Rulebook: how to play | Apocalypships

1The game100

Apocalypships is a card game for two players. A natural disaster has wiped the cities off a steampunk world where electricity was never invented. The survivors live aboard huge battleships, the motherships, and roam the barren world, competing for the little that is left.

You command one mothership and its fleet. Your crew sortie from it: on expeditions, to scavenge spoils, or against the rival mothership, to sink it. Steam from your engines pays for everything.

Each player brings a deck built around their mothership. A match is one game, or the best of three or five games: see Matches and the drydock.

The Wandering BastionThe Ironclads’ mothership

The Mother of MolesThe Sappers’ mothership

The five fleets

Every card belongs to one of five fleets, or to none. Each fleet has its own steam, its own colour and its own way of fighting. A deck can mix fleets.

Fleet and its steam	Domain	How they fight	Supply action
Aeronauts	Sky: airships	Strike first from above	Recon X
Corsairs	Sea: surface ships	Hit and run	Plunder X
Ironclads	Land: armoured land crawlers	Grind them down with armour and supply lines	Draw X
Sappers	Underground: mines and bunkers	Dig in, build up, then break through	Dig X
Abyssals	Underwater: ships beneath the sea	Unseen and patient, winning in their own way	Sift X

2Winning102

You win a game as soon as one of these happens:

Sink their mothership. Your opponent’s hull reaches 0. A player’s hull is their mothership’s hull, and you damage it in the sortie.
Collect the spoils. The spoils of the expeditions you have claimed add up to your mothership’s spoils to win.
Their hold runs dry. Your opponent has to draw or dig a card while their hold, the pile they draw from, is empty.
A card says so. Some cards give their player another way to win.

If both players win at the same moment, the game is a stalemate: neither player wins it. It can happen because all battles are fought at once.

You may concede at any time. It counts as losing that game; in a longer match, the next game follows. How games add up to a match, and what happens between them: Matches and the drydock.

3The cards300

Anywhere in the game you can hover over a card’s text to see what it means. The card database shows every card, with its rules explained.

Card types

Mothership

Your mothership leads your deck, but it isn’t shuffled into it: it starts every game on board and never leaves it. Its hull is your hull. Its values, along the bottom of the card, shape your whole game:

7Initiative: The higher initiative starts the first game of a match, and goes first in every sortie.
25Hull: Your hull at the start of each game. It is your life: at 0, you lose.
7Hand size: How many cards you draw at the start of a game, and the most you keep at the end of your turn.
7Spoils to win: The spoils you need from claimed expeditions to win.
40Deck size: The fewest cards your deck may hold.

It also sets your supply action, what you do at the start of each turn (here: Draw 1), and it can be exhausted for one steam of its fleet. Some motherships have abilities of their own, like the Bastion’s Nomad tokens.

Engines

Engines produce steam: exhaust one for one steam of its fleet. Engines aren’t in your deck. Each fleet has a basic engine, there is always one to install, and you install up to one engine a turn. See Steam and engines.

Crew

Crew are the people and machines of your fleet. They stay on board and fight in the sortie. Firepower is their strength in battle, hull how much damage they can take. Damage stays from turn to turn: at 0 hull a crew is destroyed and goes to its owner’s scrapyard.

After the dash in its type line, a crew can have subtypes, such as Mech, Mole or Engineer. They have no rules of their own, but cards refer to them: “Your Mechs have +2 firepower.”

Maneuvers

Maneuvers are one-shot cards: when one resolves, its effect happens and the card goes to your scrapyard. They are the only cards you can deploy during a sortie, and the only cards you can deploy in reaction to another card, your opponent’s or your own. A Deliberate maneuver is the exception: you deploy it like a crew, only in your own watch.

Expeditions

Expeditions are scavenging missions. You deploy one from your hand like any card, and it is launched into the middle of the board, between the players. From then on, both players can send crew there.

Each player builds up their own progress on it. When your progress reaches its distance, you claim it: you gain its spoils, and it goes to your logbook. You can claim an expedition your opponent launched, and they can claim yours.

