Get in your shuttle, or go to the transporter room because it’s time to go. We are going into space, to the final frontier of our civilisation. These are the stories of players in the board game Alien Frontiers. Your mission: discover strange new worlds, seek out special alien technology cards and new colonies, and boldly go to places no one has gone before!
Background
Alien Frontiers by Tony Niemann can, after all this time, be called an evergreen published by Tabletop Tycoon / Starling Games. Alien Frontiers, a kind of dice worker placement game with a sci-fi theme, was originally released back in 2010 and can therefore, in the fast-paced board game publishing world, be called ‘old’. Alien Frontiers contains a number of gameplay elements that were very innovative at the time, but that we have since seen in several games. The game was and is very popular, received a number of expansion sets and reprints, but after a few years of silence, it is available again in a shiny new edition: Alien Frontiers Edition X. A new coat of paint has been applied and the base game is joint by some expansions in the same box to make for a suitable and complete re-release.
Setup
At the start of the game, you choose which modules (expansions) you want to play with. More on that later. Depending on the modules you choose, the game setup may differ. Of course, you can also choose to set up and play just the base game on its own or play with all of the modules at the same time. Regardless of the modules chosen, players are given dice, colonies and other game components in their own colour. In the centre of the table, the game board is set up and the cards used are shuffled and placed in their proper space alongside the board along with the resources (fuel and ore). Players are all given a set of overview cards and a starting player is chosen. Players who have their turn later during the first round do get a starting bonus in the form of fuel and/or ore. Each player also gets an Alien Technology card, which allows players to deploy dynamic ongoing and/or temporary bonuses or special actions. Players are ready to colonise (/conquer) the planet, whose various territories are named after famous sc-fi writers!
Gameplay
Quite simply put, Alien Frontiers is a dice-placement game. Players use their ships (which are the dice) to trigger actions on the game board during their turn just like in a worker placement game. The difference is that dice can naturally represent different values after they are rolled and are therefore somewhat fickle workers that you cannot always use for the same actions. Players start the game with three dice, but can lose these ships during the game or rebuild them by performing certain actions. Players can even capture a ‘neutral’ ship or even (temporarily) capture their opponent’s ships through some actions. More dice means more actions or at least more freedom of choice.
At the start of their turn, players retrieve their ships on the game board back into their hand and throw these dice available to them. The dice rolled may now all be placed on the game board. Besides the territories players can conquer on the game board, the game board also contains several locations with actions. At these actions there is (limited) space to place dice. Some locations have conditions that the placed dice must fulfil (e.g. two dice in the same value, consecutive dice or a specific value). As space is limited, you cannot (re)place dice if your own or an opponent’s dice already occupy (all) the space.
The various actions allow players to collect ore or fuel, but they can also buy extra dice, place colonies on the board or acquire Alien Technology cards. Placing colonies is the most important part of the game, as it is primary method of collecting points. Every time you place a colony of your colour on the planet you receive a coveted pot, but there’s more: if you control a territory (most colonies) you get an ongoing bonus and a (temporary) victory point. If you lose control, you also lose the bonus and the point.
Alien Technology cards have several types of effects and can often be used in several ways. The cards are played face-up and some effects can be used every turn. You can also discard some of these cards for a one-off (stronger) bonus.
Once a player has placed his last colony, the game ends and the player with the most victory points wins. Space rat race to victory?
Expansions/modules
A number of expansions are included in this edition as different modules that provide the necessary game variation. The base game is quite simple and therefore perhaps of limited replayability for some board game fans, but through the expansions you add additional actions and features that definitely add replayability. With Factions, several player-dependent (starting) actions are introduced that give each player a unique action. Other players can make use of these, but for a fee. Agendas literally adds secret objectives, which players can use to earn extra victory points. Outer Belt introduces a new game board with additional territories and actions.
Verdict
Alien Frontiers is a simple dice placement game and a good old one at that. There are now more games available with similar and more complex gameplay, but the game is a good introduction to the dice placement concept, but its distinctive strength lies largely in the Alien Technology cards. These cards allow you to influence your dice rolls, score victory points, influence the game board and its status (control the territories and available spaces in actions) and more. So these Alien Technology cards provide a high degree of dynamism in an otherwise fairly simple dice placement game. These cards, together with action on the board allowing you to steal these cards from other players and the battle for control of territories, also provide a high degree of interaction between players.
The base game is great fun in its own right, but it is notably always an optimisation race to victory which may make replayability less present for advanced players. However, this concern is addressed by the various included expansions/modules that affect the way points are scored and give multiple choices to players.
