Gamehelpskybirds

The lead player chooses how many cards everyone plays each round (called a Dogfight). Players that follow may either pass or must play a set (called a Squadron) of the same number of cards with a larger value. Cards with a medallion on them (the 9s and 10s) can be played as singletons even in a Dogfight where the Squdron size is 2 or greater. In general, you cannot play runs but one token lets you create runs of 2 or 3 in a row and play it as the lowest valued Ace in the run. The round ends when all but one player has passed. The winning player leads the next Dogfight.

The first person to play all their cards gets to take any token they’ve unlocked (i.e., if they have the prerequisite token in hand). Second place can take any token they’ve unlocked except the ones marked for 1st place only. 3rd place can’t take tokens marked for 1st and 2nd only. Fourth place (or 3rd place in a 3p game) can only take the booby prize tokens worth 1VP from the bottom of the board.

Tokens can be saved to score VP at the end of the game. Or, if the token has a bonus, you can trigger that bonus by putting the token back onto your player mat. You will need to re-earn that token to get the VP (or to use its bonus again) and this may mean you no longer qualify to take a more advanced token if you no longer have the prerequisite, until you win that token back again.

The final token, the Armistice Token, requires you to have both prerequisite tokens. Once someone takes that, the current Dogfight play itself out, players also take a tiebreaker token (in order of finish) if they don’t already have one, and you tally up your VP from tokens in your possession. Highest VP (including the fraction VP from tiebreaker tokens) wins.