Review of Starcraft the Board Game by Fantasy Flight Games

Overall Score: Freaking Awesome!!! This is one of the best games of all time. It is easily a must play, if not a must buy. For details, read on or check out Episode 25 of the TableTop BattleField.

Something just feels good about being able to end the year on a high note. This year on the Tabletop Battlefield we have reviewed four different games. While Wizkids are turning themselves around, none of their entries are up to the caliber of StarCraft The Board Game by Fantasy Flight Games. Not only did FFG produce a solid gaming experience, but they managed to keep the feel of the computer game. From the fantastic order token system to the highly strategic card driven combat system, just about every aspect of this game provides plenty of diversity and opportunities to screw over your opponents.

Lets start with the order token system. There are only three types of orders to this game: Build, Mobilize, and Research. Build orders allow for the construction of troops and builds, while mobilize orders direct troops to move and attack. Research allows for the introduction of advanced abilities and weapons into the player's arsenal. All order tokens are placed down at the start of the turn prior to any player taking an action. Player's alternate placing order tokens face down on planets. If multiple orders are placed down on one planet, then the order tokens are stacked with the last token being placed on top. When orders are executed, only the token which is at the top of the stack may be played. This has two consequences. The first is that orders must be placed in reverse order then the order they are to be executed in and it is possible for one player to delay another player's action by covering up their order token with one of their own. In fact, this is one of the best ways to screw over an opponent. In one battle, I defeated Kyle by preventing a transport from being built until after his mobilize order had been used up. In terms of comparing this to the computer game, I feel it reflects game play quite well. Throughout the computer battles, it was often possible to determine where the opposing forces were acting, but not what they were doing at any given point.

For the price paid(MSRP $80), the game components are excellent. There are no fancy pre-painted minis here, but there are over 180 plastic game pieces and nine sheets of cardboard punch out tokens. The figure detail is obviously not on the level of GW of Privateer Press, but if you wanted to I bet this figures could be given nice paint jobs. Only units from the original game are included in this box set. I think it is safe to assume that the new units in Brood War and Starcraft 2 will be added in as expansion sets. The game handles up to six players with two factions per race. Many of the special abilities from the computer game are present in the form of technology cards which are brought into play as the result of research orders. While not every special ability is represented, everyone's favorites such as the Nuclear Missile, Guardian Aspect Form, and Summon Archon can be deployed against your enemies.

The best aspect of the game is definitely the combat. To a certain extent, dice have plagued miniature war gaming. Awesome and powerful strategies can collapse because of a few bad dice rolls. While one could argue that a solid strategy would not fall victim to such a scenario, at some point too many bad rolls will cost a player a game. Starcraft goes a long way to resolving that issue by introducing a card driven combat system. Player's have a hand of combat cards which are used to fight battles. Each card has one or more images of the units to which the card applies. While any card can be placed for any unit, if the unit leading the attack matches an image on the card, its powers are significantly boosted. Combat uses a simple damage and health method. If a unit's damage ability as displayed on the card matches or exceeds the health value of the target unit(which is displayed on the defenders card), then the target unit is destroyed. A neat feature of the cards is that not all of the cards pertaining to a unit have the same damage and health values. Therefore, even if the opposing player can assume that a Protoss Zealot card is going to be played on a Zealot, the opponent does not know if the Zealot will have a more powerful offense or defense. This lead to the infamous Mutalisk Killing a Battlecruiser scenario mentioned in Episode 25. When attacking, the attacker must wipe out all of the defending units to win the battle. Therefore, if a single defender remains then the attacker must withdraw at the end of the combat round. However, the attacker's bonus comes in being able to exceed the maximum number of units in a zone. In any well planned attack, the attacker will outnumber the defender which can create a feeling of helplessness for the defender, but this game is all about aggression. You do not win by sitting on a planet and building up defenses.

Some core ideas of Starcraft have been abstracted to make the game play streamlined for the board game version. In particular, I am referring to base construction and resource gathering. Only three buildings of each race are represented in the game. Therefore, to build advanced units, these buildings are just upgraded instead of building support buildings as in the computer game. Also, every base on the board is represented by one card, so If a structure is built in one location, then it is considered to exist in all locations. Base defenses have been simplified and they just support troops if a battle occurs at a base location. As for resource gathering, resources cannot be accumulated and resources are not depleted unless the player executes a force mine to extract additional resources from a location. What is boils down to is that each location of a planet contains a set amount of resources. Each worker can mine 1 resource per turn, so as resources are spent, workers are moved to the location from where the resource was mined. While it would be nice to stock pile resources, any good player of the computer game will never be stock piling resources until late in the game.

My one complaint is that according to the default rules, the game is a little too short. When I say short I mean in terms of the turn count and not time spent playing. Expect to spend at least 2 hours on a 2 player game and quite a bit more when more players are involved. Time is kept with an event card deck. Certain actions will require players to draw cards from the event card deck. When the deck reaches a certain point(called stage 3 of the game), each faction has a special victory condition which enters into play and a player will win shortly afterwards. Normally there are 50 cards before Stage 3 is reached. However, for games with less then 6 players, the rules state to remove a number of these cards based on the amount of players in the game. The problem is that if the rules are followed to the letter, the game will end before normal victory can be achieved and before a lot of the cool units make an appearance on the battlefield. Fortunately the fix is quite simple – just remove fewer cards and plan for a longer time playing.

With no significant complaints, I can't give this game anything less then freaking awesome. There are only a very few games that I can say are better then StarCraft, but the real test for this game will come with its longevity. Chances are a year from now we will be up for playing a game. Especially since we have not even begun to scratch the surface in terms of scenario play.(hmmmm......pass the psionic beacon which attracts Zerg?). At the very least you owe yourself to get out a play a couple games. With the Holiday Season just around the corner, if you are in need of a gift for someone who is a gamer, this is a guaranteed win.