Space Cadets: Dice Duel – Die Fighter Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Fighters
  • Fighter Cockpit Display
  • Ways To Play
• Stations on the Fighter
  • Helm
  • Sensors
  • Tractor Beams
  • Mines
• Weapons
  • Missiles
  • Pulse Bombs
• Damaging Fighters
• Relaunching Fighters
• Player Roles
• Experimental Equipment
  • Setup
  • Using the Cards
• Card Notes
  • Weapon Cards
  • Blink
  • Rotational Thrusters
  • Maneuver Jets
• Reference
  • Missile
  • Pulse Bomb
  • Freeze Actions
  • Play Notes

Components

• 27 Experimental Equipment Cards
• 2 Fighter Cockpits
• 2 Fighter Miniatures
• 8 Sensor Dice
• 6 Weapon Dice
• 4 Helm Dice
• 2 Tractor Dice
• 2 Shield Dice

Fighters

This expansion introduces Fighters into the Dice Duel universe. Fighters are piloted by a single player (called the Pilot), and use a single Cockpit display.

Each Fighter receives 11 dice:

• 1 Shield Die
• 1 Tractor Beam Die
• 2 Helm Dice
• 4 Sensor Dice
• 3 Weapon Dice

Fighters do NOT have shields. The Shield Die is used to mark the Health of the Fighter. At the start of the game place the Shield Die on the three pip side on the Health space.

Fighters do not have Energy Dice. Instead all the dice can be rolled at any time by the Pilot, whether they are on or off the display (Exception: The Shield Die is never rolled).

The Cockpit Display has special spaces for the different types of dice. See diagram below.

The original ships included in Space Cadets: Dice Duel are called Capital Ships. These new ships are called Fighters. This is important later in the rules, as weapons may affect these different types of ships differently.

Fighter Cockpit Display

Weapons, Health (Shield Die), Locks, Helm, Jammers, Map Hazards.

Ways To Play

There are three ways to play with the Fighter Expansion:

Mission 1: Carrier Strike! Each team gets one Capital Ship and one Fighter. If a Capital ship is destroyed that team loses and the game ends. Fighters that are lost may be relaunched (see Relaunching Fighters).

Mission 2: Fighter Assault! One team gets one Capital Ship. The other team gets two Fighters. The team with the Fighters has two players, and the Capital Ship team may have two, three, or four players. So this mission allows four, five, or six players. If the Capital Ship is destroyed, the Fighters win. If both Fighters are destroyed the Capital ship wins.

Mission 3: Fighter Duel! This is a two-player scenario. Each player controls one Fighter, and must destroy the opposing Fighter to win.

Stations on the Fighter

Helm

Helm operates the same way on a Fighter as on a Capital ship, except that there are only two Helm dice. So when both dice are placed, move the Fighter on the map and remove the dice.

Asteroids: Fighters are not affected by Asteroids at all. They are maneuverable enough to slip through the square without being hit.

Nebula: If moved into a Nebula remove ALL Sensor Dice on the Fighter, not two as on a Capital ship. The lack of shielding makes Fighters more susceptible to nebula interference.

Sensors

Sensors operate the same way on a Fighter as on a Capital ship, except that there are only two slots for Jammer dice. So Fighters may have at most four points of Jammers.

Tractor Beams

Fighters do not have Tractor Beams. They cannot move enemy ships or pick up or use crystals. Instead the Tractor Beam die is used for Pulse Bombs. See Weapons for details.

Fighters are affected by Tractor Beams on Capital ships as normal. NOTE: Fighters CAN be moved by tractor beams on a friendly ship.

Mines

Fighters do not have Mines. They are affected by them as normal.

Weapons

There are two types of weapons that can be loaded by Fighters: Missiles and Pulse Bombs.

Missiles

Missiles are loaded and fired exactly as torpedoes on Capital ships with the following notes:

• Fighters only have one missile tube, which launches out the Front arc of the ship. They cannot launch at targets in the Rear arc.
• Sensor locks equal to Range plus Jammers are required to hit, exactly as with Torpedoes.
• A Capital ship hit by a missile is treated as if it had one more Shield die than it actually has. So if there are no shield dice, treat it as if there were one Shield. If there are two Shield Dice the capital ship treats it as three, and cannot be damaged.
• A Capital ship removes at most ONE shield die when hit by a missile, instead of all of them.

Pulse Bombs

Pulse Bombs ONLY affect Capital Ships. They do not affect Fighters.

In order to load a pulse bomb, load the Nose and Tail of a Missile, but instead of using the third Weapon die, you must roll the Tractor Beam die and get either a single or double Lightning Bolt symbol. Place it on the Cockpit in the center of the Missile Bay to show that a Pulse Bomb is loaded.

