Overview

In Earth's future, humanity has harnessed the power of the sun, using excess plasma to invent groundbreaking weapons. One of these is the plasma-based personal weapon, wielded by the fighting force known as the Solar Sentinels. The Sentinels are Earth's last line of defense against the Horde, an alien army lurking beneath the moon's surface. You are part of their last-ditch surprise attack that will hopefully destroy the aliens before they launch their invasion.

To repel the alien invasion, you must defeat the alien Horde's boss. But the boss can only be fought when one of the stacks of 15 enemies is empty. If your HP reaches 0 or lower, you lose and humanity is doomed.

Game Layout

In BGA's version of Solar Sentinels, the game board is divided into three sections.

Hero Section

In the upper section, the leftmost box contains your stats and Hero card. In the middle is a pool of dice you can use to fight enemies. When you choose dice to commit to the battle, they move from the Pool to the Active area. After dice have been used against an enemy, they are moved to the Exhausted section.

Icon	Name	Definition
	Health	Hit Points
	Strategy	Number of Strategy rounds & item capacity
	Recovery	Number of dice you may recover at the end of the round

Active Section

The middle section contains enemies you are currently fighting in this round.

Stacks

The lower section contains the three enemy stacks, with the number of remaining cards to each stack's left, and the final boss (face down).

Gameplay

Each round consists of two parts: Activation and Engagement.

Activation

Choose a conflict card from any stack. It gets placed into the Active area. If that card shows the additional enemies icon , you must choose additional cards.

Orange enemies with a unique border must be chosen during Activation. When one appears on any stack, it must be chosen to be fought. If more than one is shown, you may choose which to activate.

Each enemy has distinct conditions and effects that alter the battle, so choose carefully!

Engagement

Engagement is where the core gameplay is. It has two parts: Strategy (player's turn) and Resolve (enemy's turn).

Strategy Phase (Player's Turn)

1. Commit Dice: Choose a number of dice from the pool. They move to the active area.
2. Roll Dice: Roll all dice in your active area.
3. Apply Dice: Dice that resulted in a hit or crit must be assigned to enemy cards (one enemy at a time). You are not required to apply all hits. If an enemy suffers damage that meets or exceeds its Health, it is defeated. Any effects from that enemy are immediately cancelled and do not apply to the rest of the fight.

This phase may be repeated as many times as your strategy stat allows. For example, if you have Strategy 2, you can commit, roll, and apply dice twice before suffering enemy effects. Enemies that are not defeated will escape at the end of the round.

Dice

Some dice are "stronger" than others (i.e., some dice have more or less "miss" and "hit" phases. All dice have only 1 crit face. Note that the red die is the only one that guarantees a hit, but you only have one.

Dice Color	Icon	Hit () faces	Miss () Faces	Avg Dmg for 1 Dice
Yellow		2	4	0.5
Green		3	3	0.6
Blue		4	2	0.8
Purple		5	1	1.0
Red		6	0	1.1

This means if you rolled all the dice in your dice pool, you would get 10 - 15 damage. So use this chart to calculate the dice you think you need to reach the enemy's HP.

Resolve Phase (Enemy's Turn)

1. Suffer Damage: Your health is reduced by the total of all undefeated enemies' damage stat . If it goes to zero or below, you lose the game.
2. After Effects: Resolve all aftereffects of cards in the active area, whether they were defeated or not.
3. Exhaust Dice: All the dice committed to this round, whether they were applied to an enemy or not, move to the Exhausted area.
4. Recover Dice: You may return as many dice from the exhausted area back to your pool as your Recovery stat shows. For example, if your Recovery stat is 2, you may return 2 dice to your pool.
5. Gain Item Rewards: You may take item rewards from defeated enemies into your inventory. You can only have as many items as your Strategy stat.
6. Cleanup: All active cards (defeated and undefeated) are discarded. Then discard one non-mandatory enemy card from a stack of your choice. If only mandatory enemies are visible, this step is skipped.

If dice would be "banished", that means the dice remain on the enemy card. They do not return to the dice pool or the exhausted area.

Enemy Card Icons

Name	Icon	Definition
Additional Enemies		Number of additional enemies that must be added to the active area.
Enemy Health		Enemy HP
Enemy Damage		Amount of damage (i.e. number your HP will be reduced by) done to you if not defeated by round end.
Single-use Item		Provides an item that can be used once for its listed benefit. It is then discarded.
Ongoing Item		Provides an item that remains active until discarded or the game ends.
Instant Effect		Takes effect immediately when the enemy is defeated.
During effects		Active from the moment the card is activated until it is defeated.
After effects		Triggers during the Resolve phase, even on defeated enemies.
Special effects		Timing and duration specific to the card.

Each enemy also has a level, which applies to certain effects.

Endgame

Once at least one stack is empty, you may start the endgame. If all three stacks are empty, you must start the endgame. Undefeated enemies remain in the active area.

1. Activate the Boss: The boss is revealed (if it hasn't been revealed already) and moved to the Active area.
2. Activate the Entourage: Activate the number of additional enemies shown on the boss card (mandatory enemies first). The "additional enemies" effect is ignored on enemies in the entourage.
3. Missions*: For each incomplete mission, one additional enemy is added to the boss's entourage.

ᛡ See "variants" for information on Missions, which are additional challenges.

In the endgame, the boss remains active across rounds, but new enemy cards are not activated each round. You do not need to defeat all enemies to win the game, just the boss.

Variants

Missions

For an escalating challenge, you may add Missions. Missions are additional challenges that must be completed before the endgame starts. When the endgame starts, additional enemies are added to the boss's entourage for each incomplete mission.

Missions must be accomplished one at a time, in order from left to right. They do not start until any previous missions have been completed. (For example, a mission that requires a certain number of enemies defeated does not include enemies defeated before it became the current mission.)

If you choose Missions, you must also select a difficulty ranking. At the beginning of the game, a number of Missions are drawn according to your rank, then you may discard 1 Mission. For each rank beyond Rank 1, you must A) draw and complete one additional Mission and B) at the beginning of the game, either banish one die or exhaust three dice.

Each time you win a game, you should move to the next ranking. Each time you lose a game, you should move back to the previous ranking.

Rank 6 is the highest ranking possible – do you have what it takes to achieve Senior Solar Sentinel status?