This week’s Monday Night Gaming is on the Firefly Board Game!

We love this game, and not just because we’re huge Firefly and Joss Whedon fans. This game allows us to play around in the ‘verse and be “bad guys” or be shiny, depending on which way we want to play it.

The base game consists of captains and ships doing jobs, while trying to avoid Reavers and possibly the Alliance (depending on which way you’re playing).

There are three major expansions now: Breakin’ Atmo, Pirates & Bounty Hunters, and Blue Sun. We’ve played with Breakin’ Atmo and Pirates & Bounty Hunters, but we haven’t had the chance to play Blue Sun yet. I should also note that in the picture to the left, we added in the talking dinosaur. The game doesn’t come with that (though you can get them here).

The Breakin’ Atmo expansion adds 50 new cards to the game (25 job cards and 25 supply cards). It’s a fairly small expansion, but does add to some deficiencies in the cards. Pirates & Bounty Hunters is a NICE expansion that changes some of the game mechanics itself. Because you can go all space pirate and really focus on the “not-so-nice” (aka illegal) jobs, it changes the feel of the game a bit. Also, you can play bounty hunter against the other players taking those illegal jobs. This really pits players against one another. The Blue Sun expansion actually adds to the board itself.

Blue Sun actually expands the board itself (adds a 10″x20″ map extension) with new systems and The Rim. It also adds: a new Dav Deck, new job contacts, new story cards, new leaders, two additional Reaver Cutters, and more. It’s a pretty sizable expansion and one I can’t wait to try out!

WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT THIS GAME:

• It’s Firefly.
• It’s fairly complex in its strategy.
• It works well in 2 player mode, or with 3-4 players as well.
• While it’s heavy on the rules, once you’ve got ’em, you’ve got ’em. Pretty easy to recall.

GAME WEAKNESSES:

• If you manage to pick up the promo expansion ship, the Artful Dodger, the game gets a little broken for the player who uses it, especially if the other players are using any of the ships that came with the  Pirates & Bounty Hunters expansion. Those ships have very few slots, whereas the Artful Dodger has an abundance of slots and a faster drive core.
• The board is HUGE. I cannot stress enough how huge this board game is in real estate–and that was before the Blue Sun expansion came out. Sitting at a huge gaming booth at Cafe Mox, we still took up the entire table’s space.

Happy Gaming!