Bases

Bases are structures in your berth. A base is never dispatched and can’t be attacked in battle, but it has hull, so some cards can damage or destroy it. A base can use its abilities in the turn it arrives.

Tokens

A token is a card an ability makes; it is never in a deck. The Wandering Bastion and Xion II make crew tokens. A token crew is a crew in every way, but when it leaves the board, it stops existing.

4The board400

Both players share one board. Each has their own side of it, their berth, and between the berths lies the middle, where expeditions sit and battles are fought. The game shows you at the bottom:

Your opponent

Hand (hidden)

Berth

The Mother of Moles

Mothership · Sappers

20

70/5Dig 2

Watch : Moles +1

:

Sapper Engine

Engine · Sappers

:

Mining Mole2

Crew — Mole · Sappers

Salvage: Dig 1

If Mining Mole would be put into your scrapyard from the board, shuffle it into your hold instead.

Watch — :

13

Tunnel Rats1

Crew — Mercenary · Sappers

Resurface

If Tunnel Rats would be put into your scrapyard from the board, remove it from the game instead.

A deck may have up to 5 Tunnel Rats.

11

Piles

Hold 33

Deep Dig

Maneuver · Sappers

Dig 2

Salvage — when you install an engine

Scrapyard 1

Logbook 0

The middle

Expeditions

Shattered Gunline

Expedition · Ironclads

When you claim this expedition, put a +1 firepower/+1 hull marker on each Mech you control.

You2

Opponent0

52

Lost Mole Recovery1

Expedition · Sappers

When you claim this expedition, you may search your hold for a non-unique Mole and put it on board, then shuffle your hold.

Resurface

You0

Opponent1

31

Crossfire

Siege Shell

Maneuver · Ironclads

Deal 3 damage to a base or crew in your opponent's berth.

Berth

The Wandering Bastion

Mothership · Ironclads

25

70/7Draw 1

Mech or Claim: Nomad token

:

Ironclad Engine

Engine · Ironclads

:

Ironclad Engine

Engine · Ironclads

:

The Ordnance Works2

Base · Ironclads

Unique

Your Mechs have +2 firepower.

6

Rampart Walker3

Crew — Mech · Ironclads

Plating 1

214

Spider Crawler2

Crew — Mech · Ironclads

Your mothership has +1 initiative.

24

Piles

Hold 30

Scrapyard 0

Logbook 0

Your hand

Pack Walker1

Crew — Mech · Ironclads

04

Soil Extraction

Maneuver · Ironclads

Add

Artillery Fire1

Maneuver · Ironclads

Deploy only while you control a Mech in your berth.

Deal 2 damage to each of your opponent's crew in one battle.

You

Zone	What it holds	Who can see it
Hold	The pile you draw from: your deck, shuffled.	No one sees its cards; both see how many are left.
Hand	The cards you have drawn.	You. Your opponent sees how many.
Berth	Your side of the board: your mothership, engines, bases and crew.	Both players.
The middle	Expeditions, and the battles of the sortie.	Both players.
Crossfire	Cards and abilities waiting to resolve. See Deploying cards.	Both players.
Scrapyard	Scrapped cards, destroyed crew, resolved maneuvers, and cards that Dig or Recon put there from the hold.	Both players.
Logbook	The expeditions you have claimed: your score. Their lasting effects work for you from here.	Both players.
Removed from the game	Cards out of the game until it ends.	Both players.

Ready and exhausted

A card on board is ready or exhausted. You exhaust a card to use it: an engine for steam, a crew to dispatch it, or a card for an ability with the exhaust symbol in its cost. An exhausted card is turned aside, and it can’t be used again until your next stoke phase, when all your cards become ready.

5Setting up103

Each player puts their mothership on board, ready, with its starting hull.
In the first game of a match, the player whose mothership has the higher initiative starts; they can’t let their opponent start instead. With equal initiative, the starting player is chosen at random. For later games, see Matches and the drydock.
Each player shuffles the rest of their deck: this is their hold. Then they draw as many cards as their mothership’s hand size.
Each player may refit their hand, the starting player first. To refit, shuffle your hand into your hold, draw a new hand of the same size, and put one of its cards on the bottom of your hold. You can refit only once: you keep the new hand, one card smaller.
The starting player takes the first turn, and skips its supply phase.

