Astralis (2021)

Astralis is an abstract, space odyssey, area-control strategy game for two players, played on a hex-hex 8 gameboard. Each player starts with one colony ship pawn and 30 planets stones. Players share 169 double-sided control tiles and 60 contested tiles. On a turn, a player must move his or her ship pawn one or more hexes, in any one of the six standard directions, to any hex not containing any stone or the opponent's pawn. Pawns may pass over any hexes not containing an opponent's stone or pawn. Pawns can pass over owned stones. Control tiles never impede movement and simply indicate ownership of a hex. When a pawn reaches its destination hex, the player may place a control tile and an owned stone on top in any one of the empty hexes adjacent to the pawn that is not adjacent to any other stone. For each hex adjacent to a placed stone, if the hex is not adjacent to any opponent stone, place a control tile own-side up in the hex; and if the hex has one or more adjacent opponent stones, replace the opponent’s control tile with a contested tile. The game ends when all hexes contain a control or contested tile. To determine the winner, players count the number of control tiles they have on the board. The second player adds a komi of 3.5 points to his total. The player with the highest total wins. —description from the designer