Pulse Bombs can be freely converted to Missiles and vice versa by removing the center die and rolling either the Weapon or Tractor beam die, whichever is appropriate. You can leave the Nose and Tail dice in place.

To attack with a Pulse Bomb the Fighter must END its move in the same square as the Capital ship. Simply passing through the same square is not sufficient. Also, you must have the bomb loaded before you move into the square. If you build a bomb when in the same square as the Capital ship, or it moves into the same square as the Fighter, you may not declare a Bomb attack.

Declare BOMB to stop the action. Roll the NOSE and TAIL dice of the Pulse Bomb. For each die that shows a single or double blast symbol the Capital ship takes one damage. So Pulse Bombs can do 0, 1, or 2 damage. Shields and Jammers do not protect against pulse bombs.

Target Locks on the Sensor Dice are not required to drop a Pulse Bomb. Locks and Jammers are not removed when a Pulse Bomb is dropped. All three dice are removed from the Weapon as normal.

If the square with the Capital Ship contains a Mine, the Mine hit is resolved first. So if the Fighter is destroyed by the mine the Pulse Bomb is not resolved.

Pulse Bomb Example: The Fighter has a Pulse bomb loaded, and Helm is set up to move into the same square as the black Capital Ship. She moves the Fighter on the map, removes the Helm dice, and calls 'BOMB', stopping the action. She takes the two Weapon dice on the display and rolls them, getting a double blast and a tail icon. The black ship takes one damage, and the Fighter removes the Tractor die from the Cockpit display.

Damaging Fighters

For each point of damage taken by a Fighter, rotate the Shield Die down one pip to show the current health. If the health ever drops to zero or below, the Fighter is destroyed. The miniature is removed from the board. Turn over the cockpit display to indicate that it is out of the game.

If playing mission 2 (Fighter Assault), that pilot is out of the game. The Fighter may not be returned to play.

If playing mission 3 (Fighter Duel), the game ends when one Fighter is destroyed.

Relaunching Fighters

In missions 2 and 3, destroyed Fighters may not be returned to play.

In mission 1, the Capital ship may relaunch the Fighter if it is destroyed. Shout LAUNCH to freeze the action. Then:

A. The Capital Ship must either pay 3 crystals or take 1 damage to launch the Fighter. If choosing to take a damage, place one energy die on the damage display. Because of this, if you have three damage you must spend crystals to launch a new Fighter.

B. The team places the Fighter in the same square as the Capital ship, facing either to the left or right. It may not face in the forward or rear direction of the Capital ship.

C. Set the Shield die on the Fighter on the Three Pip side. No other dice are placed on the Fighter display.

D. One player assumes the Fighter Pilot station, and stations they were manning (see Player Roles) have to be given to another player still on the Capital ship. Action then resumes.

Note: Fighters may NOT land back on the Capital ship. Once they are launched they must stay on the board until they are destroyed or the game ends.

Relaunching a Fighter example: The Black team's Fighter is destroyed, and Sydney, the Fighter pilot, returns to the Capital ship and is given the Tractor Beam and Shields displays. After a few minutes, they manage to collect three crystals and decide to relaunch their Fighter. They call 'LAUNCH', freezing the action. The Fighter can be placed in the same square as the Capital ship, facing either of the ways shown below. Brian leaves the Weapons and Sensor Stations to man the Fighter. Susan switches from Captain to take over those stations. Once both players are set, play resumes.

Player Roles

In Mission 1, players are either on the Fighter or on the Capital ship. Only one player may be on a Fighter and roll its dice, and is called the Pilot.

If a Fighter is destroyed, the player who was piloting the Fighter is now back on the Capital ship. They may be given any Stations on the ship that the team desires, or even the Captain role.

If the Fighter is relaunched, any player on the team may be assigned to be the pilot. It does not have to be the same player each time. Any stations that player was manning must be moved to players that remain on the Capital ship.

Experimental Equipment

The Experimental Equipment cards may not be used by Fighters.

This 27-card expansion gives different abilities to the ships, giving teams additional tactics to use to defeat the enemy!

Setup

Shuffle the Equipment cards, draw five at random, and place them face up.

Randomly select one team to go first. That team selects one Equipment card of their choice. The other team now selects two Equipment cards of their choice. The first team now selects one of the two remaining cards. Each team should have two Equipment cards. The remaining card is discarded.

Each team places the cards in their team area, wherever they wish.

Go over the special abilities with all players and make sure everyone understands how they are used. When ready, start the game.

