Games of 2019

These are the board games I'm interested in playing more of in 2019.

Captain Sonar

Players: 8 (!)

Duration: 2 hours

Two teams of four face off as crews of submarines, playing a real-time version of Battleship.

Designed for 8 players (crazy!), each crew member plays a role in commanding their ship, keeping the weapons, drive and sonar systems online, working together to ultimately hunt down and destroy the opposing sub.

Sidereal Confluence

Players: 3 to 9

Duration: 2 hours

The galaxy is awash in colorful cubes, and YOU NEED THEM!

Sidereal Confluence is the unfortunately named  pell-mell "floor of the New York stock exchange" galactic negotiation game.  Unique alien races vigorously barter, brokering the best deals for space-cubes possible before time runs out!

Dead of Winter

Players: 2 to 5

Duration: 2-3 hours

You are the leader of a colony that is fighting to survive an overwhelming zombie apocalypse.

Each player controls a small band of rag-tag survivors, all working towards a common goal, which will vary with the chosen scenario.

The catch:  One of the players may secretly be working against you.

Over the past several years, games with a defector have become increasingly popular.  What makes Dead of Winter unique in this realm is that not every game has a defector - but you never know.  This introduces a lovely tension, as you find yourself questioning everyone's motives.

Chapter 10 - Let's Talk Tech

The final blog posting before our game.  I'll keep it light.  It's also quite different in 4th Edition vs. 3rd Edition, so for you vets out there: pay attention :)

TECHNOLOGY

Technologies are primarily discovered via the Technology strategy card.

Example of technology:

Each race has a couple of techs that are unique to them, but most of them are common among all races.

There are four fields of technology:

When you activate the Technology strategy card, you can choose to research a technology for which you have the prerequisites.

The pre-req of a tech is shown in the bottom left of the tech card.  Tech that you own fulfills these prerequisites.

In the example below, both Plasma Scoring and Magen Defense Grid each generate "1 red" technology, allowing for the research of Duranium Armor (which has a pre-req of 2 red).

Note that Plasma Scoring has no prerequisite requirement.  Each field of tech will have at least one tech that has no pre-req but will provide a color for future research.

Final note:

Some planets have tech specialties.  These tech specialties count towards your pre-req.

In the example below, if you control Lazar, you can exhaust it to count as a yellow tech requirement, etc.

That's it!

If you've been reading along, thanks for sticking with it.  I know, it's a lot.  This blog touches on 90% of the rules, and is more than enough to get you on your way.

I might recommend if you have time before our game, give RTFM's video a view to refresh.

See you on Saturday!  I'll have plenty of food and drinks available, cuz we're gonna need it!

Chapter 9 - Status, Agendas, Deals and Transactions

Recap of a round:

Strategy Phase

Everyone chooses 1 strategy card.

Action Phase

Players take turns performing Strategic, Tactical or Component actions, or passing once they have no further actions for the turn.

That brings us to the Status Phase, which is very simple, so I will only touch on it briefly.

Before I do, I want to discuss how you actually win this damn game.  The first player to score 10 Victory Points (VP) wins.

You score VP by completing objectives.  There are a series of objectives in the middle of the table that all players are striving to complete.  Players also have a secret objective, which they cannot reveal until achieved.

It's during the status phase when players check to see if they've completed objectives.



OBJECTIVES

Example of an Objective:

Status Phase

These steps are performed in order:

1. SCORE OBJECTIVES

In initiative order, players may complete objectives. If that results in 10VP, you win!

Note that any one objective may be scored by any number of players, but each player may only score each objective once.

Key Point:  This step is done in initiative order, meaning that the order in which players achieve objectives can be relevant if two players were both on the cusp of scoring their 10th VP.  The player to go first would win the game!

Important:  Players may only score 1 public and 1 secret objective during each status phase.

2.  REVEAL PUBLIC OBJECTIVE

The next objective is revealed.

3.  DRAW ACTION CARDS

Each player gets 1 Action Card.

4.  REMOVE COMMAND TOKENS

All Command Tokens are removed from the map.

5. GAIN AND SHIFT COMMAND TOKENS

Each player gets 2 additional Command Tokens.  Then, you get to redistribute all of your tokens among your Strategy, Fleet and Tactic pools however you wish.