6Steam and engines600

Every cost is paid with steam. Each fleet has its own steam, shown as a pip in its colour: . A cost combines fleet pips and a number. Each pip must be paid with one steam of its fleet, and the number with steam of any fleet. Supply Convoy costs 1: one Ironclad steam plus any one steam.

Where steam comes from

Steam is produced while you pay a cost, by exhausting your steam sources:

Mining MoleTwo Sapper steam, in your watches

Engines: one steam of the engine’s fleet each.
Your mothership: the steam printed on it, of its fleet: one for most, two for Deep Drill Rig.
Crew with a steam ability, such as Mining Mole’s “Watch — : ”. A steam crew works only in your own watches, not in the turn it arrives, and an exhausted crew can’t be dispatched.

Steam isn’t stored for long. The sources you exhaust put their steam in your steam pool, and the cost is paid from there. Steam the cost doesn’t need stays in the pool as added steam until the end of the phase. An effect that says “Add ”, as Soil Extraction does, gives you steam to keep until the end of the phase. It pays your next costs first.

Installing engines

Building up engines is the backbone of your game. You may install one engine each turn, in either of your watches while the crossfire is empty, in one of two ways:

Unlocked, for free. Each fleet has one unlock condition. While you meet it in your turn, that fleet’s basic engine is unlocked, and you may install it without paying anything.
By scrapping a card. Scrap a card from your hand, and install the basic engine of that card’s fleet. A card of no fleet can’t be scrapped for an engine.

Engine	Unlocked for free while, this turn…
Aeronauts	You dispatched at least 2 crew to the mothership battle this turn.
Corsairs	You scrapped at least 2 cards this turn outside your supply phase.
Ironclads	You deployed a crew with at least 4 hull this turn.
Sappers	A card was salvaged or resurfaced this turn.
Abyssals	Your opponent dug at least 2 cards this turn.

A condition counts only what has happened since your turn began. You can install any fleet’s engine, even one your deck doesn’t use. An engine comes in ready, so it can pay for something in the turn you install it.

7A turn500

Players take turns. The player whose turn it is is the active player. Each turn has seven phases, in this order:

1Supply phaseYour mothership’s supply action
2Stoke phaseYour cards become ready
3Maintenance phaseMaintenance costs
4First watchDeploy cards, install an engine
5Sortie phaseDispatch crew and battle
6Second watchDeploy cards, install an engine
7Stow phaseScrap down to your hand size

1. Supply phase: You perform your mothership’s supply action, and nothing else. There is no normal draw: you draw only if your supply action says so. The Wandering Bastion draws 1; The Mother of Moles digs 2, putting the top two cards of its hold into the scrapyard, where the Sappers get their cards back from. Deep Drill Rig, also a Sapper mothership, draws 1: a fleet’s supply action is only the usual one, and a mothership can differ. The starting player skips this phase on the first turn of the game.
2. Stoke phase: All your exhausted cards become ready: engines, mothership, crew and bases.
3. Maintenance phase: For maintenance costs and effects “in your maintenance phase”. The Aerie, an Aeronaut mothership, deploys a Glider token here for each Dirigible you control; made outside a watch, they can attack this turn.
4. First watch: Your main phase. While the crossfire is empty, you may deploy cards from your hand, install your engine for the turn, and use Watch abilities, in any order and as often as you can pay. See Deploying cards.
5. Sortie phase: Crew are dispatched and battles fought. See The sortie.
6. Second watch: Like the first watch, after the battles.
7. Stow phase: Scrap cards from your hand until you have no more than your hand size; you choose which. Then effects that last “until end of turn” end, and every crew’s plating comes back.

8Deploying cards604

The crossfire

To deploy a card is to play it from your hand: you pay its cost, and it goes into the crossfire to wait. Your opponent gets the first chance to react to it.

A reaction is a maneuver deployed on top of the crossfire. Both players can react, to their opponent’s cards and to their own, and a reaction can be reacted to in turn. When both players pass one after the other, the card on top resolves. So the last card added resolves first.

