Fast-paced deck-building tabletop game

of modern space exploration.

Immerse yourself in a fast-paced race to the final frontier – space. A deck-building confrontation of swift decision-
making and tactical choices – Rocketmen gives you the feel of taking a front seat in a technologically wonderful
spectacle of space exploration. It’s up to your predictive abilities and resource management skills to determine
what kind of endeavor will be most suitable for paving the way to Earth’s celestial neighbors.
Players gain Victory Points by successfully launching various space missions with main objectives to explore
three celestial destinations: Earth Orbit, the Moon and Mars. The game ends when one of the players scores
a certain number of Victory Points, or all 12 space missions have been completed, or if a player chooses to end
the game by placing their fifth or sixth token resulting in each destination having at least one mission completed.
Every successful mission gives players considerable perks: additional rocket points, extra cash, increased hand
size, and supplementary resources. These, in turn, help them prepare more easily for their future missions.

COMPONENTS

Boards
Rocketmen includes the following components: l 1 st Player token
l 1 game board l Rocket token
l 4 player boards in 4 different colors (blue, red, white
l  oon token
M
and yellow)
l Mars token
Pieces
l 24 player tokens in 4 different colors (6 per player) Cards
l Action cards:
• 48 Mission cards in 4 different colors
(12 per player)
l 4 victory points tokens
• 23 Asset (teal) and 20 Asset (pink) cards
• 15 Engine cards (5 of each type)
• 12 Threat! cards (4 of each type)
l 1 2 two-sided rocket point tokens (Achievements)
in 4 different colors (3 per player) l 18 Mission Success cards

l 12 Personal Goal cards

l 2 4 two-sided benefit tokens (Achievements) l 9 Game Variant cards
in 4 different colors (6 per player)

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 ×
SETUP

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For players who are new to deck building games, we recommend
playing a simplified variant of the game which is called The Bat- 18
tle for Earth. The rules for this variant are on page 5.

1 Place the game board in the middle of the table.

 2 Place the Mission Success cards on the board, face down. 15
3 Separate the Action cards into the following decks:

12
Small Asteroid Electric Cars Asteroid Impact Manned Spaceship
Rocket Boosters Laser Ablation

ASSET I ASSET II
11
ONE USE ACTION: THREAT! MISSION
ACTION:
ENGINE Take one Take another card from your Holding

FIXED: Max one per turn.

card from the display.
Area and place it on top
of your draw deck. +2 VP 3
5
$30 $30 $50 $50 10
93 50 80 109 4

14
Engine Asset Threat! Mission

4 S ort the Engine cards by type into 3 piles, then put them
face up in their designated places on the board. 17
5 Divide the Asset cards into two decks, teal and pink.
Put one Asteroid Impact Threat! card, one Pan-
demic Threat! card and one Climate Change
Threat! card into the teal deck and put the rest into
the pink deck. Shuffle both decks. Place the teal deck
on top of the pink deck on the board, face down.
6 Draw the top six cards from this deck and place them onto the display.
7 Place the Moon token onto the Moon symbol and 8 the Mars token onto the Mars
symbol.
10 player tokens, 11 Achievement tokens 10
9 E ach player: select a set of Mission cards,
and a 12 player board in one of the four colors (red, blue, white or yellow).
13
 
S huffle your twelve starting cards and place them on the 14 HQ space on your
player board, face down. 15 Draw six cards to form your starting hand.
16 Place your Victory token on the ‘0’ position of the victory track on the main game
board.
17 Shuffle Personal Goal cards and give each player two cards, without showing them to
other players. 18 Put the remaining cards in the box without examining them; they
will not be used during this game.
19 Randomly determine the starting player, and give the First Player token to that per-
son. The starting player does not change during the game and has no special role.
20 Place the Rocket token on 0 space of the Mission Success Track. 15
Now you are ready to start the race to the stars!

Game for 3 Players: During setup use only cards with , and .
Game for 2 Players: During setup use only cards with and .

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10 11

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1
15

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20 12

6 5

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 CARDS and ACTIONS

Action cards
Each Action card has three pieces of information near the top: item 1 , card name 2 , and card type 3 .
Items are used to pay for new cards and to boost your rocket attempts.

