Under Falling Skies FAQ
224 questions players ask · Updated Nov 10, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup
Gameplay
1 Dice Phase
- Do enemy ships move as each die is placed, or only after all five dice are down?
- Can enemy ships collide, or get stuck or pass over each other in the same column?
- What happens when a ship's arrow points to a space that is already occupied?
- If a ship is shifted sideways into another column, does it move again when a die is placed there?
- When a ship lands on a mothership icon, does the row the mothership moves into trigger its effect?
- When the mothership descends onto a row containing ships, do those ships move again this round?
- When a die moves ships onto a mothership icon and other ships share that column, in what order do the ships and the mothership move?
- If two ships in one column each stop on a mothership icon, does the mothership descend two rows?
- What happens to a white ship that hits the city?
- Must a die placed ahead of the excavator match the distance exactly, or can it be higher?
- Can you activate the room where you placed a die ahead of the excavator?
- Can you place a die ahead of the excavator on your first turn?
- Must you place a die ahead of the excavator every round?
- Can you move the excavator twice in one round?
- Is there always an open space for the excavator's last move at the end of the base?
- When moving the excavator, do tunnels and empty spaces count as steps?
- Can you place a die on an empty excavated tunnel or hallway space, and what does it do?
- Can you place a die in a multi-space room when only part of it is excavated?
- Do a room's modifier or energy cost apply to a die that moves the excavator?
- Can you place a die in an AA gun room and avoid its -1 ship movement penalty?
- What happens if you place a die illegally, such as too far ahead of the excavator?
- If you place two worker dice on the excavator action by mistake, what is the penalty?
- Do robot dice count against the one-worker-per-column limit?
- Can a worker die be placed on a space that holds a robot, and what if robots fill the column?
- Is a worker die ever treated as a robot?
- Does installing or activating a robot move the alien ships?
- Can two robots be installed in the same column?
- Must you place all five dice, and can you choose which ones to resolve?
- How many rerolls do the two white dice give, and does saving one for last change it?
- Can you change or take back a die you already placed?
- Does a die placed in an AA gun room (-1) still use up its column?
- What happens when you place a die in a column that has no enemy ships?
- Can you excavate with one die and place another die in the newly excavated room in the same Dice Phase?
- Can a Command Room boost an excavator die so the excavator moves farther?
2 Rooms Phase
- Can you decline to use a room where you placed a die, to save energy?
- Does the excavator move the full value of its die, or only to the die's own space?
- How much energy does moving the excavator cost, and when is it paid?
- When do you pay a room's energy cost: when you place the die, or when you activate it?
- Can energy go above the track maximum while resolving rooms, if you gain it first and spend it later?
- Can you use a room you excavated this round in the same Rooms Phase?
- When is a robot installed, and can it be used that same round?
- Can a robot be placed in an unexcavated space ahead of the excavator, or in a hallway?
- Can a robot be installed in a room whose worker die is still in place?
- Can a robot installed this round activate in the same Rooms Phase, and when do exhausted robots become ready again?
- Does a robot in a double room add its value to the room?
- Can a vertical double room be activated without a robot?
- Can a robot in a robot room be used to install a new robot?
- Does an unused robot lose value, and must you remove a worker die you choose not to use?
- Can you move a robot to another room to use it later?
- Can you install a robot in an AA gun room to destroy alien ships?
- Does a multi-space robot room make one robot or several, and how do robots work in multi-space rooms?
- Can Command Room points raise a robot die, or a die already at 6? What does the purple Command Room do?
- When are enemy ships moved relative to distributing a Command Room's value?
- Can a command center change a die already in a room, and does it move ships?
- If two enemy ships share a column and only one sits on a token, can you shoot the other first, then the one on the token?
- Does a jet fighter room shoot down ships only in its own column?
- Do white ships respawn after being shot down?
- Can you add the values of two separate research rooms to advance further on the research track?
- Can you activate several research rooms in one round to advance the research track?
- Can one research die move past several research spaces at once?
- Can you use a research room before the excavator has fully passed through it?
- Can you use the double-space research room in the middle of the base to reach the top of the research track?
- In Montreal, can a single die in a two-space room count toward a single-space room?
- If a worker die can be transferred to a green research room, can it go into the yellow space of a green-and-yellow double room?
- If a multi-space room has two colours or two effects, do you resolve both, and what value do they use?
- Can a room's value go above 6 with a modifier, or with multi-space rooms?
- Does a room's modifier get added to or subtracted from the die value?
- If a room's modifier pushes its value below zero, do I lose energy or research when I place a low die there?
- Is there any reason to place dice in two separate attack rooms?
3 Mothership Phase
- What happens to ships in the row the mothership descends into?
- Where do respawned ships go, and does a ship left on a drop point move with the mothership?
- Do ships that are shot down respawn in the same column?
