Official rule text
ALLIANCE GAME VARIANT COMBAT AND UNIT ABILITIES ✦ During a combat roll or a roll for a unit ability where a player In this game variant, players form teams of two against up to three and their ally each have units present, both can participate in other alliances. This can be played with four, six, or eight players. the same roll; their rolls are combined and hits are assigned as To accommodate team play, the rules are modified as follows: normal. When an opposing force produces hits against allied players, the allies will decide together which units the hits will SETUP be assigned against; if they cannot come to a consensus, the active player assigns the hits. ✦ STEP 2—CHOOSE FACTIONS: Each player must also be assigned an ally. Determine which pairs of players will ✦ Effects that produce hits that are assigned by an opponent be allies. Each player takes the Alliance reference card that against an allied pair can be assigned to either ally’s units in corresponds to their ally and places it in their play area. any combination. NOTE: The ally of the Mahact Gene-Sorcerers faction also places a command token from their reinforcements into the ABILITIES AND EFFECTS Mahact’s fleet pool. ✦ Your ally’s units count as neither your units nor as other players’ units for the purpose of resolving game effects and ✦ STEP 4—CHOOSE COLOR: If playing with the Prophecy abilities. of Kings expansion, each player purges their “Alliance” promissory note and flips their commander to its unlocked ✦ Abilities that trigger when a player activates a system that side; all commanders are unlocked at the start of the game. contains another player’s units, planets, or command tokens do not trigger when those players are allies. TRANSACTIONS ✦ Your unit abilities (space cannon, planetary shield, etc.) do not When performing transactions with your ally, players follow a affect your ally. modified set of rules: ✦ Agent abilities can be used on your ally. ✦ When you exchange commodities with your ally, they do not convert into trade goods. ✦ Your ally’s planets count as your planets for the purpose of resolving abilities, but you cannot exhaust them and they ✦ While you may receive promissory notes from your ally as part do not count for scoring objectives or scoring the “Imperial” of a transaction (to later give to another player, for example), victory point. you cannot resolve those promissory notes. ELIMINATION MOVEMENT AND CONTROL ✦ A player cannot be eliminated as long as their ally controls a ✦ Your ships may move through and into systems that contain planet. your ally’s ships; this does not trigger a space combat. ✦ Your ground forces may land on planets controlled by your WINNING THE GAME ally; this does not trigger a ground combat or cause you to gain ✦ The game is played using the “14” side of the victory point control of that planet. track. One player must have 14 victory points and their ally must have at least 10 victory points in order for that alliance to ✦ When a game effect allows a player to redistribute command win the game. tokens, they may also exchange planet cards with their ally, provided that the receiving player has at least 1 ground force or structure on that planet. This exchange does not change the ready or exhausted state of a planet card and does not trigger abilities that occur when you gain control of a planet. ✦ When your ally activates a system, you may simultaneously perform a tactical action in that system with your ally; if you do, you must spend and place a token from your tactic pool as normal. ✦ You may, if your ally allows it, transport, support, and commit their fighters and ground forces using your units that have capacity.