1
Small Asteroid Electric Cars Asteroid Impact Manned Spaceship
Rocket Boosters Laser Ablation

2
ASSET I
3 ASSET II

ONE USE ACTION: THREAT! MISSION

ACTION:
ENGINE Take one Take another card from your Holding

FIXED: Max one per turn.

card from the display.
Area and place it on top
of your draw deck. +2 VP 3
5
$30 $30 $50 $50 10
93 50 80 109 4

4 5

Asset, Engine and Threat! cards have two additional piec- Threat!
es of information near the bottom: card cost 4 and ef-
fect 5 . A Threat! Card’s price rises during the game, for each play-
er individually, as shown by a player’s current location on
A card’s cost indicates money and items that must be the score track.
spent to buy the card from the display.

An Asset card’s effect may describe various possible

actions:
l DISCARD: Either play this card as an item or money,
or play it to use its ability. Either way, play it as part of
a Discard cards action.
l LAUNCH PAD: When you put this card on your Launch Example: If any player reaches 11 VP, cost of all Threat!
Pad, you can use its ability. In other situations, you can card increases by $10.
play this card as an item or money.
l WHEN USED TO PAY: You can use this card’s ability If the text on any card directly conflicts with the rules in
when you use it to pay to buy a new card (as part of this book, the card text takes precedence.
a Buy cards from the display action) or to place a card
on your Launch Pad or Mission Site (as a part of a Place
cards on the launch pad action).

Each Engine card has a text reminder that you can buy
ONLY ONE Engine card per turn.

Game Variant cards

Once you are familiar with the game, you can use these cards to add some variety.
These modify the game rules in various ways. If you wish to use them, shuffle them, draw two cards and place them
on their location on the game board (2 blank areas between Moon and Mars).

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 Player board

C A F

D G E

B
Your player board is your main area of play. It has your Hand it immediately goes to your Play-
several locations: ing Area. When you discard a card from your
Hand, Launch Pad, Mission Site or any other
A  HQ – Draw cards from here. Cards here are place, it always goes to your Playing Area.
kept face down. Cards here are face up. At the end of your
turn, move all cards from your Playing Area
B  Hand – This is your hand of cards. You be- to your Warehouse.
gin the game with a maximum hand size of
six cards, but it can be modified during the F  Warehouse – Your used and discarded
game. cards are stored here. You may look through
your Warehouse at any time. Cards here are
C  Mission Site – This is the place for one of face up.
your Mission cards. Pay $10 to place a card
G  Achievements (tokens) – Your items are
here. Cards here are face up.
stored here. You gain items from successful
D L
 aunch Pad – This is where you construct missions, as indicated on the bottom right
your rocket. Pay $10 to place a card here. corner of mission cards. These values and
Cards here are face up. symbols provide ongoing benefits. Rocket
points are cumulative. and can be
E P
 laying Area – Your played and discarded used once per turn (after use, a token must
cards go here. When you play a card from be flipped face down).

Game Variant - The Battle for Earth In this variant, each player can fulfill only four missions
during the game, and those missions can be sent only to
Set up the game as usual, except: the Earth orbit.

l  emove [moon] and [mars] tokens from the game.

R The game ends when any of the players puts their fourth
l Separate the Asset cards into two decks, teal and pink. mission token on the board.
Remove the pink deck from the game. The round is completed, through the last player’s turn, and
l Remove Personal Goal cards from the game. then the game ends.
l Randomly draw one Threat! card per player and shuffle
them into the teal deck. The other rules are the same as in the standard game.

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 PLAYING THE GAME

Players take turns in clockwise order around the table. End of a player’s turn
The active player may do as many actions as they wish, If you finish your actions, move all cards from your Playing
in any order. Area to your Warehouse. Draw cards from your HQ to refill
your Hand back to your hand limit (which starts at six, but
can be increased). If you have more cards than your hand
size, then discard excess cards to your Warehouse.
Available actions are:
If there are not enough cards in your HQ, then draw as
l Buy cards from the display many as you can, and then shuffle your Warehouse to form
l Place cards on the launch pad a new face-down HQ deck, and draw the rest of the cards
to your hand limit. If there are still not enough cards, you
l Discard cards don’t draw any additional ones.
l Launch a mission Flip all your used tokens back to their color side. Slide all
replacement cards on the display upward, so the display
cards are all aligned.

