Nexus Ops

To set up Nexus Ops, place the monolith tile in the middle of the table, surround it with six randomized single hex tiles, and then wrap those with twelve randomized double hex tiles. Shuffle the exploration tokens, excluding any with blue borders, and place one face down on every hex except the central monolith. Shuffle the energized deck, secret mission deck, and regular mission deck, and place them nearby along with the ruum resource gems and six dice. Players randomly choose a color, collecting the matching player board, home base tile, and plastic unit pieces. Place home base tiles around the board based on the player count layout. Finally, give the first player eight ruum resources, with each subsequent clockwise player receiving three more than the last.

Players take on the roles of competing galactic corporations seeking to conquer a mysterious alien planet. The primary objective is to acquire and deploy troops, explore the terrain, battle rival forces, and score victory points. The first player to reach 12 victory points through completed missions and secret objectives instantly wins the game.

A player's turn is divided into six sequential steps. First is the deploy step, where you spend ruum resources to buy new units and place them on your home base. Second is the move step, allowing you to reposition your units across the hex grid, respecting terrain restrictions and unique movement bonuses. Third is the explore step, where you flip face-down tokens in spaces you occupy to reveal mines or bonus units. Fourth is the battle step, resolving one round of simultaneous combat in every contested space. Fifth is the income step, collecting ruum from controlled mining spaces. Finally, the draw step requires you to draw a secret mission card and potentially extra energized cards if you control the monolith.

Victory points are the key to winning and are tracked via mission cards. When you win a battle on your turn, you may claim a standard mission card or reveal a matching secret mission card from your hand to score victory points. Secret missions can also be fulfilled outside of combat if they feature white point values, provided you meet their criteria during your turn.

The game ends immediately when any player successfully reaches or exceeds 12 victory points, making them the winner. If a player's last unit is eliminated and they cannot afford to deploy new units on their next turn, they are eliminated, and the player with the most victory points among the survivors wins the game.