6. READY CARDS

All "flipped over" cards refresh (such as spent planets, etc).

7.  REPAIR UNITS.

Any damaged units are automatically repaired.

8.  RETURN STRATEGY CARDS

All Strategy Cards are returned to the pool.

If the Agenda Phase is unlocked, the game then proceeds to the Agenda Phase.  Otherwise, start a new round by beginning a new Strategy Phase.

Agenda Phase

Once a player has successfully landed on Mecatol Rex, that unlocks the Agenda Phase.

The game starts with the "Custodian Token" on Mecatol Rex.  To land on Mecatol Rex for the first time, a player must be able to remove the Custodian Token by expending 6 influence.  That player also scores 1 VP.

From that point forward, whoever controls Mecatol Rex controls this token.

Steps of the Agenda Phase:

1) FIRST AGENDA

i. REVEAL AGENDA

ii. VOTE

iii. RESOLVE OUTCOME

2) SECOND AGENDA

i. REVEAL AGENDA

ii. VOTE

iii. RESOLVE OUTCOME

3) READY PLANETS

Players vote by exhausting planets.  They cast a number of votes for an outcome equal to the total influence value of all planets they exhaust in this manner.

Voting starts with the player to the Speaker's left, and continues clockwise, ending with the Speaker.

Examples of some Agendas:

Players are encouraged to negotiate among one another to rally favor towards their desired outcomes.  While negotiating over Agendas, players may engage in transactions with all players in the game, regardless of whether they are neighbors.

Key points:  The second agenda isn't revealed until after the first agenda has been resolved.  Do you save your resources to vote on a potentially more impactful second agenda?  

Which brings us to the concept of Deals and Transactions.  

Rules surrounding Deals and Transactions are new to 4th Edition.  TI has always been about exuberantly discussing deals w/ the other players.  TI4E tries to bring order to this chaos by formalizing a few key rules around it.

I'm simply going to paste the snippet from the rule book for this.

Alright, we're getting REALLY close to January 19!  I'm going to post one final post next week (Technology), but it's going to be a very simple one.

Chapter 8: Resources, Production and Influence

Recap of the Tactical Action:

- Activate a system (by taking a command token from your tactic pool and placing it on the map)
- Move ships into it
- Space Combat
- Invade Planets

The final step is Production.

If the system you have activated contains one of your Space Docks, you use this final step of the Tactical Action to produce units.

To be clear, you're not usually going to be engaging in combat AND producing units during the same tactical action.  To produce units, you perform a tactical action to activate a system that contains a space dock that you own.  You already own the system, thus you skip the combat portions of the tactical action (though you may still move units into the newly activated system, if you wish to).

PRODUCTION

For this example, let's say that the Sardakk N'orr have activated their home system, which contains a space dock on the planet of Quinarra.

Note the two numerical values on Quinarra.  The yellow 3 is Quinarra's RESOURCE value (often referred to simply as it's "production").  The blue 1 is its INFLUENCE value.  

For every planet that you control, you have its corresponding planet card face up in front of you:

Now let's take a look at the Space Dock unit:

So, Quinarra has a resource value of 3, and this space dock has a production value of 5 (two plus the planet's resource value).  This means that this space dock can produce up to 5 units in a turn.

To produce units, you spend resources by exhausting (turning over) planet cards.  So, for example, Quinarra generates 3 resources, but I can combine it with other planets by exhausting those as well. (Don't worry, they'll turn back over and become ready again during the Status phase).

For this example, let's say I have 8 available resources among my ready planets (i.e. my planets which have not been exhausted yet this turn).

I have 8 resources to spend, and I can produce up to 5 total units from this space dock.

Next, I check the COST of the units I wish to produce (which are illustrated on your race sheet.

For readability's sake, I'm not posting the whole race sheet here, just a small section:

I can choose to produce any combination of units, so long as I have production value and available resources.

Example:  For 8 resources, I could produce 2 Exotriremes (this is the Sardakk N'Orr version of the Dreadnought).  Or, I could produce 4 Destroyers and a Carrier.