In your watch, your opponent can only react to what you deploy. Installing an engine and producing steam can’t be reacted to. Nothing can be reacted to in the supply, stoke, maintenance and stow phases.

Some maneuvers take a card out of the crossfire before it resolves. You choose a card waiting there, either player’s, when you deploy one; an ability waiting there isn’t a card. The card never resolves: a crew never comes on board, a maneuver’s effect never happens, and the steam paid for it stays spent. It goes where the maneuver says, back to its owner’s hand or on top of their hold, never to the scrapyard. A token taken out stops existing.

New crew

A crew that comes on board during a watch can’t be dispatched in that turn, and can’t use an ability with in its cost, unless it has Quickstart. One with Outrider can be dispatched in that turn, but only to an expedition. The board marks it with an hourglass . From the next turn on, your opponent’s turn included, it can: a crew you deploy in your watch can already defend in your opponent’s next sortie.

Abilities

An activated ability is one you choose to use. It begins with the phase it works in:

Watch — in your own watches, while the crossfire is empty. It happens at once, and no one can react to it.
Sortie — in the windows of a sortie, by either player. It goes into the crossfire and can be reacted to.

The exhaust symbol in a cost means “exhaust this card”. Forge Hauler exhausts itself to put a +1 firepower marker on another Mech.

A cost can also be steam alone, such as Deep Drill Rig’s “Watch — : Dig 1”. It exhausts nothing, so you can use it again and again, as long as you can pay.

A triggered ability happens by itself when something occurs, such as “Whenever you deploy a Mech”. A static ability, such as Spider Crawler’s “Your mothership has +1 initiative”, simply applies while its card is on board.

Watch the wording of a crew’s own trigger. “When you deploy Scrapyard Crawler” happens as you play it, while it waits in the crossfire, before your opponent can react. “When Hired Cutlass comes on board” waits until the card has resolved and is on board, and it also happens if the card is put on board without being deployed, as by Resurface.

9The sortie700

The sortie is the battle of the turn. Both players take part in every sortie, also on their opponent’s turn, but only the active player can damage a mothership or make progress on an expedition. On your opponent’s turn, you defend.

1First windowManeuvers and Sortie abilities
2DispatchSend crew to the battles
3Second windowManeuvers and Sortie abilities
4BattleEvery battle at once; no one can act
5Final windowManeuvers and Sortie abilities

Initiative

The player with the higher initiative:

gets the first chance in every window;
dispatches last, knowing where the other player’s crew went;
assigns the damage in every battle, the ones they lose included.

With equal initiative, the active player counts as higher. Effects such as Spider Crawler’s +1 change it at once, even in the middle of a sortie.

Windows

In a window, both players may deploy maneuvers and use Sortie abilities, the higher initiative first. A window ends when both players pass in a row with the crossfire empty. No other cards can be deployed during a sortie.

Dispatch

Each player sends each of their ready crew to one place, or keeps it in their berth:

Sent to	On your turn	On your opponent’s turn
The mothership battle	Attack your opponent’s mothership.	Defend your mothership.
An expedition	Make progress on it, whoever launched it.	Fight their crew there. You make no progress.
Nowhere: your berth	No battle.	No battle: it doesn’t defend.

The lower initiative dispatches first. Dispatching exhausts a crew, and crew become ready only in their owner’s stoke phase: a crew that attacked on your turn can’t defend on your opponent’s.

Battle

Every battle is fought at once: the mothership battle, and each expedition with crew at it. In each, both players add up their crew’s firepower. The higher total wins, and the difference is the winner’s margin. With equal totals, nothing happens there. A player alone in a battle wins it, with their whole firepower as the margin. No one can act during the battle step.

Damage

In the mothership battle, the margin is dealt to the losing side, the loser’s crew there first. Each of them must be given enough damage to destroy it before any damage reaches the mothership; the rest hits the mothership. The higher initiative assigns the damage and may split it among the losing crew, but no crew can be given more than it takes to destroy it.

Only the active player’s margin can reach a mothership. If the defender wins the mothership battle, the margin is dealt to the attacking crew, and what is left of it is lost.

