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Battlestar Galactica: Starship Battles discussion thread

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04 Dec 2018 09:40 - 04 Dec 2018 09:41 #287412 by Sagrilarus
I just wanted to crack open a spot to talk about this game. It's due to ship on December 10th, and I know there has been one brief review in the What Games Have You Been Playing thread, and with luck we'll have a few more sets of eyes on the games here in the coming couple of weeks.
Last edit: 04 Dec 2018 09:41 by Sagrilarus.
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04 Dec 2018 09:44 #287414 by Sagrilarus
Prior writing from Charlie Theel:

I also have played two games of Battlestar Galactica: Starship Battles Ares Games' new BSG Wings of War game. This was so good that it got me to start re-watching BSG from the beginning.

It's a pretty interesting take, especially from Ares. It's still that same general style of game where you're picking a maneuver ahead of time and then placing a card as a template to complete your maneuver. Much of it is simultaneous and it doesn't have the upgrade/list building weight that drags X-Wing down in casual play.

I was surprised to see them include a dice mechanic to shoot. You hit pretty often (6+ on two D6), but it adds another layer of slight uncertainty to the chit pull, which is very similar to Wings of Glory.

The big draw here, besides the most detailed and well painted prepainted models I've seen (seriously, better than X-Wing 2.0 stuff), is the inertia movement system. This is totally fucking rad.

You can turn the nose of your ship and keep drifting along your previous vector. This means you can fly by a cluster at high speed and do a drive-by while still on the float. You can also do incredible maneuvers such as completely flipping around with a 180 and shooting at the Cylon Raider on your 6. It's interesting, not terribly complex, and adds a whole tactical layer to maneuvering.

The end result is a more cerebral and cinematic experience than X-Wing/Wings of War. It perfectly mimics the television series and the feel is spot on. The best part about these types of games is maneuvering, and this greatly enhances the nuance there. I'm just running with a starter at the moment, but I'm definitely keeping it and looking to get more ships.

Just like WoG, the starter set feels a bit more complete since it includes a larger swathe of optional rules and advanced options than X-Wing, and the game also feels fully realized when you control a single ship. X-Wing never quite feels as good if you're just piloting one ship and it's assumed you typically run your entire side, my experience with WoG has not been this way, mostly because there's more cards and stuff to handle turn to turn and the overhead of multiple ships gets a little crazy.

The one iffy thing is the non-ship components. You program your maneuver with a deck (similar to WoG), but you also use this plastic control panel thing to set your rotation, speed, and track your inertia. It's kind of neat as it feels a bit like the controls on a cockpit, but the sliders are difficult to move and it can be a little frustrating.

Also, the paper asteroids are incredibly thin. I partially suspect this may be on purpose since ships overlap them, but I still would have preferred they go with X-Wing's style and just had the ship slightly tipped when overlapping.

Oh, and if you hate the hexagonal/cut corner look of paper/cards in the show, stay away. Everything here has that, including the cards.

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04 Dec 2018 10:37 #287418 by stoic
As a BSG fan, both since the original series and the better reboot, which I've rewatched several times, I'm so tempted to get this.


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04 Dec 2018 10:42 #287419 by ChristopherMD
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04 Dec 2018 13:04 #287440 by jpat
Starship Battles could be the second coming, but I'm out-out-out. I have a crapton of X-wing that I'd love to unload cheap locally. I have a bunch of early Armada stuff that I'm not getting rid of but don't (get to) play. I have the Sails of Glory starter and a couple extra ships, and have played that once. I have a full first wave of the first Wings of War (as then known) miniatures--which are beautiful--but don't use.
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04 Dec 2018 13:32 #287443 by edulis
It looks interesting. But I am with Jpat, it would have to be something special to draw me away from my heavy investment into x-wing.


I'd like to see a Robotech wings of war game, where models can transform and gain different actions / maneuvers in different configurations.
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04 Dec 2018 13:49 #287444 by Sagrilarus
I'm getting the starter set, which will cover 2v2. That may be it for me, but we'll see once I've had it on the table.

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04 Dec 2018 14:28 #287447 by edulis
What other ships are there in the BSG universe? Just Raptors right? Where there other Cylon ships?

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04 Dec 2018 14:35 #287448 by charlest
They'll likely do special ships. There was a stealth ship used in an episode or two, also probably see stuff like Scar.
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04 Dec 2018 15:13 #287452 by stoic

ChristopherMD wrote: Is it a toaster?


It's a frack'n toaster....

No, seriously, this was a joke that got me in trouble with the wife. My wife didn't like me replacing our Christmas Tree's normal Star with a Cylon's head--apparently, it doesn't make for a festive tree topper. I think that I should have used an old BSG Lucifer's head since he's much more more festive, but, I don't have a BSG DVD box lid with him on it so I had to go with the toaster. ;-)


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06 Dec 2018 12:39 - 06 Dec 2018 17:21 #287608 by southernman
Yeah, me too, I have a bunch of WoW minis that never get played, a reasonable amount of X-Wing stuff that hardly ever gets played on top of my large collection of board games that I really love - so a massive BSG reboot fan but won't be getting into this (unless I win a lottery and a lot more gamers arrive in my area).
Last edit: 06 Dec 2018 17:21 by southernman.

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06 Dec 2018 13:00 #287612 by Gary Sax
I think it's rough because this could be the best version of the underlying system but few people will play it because they're invested in one of the other sub branches.
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06 Dec 2018 13:07 #287613 by charlest

Gary Sax wrote: I think it's rough because this could be the best version of the underlying system but few people will play it because they're invested in one of the other sub branches.


I think this is exactly it. I just discussed this on my podcast and I mentioned that these games are focused at their core around maneuvering and that BSG Starship Battles has a compelling focus on that aspect of the game.

One thing this game has in its favor is that it won't be a sprawling system with tons of expansions. I think going in for just the starter will be completely fine and you will get a full experience, unlike just picking up an X-Wing starter.
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20 Dec 2018 08:52 #288515 by charlest
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20 Dec 2018 11:27 #288533 by southernman
Just spotted it in the UK - best price online is £44 !!! Good luck Ares getting a foothold over here without a massive price drop.

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