Star Trek Away Missions: Is it a board game with miniatures or a miniatures game with a board?

First, let’s talk about the miniatures

When the game was first announced, Star Trek: Away Missions came under a bit of criticism over the cartoony style of the miniatures, and I must admit that I initially decided to pass on the game for that reason. Miniatures gamers tend to obsess over scale, with a weird need for all of the miniatures in our collections to be interchangeable or at least consistent – it’s a fairly unreasonable demand that I suspect comes from the same part of the brain that compels some people to collect Funko Pops or Lego minifigures.

However, I was given a chance to take a closer look at the game, first via an OnTableTop.com Let’s Play and later from an open box that the owner of my local game cafe kindly let me paw through. I determined that the game play looked pretty interesting, and the figures were growing on me. The fact that the game definitely plays much more like a board game than a tactical miniatures game (although it has plenty of elements of both, which we’ll get to shortly) helped me to stop comparing the figures to “proper” miniatures, and as it turns out, they have been an absolute joy to paint – you can see some of my efforts on my OnTableTop project blog.

Now let’s talk about the game

There is an emerging category of game that draws heavily on the elements of both miniatures and board games to produce something that is (hopefully) more tactical than your typical board game, but less complicated and labor-intensive than your typical miniatures game. The idea is nothing new, going back at least as far as HeroQuest and Aliens (both published in 1989). Games of this type tend to occupy a sliding scale with “board game with miniatures as playing pieces” at one end and “miniatures with a pre-printed board” at the other, with notable examples including Monolith’s Conan and Mythic Battles, Gale Force Nine’s Firefly Adventures and Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, and Osprey’s Wildlands and Judge Dredd: Helter Skelter. Star Trek: Away Missions definitely leans towards the board game side of this spectrum, but it does have some tactical elements to it.

The game takes place immediately after the Battle of Wolf 359, the Borg attack on the Federation seen in the Star Trek: the Next Generation fourth season episode “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2.” The premise of the game is that the players are directing crews to investigate and salvage damaged Federation and Borg vessels in the aftermath of the battle. The board is made up of tiles depicting the interior of a Federation ship on one side and a Borg ship on the other – they are functionally the same but it does allow for some variety between games, as certain goals will be in different places depending on which side players decide to use.

Once the board is set up, the players each begin the game with a crew of four or five characters, and two separate decks of cards, one for missions and one for support cards. The mission cards describe requirements that usually involve moving a character with a particular skill to a specific area of the board and then passing a test by rolling dice. Combat may occasionally break out (also resolved using dice), but for the most part it is a mission solving game, which is in keeping with Star Trek’s themes and ideas of non-violent solutions to problems – the best Star Trek stories are about the heroes cleverly avoiding war and combat, and it’s nice to see that reflected in the game.

The game is played over three rounds, during which players move their characters around the board in an attempt to fulfill the requirements of their mission cards. Support cards can be played to help things along, make it an interesting mix of tactical movement and “right place, right time” card play. Three rounds doesn’t seem like a lot, but in practice it’s plenty of time for a satisfying game, and makes for a nice time limit to keep the game from dragging on for too long.

The characters in the base game, as well as those in the six expansion packs that have been released so far, are all organized into pre-made teams with only a very minor amount of customization available. The game attempts to make up for this by making the mission and support card decks customizable. The idea is that after you play a few games you can pick and choose which missions you want to try to attempt with each crew, and which support cards you think will be of the most use. It’s a concept that should be very familiar to players of trading card games such as Magic: the Gathering, but I think it’s one of this game’s few weak links. It requires players to spend time choosing cards before the game even starts – something that is expected in customizable games but seems a little out of place in what is being presented as more of a traditional board game.

All in all, Star Trek: Away Missions is a nice mix of board game and tactical miniatures game, leaning into the strengths of each type of game. And you will end up finding those goofy looking miniatures charming, I promise...

Rating: 4 (out of 5) With its emphasis on mission solving elements rather than combat, this really does seem like the best choice for a Star Trek miniatures game.

• Star Trek: Away Missions official website
• Star Trek: Away Missions on BoardGameGeek

Radlands: the perfectly balanced apocalypse

When it comes down to it, there are three elements that will determine whether or not I enjoy a game. Generally speaking, as long as a game does a good job with any two of the three and doesn't blow it too badly on the third, I'm likely to have a good time with it. Those elements are:

• Game play: the systems and mechanisms the game uses.
• Theme: the genre or story the game is trying to tell, whether it's a pre-existing intellectual property or something created just for the game.
• Component quality: the artwork, writing, and the physical quality of the game pieces.

For example, Leading Edge's Aliens game from 1989 has appallingly bad component quality, but it gets a pass from me because it's a solid game design and it's based on one of my all time favorite movies. Tapestry, on the other hand, has extremely high production value and the game play is terrific, but I couldn't honestly tell you what the theme is even about, and I most likely won't be rushing out to see Tapestry: the movie (although I might if it helps explain the game's setting). Starship Captains is a good example of a game that nails all three elements: great game play, excellent artwork and components (except for those weirdly low-quality cardboard space ships), and a theme that is more Star Trek than Star Trek often is.