Damage stays

A crew’s hull doesn’t recover at the end of the turn: damage stays until something repairs it, such as Field Riveters. At 0 hull, the crew is destroyed.

Plating is the exception. It takes damage before the hull, and it comes back in full at the end of every turn. This Rampart Walker has taken 3 damage: 1 to its plating, 2 to its hull. Its plating will be back at the end of the turn; its hull stays at 2.

Expeditions

The winner of an expedition battle on their own turn chooses one:

Damage: deal the margin to the losing crew there. If all of them are destroyed, the rest of the margin counts as progress.
Progress: add the whole margin to their progress on the expedition.

On your opponent’s turn you can’t make progress: winning there only damages their crew, and the rest of the margin is lost. So an expedition is always claimed on its claimer’s own turn.

Your turn: the battle at Shattered Gunline

A claimed expedition goes to its claimer’s logbook, and both players’ progress on it ends. Until then, progress stays from turn to turn.

An expedition’s lasting effect, such as The March to Ironhold’s +1 initiative, doesn’t end when it is claimed: it works from the logbook for the rest of the game, for whoever claimed it. Claim your opponent’s March to Ironhold, and the +1 initiative is yours.

10Keywords800

Keyword actions

Add steam	“Add ”: you keep this steam until the end of the phase. See Steam and engines.
Destroy	Put a crew or base into its owner’s scrapyard, whatever its hull and plating. “Every crew in one battle” means both players’ crew in the battle you choose.
Dig X	Put the top X cards of your hold into your scrapyard. “Your opponent digs X” does it to their hold. Deep Drill Rig digs one at a time, for steam.
Draw X	Put the top card of your hold into your hand, X times. “Draw up to X”: choose how many, from 0 to X.
Plunder X	Draw X cards, then scrap any X cards from your hand.
Recon X	Look at the top X cards of your hold. Draw one of them, and put the rest into your scrapyard.
Repair X	Remove up to X damage from a crew; “fully repair” removes all of it. Never above its printed hull.
Scrap	Put a card from your hand into your scrapyard. Only this is scrapping: destroyed crew and dug cards reach the scrapyard too, but they weren’t scrapped.
Search	Look through your hold for a card of the kind named, show it and put it into your hand, then shuffle your hold.
Sift X	Look at the top X cards of your hold. Draw one of them, and put the rest on the bottom in any order.

Keywords

Deliberate

A maneuver you deploy like a crew: only in your own watch, while the crossfire is empty. Never as a reaction, and not in the sortie. Your opponent sees it coming and can react to it in the crossfire, with Swallowed by the Deep, Heave To! or Wash away! for instance.

Extra cost

A cost besides steam, such as exhausting a Mech in your berth. You pay it when you deploy the card; if you can’t, you can’t deploy it.

Instead

A card that “would” do something and does something else “instead” never does the first thing. Tunnel Rats destroyed in battle leave the game without reaching the scrapyard, so they can’t resurface from there.

Jettison

Jettison — [effect]: when a Recon puts this card into your scrapyard, you may use the effect. Only Recon: a card scrapped, dug or destroyed doesn’t. With several, you choose the order, and may stop. Outside the sortie it happens at once and no one can react; in the sortie it goes into the crossfire first. A target is chosen as it happens.

Markers

A +1 firepower marker gives its crew 1 more firepower for as long as it stays on board. Markers add up, and a card that leaves the board loses them.

Outrider

In the turn it comes on board during a watch, the crew can be dispatched to an expedition, but not to the mothership battle. From the next turn on, your opponent’s included, it is like any other crew. It still can’t use its own abilities with in their cost in that turn.

Plating X

Damage goes to the plating first, up to X; only the rest reduces the hull. The plating comes back in full at the end of every turn.

Quickstart

The crew can be dispatched, and use abilities with in their cost, in the turn it arrives.

Refuel X

A cost: put X cards from your scrapyard on the bottom of your hold, in the order you choose. With fewer than X there, you can’t pay it. It keeps a deck that recons from running out of cards. Refueled cards aren’t salvaged, so they don’t unlock the Sapper engine.

