are removed from target ship(s), space(s) or docked card(s). The aggressor's bonuses to damage and the defenders armor bonuses are applied in these circumstances. Damage + Aggressor Damage Bonus – Defenders Armor = People Removed. Some planet cards say indigenous attack; these deal damage the same way, but you'll find that some player abilities effect this specific type of damage.
Review of Important Concepts
- Landing actions move people from your ship pool, while adding actions result in placing new chits from the game box.
- No two cards can be docked to the same slot; the new one pushes the old one out.
- Any card that had hit points is discarded when it no longer has any.
- Once enough people are landed on the surface, your Last Starfleet team wins!
- If any comparison ever ties, the player(s) decide what card wins the tie.
Strategy Guide
Having read the rule book, you are ready to play! This guide will help you to play better.
Strategy and Tactics
- Any two ships can beat any planet, if you're experienced and a little lucky, but there are some powerful combinations that can help.
- Red Giant - Play HMS Providence, SS Transformation and Junkers.
- Leviathan - Play SS Discovery, Interpol Vengeance and HMS Providence.
- Anomaly Six - Play Interpol Vengeance and HMS Providence.
- Use the icons in the upper left hand corner to separate your reaction and play cards in your hand - plan your next play card and keep your reaction cards out while it isn't your turn - communicate what you can do to help others - that's part of the team work!
- Even without enough people on your ships to win, NEVER give up! You are at your strongest when things are at their most grim. The game is designed for this climax, and to conclude an ultimate loss quickly.
- Don't have anything awesome to play, this turn? You don't have to play each turn, but you should always draw. There is no card minimum or maximum.
- Sometimes there is a clear choice between spreading out your colonists and consolidating. For instance, Paratrooper cards benefit from a thinly spread colony. Poison Tide deals damage to multiple colonies, so would favor consolidation.
- You may encounter situations where atmosphere cards are making landing mighty costly or blocking it entirely. You may have to wait out these atmosphere cards, or focus solely on destroying them.
- Ships are equally strong, but not all cards are created equal - Check out some of the examples.
Example (Hijack, Junkers): "I'll play this on my turn." "I'll place Hijack under someone else's docked card, so that card takes effect for them on their turn and for me on my turn." Hijack text: "Place under a player's ship-docked card. It counts as being docked to your ship as well; but doesn't fill a dock slot."
Example (Orbital Manipulation, SS Transformation): "I'll play this on my turn, docking it to an open slot." Orbital Manipulation text: "Dock to your ship the planet plays 1 less card on its turn. Cannot be 'hijacked.'" Its flavor note reads, "Check this out! But, Orbital Manipulation can't be hijacked. Sorry, Junkers..."
Terminology
How do I attack? By playing "X damage to..." play and reaction cards.
How do I pay? Immediately lose that number of people tokens from your ship.
Did I hurt my team mate by giving "+Damage?" Quite the contrary. The bonus applies to the damage the target deals. If I dock a +2 damage card to my ship, I deal +2 damage, when I deal damage.
What if I don't have enough people to use my landing card? You can't use it. If a card says to land 5 people, but you have 4 on your ship, you cannot use the card.
Example (Gravity Well, SS Transformation): a reaction card - "Reaction. Discard when a planet card is played to replace it back on top of the planet deck." Flavor note: "I'll ignore this on my turn, since it's a reaction card." "Gravity Well allows me to replace a planet card. I'll play this on the last planet card played to give my team some time to plan in advance."
Atmosphere Cards
- If docked atmosphere cards have a constant effect, like damaging landing people, just remind everyone that they are in effect and move to the next card, during the atmosphere phase. Others take a specific action like damaging all surface spaces. If you don't take them out, they will continue to take effect each turn.
- Multiple docked atmosphere cards with the same constant effect don't cancel each other out. If you have multiple Anomaly Six Blackout cards, for instance, you must wipe all of them out before you can land people.
- Some atmosphere cards, like Gravity Sickness, do not have hit points - you have to displace them, instead of damaging them, in order to get rid of them. Scenarios like this make player ship cards that dock to atmosphere docks even more powerful.
Example (Space Debris, Perils of the Void / Orbit): "Dock to atmosphere 2. 1 damage to all landing people. 10 hit points." Notes on the card: docks to an atmosphere slot; constantly in effect - doesn't take any specific action on the atmosphere turn; 10 hit points, Interpol could blast this away or Transformation could replace it outright; counts as a planet card and also as an orbit deck card.
Example (Frontiersmen, HMS Providence): "Reaction. Deal 3 damage to any card for each Providence family card you discard. Discard." Flavor note: "Frontiersman is a weaker card because I lose so many Family cards, but it may be our only hope to deal damage in a crunch." Also: "Might want to use this reaction card on Space Debris so landing people will be safe."
Example (Merfolk Tribe, Leviathan planet card): "Indigenous Attack. #P+5 damage to S1. Discard." Flavor note: "We have people on S7, so I'll use this reaction card to reduce the damage they take by 5. If it is a five player game, they will still take 5 damage." Viral Engineering (SS Discovery) is a reaction card whose text is partly obscured in the source scan (the visible fragment reads "...to give a surface space ... armor versus ... attack, once."). Viral Engineering only works on cards that say "Indigenous Attack." Flavor note: "I've been keeping this reaction in mind while the planet cards are played. It looks like it can help with this Merfolk Tribe."