This game is based on the Starcraft computer game.As such, it does a great job of modeling the concepts and gameplay of Starcraft in a tabletop environment.It uses a combination of game tiles, figurines, cards, and cardboard chits to represent the Starcraft game.If you don't have an experienced player to guide you, plan on taking a whole day to learn this game.Once everyone knows the game, plan on 2-3 hours per game.
The game is of quality construction almost all the Starcraft units are represented with plastic figures, along with cardboard punch-outs representing things like planets and buildings, and finally sets of cards that represent technology, random events, and unit combat power.
The basic board consists of laying down 2 planets per player, with a starting base on 1 planet.Planets are connected, but require a transport to move units between.Planets have areas on them, each area either has crystal, Vespene gas, or conquest points players struggle to control.You will build, move, research, and battle in order to achieve victory later in the game.
Though it takes time and a lot of reading, the rules are logical and consistent, so once you start understanding the phases of a turn and the subtleties of the rules, you begin to appreciate the amount of strategy available just like in the computer game.You can try to rush, expand, build mass air, turtle up.A lot of the computer game concepts translate quite well into the board game.
Even the real-time nature of the game is modeled in the game.Players take turn laying down "order" tokens on planets.Nobody knows what each others orders are, but the orders on a planet stack up, and during the execution phase, the orders are revealed one at a time.In this way, an element of interactive surprise causes you to adjust your plans on the fly based on what someone else just did.
Battles are resolved by pairing attackers and defenders figures, and using cards for each pairing to represent health & combat power, as well as any special bonuses that might come from researched technology.Thus battle is sort of a mini card game.There is an element of luck here, in that at any given time you will only have a subset of cards in your hands to use in combat, but all players can shapetheir hand and add more powerful cards to their deck as the game progresses.
The game has some nice touches, like modeling cloaking and detection, and including special units like the Zerg queen or Protoss Archon, and the Terran nuke strike.
The learning curve is steep, but once you get through a couple turns of play, you really start to feel like the game is incredibly deep with lots of strategy options.
This game is much more complicated than any other game I have played (e.g. Settlers of Catan), but this ends up providing much more strategic depth then other games.Recommended if you like deep games in general, and Starcraft in particular.
This is one of the best strategy board games I played. Unlike Risk, battles are not resolved by dice throws, hence there is no chance involved at combat time. Instead it takes a card game approach, you resolve the battle by playing the cards in hour hand. The element of chance is still there, but it occurs earlier, when you draw the cards, so at combat time you already know what you are holding.
It takes about two hours to learn by reading the book, and about 45 minutes to explain the rules properly to someone else. A game takes about 3 hours. I highly recommend it to any hardcore strategy gamer or Starcraft nut, but also to casual strategy gamers, if you don't mind feeling a little geeky moving little plastic figures around :) .
The only problem is the plastic figures, which are very detailed, are a little fragile (some of them came broken, or with parts missing). I would have liked them sturdier, even at the expense of some detail.
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It's what you'd better be if you're going to play this. It comes complete with a 48pg. full color instruction book, which you will need and may in fact need to read more than once, especially if you're new to this style of board game. If you have trouble sitting through the short game of "Monopoly" this isn't for you. I'd be more willing to put it on a level with "Risk" as far as the amount of time you invest in it and the number of pieces, but there are no dice, and it takes a little getting accustomed to. Not a game you want to get the kid (or adult) with a short attention span). As long as you're willing to put the time and love into it, it's worth it. Just remember, it's not the PC game either fanboys but when the power's out and you need your "Starcraft" fix it's got enough friendly faces to get rid of the shakes. As far as my durability score goes, all of the unit pieces are made of a rubbery plastic, but as you may know a number of the units are flying creatures and in an attempt to be super cool looking, these units are mounted on a clear acrylic base. It does look super cool, however about seven (not really a lot considering there are 180 unit pieces) came to me snapped off of their pedestals. I was a bit disappointed, but with some super glue and a bit of patient matching (it's not just a board game it's also a puzzle. Bonus!) you can hardly tell now.Read Best Reviews of Starcraft: The Board Game Here
Players: 2-6Learning Curve: Very High
Setup Time: 30-45 minutes
Play Time: 2-5 hours
I had just got back from BlizzCon '08 and decided to make this purchase through Amazon.The game here is much lower than retail and lower than it was sold at their convention ($80)!Game has a *very* high learning curve, as it took myself and some friends well over an hour just to get a good idea of how a single turn played out.:oAside from that, it is a very nice game.
I think it's also good to note that Fantasy Flight's customer service is amazing.One of my air-unit pieces (Arbiter) was broken in two spots and I wasn't able to easily reglue it.After calling Fantasy Flight, they quickly sent me new pieces of all the parts that were damaged, even those I felt looked okay after a little glue!(A scourge, battlecruiser and arbiter pieces)
I would recommend getting storage containers or something of the sort for all the different pieces as the box provided does not have any means of organizing all your cards, tokens and figures provided.
While this game does take more time than playing ~3-5 games of actual Starcraft (as most of my friends will quickly point out), it is very well made and the creators spent a lot of time making a very authentic and unique board game.For being such a big fan of the franchise, I had to get this product and would recommend any other fan of Starcraft or other Fantasy Flight games do the same!
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Basically:1) Pieces will arrive broken.Pieces will break during the course of play.
2) The game is overpriced.I'd be happy with a $40 price tag.
3) The entire package makes it difficult to transport; I used my own tupperware to store the pieces, which makes the box unusable... otherwise you'll lose pieces.
4) It's fun, and perfect for ~4-5 nerds with lots of patience and smack talk.6 is cramped, and 3 is boring.
5) It's NOT fun, and awful for most everyone else.This will not appeal to casual gamers or those without unusual attention spans.It's surprisingly subtle for a game based on a frenetic click fest.