Resurface

Resurface — [when]: when that happens while the card is in your scrapyard, you may put it on board. It always happens in a watch; a trigger outside one waits for the next. Resurface [cost]: in your watch, pay the cost to put it on board from your scrapyard. Either way it isn’t deployed, so no one can react, and a resurfaced crew is new. A maneuver with Resurface, such as Sinkhole, is deployed again from the scrapyard for its Resurface cost.

Revealed

A revealed card is shown face up to both players, and stays where it is. Deep Drill Rig reveals the top card of its hold: both players see what its player will draw next, and each dig shows the card below. You can’t play a card from the hold.

Salvage

Salvage — [when]: when that happens while the card is in your scrapyard, you may return it to your hand. Salvage [cost]: in your watch, pay the cost to return it from your scrapyard to your hand, as often as you can pay. Prospector Mole’s price is a dig: “Salvage: Dig 1”.

Stowaway

When you scrap this card from your hand, for whatever reason, you may pay its Stowaway cost to deploy it instead. It still counts as scrapped.

Unique

You can have only one copy on board at a time; your opponent can have their own. Your deck may still hold more. A unique expedition can be claimed only once per player.

11Building a deck900

One mothership. It can’t change between the games of a match.
A minimum deck size. Your deck needs at least as many cards as your mothership’s deck size. There is no maximum.
At most 3 copies of a card. A card on the restricted list may be in a deck only once; restricted now: none. A card can also set its own limit: “A deck may have up to 5 Tunnel Rats.”
Any fleets. A deck can mix the cards of any number of fleets. Their costs need their fleets’ steam.
Expeditions are part of the deck and count toward its size. Engines aren’t: basic engines are always there to install.
A drydock of up to 10 cards, if you want one: cards kept beside your deck, to swap in between the games of a match. The 3-copy limit counts your deck and drydock together. How the swap works: Matches and the drydock.

The Decks page has a prebuilt deck for each fleet. Copy one into the deck builder to make it your own.

12Matches and the drydock902

Before a match, the players agree how long it is. In this app, you choose it in the lobby.

Match	Who wins it	Used for
Best of one	The winner of its only game.	A quick casual match. There is no game after it, so no drydock swap.
Best of three	The first player to win two games.	Every regular match.
Best of five	The first player to win three games.	A tournament’s final.

A match ends as soon as one player has won enough games: the rest aren’t played. If the games run out first, because some were stalemates, the player who won more games wins the match. With equal wins the match is drawn, except in a tournament’s top cut: there, games go on until one has a winner.

Between two games

Who starts. After a game that someone won, the player who lost it chooses who starts the next one. After a stalemate, the player who didn’t start that game starts the next one.
The drydock swap. Each player with a drydock may swap cards with it, the starting player first. You already know whether you start, so you can choose your cards for it.
A new game. It is set up as the first one was (Setting up): motherships back at their starting hull, holds shuffled, new hands, and a refit for each player. Nothing on the board carries over: only your deck, as the last swap left it.

Time. In a match against another player, each of you has 25 minutes for the whole match, as on a chess clock. Only the clock of the player who must decide runs; when you pass in the crossfire, your opponent's clock starts. If your time runs out, you lose the match, whatever the score. A best-of-five final has no clock.

The drydock

Your drydock is up to 10 cards kept ashore beside your deck. You build it with your deck, in the deck builder. It holds the cards your deck can hold: no mothership, no engines, no tokens. The 3-copy limit counts your deck and your drydock together. It can be smaller than 10, or empty.

A drydock is for the cards that are strong against one deck and weak against the others. You find out what you are up against in game 1, then bring the answers aboard.

One in, one out. For every card you take out of your deck, you put one in from your drydock. Your deck keeps its size; the cards you took out go into the drydock.
Before every game. You may swap again before each later game. Each swap starts from your deck as the last one left it, so you can also swap a card back. Or you keep your deck as it is.
Hidden. Your opponent sees that you swapped, never which cards or how many.
The mothership stays. It can’t change between the games of a match.

Scrapyard CrawlerA card made for the drydock

13Playing in this app

Ways to play

Start a match from the lobby: choose the game mode first, then the decks. You play a prebuilt deck or one of your own; a bot plays only the prebuilt decks it has been tuned for.