Using the Cards

In order to use the ability on the card, you must place the matching dice symbols on the card, by rolling them normally. As always, only the player who controls that station may roll and place dice. So if a card requires a Tractor die and a Sensor die, whichever player is controlling the Tractor Beam station will place that die, and whichever player is controlling the Sensor station will place the other die.

Some cards have Crystal symbols. The crystal(s) must be on the card when you want to use the ability. However if you are doing a basic crystal ability (Station Override, Warp Jump, Energy Surge, or Launch Fighter) you may remove crystals from the cards immediately in order to do the action.

When an ability is used the dice are normally removed from the card, or crystals are sent to the Used Crystal space. However some cards show the die or crystal with a 'lock' symbol above them. These dice are not required to be removed when the power is used. However they can be removed at any time as normal to be used in a different way.

Example: The Black team has two crystals on the NeuroNav interface card allowing them to ignore asteroids and nebula. They declare a Warp Jump, freezing the action. They have no crystals in their Available Crystals box on the board, so they take one from the NeuroNav card to pay for the action.

Example: The Shield die on the Warp Nav card does not show a lock icon. It is removed after the ability is used. The Gravimetric Bubble shows the Lock icon above both dice. The dice do not have to be removed until the team decides to do so.

Some cards have a 'snowflake' symbol on them. This means that they 'freeze' the action when used, in the same way as launching a torpedo or using tractor beams on the enemy ship. Shout the name of the card to freeze (Example: The White team wishes to use their Plasma Pulse, which has a snowflake icon. The Captain shouts 'Plasma Pulse', and all action stops while it is resolved.)

The card diagram in the rulebook labels the parts of a card: Card Title, Ability Text, and the icons Crystal Icon, Freeze Icon, Lock Icon, Shield Icon, Tractor Icon and Sensor Icon.

Card Notes

Certain cards have special rules that are different than those described above, or need additional explanation:

Weapon Cards

Weapon cards (Flux Feedback Torpedo, Homing Torpedo, Fusion Torpedo, Missile Pack). These cards give you access to specialized torpedoes. The weapons officer may load a normal torpedo, or one of these. For the torpedoes that take four dice, the dice locations will not match the icons on the Display. Simply place the dice in a line on the desired torpedo tube.

Torpedoes may be converted between different types by adding or removing dice. However once a die is removed it cannot be placed on the display again until an energy is received, as normal.

If the extra die that is required is from a station not controlled by the Weapons officer, the die will need to be passed to Weapons after being rolled with the correct symbol. Example: The team wishes to load a Flux Feedback Torpedo, which needs a Tractor die showing the expansion symbol. It needs to be rolled by the Tractor Beam officer and then passed to Weapons.

Missile Packs allow you to load three torpedoes. These may all be on the same side of the ship. Simply use the top or bottom of the display to hold the third torpedo.

A torpedo may only be one special type. For example, if you have the Flux Feedback and Homing Torpedo cards you cannot make one torpedo with five dice and both special abilities. You can make one Homing and one Flux Feedback and launch them at the same time.

You can mix normal and special torpedoes in a single launch. To launch any of these weapons, just shout FIRE as normal.

Blink

Blink allows the ship to move without changing facing or entering the intervening squares. To use, place one Helm die showing the direction you want to move, relative to current facing. So the Forward arrow will move the ship forward, and the backwards arrow will move the ship backwards. You must place up to three tractor beam dice showing the square symbol to indicate how many squares you are moving.

Example: You have the 'left arrow' die and two tractor beam dice on Blink. Move the ship two squares to the left without changing facing.

Rotational Thrusters

These allow you to pivot the ship in place. The Helm die indicates whether you are turning 90 degrees left or right, or 180 degrees. When both a Helm die and the Shield die are placed, rotate the ship and remove the dice.

Maneuver Jets

You can use Maneuver Jets instead of the normal Helm Display to move the ship. As long as a Sensor Die is on the card you can move the ship after only two dice are placed instead of three.

Reference

Missile

• Capital ships get a bonus Shield die
• Capital ships remove at most one Shield die
• Normal resolution against Fighters

Pulse Bomb

• Single or Double Lightning Bolt as center die
• Must end move in same square as Capital ship
• Roll Nose and Tail dice. Each single or double blast = 1 damage
• Cannot be used against Fighters

Freeze Actions

These are all the actions that freeze the game:

• Launch Torpedos or Missiles (FIRE 1 or FIRE 2)
• Tractor Beam Enemy Ship (TRACTOR)
• Warp Jump (WARP)
• Pulse Bomb (BOMB)
• Launch New Fighter (LAUNCH)
• Experimental Equipment Card (CARD NAME)

Play Notes

For your first few games you may find that Fighters are extremely powerful. Until you discover tactics for how to counteract them with Capital Ships, you may want to start Fighters with two health instead of three.