Note that for Fighters and Infantry, you get 2 units per 1 resource.

Additionally:  Remember your Fleet pool on your command sheet.  If the number of ships in your system exceeds the number of tokens in your Fleet pool, you will need to sacrifice ships to satisfy this limitation (note:  Fighters do not count towards your limit).

Finally, because there weren't enough things to remember, don't forget to consider your CAPACITY.  You cannot have more fighters in a system than you have capacity for.  Certain ships (such as the Carrier) generate capacity.  

Your space dock also allows for up to 3 fighters without counting against capacity.

BLOCKADE

You cannot produce ships in a system that contains enemy ships, though you can still produce infantry.

TIP: MOVEMENT

To produce units, you have to activate a system containing a space dock.  This means that you've just placed a command token into that system.

Remember that you cannot move units out of a system that contains one of your command tokens.

This generally means that you cannot move units the turn that you produce them.  Keep that in mind.

INFLUENCE

In addition to resources, planets have an influence value.

Influence is primarily used for casting votes during the Agenda Phase.  We'll discuss the agenda phase in more detail in future posts, but you should be aware that producing units is a trade off with your ability to cast votes.  Similar to exhausting planets for their resources, so too do you exhaust them to use their influence to cast votes on agendas.  Each spent Influence point counts as 1 vote towards and outcome of an agenda.

TRADE GOODS

Talking about Resources and Influence is a good time to mention Trade Goods.  Trade goods are currency that players can spend or trade.  You can spend trade goods as either influence or resources.  For example, rather than spending 3 resources to produce a carrier unit, you could spend 1 resource and 2 trade goods.

COMMODITIES

Fourth Edition also introduces Commodities.  A commodity functions exactly like a trade good... except that YOU can't use them.  Once you trade a commodity to another player, it becomes a trade good.

You primarily acquire trade goods and commodities via the Trade strategy card.

Chapter 7: COMBAT

Today we'll discuss combat.  This post is timely, as it will serve to defend you well against the incursion of reindeer-laden aerial assaults invading so many chimneys this evening.

This post is going to get a bit meaty, but in truth these steps are rather simple.  Don't panic, it looks harder than it is.  The steps are also outlined on your race sheet for easy reference, and we will of course go over everything at game-time when needed.  Easy peezy.

OVERVIEW

- If two players have ships in a system, they repeat combat rounds until either one player wipes out the other player, or a player retreats.

- Combat is decided by rolling 10-sided dice, and comparing your results to the COMBAT value of your attacking ships.

- Once space combat is over, the winning player may then land ground infantry on planets in an effort to take control of them.  If there are enemy troops on those planets, ground combat ensues.

Tip:  For reference, I suggest checking out a high rez race sheet I'd emailed you earlier, as it will show the units' combat attributes.

COMBAT

Continuing on from last week's progression through the steps of the Tactical Action, we have thus activated a system and moved units into it.

If another player's ships are in the system, you must now fight them for control of the system.  In Twilight Imperium, two players cannot peacefully occupy the same system - you must fight!

Players resolve space combat by performing the following steps in order:

1). ANTI-FIGHTER BARRAGE: Each player’s units can use their “Anti-Fighter Barrage” abilities, if their units have it (it's a special ability of some ships).

2). ANNOUNCE RETREAT: Either player may choose to announce a retreat. A retreat will not happen immediately; the units will retreat at the end of the combat round.

If a player wishes to retreat with any of his ground forces that are on planets in the active system, he must move them from planets to the space area during this step.

3). MAKE COMBAT ROLLS: Each player rolls one die (10-sided) for each ship he has in the active system. If the result of a unit’s die roll is equal to or greater than that unit’s combat value shown on its faction sheet, that roll produces a hit.

The total number of hits a player produces will be used in the next step.



If a unit’s combat value contains two or more burst icons, the player rolls this number of dice instead, potentially producing one hit with each die rolled.

In the example shown here, this ship gets to roll two dice, and either die hits on a 5 or higher.

4). ASSIGN HITS: Each player must choose and destroy one of his ships for each hit his opponent produced. A player removes destroyed ships from the game board and places them in his reinforcements.

Since players assign hits to their own units, it is a good strategy to assign hits to units that are cheaper to replace.