Play vs bot: a full match against the computer.
Goldfish practice: you play alone, against a mothership of no fleet that never acts. How many turns does your deck need to win?
Hot seat: you play both seats on one screen, which always shows the player who has to decide.
Watch bot vs bot: a good way to see the rules at work.

On the board

Hover over any card to see it in full in the side panel. Right-click a card to enlarge it.
The action bar in the side panel says what you are deciding. Cards you can deploy or use now are highlighted: click one to use it.
Before you deploy a card, click the steam sources you want to pay with; otherwise they are chosen for you.
In the dispatch, drag your crew onto the opposing mothership or an expedition, or click a crew to go through its choices.
Space presses the main button, such as Pass or End watch. With Auto-pass on, the game passes for you whenever passing is all you can do.
Click a scrapyard or a logbook, yours or your opponent’s, to look through it. The side panel also shows the phase and the game log.

14Glossary

Active player: The player whose turn it is. →
Added steam: Steam an effect adds, or steam a source made that a cost didn’t need. You keep it until the end of the phase, and it pays your costs first. →
Base: A structure in your berth. Never dispatched, never attacked in battle, but it has hull. →
Berth: Your side of the board: your mothership, engines, bases and crew. →
Claim: To complete an expedition: your progress reaches its distance. You gain its spoils. →
Crew: Cards that stay on board and fight, with firepower and hull. →
Crossfire: Where deployed cards, and abilities used in a sortie, wait to resolve. The last one added resolves first. →
Deploy: To play a card, normally from your hand, by paying its cost. →
Dispatch: The sortie step where crew are sent to the mothership battle or an expedition. →
Distance: The progress needed to claim an expedition. →
Drydock: Up to 10 cards kept beside your deck. Between games you swap cards with it, one in for each one out. →
Engine: A card that produces steam. Not in your deck: you install one a turn. →
Exhaust, ready: You exhaust a card to use it; it becomes ready again in your stoke phase. →
Expedition: A scavenging mission in the middle of the board. Both players can claim it. →
Firepower: A crew’s strength in battle. →
Hold: The pile you draw from. Drawing from an empty hold loses the game. →
Hull: How much damage a card can take. Your mothership’s hull is your life. →
Initiative: A mothership value. The higher initiative goes first in sorties, dispatches last and assigns battle damage. →
Install: To put a basic engine on board: for free when unlocked, or by scrapping a card of its fleet. →
Jettison: A keyword: when a Recon puts the card into your scrapyard, you may use its effect. →
Logbook: Where your claimed expeditions go: your score. Their lasting effects keep working for you from there. →
Maneuver: A one-shot card. The only cards you can deploy in a sortie, or as a reaction. →
Margin: How much the winner of a battle won by: it becomes damage or progress. →
Match: One game, or the best of three or five games. Between games, the loser chooses who starts and the players may swap cards with their drydocks. →
Mothership: Your ship and your life. It sets your initiative, hull, hand size, spoils to win, deck size and supply action. →
New crew: A crew that came on board during a watch this turn: it can’t be dispatched or exhausted for an ability yet. →
Outrider: A keyword: in the turn it came on board during a watch, the crew can be dispatched to an expedition, but not to the mothership battle. →
Progress: Each player’s own total on an expedition, built up from battle margins on their turns. →
Reaction: A maneuver deployed on top of the crossfire, in response to a card or ability. →
Refuel X: A cost: put X cards from your scrapyard on the bottom of your hold, in the order you choose. →
Scrap: To put a card from your hand into your scrapyard. →
Scrapyard: Where scrapped, destroyed, resolved and dug cards go. →
Sortie: The phase where crew are dispatched and battles fought. →
Spoils: What an expedition is worth. Reach your spoils to win, and you win. →
Stalemate: A game both players win at the same moment: no one wins it. →
Steam: What costs are paid with. Each fleet has its own. →
Token: A card an ability makes. It stops existing when it leaves the board. →
Watch: Your two main phases, before and after the sortie, where you deploy cards from hand. →
Window: A moment in the sortie when both players can deploy maneuvers and use Sortie abilities. →