Sky Team rules refresher

Read the refresher

You and your partner are landing an airliner together, and you win only if you touch down with every landing condition met at once. You do it by rolling dice behind a screen each round and placing them onto the shared Control Panel, almost entirely without talking.

For setup, make sure the Axis arrow points at the black triangle at the top and all ten Switches are covering their green lights. On the Speed Gauge, the blue Aerodynamics marker goes between the 4 and the 5, and the orange one between the 8 and the 9. The red Brake marker starts to the left of the 2. Slide the Altitude Track in, green and yellow side showing, until 6000 appears in the window. Slide the Approach Track in until the cloud icon shows in the Current Position screen. Put a Reroll token on each Reroll icon printed on the Altitude Track. Stack Airplane tokens onto the Approach Track spaces, one per traffic icon shown. Coffee tokens sit beside the board, not on it. The Pilot takes the four blue dice and sits on the blue side, the Co-Pilot takes the four orange dice.

The game runs seven rounds, and each round has three phases. First you talk strategy and roll. Then you place dice, alternating turns, in silence. Then the plane descends one thousand feet and you check whether you have arrived.

During the discussion you may talk about the situation freely, but not about the dice. Saying what number to put where, or referring to a weak or strong die, is out. Then you both roll all four of your dice behind your screens, and from that moment nobody speaks until all eight dice are placed, except to correct a rule error. The arrow in the Current Altitude screen tells you who goes first that round. On your turn you place exactly one die from behind your screen onto a free space. Blue spaces are for the Pilot, orange for the Co-Pilot, and dual-coloured spaces take either. Most spaces also have a number constraint. The Radio spaces restrict colour but not number, and the Concentration spaces have no restrictions at all.

Two sections are mandatory every round: the Axis and the Engines. Each of you must put a die on the Axis and a die on the Engines. If at the end of a round there is not one die of each colour in both sections, you lose immediately.

The Axis resolves the moment the second die lands there. Same numbers, nothing moves. Different numbers, turn the airplane disc by the difference between the two dice, toward the player who played the higher die. It stays where it is; it does not reset between rounds. If the arrow reaches or passes an X, you go into a spin and lose on the spot.

The Engines also resolve when the second die is placed. Add the two dice together for your speed. Below the blue marker, you stay put. Between the two markers, advance the Approach Track one space. Above the orange marker, advance two. Airplane tokens sliding into your Current Position space are harmless in themselves, but if there are Airplane tokens sitting in your Current Position space and you are required to advance, that is a collision and you lose. Likewise, if the airport is in the Current Position space and you must advance, you have overshot and lost.

Radio: the Pilot has one Radio space, the Co-Pilot has two. Count spaces along the Approach Track equal to the die value, starting with your Current Position as one, and immediately remove one Airplane token from that space. If there is nothing there, nothing happens.

Landing Gear is Pilot only, three spaces with number constraints, deployable in any order. Slide the Switch to green and immediately advance the blue Aerodynamics marker one space. Flaps are Co-Pilot only and must be deployed strictly in order from the top, starting with the 1 slash 2 space; each one slides a Switch green and advances the orange Aerodynamics marker one space. Playing onto a Switch that is already green does nothing.

Brakes are Pilot only, and must go in order: the 2 space, then the 4, then the 6. Each one advances the red Brake marker a space. Brakes only matter in the final round, and you do not have to deploy all of them.

Concentration takes any die from either player. Immediately put a Coffee token on one of the three designated spaces; you can never hold more than three. Any time either player places a die anywhere, you may spend Coffee tokens to adjust that die by plus or minus one each. Values cannot go below one or above six, and there is no wrapping around. Unspent tokens carry over to later rounds.

About Rerolls: if there is a Reroll token in the Current Altitude space at the start of the round, take it into your supply. At any point during a round, either player may spend a Reroll token, and then both of you may reroll as many of your remaining dice as you like, once.

At the end of the round, once all eight dice are placed, you may speak again. Advance the Altitude Track one space and take your dice back.

The game ends when the Airport image is in the Current Position screen and the Airplane image is in the Current Altitude screen at the same time. That is your final round. If you reach the airport early, you are in a holding pattern and simply play more rounds without advancing further on the Approach Track. If the Airplane image reaches the bottom of the Altitude Track but you have not reached the airport, you crash and lose. In the final round, when the second Engine die is played, you compare your speed to the Brake marker instead of to the Aerodynamics markers. At the end of that round you win if all four conditions hold: no Airplane tokens remain anywhere on the Approach Track, every Flaps and Landing Gear Switch shows green, the Axis is completely horizontal, and your speed was less than your Brakes. Miss any one of them and the landing fails.

A turn, played out

Round 4, 3000 feet, and the arrow in the Current Altitude screen points to you, the Pilot, so you place first. The airplane disc tilts 1 toward your partner. Your Current Position space is empty, but the next space holds 2 Airplane tokens. Two Landing Gear are down, so the blue Aerodynamics marker now sits between 6 and 7. One Flap is down, so orange sits between 9 and 10. You hold 1 Coffee token. Behind your screen: blue 6, 4, 3 and 1. Silence. You put the 1 on your Radio and spend the Coffee to make it 2. Your Current Position counts as 1, so the next space loses 1 Airplane token. Your partner puts an orange 5 on the Axis. You answer with the 6. The difference is 1 toward you, so the disc swings back to level. Your partner puts an orange 4 on the Engines. You add your blue 4. Speed 8 is above blue and below orange, so the Approach Track advances one space. The last Airplane token slides into your Current Position. That is harmless now, but a collision if you must advance next round. Your partner drops an orange 1 on a Co-Pilot Radio, which counts only your Current Position, and the token is gone. Your 3 goes on Concentration for a fresh Coffee token. Your partner places the last die. Both mandatory sections hold one die of each colour, and the plane descends to 2000.