All of which brings us to Radlands, from Roxley Games. Roxley is well known for their extremely high production values -- they are one of the very few publishers that uses Kickstarter the way it was meant to be used, as a way to provide funding for a high quality product that they then make available to the general, non-Kickstarter backer public either via traditional retail outlets, or via direct sales on their website.

Radlands is a two player card game set in an 80s-style post-apocalypse, all neon pink and impossibly straight mohawks. Players use their cards to construct a tableau consisting of rows and columns, with the cards in front protecting those behind them, and the final row representing the player's "camps," cards which must be protected at all costs. Destroy all three of your opponent's camps, and you're the winner.

A lot of the game mechanisms will be familiar to anyone who has played a lot of this type of mid-weight adventure card game. Players get a budget of resources (in this case, water) that they can spend to play cards on the table, or use the special abilities of cards that are already in play, all with the goal of destroying your opponent's cards while protecting your own. One feature I particularly like is that cards can also be discarded for a one-time effect, so there are rarely useless cards in your hand. The game effects are limited to a few straightforward options like destroying enemy cards or gaining extra card draws or resources for yourself. It's not terribly complex, but that means it's not terribly complicated, and it still makes for an engaging game.

The theming on the cards is great, and fits with the game play very well. The characters on the cards will be familiar to anyone who is a fan of post-apocalypse action movies, especially the Mad Max series, and the structure of the game really does feel like a desperate final battle such as the one we see at the end of The Road Warrior. The production value is also top-notch. The cards and water tokens are nice and sturdy, the printing is sharp, and the artwork by Dice Throne artist Manny Trembley is done in his signature slick, animation-like style, but roughed up just a little to make it fit the harsher setting.

It's a deceptively simple game that scores high on all three criteria: the theme is entertaining and fits the well-designed game mechanisms, and the components look and feel great. The game comes in a super-deluxe edition with fancy packaging and a bunch of optional extras, but honestly the $25 retail edition is a pretty nice package, especially for the price.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) a great little game that feels like a high-octane post-apocalyptic battle.

• Radlands official website
• Radlands on BoardGameGeek

Shipwrights of the North Sea Redux: you build your ships, I'll build mine

I am a big fan of Shem Phillips' series of medieval worker placement games. Raiders of the North Sea was the first one I played, and is still my favorite, but I like all of them well enough...except for what I thought was the one weak link in the series: Shipwrights of the North Sea. Compared to the other North Sea games, it had a lot of mean spirited "take-that" style game play which I didn't enjoy -- it was an engine-building game where too much of the strategy involved tearing down your opponent's engine rather than building your own.

It came as a bit of a surprise that the designer felt the same way:

"The original had a lot of take-that, and hate-drafting. It had no rounds (which meant it could really drag on with 4-5 players). The drafting was also flawed in a lot of ways. You could often end up with a handful of cards you couldn't use. It was a very tight, and unforgiving game."

-- Shem Phillips, on the Shipwrights of the North Sea Redux Kickstarter campaign page

I was delighted to hear that a redesign was on the way, although the designer contends that this isn't a redesign or "second edition," but an entirely new game that shares some thematic elements with the original. For the most part I agree, but since it was designed to address and eliminate the shortcomings of the original game, it will be impossible to review it without comparing the two.

The core of the game is the same as in the original: players start each round by drafting cards which represent ships, buildings and craftspeople. For those who might be unfamiliar, card drafting is a game mechanism designed to add tactical depth to what otherwise would be a random selection of cards. Each player starts with a hand of cards, chooses one to keep, and then passes the rest to the player on their left or right. They then choose a card from the new ones they've been given and pass the rest on. This continues until all the cards have been distributed. Players should now have a more tactically chosen hand of cards, and especially sharp-minded players will also have a sense of what cards their opponents are holding.

Once drafting is complete, players can play their cards for a variety of temporary or permanent effects. One of the most negative play experiences you can have in any game is feeling like you can't do anything on your turn. Shipwrights Redux alleviates this problem by giving each card multiple uses, so it's easier to mitigate your circumstances if you don't have what you need in your hand.

Building cards are played to the table and make up the game's worker placement element. Each player begins the game with 3 worker meeples and can gain more through card plays. Some cards require the player to discard a worker in order to gain specific resources, but the other main use for them is in conjunction with the building cards, which provide a repeatable way to gain resources over multiple rounds. However, unlike most worker placement games, workers are discarded at the end of each round so you'll need to watch for cards that allow you to gain more workers.

The main thing you are trying to do is to build ships, which happens by first playing the ship card to your player board, and then accumulating and spending the resources needed, which include particular types of craftspeople as well as the usual wood, cloth, iron, gold and money. Another major new element that Redux adds to the game is a progress track. In addition to scoring victory points, building ships allows you to move forward on one or more of three tracks that represent military strength, trade, and renown. Passing certain milestones on these tracks will give you advantages such as more resources from raiding or extra income at the end of each round. It's a clever way to reward players during the game rather than just at the end.

