OUR REVIEW

FEDERATION VS. KLINGONS

STAR TREK EXPEDITIONS

COOPERATION AMONG THE STAS

To boldly go where no Reiner has gone before! Master craftsman Knizia has come up once again with a cooperative game. No, as you can easily see from the title, he did not warm up ”The Lord of the Rings” again, but has entered a completely new universe where – at least to my knowledge – he has not been before. There were plenty of games featuring the Star Trek license in previous years, but, if I may say so, something really nice for experiences players was not among them. This has now changed for good with Star Trek Expeditions. And by the way, for this game one did not choose the actors from the Classic Enterprise Series (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy etc.) or other familiar faces from the other Star Trek series to illustrate the cards and model the pieces, but the actors from the last film, from 2009, directed by J.J. Abrams.

The Enterprise is in steady orbit around the planet Nibia – the planetary government would like Nibia to become a member of the Federation of Planets; at least that was the status, but at the start of negotiations everything has changes. Suddenly Klingons are mentioned, Nibia is ravaged by civil war and the ecology is not in too good shape, either. Furthermore, as we learn from Spock, there was another space ship in orbit recently and the worst is yet to come, a Klingon Fleet is approaching Nibia. Time is running out …

This state of affairs constitutes the three primary tasks of the Enterprise Crew (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura – they are all represented in the game by painted Clix Figurines). The planet Nibia must become a member of the Federation, civil war must end and the ecology must be put back on its feet. Points are awarded for each completed part of the mission, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the result of the mission. Aim of the game is to complete all three tasks with as many points as possible and to improve this score in further games. Should the status of one single part mission fall to Zero (which could happen due to the Enterprise retreating to negative score spots in Orbit) or should the Enterprise be destroyed or the Klingon Fleet arrive before the three missions are completed then players have failed.

The three primary goals are always the same, but can take a different course depending on the success of the missions, sometimes with a better, high-score result or one with fewer points, therefore the subsequent missions in each game vary.

The planetary surface is equipped with 15 mission/task cards – backside up, including 3 location cards for the three main goals. There are 16 cards of the “normal” variety, and in a single game only six of them are randomly chosen and used, which provides enough change and variety in the individual games. Those cards are then equipped with Discovery Tokens, which all are very useful and, in some cases, essential, sometimes even essential for survival.  Some tokens improve weaponry or shields of the Enterprise, either permanently by a little bit or quite a lot once, for instance in order to inflict a phase hit on the steadily approaching Klingon cruiser, because the Enterprise comes second to the Klingon Cruiser in all characteristics (shields, weaponry). Both these ships are featured as beautiful Clix miniatures in the game.

Each player takes one of the four Clix figures including the corresponding character card, which features the special abilities, which might be diplomacy or analysis, engineering, medical knowledge, etc., and also a special action for an extra move for the character; so can McCoy heal other characters that are on the same spot; Uhura, for instance, can transfer cards that she has just drawn, to other players. To time those special actions for maximum results is, among other things, the key to success. The special abilities of each character, too, determine for which task which character is best suited. It is important to undertake very difficult tasks, for instance the primary goal missions, only with support of the other relevant characters, located on the same spot – which means you must plan ahead for your moves very carefully. And not to forget the corresponding crew cards which you can acquire with some possibilities for actions. All those challenges demand that you equal or top a target value with the help of the Clix value of your character, a dice roll with a special six-sided die, the character’s special abilities, relevant crew cards and other boni.

A turn of a player always starts with the drawing of a Stardate card; those cards result – depending on the chosen level of difficulty – in several situations or events, for instance advancing of the Stardate, attack of the Klingon Cruiser in orbit or it might happen that beaming of a character is not working or that you lose 2 clix on your character straight away. The card also determines the number of actions a player can implement in this round. The worse the events from the card are the more actions the player has.

Depending on the location of the character there are several possibilities how you can use those actions. Only on board of the Enterprise you can use sickbay to heal the Clix value (roll of the six-sided die) of your character or start an attack on the Klingon Cruiser (attack Clix value of the Enterprise + die roll) or you can beam down to the planet on a location of your choice. On Nibia only you can pick up a Discovery Token, move one step or beam back to the Enterprise. On both locations you can draw an Energize Card which yields new crew members, several action cards for ship repairs and other possibilities or you can use the special ability of your character or you can hand over a crew member to another player provided both figurines are located on the same spot. The most important aim is of course to meet one of the challenges on the planet and, before that, find the location cards for the three main missions. In order to do so you can use Spock’s special ability to look at a face-down card and replace it face-down. A bit of memo had to happen for Spock the Master Mind, as he shunned the Vulcan Academy and attended Star Fleet Academy. Each action with the exception of beaming can be implemented any number of times in a player’s turn.   

Now I would like to take a closer look at the challenges. You turn up those challenges when you enter a spot on the planet surface. Many of those challenges should be coped with before a certain Stardate, which puts immense pressure on all players; if you need to choose between challenges you should try to meet the one or those which contribute the most points to the respective primary target.

The outcome of a challenge or the Stardate also determines which additional mission cards are used for the primary targets. Some challenges are so difficult, that you either must assemble several characters on the respective spot – each additional character adds +2 to the target value – or you must have a lot of useful crew members or action cards at hand that you can use or be extraordinarily lucky when rolling the die. A player can also intentionally fail to cope with a challenge successfully in order to try to meet the challenge again immediately or later in order to achieve a higher target value, but this incurs a penalty Clix which in turn can lower his values and he might make healing by Bones or on the ship necessary.

Only over the course of several games players will fully understand how the mechanisms work that were so perfectly created by Reiner Knizia to interact with each other. If you upgrade the level of difficulty accordingly by demanding implementation of all three events on a given Stardate card instead of one or two if can get really difficult to avoid destruction of the Enterprise or the Arrival of the Klingon Fleet before you have accomplished all three missions. Sometimes it can get very, very tight. In two of my games the last primary mission was accomplished on the last possible day, immediately before the arrival of the Klingon Fleet, in another game only one more shot would have been necessary to destroy the Enterprise.

There is one drawback to this game that is a drawback common to all other cooperative games (albeit those without a traitor, mind you!), and that is one player promoting himself to game master and tells the other players what to do or tries to influence other players’ actions massively. Especially Star Trek Expeditions is easy prey for such a player as you cannot show the cards you hold but may talk about them.

Notwithstanding I can recommend Star Trek Expeditions without any reservations to each Star Trek Fan and especially to all fans of the genre of cooperative board games. At this Stardate or point in time (01/2012) the game is only available with cards and tiles featuring text in English, but with German and English rules. And of course I must tell you that soon (in 2012) there will be published an expansion with three additional Bridge Officers from the Enterprise – Scotty, Chekov and Sulu – including new special abilities. Then you will also be able to play with five players. I myself do especially look forward to diverse other expansions, because, after all, the Romulans want to play their part, too.

Gert Stöckl

Players: 1-4

Age: 14+

Time: 60+

Designer: Reiner Knizia

Artist: Chris Raimo, Ed Repka

Price: ca. 45 Euro

Publisher: Wizkids 2011

Web: www.wizkids.com

Genre: Cooperative space adventure game

Users: With friends

Special: 1 player

Version: en

Rules: de en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Components only in English

Adjustable level of difficulty

Planning and cooperation are essential

Topic and mechanisms go well together

Compares to:

Shadows of Camelot , Battlestar Galactica (without traitor)

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Gert Stöckl:

Again, a fascinating cooperative game by Reiner Knizia, successfully targeting experienced players who can adjust the level of challenges they want to meet.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 3

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0