D-5 - You Dropped My Battleship's Shields!

Yes really, Hasbro!

I've been looking forward to a new board game from Hasbro for some time now.  Growing up I played games with great components such as Chopper Strike and Carrier Strike.  The idea of a new space combat game from the designer of Heroscape along with the pictures of the ships made Battleship Galaxies a must buy for me.

So picked it up on Saturday and drooled all over it, then posted a bunch of pictures on the D6G feed:

 http://twitpic.com/tag/battleshipgalaxies

Then my wife and I played Sunday night... what a fun game.    Here are my quick thoughts...

Battleship Galaxies Pro's

• Great Models
• All components well done
• Comic book is actually worth reading
• Easy to teach
• Energy system keeps game balance, reminiscent of Monsterpocalypse (m-poc) power dice 
•  You get 10 energy per turn
• It costs energy to bring ships onto the table (like M-poc)
• It costs energy to activate a ship
• It costs energy to use a tactics card (varies by card)
• Some super weapons require additional energy to use
• A lot of fleet building options from different ship variants and weapon assignments.
• Slick missions including 3 and 4 player variants
• Tactics cards add great depth
• Handle all kinds of complex situations: Boarding actions, sabotage, etc.
• Allow attaching extra weapons/heroes/systems to ships
• In addition to picking ships for a mission you also build your tactics deck, balance preserved because awesome abilities cost more energy
• Nukes are insane... just say'n
• Terrain is more than terrain
• two types of terrain: Obstacles and Discoveries
• Obstacles are what you'd expect: Astroids, wreckage, etc.  Can use as cover.
• Discoveries start face down, and flip when a ship is on them.
• Holding discovery locations give you in game bonuses: +2 energy per turn, increased range, etc.  (Again, reminds me of M-poc)

Con's

• No firing arcs
• Facing doesn't matter
• Ship size is relative but scale is abstracted
• While comic fluff is great, the names of both forces are un-inspired.