Because of this, fighters are often used as fodder to protect the rest of a player’s ships.

SUSTAIN DAMAGE

Some units have an ability called "Sustain Damage".  This basically means that it takes two hits to destroy it.  For the first assigned hit, you turn the unit on its side to indicate that it's been hit once.

5). RETREAT: If a player announced a retreat during the first step of the combat round, he retreats. To retreat, the player takes all of his ships from the combat and places them in an adjacent system.

The chosen system cannot contain ships that belong to another player and must contain either
a planet he controls or at least one of his units; otherwise, the player cannot retreat.

If the chosen system does not contain one of that player’s command tokens, the player must place one token from his reinforcements in that system when he retreats.

End of Space Combat

If both players have units remaining in the system at the end of the “Retreat” step, they resolve another round of combat starting with the “Announce Retreat” step. After all units on one or both
sides of the combat have been destroyed or have retreated, play proceeds to the INVASION step.

INVASION

OK, you've just wiped out your enemy's ships.  Time to take over the planets in the system.

Players resolve an invasion by performing the following steps in order:

1). BOMBARDMENT: If any planets in the active system contain another player’s ground forces, the active player may use the “Bombardment” abilities of any of his units in that system (it's a special ability of some units). This may allow the active player to destroy some of the defender’s units before landing ground forces.

2). COMMIT GROUND FORCES: The active player decides which ground forces he wishes to land on planets. To do so, he takes any of his ground forces that are with his ships in the space area of the active system and places each one on the planet he wishes to invade.

3). SPACE CANNON DEFENSE: If another player has a PDS on any of the planets the active player has committed ground forces to, he may be able to destroy some of those ground forces before they land.

4). GROUND COMBAT: If multiple players have ground forces on the same planet, those players resolve a ground combat. Ground combats on multiple planets are resolved in the order of the active player’s choice.

Players resolve ground combat over a number of rounds that each consist of two steps, following the same rules as the space combat steps of the same name:

1. Make Combat Rolls
2. Assign Hits

After assigning hits, if multiple players have units remaining on the planet, they resolve another round of ground combat starting with the “Make Combat Rolls” step. After all units on one or both sides of the combat have been destroyed, proceed to the next step.

5). ESTABLISH CONTROL: The active player gains control of each invaded planet that still contains at least one of his ground forces. When a player gains control of a planet, he gains its corresponding planet card and places it in his play area exhausted. Then, if the planet contains
structures that belong to another player, those structures are destroyed.

OK, that's enough to digest for today.  We're almost done with the Tactical Action.  Join us next week when we tackle the final step:  PRODUCTION.

Until then!

Chapter 6 - Movement

Last week we talked about the Tactical Action.

The first two parts of a Tactical Action are to activate a system, and then move ships into that system.

Recap:

1. ACTIVATION: The active player must activate a system by

taking a command token from his tactic pool and placing it in

that system.

2. MOVEMENT: The active player may move ships into that

system from any number of other systems. Ships can also

transport ground forces from one system to another.

Today we will focus on these two steps.

1)  ACTIVATE A SYSTEM

Remember the Command Token pools?  The first step in activating a system is to take a command token for your Tactic pool and place it on a system of the map.

Key point:

- You cannot activate a system that already contains one of your command tokens (other players' tokens do not matter).

2)  MOVEMENT

Once you've activated a system, you can then move your units into that system.

- Your units must end movement in the system you activated.

- You can move ships from any number of systems, provided that they have the movement range to travel that distance.  

Example:  The Destroyer I below can move up to 2 spaces:

- Your units cannot pass through systems containing enemy ships (there are corner-case exceptions to this, but this is the general rule)

- Your ships cannot begin movement from a system that contains one of your command tokens

In short:  You cannot activate a system that has one of your command tokens already in it, and you cannot move ships FROM a system that has your command token in it.  This is the most basic tenant of unit movement, but it takes getting used to.

Note:  At the end of each turn (during the Status Phase), all command tokens are removed from the board.

Remember:  Don't exceed your FLEET size limitation.  If you end up with more ships in a system than you have command tokens in your fleet pool, you will have to sacrifice ships to satisfy this limitation.

