Enemy is the general term for all the forces opposing the players in the game. There are enemy ships on the Game Board, enemy creatures that can appear on player Ship Boards, and the Elder One which is the big final boss. All enemies except the Elder One are spawned via Enemy cards, while the Elder One is spawned based on a separate Elder One board.
"Enemy" is also one of the types of six-sided dice used in the game. They are used when enemies are attacking or defending. The dice can produce three different outcomes: Move, Damage and Omen.
The Move outcome is used to move enemy ships, one step towards the destination or towards its attack target if a player's ship is in its Engagement Range but not within attack range. If the enemy ship can attack a player, it prefers to do so over moving towards its destination.
If Enemy dice produce outcomes are not usable for the enemy, a pair of useless outcomes are swapped out for one useful one. For example, if the enemy rolls Damage outcomes, but it's an enemy ship that doesn't have anything in range that it can attack, and Damage outcomes thus are useless, then if there are two Damage outcomes, discard one of those dice and turn the other into a Move outcome.
In the rulebook, enemy spawning and behaviour is covered on pages 29-30.
Combat
Combat can occur in a few different ways, depending on whether it's combat between ships or not, and depending on whether the combat was triggered by a player or by an enemy.
Combat between ships can be triggered by players using Artillery Orders. In those cases, decide which Artillery Card to use, check the range indications on the card to confirm that the target is in range of the attack, confirm that there is Line of Sight, and check what dice value the attack has. Then roll that many Attack dice, and apply the results: the enemy ship gets one damage (use Trauma markers to track damage on the enemy ship's card). You can choose to spend any type of Fresh Order token to convert "Omen" outcomes on the dice to "Damage" (one token per die to convert).
Combat between ships can also be triggered by the enemy, when the enemy ships move in the Enemy Phase. In this case, collect Enemy dice equal to the enemy ship's dice value, and collect one Evasion die for each Crew member that is manning a Navigation Node on the player ship. Roll all the dice. For each successful Evasion dieroll, cancel one enemy damage, then apply the remaining Damage to the player ship. You can choose to spend any type of Fresh Order token to convert an "Omen" outcome on Evasion dierolls to "Evade" (one token per die to convert).
Note: when using the "optional advanced mechanics" described on page 34-35 in the rulebook, Boarding is available as an alternative way of attacking enemy ships.
When an enemy ship is destroyed, you collect loot by rolling the Fate Die and getting loot according to the Spoils table. Do this as many times as the current Act number; so for example, you roll twice if it's Act II. (The rulebook has a misprint in regard to this, suggesting the loot is described on the ship enemy card, but this is not the case. The game designer has confirmed that this is a mistake in the ruleebook, and that rolling for Spoils is the correct procedure.)
Combat between Crew members and On Deck enemies are called Frays, and work differently.
