Boarding Action: Instructions v1.0 · 31 Oct 2026

1. Quick start

1. Press Use the Character Generator's Star (or make a quick one), then Next.
2. Choose I'm boarding or I'm being boarded and the ship's Class, press Roll their Captain's Rep, then Next.
3. Put your people into Groups, choose your suits, and press Board! (or Here they come!).
4. Answer each choice. When you meet an enemy Group, press Fight it here (Guided Fight), or fight it on your own table and say how it went.

2. The ship and the deck plan

Every ship has six Sections, numbered the way the boarding roll reads them (p.59). A Cutter runs 1 Bridge, 2 Crew, 3 Cargo and 6 Thrusters, with 4 and 5 Fire Power off Section 3. Pirate, Slaver and Trader ships are the same, except that 3 is Fire Power and 4 and 5 are Cargo (Freighters use the Trader's plan for now).

The deck plan on screen shows your Groups (G1, G2), enemy Groups, and what's happened to each Section: LOCKED (and for how many turns), DARK, NO AIR and BOOM. A dashed box hasn't been entered yet.

Who's aboard depends on the ship: Pirates are Criminals, Slavers are Hishen Criminals, a Military crew are trained Mercenaries, and a Trader's or Freighter's crew are Joes. Each enemy is made with the book's NPC tables. The Enemy Rep (their Captain's Rep) is what the Contacts are rolled against.

3. Boarding a ship

• Groups: from a Cutter, Slaver or Pirate ship you board in up to two Groups; from a Trader, one. Press each name to move them between Groups.
• Deployment: each Group rolls 1d6 for the Section it cuts its way into. A 1 puts you straight on the Bridge.
• Moving: each turn each Group moves one Section towards the Bridge (or holds). Every new Section is a Contact: 2d6 against the Enemy Rep, then 1d6. Pass 2: an Ambush (one more than your Group, and they win the first Action roll), the same number as your Group, one less, or Anti-Boarding Measures. Pass 1: the same, but 5–6 is nobody. Pass 0: nobody. The last Contact before the Bridge always finds someone if you haven't met anyone yet.
• The Bridge: one enemy Group always holds it. Beat it and the ship is yours.
• Prisoners: on a Slaver or Pirate ship, a Contact in Cargo or Crew may find prisoners or slaves (1d6: 4–5 ½d6, 6 1d6). The Group takes them along. Get them back to where you came aboard, or take the ship, to rescue them. If the Group is beaten back, they're left behind.
• Take It Over: once per boarding, a Group can stop and hack the whole ship (the hard way, at +1 to the computer). Success means no more Anti-Boarding Measures, every door open, and any Self-Destruct shut down. The crew still have to be beaten.

4. Being boarded

Choose where each of your Groups waits (one Group on a Trader, two on anything else). The boarders come aboard in one Group from a Trader or Freighter, or two from anything else, each sized against your Groups. You see where they land. Each turn your Groups move to a neighbouring Section (or hold); then the boarders move one Section towards the Bridge. Where you meet, you fight. Beat every boarding Group to keep your ship. If they walk onto an empty Bridge, they have it.

Once a turn you can trigger your own Anti-Boarding Measures against the boarders closest to the Bridge. They try to hack them first. Lock Down and Power Down shut them in for ½d6 turns, Shake 'n Bake works only on a military ship (a Cutter), and Depressurize empties their Section (or the whole ship, so mind your own people's suits).

5. Anti-Boarding Measures and Hack It

When a Contact brings Anti-Boarding Measures, first choose: Hack It the simple way (one of your Group takes a Difficult Challenge: 2d6 against Savvy − 1, a Net Runner +1; one roll, so you need to pass 2), Hack It the hard way (Net Running against the ship's computer, rolled once: on a civilian ship Complex, Advanced or Expert AI; on a Pirate, Slaver or Military ship Advanced, Expert AI or Black ICE, which hurts you if you lose), or let it happen.

The table (1d6, +1 if you're next to the Bridge, +1 if the defenders are Hishen):

• 1–2 Lock Down: the doors to the next Section towards the Bridge are locked for ½d6 turns. Each turn you wait is a Contact as if you'd passed 1, and enemies come from behind you.
• 3–4 Power Down: the same, and that Section is dark: a pass 1 on the Shooting table counts as pass 0 in there.
• 5 Shake 'n Bake (military ships only): everyone in your Section rolls 2d6 against Rep. Pass 1 is rolled again (and a pass 1 then counts as 0). Pass 0 is Out of the Fight.
• 6 Depressurize your Section; 7 the whole ship (Hishen may choose Self-Destruct in ½d6 turns instead); 8 Self-Destruct at once. Depressurized: everyone rolls 1d6 against Rep or is sucked out. No suit means Obviously Dead. With a suit, a Will to Fight test brings them back, or they drift away. A Section without air stays that way, and anyone without a suit who goes in dies.

6. Self-Destruct and Run for It

Once the Self-Destruct starts, every time one of your Groups enters a Section, the tool rolls on the Self-Destruct table. Thrusters, Fire Power, Cargo, Crew or the Bridge (or everything) explode, and anyone in an exploding Section is Obviously Dead. If the Bridge goes, the ship goes.

Reach the Bridge and beat its Group, and you get one chance to stop it: a Difficult Challenge. Otherwise choose Run for it!. Head back to where you came aboard and get out. With suits you can jump out through a blown-apart Section. In a Crew Section you can look for an escape pod (1–3). Your own ship picks you up.

7. Fights on board, Zero-G and suits

Each enemy Group you meet is a fight with the Group that met it, on the same Battle Board as the Guided Fight. You choose and roll for your figures; the enemy decide and roll for themselves. Or press I fought it on my table and say whether you won. Afterwards, Recovery decides who carries on. Anyone Out of the Fight who doesn't come back, or who's captured, is out of the boarding. If your Group loses, it's beaten back off the ship.

Suits (p.63): a Space suit counts as Soft Body Armour, a Hard suit as Hard Body Armour (−1 on the Action table), and a Skinsuit as nothing. Where: a ship with its power on is Normal. A dead wreck is Zero-G and vacuum. A Section that's lost its air has no air. Anywhere but Normal, combat tests use Savvy instead of Rep unless you're Zero-G trained. With no air, a torn Skinsuit kills unless a friend reaches the wearer that turn to patch it.

The Rep d6 from each fight (enemies down, leaving, Star Power, anyone left behind) are added up on the Results screen. Save log (.txt) saves every boarding, with every fight roll by roll.

8. With Guided Ship Combat

In Guided Ship Combat (and the Guided Campaign's space fights), when a ship is dead in space you can choose Play it as a Boarding Action, deck by deck. The same choice comes up when they board you. The ships are handed over: open Boarding Action, press Use it on The ship step, and play it out. The Results screen tells you which answer to give back in Ship Combat (the boarders won, or the defenders won). Ship Combat then adds the Boarding table's ½d6 Rep d6 and the Surrender roll.

9. Where the book isn't clear

These "for now" choices are listed for Ed Teixeira in the tools' notes. The Bridge Group is rolled like a pass 2 Contact with 5–6 re-rolled. "The last Contact" is the one next to the Bridge. The defending rules (boarders' Groups, seeing where they land, Measures once a turn, an 8 counting as 7) are the tool's own. Shake 'n Bake needs a military ship. The boarders and anyone in a vented Section wear space suits. Hack It the simple way needs a pass 2. A self-destructing ship explodes once everyone is off.