ENDING THE GAME

The game ends if: At the end of the game add additional VPs from any:
lA  player has achieved the score marked on the board l Bought cards that give you VPs, e.g. Threat! - each is
(18 for 4 players, 22 for 2 players and 27 for 2 players). worth 2 VPs. If you removed a Threat! card from the
lT  here are players tokens on all twelve mission spac- game you still gain its VPs at the end of the game.
es.
l If a player places their fifth or sixth token on the board, l  and tokens (one VP for each token).
resulting in at least one token in each location (Earth,
Moon and Mars - it doesn’t have to be that player’s to- lOne of your Personal Goals. You can score VPs from
ken), that player may choose to end the game. only one of your Personal Goal cards; choose one and
l If all players place their all tokens on mission spaces. forfeit the other one.
H Variant Cards (as stated on each particular card).
This round is played to completion, i.e. until the player just
before the player with the First Player marker finishes their The player with the highest score is the winner.
turn, and then the game ends.
If there is a tie, the tying player whose mission is the far-
thest wins (Mars Base > Orbital Mining > Mars Crewed
Spaceship > Moon Base > and so on). If there is still a tie,
the one who completed more missions wins.

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Buying cards from the display you can resolve the card’s effect at any time before you
Select one or more cards from the display to purchase 1 . end your turn. Using the effect is optional. Place this card
Pay the indicated total cost with items listed on cards from prominently in your Playing Area as a reminder.
your Hand 2 and tokens you have on your Player Board.
If you use tokens, flip them face down, so you can’t use For each card you buy from the display, immediately draw
them in this round anymore (don’t discard them). a new card to replace it; place this new card where the old
card was, but slide it downward one centimeter, to indicate
Place your newly purchased cards along with cards you that it is a replacement. You can buy replacement cards
used as payment into your Playing Area 3 . during the same turn in which they appeared, but doing so
immediately ends your turn.
If a card has more than one item on it, then both items
can be used together to buy cards. If you buy more than You can buy only one Fixed Engine card (regardless of
one card, you can pay their total price with a combination type) during your turn.
of cards from your Hand and tokens. You do not receive
change for overspending. You can’t divide the money from a card or token between
buying cards and placing cards on your Launch Pad. Buy-
If you buy cards using a card with the text ‘WHEN USED TO ing cards and placing cards on your Launch pad are sep-
PAY’, you don’t have to use the card’s effect immediately; arate actions.

2 2 2

Example:
Red player decides to buy Super computer. The card requires $30 (paid with Space Station and Orbital Ship-
yard cards) and biology (paid with Spaceship). All cards are put into playing area and new Asset card is
revealed and placed on the display.

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Discarding cards Placing cards on the Mission Site
You can discard one or more cards to your Playing Area. and/or Launch Pad
You can discard from your Hand and from your Launch You can place one Mission Card onto the Mission Site 1
Pad. You can also discard your Mission Card from your on your player board. Only then you can place cards on
Mission Site, but then you must also discard all cards from your Launch Pad 2 .
your Launch Pad.
The cost to put a card on your Mission Site or Launch Pad
Mission cards is $10 per card.
Cards with a monetary value can pay for themselves and
Each player has twelve Mission Cards in their player for other cards.
color. You can pay for multiple placements with a single card
or token if necessary (including the initial Mission card).
Manned Spaceship
When you place a Mission card you do not need to state its
intended destination.
You can have only one active mission at a time.

If you have a Mission Card on your Mission Site, you

can place cards on the Launch Pad to meet the mission
requirements. Cards on your Launch Pad with an icon
1 2MISSION
3
matching the destination 3 give you a boost during the
3
4 start of your rocket.
5
10 5 There is no upper limit to the number of cards that can be
29 placed on your Launch Pad.
Each Mission card has information where you can There are some cards which you cannot place on your
send this particular mission 1 , how many rocket Launch Pad:
points 2 you’ll need to launch this mission, and how
many Mission Success cards you can draw during l  o more than one copy (by title) of Asset cards.
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a launch attempt 3 . Each card has its own symbol l Threat! Cards.
4 with a matching symbol on the board. The bottom l Cards that only have a monetary value.
right corner has a symbol 5 showing an ongoing
benefit, received after a successful mission. The card on your Mission Site does not contribute its item
to the booster value; only cards on your Launch Pad can.

