Boardgame Battlestations game 01 - Starter Mission 1 - Rebellion

Introduction

Back in February 2016, I backed the Battlestations 2ndedition boardgame Kickstarter.  It arrived last month (August 2017).  Battlestations is one of those minis/boardgame skirmish hybrids that are increasingly popular.  I had never heard of the first edition, but the 2^nd edition looked like it would be good to play with my children as they enjoy WarHammer Quest.  Battlestations is about the crew of a spaceship and there are lots of missions to undertake on a square based map of the ships and spaceports.  An interesting feature is that you also move the spaceships of a map so you can have space battles as well.  I have not acquired too many boardgames over the last few years; but the ones I have done I seem not to have got around to playing.  So this time I thought I would try and play six games of Battlestations, with or without my children as part of the 6x6 challenge.  The game comes with Quick Start rules that have 8 missions that introduce new rules with each mission.  That is what I hope to play.  The full game has over 40 missions in a very large rulebook.

On the weekend, I broke out the box and played a game with my 10 year old daughter.  It took about 60 minutes.  She had fun and happy to play again.  So hopefully a few more games by the end of the year.  My 9 year old son was busy but may join in some games.

We play most of our games on the floor, a hangover from playing games with them since they were born.  We find it weird to play games on the table so we don’t!

Note that the miniatures are unpainted.

Starter Mission 01 - Rebellion

The ship is docked at a spacestation and a human gang is attempting to take over your ship.  We need to stop them taking over the ship, undock and escape the area as the spacestation (get 13 hexes away) will try and blast us out of existence.

The 4 enemy humans start at various places in the ship.  We start in the cargo bay next to the ship.  4 spacestation robots start on the far side of the station and will move to attack us if able, else they will go to the spacestation cannon to fire at us.

Our crew and the human crew are made up of four roles – Marine (red base), Scientist (green base), Engineer (blue base), Pilot (yellow base).  We played co-op with us roleplaying one crew member each, moving the other two as we wanted, and I moved the enemy based on what I thought they should do.

Game start (actually after our crew had moved in the first turn)

Game
The Scientist (played by my daughter) moved as fast as she can- she wants to take down the enemy scientist in the science bay.  Our Marine moves and melees with the Enemy Pilot renders him unconscious.  This is good as it means that the enemy cannot pilot the ship away.

Our Marine (red base) knocks down the enemy Pilot (yellow base).  Our Scientist at the right rushing on.

Out own Pilot moved to Helm (actually in the next turn as we, OK me, the Engineer) accidentally blocked up the corridors)

The Scientist continues to rush down the ship (she can move quite fast) to face the enemy Scientist.
Our Marine jetpacks to the enemy marine (jetpacks are cool - you get to move a long way.   Our Marine manages to inflict 5 hits points, not enough to knock him out.  The Enemy Marine fired back with a disintegrator, Our Marine does not manage to dodge it and is vaporised.

Towards to top of the Ship, Our Marine tackles the Enemy Marine.  He did not do enough damage to knock him out, and so the Enemy Marine retaliated with a disintegrator and Our Marine is vapourised.

The Enemy Engineer desperately tries to shut down the engines so we have no power to fly the ship  but failed (this was one of those great rolls by my daughter: she said "what do I need to roll?", and  I replayed "A two or a three is good for us." She rolled a 3 and the Enemy Engineer failed the test).
Our Pilot starts up the ship navigation and undocks from the spacestation.

The ship is undocked! (I used a painted firestorm Armada ship I had on hand)

The Enemy Scientist have moved to try and intercept us but Our Scientist (my daughter) got to the Science Bay and attacked in close combat first, landing some great moves with her vibroblade and knocks the enemy out (she actually rolled very bad and did some rerolls to get a good high damage score)

Our Scientist managed to use her vibroblade to good effect on the Enemy Scientist.

I, as Our Engineer, moves up to the Enemy Marine and finishes him off.

Our Engineer knocks out the Enemy Marine.

The ship moved 1, managed to increase speed to 2 until the Enemy Engineer successfully stops the engines producing more thrust (reduces power output to 0).  The ship will continue to move at current speed (2 hex per tun) but cannot accelerate.
The ship is 3 hexes away from the Spacestation. The Enemy Marine Bot is at the Spacestation cannon and fires at the ships and misses (with a 3! - my daughter rolling great, for our side).

Enemy Bot at the spacestation cannon, and it managed to hit us!

Our ship is Now 5 hexes away from the Spacestation.  Our Scientist, my daughter, moves to Enemy Engineer and knocks him out.
The Enemy cannon fires at ship and hits!  The ship damage system is very interesting and does not take long, I like it. Two damage is inflicted on the engine room with Our Scientist and Our Scientist takes 5 hit points.  The engine room escapes any severe damage.  I, as Our Engineer, am rushing down the the engine room to give some power to the Helm.

Enemy Engineer is down, thanks to my daughter as Our Scientist (green base).  Our Engineer has arrived but still needs to get to a blue star to increase power.  The damage maker is just to show the engine room is hit, it actually does not have any damage. 

Ship is 7 hexes away; the enemy canon fires and misses (it gets harder the further away we are).  Next turn is is 9 away and I (Our Engineer) an in the Engine room and increase the power output of the engines to 1. Our Pilot fails to increase the speed of the ship :-(
Not that is matters to mush as at the beginning of the next turn we are 11 away from the spacestation

Our ship is 11 hexes away and has been moving as fast as it can to the other side - nearly at the 13 hexes required to escape!

The enemy cannon still manages to miss hitting our ship and we get to 13 hexes away and success!

An overview of the spacestation and ship at the end of the game.

A great introductory scenario.  Need to get the Pilot out of the way really fast, and if the enemy engineer had got the power output to zero in the first turn it would have got very ugly.  We did lose Our Marine with the first shot fired by the enemy.

Verdict
My daughter picked here card based on the picture and so chose a Scientist Cheetah.  I picked an Engineer for myself and them just Randomly selected a Marine and a Pilot.  I had read the rules a few weeks ago and the only thing I really had trouble with was the symbols on the cards – there are quite a few and remembering which one was which was hard but by the end of the game I was fine with them.  Another thing is the rerolls – each character gets a certain number of rerolls, commonly around 6.  I am not a huge fan of them – I don’t mind them but it is just one more thing to track.  The only person that I did rerolls for was my daughter.  Otherwise nobody, even me, didn’t.  I may play that only the crew played by actual people rerolls.  

My daughter roiled nearly all the dice and all she wanted to know was if she needed to roll high (for us) or low (when the enemy wanted to do something).  She rolled some good dice during the game!  

The game is a RPG on a minis board with the game controlled by square movement on some really nice boards that you lay down to create the game. Not a nedw concept for us and have played a few games like this before. The characters has about 10 characteristics all up (strength, combat, movement, health, pilot, science, engineering etc).  It does not take a long time and that I really do like.  I like it enough to play the game again, as does my daughter.  So hopefully a least five more games by the end of the year.