- Do ships absorbed by the mothership stay in their column until they respawn?
- In what order do ships spawn onto the drop points?
- What happens if more ships are waiting to spawn than there are free drop points?
- Does a ship that spawns onto a drop point trigger the effect of a sky space?
- Do white ships follow the same absorption and spawn rules as purple ships?
- Are shot-down white ships available again?
- Do white ships return to the mothership after they damage your city?
- When does a ship count as hitting your city?
- What happens when a ship moves the mothership down during the Dice Phase?
- If the mothership was moved in the Dice Phase, does it still move in the Mothership Phase?
- If an enemy ship moves the mothership down in the Dice Phase, do I avoid that round's mothership effect?
- Is the mothership action resolved before or after the Rooms Phase?
- How far does the mothership move the excavator back, and can it pass its starting space?
- Do tunnel spaces count when the mothership moves the excavator backward?
- If the mothership moves my excavator back, can I still place dice in rooms I had already excavated?
- If a mothership action moves the excavator back, what happens to robots in the rooms it passes?
- What does the red explosion icon on the mothership track do?
- Is the whole cardboard piece the mothership, and what is the orange miniature for?
- What is a drop point on the mothership?
- Can a column have no ships after the Mothership Phase?
End of Game
Full Game
- Can Mexico City's ability excavate more than once in a round?
- Can Sydney transfer a second die into a research room and use it again after the first die there was used?
- Can a die in an AA gun room be transferred to a research room with Sydney's damaged side?
- Can Karima move a die from a single jet fighter room into the jet fighter space of Paris's multipurpose room?
- With Singapore's damaged side, can you transfer two robots or only one?
- Can Paris's install bonus raise a die above 6, or raise a robot?
- Can Tokyo's ability let you discard a robot and build another one in the same round?
- Can Havana's ability swap a worker die for a robot that has not been built yet?
- Can Havana's ability be used twice in one round, replacing two unused dice with robots?
- Can New York's +1 bonus cancel the -1 you take when creating a robot?
- How many robots does New York allow?
- Which ship counts as the highest ship for Rio de Janeiro?
- How does Rio de Janeiro's damaged side work?
- How does London's jet fighter bonus work?
- Can London's bonus destroy a ship on a second explosion colour, after a jet fighter effect on the other colour?
- How does combining same-colour rooms in Montreal resolve?
- How does Beijing's grey die work?
- How does Johannesburg's damaged side move the excavator?
- Is there any double room with an AA gun space in Cairo?
- Is the maximum energy always 7?
- How do I apply Washington's first-roll ability?
- Are city abilities mandatory, or can I choose whether to use them?
- Can a Havana robot be installed in an unexcavated space to excavate it?
- Can you use the same room more than once in a turn by swapping robots in and out?
- How do you create a robot, and where is it installed?
- When do you pay energy for a robot room: when you build the robot, or when you use the robot?
- Do installing or using a robot move enemy ships?
- Must you use a robot each round, and does its value drop if you do not use it?
- How many robots can you have at one time?
- Can you move a robot from one room to another?
- Can a robot be placed into a robot room, including the room that built it?
- Can a robot in a multi-space room block the room?
- Can you remove a robot and install it again elsewhere in the same round?
- Can a newly installed robot be used in the same turn it is installed?
- Can a robot be installed in rooms the excavator opens during the same Rooms Phase?
- Can a robot's value be above 6 when it is installed?
- Does a room modifier apply to a robot each time it is used in that room?
- Can a robot and a worker die share a column, or can two robots share one?
- Can a robot die in a robot room be used to represent the robot you install from it?
- Can a robot be installed on an excavated space of a multi-space room whose other spaces are not yet excavated?
Campaign
- Does the Command Ship descend if its target space is already occupied?
- Can Karima's upgraded ability let you excavate more than once in a single round?
- Can Karima's upgraded transfer move two dice into the same room?
- Does the one-die-per-column limit apply to transfers made in the Rooms Phase?
- Can a transferred die be used to excavate, or moved into an unexcavated space?
- Can a transferred die go onto an excavated empty tunnel, not just a room?
- Can Lucia Ortego's ability let you use a robot in the round you created it?
- Does the Colonel's ability cause ships to move when used on dice already placed?
- How do threat level and difficulty stars relate in the campaign?
- What counts as the campaign notebook threat number for a successful mission?
- Which sky tiles are used in the campaign, and do newer tiles change how many you flip?
- What happens to the character and the city after a campaign battle?
- If you lose the same battle twice in the campaign, are the character and the city both lost?
- Which characters and cities do I keep between chapters?
- How do characters kept from earlier chapters join a later chapter?
- Can a character ability be used every round, or only once per game?
- Which side of a character do you use in each campaign battle, and do you flip characters after a loss?
