Core Space Introduction Game

...or a game that was 'The Orville' meets 'Farscape' meets 'Cleopatra 2525'.

I should've known Jack and I were in trouble when we took on the characters of Renton and Beck respectively when David T invited us to take part in an introductory game of Battle Systems' Core Space boardgame.

I had heard almost nothing of the game, but David was keen to show how it worked. Firstly, the miniatures and the terrain are beautiful and Battle Systems have done an excellent job through the Kickstarter to get this out. Jonathan T (he's been playing this with his father at home) took the role of Jace, our boss and captain of the Black Maria.

We were a team of traders, our sole objective to survive in a dangerous galaxy! Jack and I found it would be Jace that would be a large part of this danger.

To win the rules recommend we follow the trader credo: salvage, trade, adapt and survive... we managed none of these. But I'm jumping ahead.

The game starts with Renton and Beck on the Black Maria. Things apparently didn't go too well in the last game and Jace had to be rescued by the crew of David's characters, the crew of the Ion Hope: Arianna, Roykirk and Gak (Gak is an alien Quell and is Arianne's gun man with a quick mind and dry sense of humour).

So our captain started the game on another ship. Jonathan (consciously or not) played Jace as a cross between Chris Pratt's Star-Lord (Guardians of the Galaxy), Nathan Fillion's Mal (Firefly) and Seth MacFarlane's Captain Ed Mercer (The Orville).

It was hilarious. But not. As we all died.

After getting on the ship, we raced to see which NPC had the information we were after (I was hazy on the details of the mission).

Things started off peacefully enough, as can be seen with Gak strolling the corridors:

But the game (that can be played solo) has a threat tracker (like Mantic Games' The Walking Dead), and so I had to deal with some Harvesters. Luckily I found a rifle that blasted one away (that was all the luck I would have in the game):

The other one survived several shots and so I ran... towards the shooting and grenade explosions.

I should've known it was because of Jace. He claimed that he didn't start shooting first. Apparently it was warning shot to Arianna and her crew, as they were getting too close to the NPCs. He then admitted a warning shot to the face wasn't really a warning shot.

Best quote for the game: "Regret is a tomorrow problem."

I tried to assist him and Renton by shooting Roykirk in the back. Unfortunately my gun jammed and Roykirk took me swiftly down.

So at least I missed out on some larger Devastators causing headaches to the others. Renton joined me in taking a nap mid game.

What’s the minimum size for a crew? One. The captain.

We called it a game, and realised that the way to win was to sometimes cooperate with other crews to take on the Purge robots.

The rules are fast, easy to remember and a lot of fun.

Next month we're going to have another game, but we all get a crew. Mark R will join us, as he too witnessed the train wreck that is (was?) Captain Jace and the crew of the Black Maria.