OK, so you've activated a system, and moved your units there.  Klingons off the starboard bow!  

SPACE CANNON OFFENSE

Technically, this is part of the Movement step, so I'm discussing it here.  One of the units in the game is the "PDS" (Planetary Defense System).  As the final step of movement, any PDS within range of enemy ships gets to fire at them.  We'll get more into this when we discuss combat, next week.

CAPACITY

One final note.  Some ships have capacity.  

This is the ability for this ship to carry other units.  Specifically:

- Infantry (ground units that capture and defend planets)

- Fighters (the small, cannon-fodder units of the game)

We'll discuss capacity in more detail in coming posts, but for now be aware that your ships can transport ground forces and small fighters with their Capacity.

Next week, we'll start to delve into combat!

Chapter 5 - The Action Phase

Recap:

The game cycles through the 4 phases of each turn.  By the end of the turn, if no one has won, a new turn begins.

The phases:

- Strategy Phase

- Action Phase

- Status Phase

- Agenda Phase (once unlocked)

Last week we delved into the Strategy Phase, and what the 8 strategy cards do.

However, most of this game takes place in the Action Phase, so buckle up!

Turn Order

The turn order for the Action Phase is dictated by the number value on your chosen strategy card.

During the Action Phase, you can perform one of the following actions:

- Strategic Action

- Component Action

- Tactical Action

- Pass

Players take turns in order performing one action at a time.  Once all players take one action, the cycle repeats until all players have passed.

The Tactical Action is by far the most involved, so I'm going to tackle that last.

Strategic Action

As described in the prior blog posting, to play a Strategic Action:

- Execute the primary ability of your chosen strategy card.

- Then, clockwise from you, players take turns deciding whether to activate the secondary ability of your played strategy card.  This typically involves spending a command token from your strategy pool of your command sheet, so you want to be judicious when budgeting for which activations you will participate in.

Example:

On Yoshi's turn, he performs a strategic action, and plays the Technology strategy card that he chose during the strategy phase.

First, he executes the primary ability:  Research 1 technology.  BAM!  He simply picks up any 1 tech that he has the pre-req for (more detail on this later).

Then, he can spend 6 resources to research a second technology.

Secondary ability:

Alex is sitting clockwise from Yoshi.  He can then decide to spend 1 token from his strategy pool along with four resources to research a technology.  The choice then passes onward around the table until all players have made their choice.

Once concluded, you turn over your strategy card to signify that it has been spent, and then the action phase progresses to the next player in numerical order (in this case, player "8" value of the strategy card (Imperial), assuming anyone has chosen it).

Component Action

Certain components of the game contain abilities that can be activated as a Component Action of the action phase.  These are primarily:

- Special abilities from your race sheet

- Special abilities from your technologies

- Special abilities from your units

- Action Cards

Action Cards are simply cards that each player gets over the course of the game that allow them to perform special one-time effects.  The card will explain when it can be used, and if the card contains the word "Action:" on it, you use it during a Component Action of the action phase.

Pass

Once you pass, you're done with the action phase until all other players have passed.

Note:  

- You can still execute secondary abilities of other players' strategic actions.

- You cannot pass until you've performed your strategic action for the turn (you have to use the card you chose).

Tactical Action

Tactical Actions are the meat and potatoes of Twilight Imperium.

The tactical action is all about activating systems, moving ships around, space and ground combat, and producing units.

The steps are so key to the game that I'm going to actually break them down over the course of the next several blog postings.  So for now, I'll end things with a brief overview of the steps of the Tactical Action, and then we'll go over things in greater detail later.

Overview of the Tactical Action

1. ACTIVATION: The active player must activate a system by

taking a command token from his tactic pool and placing it in

that system.

2. MOVEMENT: The active player may move ships into a

system from any number of other systems. Ships can also

transport ground forces from one system to another.

3. SPACE COMBAT: If multiple players have ships in the active

system, they resolve a space combat.

4. INVASION: The active player may commit ground forces

to land on planets in the active system. If another player

has units on those planets, the players resolve a ground

combat.

5. PRODUCTION: If the active player has a space dock in the

active system, he can produce units by spending resources.