Once players have finished their actions for the turn there is an income phase where players gain resources depending on what permanent cards they've played. In addition, the player who is farthest along on each progress track gains a hero card that gives them an advantage in the following turn. A new round then begins, with players drafting five new cards. The game ends after five rounds.

It is a more engaging and entertaining game that the original Shipwrights, and it feels more in line with the other two North Sea games, and with the rest of Phillips' medieval series (which also includes the West Kingdom and South Tigris series). However, in attempting to mitigate the original game's issues with being too confrontational, it is possible that Redux has gone too far in the opposite direction. Other than the card drafting phase, there is no direct interaction with the other players and very little you can do to affect what they are doing. The game is primarily a race to see who can get the most ships built within the five-round time frame. The main action phase is even meant to be played simultaneously, meaning that players just make all their plays rather than taking turns, which exacerbates the feeling of it being multiple solitaire -- there isn't any reason to pay attention to what your opponents are doing.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) Overall, Shipwrights Redux is a big improvement on the original, but it seems to have gone from having too much confrontation to not having enough. It's still the weakest of the North Sea game series.

• Shipwrights of the North Sea Redux official website
• Shipwrights of the North Sea Redux on BoardGameGeek

Here we go again: Star Wars Unlimited

I've played a lot of different collectible card games over the past 30 years. I didn't get into Magic: the Gathering when it first came out, but I did play Decipher's Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs pretty heavily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s (I still play Star Trek regularly today), and I've at least tried a fairly large number of others, including On the Edge, Doomtown, Highlander, Aliens vs. Predator, Judge Dredd, Legend of the Five Rings, Shadowfist, Dune, and more others than I can count or remember. Magic finally got my attention when they started adding properties I know like Dungeons & Dragons, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Who to the game. I even played Decipher's other two Star Wars CCGs, Young Jedi and Jedi Knights, and the short-lived Star Wars game that Magic publisher Wizards of the Coast did in 2002.

I like the format a lot. I like building customized decks from a collection of cards and then playing them against a variety of opposing decks. While I was perfectly happy with "living card games" like Lord of the Rings or Marvel Champions that did away with randomized booster packs in favor of fixed sets of cards, I never really minded the collectible aspect of this type of games. There's something exciting about ripping open a pack and seeing what you got, especially if it's a new game with unfamiliar cards.

After pioneering the non-collectible living card game format, Fantasy Flight Games has decided to re-enter the collectible card game market with Star Wars Unlimited. Unlike their earlier Star Wars: the Card Game, Unlimited will come in random booster packs supported by a two-player starter set. In advance of the game's March 8 release, FFG has offered a pre-release pack consisting of six random boosters, two fixed foil cards, counters, and a quickstart rulebook. The product is meant for a single player to use in an organized tournament event, but we were able to just about squeeze two 30-card decks out of the contents so we could try the game out.

The game is wonderfully simple. Each player chooses a leader and a base, and build the rest of the deck around the colored icons those characters provide. You can include any card you want in your deck, but cards with icons that don't match your leader or base will cost you more to put into play. It's a great bit of game design for this type of game -- you have incentive to focus on cards that match your leader and base, but if you really want to throw in a favorite character or starship that wouldn't otherwise fit, you can, and you can even mix light side and dark side characters in a way that no previous Star Wars game has allowed. In theory, any stack of cards can be a functioning deck, which makes organized play using sealed boosters a lot easier and more fun.

Unlike Magic, which requires matching land cards in order to get other cards into play, Star Wars Unlimited allows players to use any face-down card as a resource. This eliminates one of the major frustrations that can happen when playing Magic or other resource-based games -- sometimes you just can't play anything. Star Wars Unlimited's approach means that you never have a useless card in your hand, as you can always play it face down as a resource.

The structure of the game is very straightforward. Once you get your units into play, you use them to attack and eventually destroy your opponent's base. Since they're trying to do the same to you, each turn starts with a decision about whether or not to keep whittling away at their base, or take out your opponent's units so they can't attack you. It's pretty similar to Magic, but without that game's 30 years of keywords, rules additions, and edge cases weighting it down.

Another nice element to the game is the artwork. I'm never sure about using artwork for games based on films or television shows -- why not just use screen captures, especially for something like Star Wars that has a lot of high end visuals to work with? The use of artwork allows them to use elements from across the franchise's 47-year history of live action and animation and have it all look consistent, and it also makes it easy to accommodate characters and scenes that we never saw in any of the films.

If the pre-release pack is any indication, Star Wars Unlimited is off to a great start, but it remains to be seen whether it can flourish in a market that has seen several booms and busts over the years, and is currently dominated by a small number of games. Hopefully it will, as this first set of cards barely scratches the surface of the extensive, one might even say Unlimited, Star Wars universe.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) It lacks the depth of some of the earlier CCGs, but that isn't necessarily a disadvantage as the game's simplicity should make it a lot more accessible to new and casual players.

• Star Wars Unlimited official website
• Star Wars Unlimited on BoardGameGeek