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Star Trek Missions Card Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Star Trek Missions Card Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of Star Trek Missions

The objective of Star Trek Missions is to acquire a set of cards that complement each other to score more points than the other players.

Setup for Star Trek Missions

  • Separate the Galaxy and Mission cards (they have different backs). Shuffle each deck separately.
  • Deal five Galaxy cards and two Mission cards to each player. The rest of the cards will form the draw piles for the Galaxy and Mission cards. Players should keep their hands hidden from the other players.
  • Choose a player at random to start the game. Players will take turns clockwise throughout the game.
Opening Hand in Star Trek Missions
These are the five Galaxy and two Mission cards that the player was dealt at the beginning of the game. The player will try to change the composition of their hand in order to increase the amount of points that they will score at the end of the game.

Star Trek Missions Card Anatomy

Each card in Star Trek Missions has five key pieces of information. This information will be used during scoring. These five pieces of information are as follows:

Type: Types in the game include Characters (divided into Captains, Personnel, and Civilians), Locations, Systems, Equipment, and Artifacts. A card’s type is shown in the top left corner of the card.

Specialty: Some of the types of cards have one of more specialties. These specialties include Command, Combat, Science, Medical, Security, Archaeologist, Ambassador, Engineer, Counselor, Weapon, and Cosmic. The Specialty is displayed along the left side of the card below the card’s type.

Lifeform: Many of the cards belong to a type of lifeform. These include Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Ferengi, Betazoids, Androids, Holograms, and others. These will be displayed along the left side of the card below the card’s type.

Affiliation: Many of the cards will align with one of the factions in the Star Trek universe. These include the Federation, Klingon Empire, Ferengi Alliance, Romulan Star Empire, and Hostile. The card’s affiliation will be displayed along the left side of the card below its type. 

Text: The most important piece of information on each card is its text section (near the bottom of the card). This section details the special ability that the card provides. It will also tell you how to score points from the card.

Card Example in Star Trek Missions
Here is an example of a card from Star Trek Missions. Commander William Riker’s type is Personnel. He has the Command Specialty. The card’s lifeform type is Human. Commander Riker’s Affiliation is the Federation. The card’s text is at the bottom of the card. The card will score seven points fore each of the listed cards that the player has in their hand.
Mission Card in Star Trek Missions
Here is a Mission card. Mission cards don’t have all of the information of the Galaxy cards. They mostly just have the text section which can score you points.

Playing A Turn

On your turn you will get to choose one of three actions.

Choosing A Card in Star Trek Missions
Pictured are the Galaxy card draw pile (top left), the Mission card draw pile (top right), and the discard piles for the Galaxy and Mission cards. The player will have to choose where they would like to draw a card from.

First you can choose to take one of the face up cards from the discard piles. You can choose from any of the cards that have been discarded. After picking up a card, you will have to discard a card from your hand. The card you discard cannot be the card that you just picked up.

Take Discarded Card in Star Trek Missions
This player decided to take the Enterprise Goes Haywire card from the discard pile.

Second you can take the top card from the Galaxy deck and add it to your hand. You will then choose one card from your hand to discard.

Drawing a Galaxy Card in Star Trek Missions
This player has decided to draw a Galaxy card for their turn. They will take the top card from the Galaxy card deck.

Your last option is to draw two cards from the top of the Mission deck. You will then choose two cards from your hand to discard.

Draw Mission Cards in Star Trek Missions
This player has decided to draw two Mission cards from the Mission card draw pile.

When you discard cards, you should place them face up on the table and spread out so that all of the players can see them.

You can usually discard any card from your hand that you want. At the end of your turn though you must have one or two Mission cards in your hand. You may not discard a Mission card if it will put you at zero Mission cards. You may also not keep more than two Mission cards at the end of your turn.

Discard Card in Star Trek Missions
This player has decided to discard the card “Federation Under Siege”.

After you have drawn a card(s) and discarded the same number of cards, your turn will end. Play will then pass to the next player in turn order.

Star Trek Missions Terms

Much of the game is based on the text printed on the cards. The cards will use a number of terms regularly in the game.

WITH: If a card has a scoring condition that says “WITH”, you may only score that bonus once.

With Card in Star Trek Missions
This card features “with”. In order to score the 18 points, the player needs to have at least three Personnel with at least three different Specialties between them. They can only score the 18 points once.

FOR EACH: When a card says “FOR EACH”, you can score the bonus multiple times. You will score the bonus for each card that meets the requirement.

For Each Card in Star Trek Missions
The Commander William Riker card has the words “for each” on it. The card will score seven points if the player has the Transporter. They can also score seven points if they have Deanna Troi. Finally Away Team will also score seven points. Commander William Riker can score a maximum of 21 points.

BLANKS: Certain cards will BLANK other cards. When a card has been blanked; it no longer receives any points, give points to other cards, or affects your hand in any other way. The card will still count as one of the cards in your hand though.

Blank Card
This Mission card allows you to blank up to two other cards. The cards you choose will lose everything printed on the card. They will instead replicate the effect of the Borg Cube.

BLANKED UNLESS WITH: This card will be blanked unless it meets the requirements listed on the card to avoid being blanked.

End of Game

Star Trek Missions ends when a certain number of cards are in the discard area. The game will end when either eight Galaxy cards or twelve Mission cards are in the discard area. The game will end immediately.

End of Game in Star Trek Missions
Eight Galaxy cards have been discarded. This will end the game.

The players will then score all of the cards in their hands.

Final Hand in Star Trek Missions
This is one of the player’s final hand. They will now score each of the cards individually.


Star Trek Missions Scoring

Each player will score points for each of the cards in their hand. Each card will be scored individually on the score sheet.

You can use each card in your hand to score points from more than one of the other cards from your hand. You cannot use the same card multiple times for the same card to score multiple times though.

Cards can only affect your own hand. The cards in your hand have no impact on the other players.

You will total the points each player has scored from all of their cards. The player that scores the most points from their cards, wins the game. If there is a tie, the tied players share the victory.



Components for Star Trek Missions

Year: 2022 | Publisher: WizKids | Designer: Bruce Glassco | Artist: NA

Genres: Card, Card Drafting, Set Collection

Ages: 14+ | Number of Players: 2-6 | Length of Game: 20 minutes

Difficulty: Moderate | Strategy: Moderate | Luck: Moderate

Components: 50 Galaxy cards, 24 Mission cards, score pad, instructions

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