Antares: Breach

In the 9th solar month of 2315, the derelict merchant vessel Antares drifted into Saturn's orbit and docked with the orbital dry dock station Hermes.

The crew of the Hermes were unaware that 80 years prior, the Antares had encountered a hostile alien lifeform. The alien had boarded the ship when its hibernation capsule was mistakenly recovered as an ancient relic from an archaeological dig site on a small moon near the Alpha Centauri cluster.

Data indicated that the Antares arrived with low power, and sensors and scans provided little usable information about its condition. Once the ship was docked and its main airlock opened, the Hermes crew encountered the alien lifeform. During the years of travel from the Alpha Centauri cluster, the alien had multiplied.

External communication ceased minutes after first contact. Most of the events could be reconstructed using the audio and video data collected from the facility.

The following is an account of the events during the final hours on Hermes, as the crew desperately tried to seal off the facility and escape.

Relive the crew's last hour as they attempt to secure the facility from the alien swarm. Antares: Breach is specifically designed for easy solo play but can be expanded to up to 8 players.

Antares: Breach is a thematic space horror game. The crew's actions are entirely up to you, and your decisions can certainly determine who survives and escapes the overrun Hermes facility – and who falls victim to the alien lifeform.

Antares: Breach is the second game in the series and tells the next chapter of the story of the ill-fated ship Antares and its alien cargo.

Antares: Breach can be played solo or cooperatively.

Gameplay Experience

Build the Hermes using cabin and corridor tiles. All corridor ends must connect to cabins. Different Hermes layouts offer varying difficulty levels.

Choose your crew by selecting one side for each of the eight crew member cards. Each crew member has their own unique ability and a choice between two starting positions.

Complete the Comms, Dry Dock, Systems, and Mainframe Access objectives. Spending an action in the Comms, Dry Dock, Systems, or Mainframe Access cabin advances the corresponding counter one space. The ventilation shafts can speed up movement through the facility, but the alien lifeform has also found them useful.

Collect valuable ammunition and stationary turrets from the armory or first-aid kits from the medical bay to kill aliens or survive an attack.

Evade the alien lifeforms. The lifeform has multiplied during its journey aboard the Antares and ceaselessly roams the Hermes in swarms. After each action taken, a scan card must be drawn, indicating whether the aliens attack or the crew is safe for another round.

Escape: If the crew successfully completes all objectives, they can gather in the escape pod and execute the Delta launch code to escape the Hermes facility.

How to Play

Each crew member can perform one of the following actions:

Move to an adjacent cabin, corridor, or the ventilation shafts (crew members may move to a location with alien(s) if they have sufficient ammunition).

Advance an objective, if a civilian is in a suitable cabin.

Pick up ammunition or a stationary turret from the armory or another location if placed there (maximum ammunition: 1 for some civilians / 3 for marines).

Trade items with another crew member in the same room or corridor.

Place a stationary turret in a corridor.

Discard any or all items.

Flip the crew member's meeple to indicate they have already performed their action for the round.

After a crew member performs an action, draw the top card of the scan deck. If the scan card shows 4 cabins or corridors (or the ventilation shafts), the crew is safe.

If it shows an image of the alien lifeform, draw more scan cards until a card with 4 visible cabins appears. Place one available alien meeple at each of these locations in ascending order. If aliens were eliminated in the previous turn, move them from the Alien Spawn Point card to the dry dock. If crew members are at any of these locations, they must encounter the alien lifeform.

Shuffle the deck once the draw pile is depleted.

If multiple crew members are in the same location, the crew member with the lowest number is the target of the attack and is eliminated unless they have a first-aid kit or a crew member at the location has ammunition. If only a single crew member is there, they are automatically the target.

First-aid kits keep the crew member alive, but the alien lifeform remains at the location, and all remaining crew members there must use their next action to leave the location.

Ammunition allows crew members to eliminate one alien lifeform at the current location for each unit of ammunition in their inventory.

If an eliminated crew member has items in their inventory, lay their meeple on its side to mark the location of those items.

Once all crew members have performed an action, reset the meeples and begin the next round.

Continue performing actions with crew members and drawing scan cards until either a crew has completed all objectives and escaped, or the alien lifeform has wiped out the entire crew.

Antares: Breach comes with a small black velvet bag for easy storage and transport.

Note: Cards and components are not shipped pre-packaged in the bag, and the label will not be attached due to shipping restrictions.