AIRSTRATEGIC

1 · The mission

Two air forces face off across a camouflaged hex battlefield. Each player commands 4 fighters and defends a ground target sitting on their home column. The goal is simple: bomb the enemy target before they bomb yours. Red flies from the left edge facing east, Blue from the right edge facing west. Blue always moves first.

2 · The board & setup

The real board is 11 × 16 hexes; each player's first row is their entire edge column. Players alternate placements on their own first row, Blue first: the target first, then the fighters one at a time (in the bomber variant, the bomber is placed last). Choose your layout wisely — where the target sits shapes the whole battle.

3 · Flying a fighter

• On your turn every one of your planes must move — to one of the 3 hexes ahead of its nose: straight, or a forward diagonal. The nose turns to match.
• No standing still, no turning in place, no flying backwards.
• A plane with no legal move (board edge, or blocked by your own pieces) crashes and is removed — keep an escape route open!

4 · The cannon

• A fighter may shoot an enemy plane sitting on any of the 3 hexes it could fly into.
• Firing is the fighter's move for the turn: like a capture in chess, it flies into the downed enemy's hex, nose first.
• If the victim's nose points back at your hex, you are flying straight at each other — a head-on collision destroys both planes. Only shoot planes that aren't facing you.

5 · Missiles — how they fly

• Launching is optional (unlike moving). The missile spawns on the empty hex directly ahead of the plane's nose and immediately flies its first 2 steps.
• The nose hex must be empty. A friendly plane directly ahead blocks the launch — no pilot fires with a wingman in the HUD. So does any missile — yours or the enemy's — sitting on your nose: that close to a missile, a pilot is flying defense, not attack. An enemy plane on your nose blocks it too — at that range the pilot goes for a guns kill instead (see the cannon, section 4).
• Each turn a missile in the air must fly 2 steps: step 1 straight ahead, step 2 straight or a forward diagonal — your choice.
• If it hasn't hit anything by the end of its second turn of flight (4 steps), it falls and is removed.
• A plane can't launch again while its previous missile is still in the air, and at most once per turn. Ammunition is unlimited.

6 · Missiles — how they kill

• A missile destroys any enemy plane on a hex it flies through or lands on.
• Flying your own plane into a hex holding an enemy missile is legal — and fatal (the game warns you first).
• Missile vs missile: only stopping on an enemy missile destroys it (both explode); passing over is harmless.
• Missiles fly harmlessly over friendly planes and ground targets — they can never destroy a target. Only bombing wins.

7 · The bomber (optional variant)

• The bomber picks one of its 3 forward directions and flies 2 hexes along it. It must fly 2 if any 2-step path is open; only then may it fly 1.
• It has no weapons — but in this variant only the bomber can bomb the enemy target. Your fighters become its escort.
• If your bomber is shot down, a new one may take off from your first row.

8 · Losses & replacements

• Planes are lost to: a cannon capture, a head-on collision, a missile hit, flying into a missile, or crashing with no legal move.
• With replacement aircraft enabled (0–4, chosen when creating the game), a lost fighter can be replaced: a new one takes off from any first-row hex not adjacent to your target.
• The new plane cannot move on the turn it takes off, and you can never have more than 4 planes in the air.

9 · Winning

Fly a plane onto the enemy target's hex to bomb it and win instantly. In the basic game any fighter can bomb; in the bomber variant, only the bomber. Defend your own target — a lone fighter guarding the approach, or a missile screen, can turn a bombing run into a suicide mission.