2
3

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Launching a mission After drawing each Mission Success card, but before
drawing the last card, you can abort the mission. If you
To launch a mission from your Mission Site you need the do so, then discard cards from your Launch Pad equal to
minimum amount of Rocket Points indicated by the in- the number of Mission Success cards you have drawn mi-
tended destination on your Mission Card. nus one. (E.g. if you fly to Earth’s orbit and you’ve already
drawn two cards, but you abort the Mission, then you dis-
Manned Spaceship
Example: card one card from your Launch Pad.)
Spaceship needs 3 engines to reach
Earth orbit, 5 engines to reach Moon YOUR TURN ENDS IMMEDIATELY. Return the Rocket token
and 10 engines to reach Mars. to the 0 space on the Mission Success Track. Refill your
hand.
Count the Rocket Points from cards on
your Launch Pad plus Rocket Points
MISSION

3 If you draw all Mission Success cards and fail, then you
5 from your tokens. The sum must be must discard all cards from your Launch Pad to your Ware-
10 equal to or greater than the value of house. You can leave your Mission Card on the Mission
4
Rocket Points needed to send a specif- Site if you wish or discard it as well.
ic mission; otherwise the mission cannot be launched at all.
Choose your destination and place your player token on that YOUR TURN ENDS IMMEDIATELY. Return the Rocket token
destination on the Mission Success Track (Earth/Moon/ to the 0 space on the Mission Success Track. Refill your
Mars). Your mission cards shows how many cards you can hand.
draw during the mission attempt [8]. The track shows how
many points you need to fulfill the mission. If you reach the target number of points, the Mission is
successful. Remove the Mission Card from the game and
You can send only one mission to each location in gain the bonus indicated on the bottom right corner of the
space. E.g. if you already have a player token on Earth’s Mission Card. Place the bonus token on the Achievement
orbit on a Satellite slot, you can’t send another Satellite area of your Player Board. Discard all cards from your
Mission there. Launch Pad to your Warehouse. Put your player token on
Before each attempt, shuffle the Mission Success deck. the corresponding mission space on the board and add
your VPs on the victory track. Note that whoever fulfils
During the lift-off, move the Rocket token a number of a mission first gets the most VPs.
spaces equal to the number of your symbols (matching
your mission destination) on your Launch Pad cards and In addition, whoever fulfills a mission first at a given lo-
Player Board items. cation (Moon or Mars) will take the Moon or Mars token
from the board; these tokens each give 1 VP at the end of
You cannot play cards from your hand during launch; you the game.
can only use cards which are on your Launch Pad. You can
use both the symbol and the text effect of a card. A card’s YOUR TURN ENDS IMMEDIATELY. Refill your hand. Return
effect can only be used once per turn. the Rocket token to the 0 space on the Mission Success
Track.
During the launch attempt, draw Mis-
sion Success cards one at a time and
move the Rocket token forward as
many spaces as each drawn card in-
dicates 1 .

There are 18 Mission Success cards

1 in the deck, and their composition is
as follows: (0×2, 1×5, 2×6, 3×4, 4×1)
130

Depending on your destination, you draw a different num-

ber of Mission Success cards:

Earth Moon Mars

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 Red launches her mission -
Orbital Shipyard. With two
computer science item
cards on Launchpad,
Rocket token advances
two spaces on Mission
Success Track. Next,
the first Mission Suc-
cess card drawn is
3 - the Rocket ad-
vances 3 spaces.

With only 3 spaces

needed to reach the
orbit, Red decid-
ed to continue the
mission and draws
another Mission
Success card.
Unfortunately it
is 0 - Rocket
marker stays
in position.

Now it’s hard decision for Red

to be made. If the mission is
aborted, only one card from
the Launchpad will be moved
to the Warehouse and redo
the mission next turn. But
Red decides to take the
risk and draws the final
card. Fortunately, it is 4,
so the mission is com-
pleted. Red token is
placed on 3 area near
Orbital Sipyard and 3
VP are awarded on
the VP Track.