- Does a character leave the campaign after its power is used once?
- Can you shoot down an enemy fighter that has just destroyed a satellite?
- Does placing a die on a contaminated space cause damage, including a robot?
- In the Contamination scenario, does the token apply to a first die used for excavating, and do you add a second token on a contaminated space?
- How long does the Contamination scenario last, and what happens after 12 rounds?
- Does the Repairing the Base scenario repair when you place a die for excavating?
- In the Repairing the Base scenario, can you repair in any excavated space or only in tunnel spaces, and do dice in rooms still work?
- In the Repair the Base mission, does healing need a die equal to or higher than the marker?
- How do you place the satellite tokens in chapter 1 of the campaign?
- In the satellites scenario, what destroys the satellites?
- If Jackson Moss raises the value of a die that is already placed, do the enemy ships in that column move the extra space?
- In the Command Ship scenario, what happens when the orange ship's path is blocked by another ship?
- In the Command Ship scenario, where does the orange ship go when it lands on a row with no action or the skull?
- When a die's value is copied by a campaign ability, does the ship move the copied number?
- Does moving a die with a campaign ability trigger enemy ship movement?
- Can a die moved into a room the excavator has just opened be used in that room?
- What does it mean that the orange Command Ship spawns ahead of all other ships when respawning?
- Can Clinton Harper's ability be used in the Dice Phase, or only in the Rooms Phase?
- Can Clinton Harper's upgraded ability destroy a ship that sits on a drop point?
- Can Wang Lin's ability take a robot die used in a jet fighter effect and reuse it for research?
- Can a worker die be moved into an empty research slot of a double room that holds a robot already used this turn?
- How does Iz'ox's ability place a ship, and when does it return?
- How do rooms with two effects of different types resolve, and do you get one effect or both?
- When a Chapter 3 mothership effect lowers all ships, are ships on the drop spots affected?
- What does the teleporter symbol with a line pointing at another symbol mean?
- How are teleporters paired on the Chapter 3 sky tiles?
- How do I tell which campaign components belong to which chapter?
- Can you replay the campaign, and do the matchups change?
- Can you reuse a city, scenario or character from an earlier battle in the same chapter?
- Do cities and characters you kept from earlier chapters come back into later piles?
- Can you pick the campaign piles yourself instead of randomizing them?
- Which side of a campaign city do you start on, and does damage carry over between games?
- In each chapter, how many of the four cities do you actually defend?
- Which cities can I choose from in campaign chapter 1?
- How many cities are in campaign chapter 2, and how many are played?
- In campaign chapter 3, are there five cities, and is the fifth city removed as in chapter 2?
- Are the missions, characters and cities you did not use removed from the campaign after a chapter?
- After losing a campaign battle on the blue side, do you remove the scenario before playing the red side?
- Do you need to win a campaign battle to advance, or can you lose every attempt and still move on?
- How is the campaign set up when a chapter has two cities, scenarios and characters?
- Are cities from outside the current chapter included in a campaign battle's draw?
- Where are the campaign rules?
- When do you move on to the next campaign chapter?
- Is the Prague promo city's ability limited to the same tile or does it reach any higher ship?
- Can Lucia Ortego's upgraded side unexhaust robots that were installed earlier in the same turn?
- What does Lucia Ortego's second ability do with a used robot?
- Can Mexico City's excavator move happen more than once in one turn?
- Does Mexico City's excavator bonus let me open new rooms with the same round's dice?
- What does covering a research space with a discovery token do, and can you skip ahead to it?
- Can Karima move a worker die into a room that is not usable yet, or into a room already used this phase?
- Do room values and modifiers combine across matching rooms in Montreal, and is the effect applied once?
- In Montreal, do you pay each matching room's energy cost and keep its modifiers when summing?
- What does regenerated mean for the ships preloaded on the mothership in the Battle for the Skies scenario?
- If you lose every city in a campaign chapter, can you keep playing the campaign?
- Can a campaign score end up negative?
- When a campaign city lists a base layout, should I use the layout from the chapter sheet?
- How do storm tokens work when ships are shot down in the Chapter 3 storms mission?
- In Johannesburg, if two dice go in one column, do the ships in that column move twice?
- In the final battle, do shot-down white ships come back when the mothership adds ships?
- In the Final Battle, do both rows of ships move on the first turn?
- Does Samantha Legrand's research ability damage my base?
- Does the Engineer's energy bonus trigger the Reactor Leak penalty?
- How does Havana's advantage work with an unused die?
- Does Havana's base tile D include a multi-space research room?
- Can Cairo's transfer ability let one die trigger two room effects?
- Can Cairo's transfer move a die into a room excavated during the same Rooms Phase?
- Can Singapore's robot transfer be used more than once per round?
- Under Rio de Janeiro's damaged side, which ship is returned to the mothership?