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 SOLITAIRE RULES

2 4

In solitaire Rocketmen, you compete against an Artificial In- l  raw one card from the solo deck (one of 7 solo cards)
D
telligence. Select a player color for your AI opponent (take and place it on the left side of the Variant card spot on
six player tokens and one VP marker of that color). Set up the game board 1 . The line with the difficulty level
the game for 2 players, with the following exceptions: 2 tells the AI’s destination (Earth orbit, Moon, Mars).
l If the AI already has its player tokens on all locations
l  huffle Threat! cards with
S into the pink deck. at this destination (e.g. the card says Mars, but the AI
l Shuffle all Personal Goal cards with and randomly draw already has tokens on Mars Crewed Spaceship, Mars
one card from them. This is your mandatory goal for Asteroid Mining, and Mars Base, then discard this card
this game. If you don’t fulfill all the tasks from the card and draw a new card, until you get a valid AI destination.
drawn, you’ll lose the game. (You do not get any addi- l  3 Place an AI player token on this location (at Earth,
tional VPs from this card.) Moon, or Mars) to remember where the AI is going.
l Remove Variant cards from the game. l Place the 1st Player marker (representing the AI Rocket)
l Remove and tokens from the game. on the Mission Track. The card’s line with the difficulty
l Shuffle all Solo cards and place them near the game level 2 tells on which numbered space (E.g. on Easy,
board. place the AI Rocket on space 1 on the Mission Track.
l Choose a difficulty level - Easy , Normal , Hard l Draw another card from the solo deck and place it to the
. You can’t change the difficulty level during the right of the first card - this tells which type of mission
game. Difficulty level is indicated on solo cards. type the AI will fulfill 4 .
l if the mission is not valid (the destination does not have
Play the game as usual, except for these new rules: that type of mission, or the AI already fulfilled that mission
l At the beginning of your turn, if the AI doesn’t have an at the destination), then discard this card and draw a new
active mission do these steps: card, until you get a valid mission type.

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 l  dvance the AI Rocket by the number indicated on
A Card, then remove the leftmost card from the display
the bottom of this card 4 . and place it into the AI scoring area. In both cases, then
l If you need to draw a solo card but the solo deck slide all cards left (so no card has space on its left side),
is empty, shuffle all discarded solo cards to make then draw cards to refill the display. (If the deck runs
a new solo deck. out, you no longer draw.)
l Once per turn, you can remove any one card from the
l Play your turn as usual. display (place it in AI scoring area), but you must then
l A
 t the end of your turn, advance the AI Rocket one space advance the AI Rocket one space toward its destination
toward its destination, unless there is a Threat! card on on the Mission Track.
the display - in that case, don’t advance the AI Rocket, but l The game ends if there are no cards on the display, or
move the leftmost Threat! card from the display to the left if there are player tokens on all twelve mission spaces,
of the board, which is where the AI keeps its VP cards. or if a player places their sixth token on the board and
l If the AI Rocket reaches its destination, move the AI there is at least one token (regardless of player color)
player token from the destination 3 to the indicated in each location (Earth, Moon and Mars). Complete the
location and add the earned mission VPs to the AI on turn, and then the game ends.
the Victory Track. l If the player and AI have equal scores, then the player
l If the AI took a Threat! card, then the display has at wins.
least one empty space. If the AI did not take a Threat!

Credits
Game: Martin Wallace
Creative Director: Jaro Andruszkiewicz
Development: Mariusz Rosik
Graphic Design and Art: Bartłomiej Jędrzejewski, Jakub Fajtanowski, Miłosz Wojtasik
Rules Editing and Proofreading: Waldemar Gumienny, Russ Williams
Production: Michał Ozon
DTP: Krzysztof Klemiński
Playtesters: Joanna Rosik, Agnieszka Jakubowska, Bernard Grzybowski, Klaudia Szymańska,
Bartosz Rudkowski, Leszek W. Kowalski, Sebastian Adamiak

PHALANX CO. LTD

Craven House, 40-44 Uxbridge Road,
London, W5 2BS, United Kingdom
www.phalanxgames.co.uk

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