When you take a look at miniatures games, it seems like most of them focus on facing aliens or some other faction on a map battling it out for superiority. Few games focus on the inner workings of the crew and working together. Battlestations does both, but it’s been difficult to find a copy. However, the second edition is now available on Kickstarter.
Billed as the “Tabletop Starship Simulator,” Battlestations is the long-awaited second edition of the classic board game/RPG hybrid where players collaborate to accomplish a variety of missions like fighting space pirates, smuggling, and piloting through asteroid fields.
Designer Jeff Siadek (Lifeboat, Desert Island) and Producer Joey Vigour (Chaosmos) have worked for over a year on the project, and the Battlestations universe and mechanics have been growing since the year 2000.
Battlestations is a multi-map board game that simultaneously features ship-action in space AND the events on board the ships involved in the conflicts. Several video games like FTL have emulated this concept, but Battlestations is still the true original, and still the only board game that puts you on board a starship with ongoing adventures for your characters learn from and grow.
The game rules are very simple but they allow for complex RPG-like imaginative choices like teleporting to an enemy ship, hacking their helm controls and steering their ship towards a black hole before ejecting yourself out the air lock.
Sixteen years and 10 supplement books later, the new edition has finally debuted on Kickstarter with miniatures and all-new art. It fully funded in just over a day and the team has promised great stretch goals like guest missions by Richard Garfield and other famous designers.
I’m surprised that this is coming back, but very happy it is. The new version looks great with some impressive figures. It has reached several stretch goals, so backing it is a no-risk proposition. If you like multi-layered gaming, then be sure to check this out. Don’t delay though, as there isn’t much time remaining.
While not working as a Database Administrator, Keith Schleicher has been associated with Gaming Trend since 2003. While his love of video games started with the Telestar Alpha (a pong console with four different games), he trule started playing video games when he received the ill-fated TI-99/4A. While the Speech Synthesizer seemed to be the height of gaming, eventually a 286 AT computer running at 8/12 Hz and a CGA monitor would be his outlet for a while. Eventually he’d graduate to 386, 486, Pentium, and Athlon systems, building some of those systems while doing some hardware reviews and attending Comdex. With the release of the Dreamcast that started his conversion to the console world. Since then he has acquired an NES, SNES, PS2, PS3, PSP, GBA-SP, DS, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One S, Gamecube, Wii, Switch, and Oculus Quest 2. While not playing video games he enjoys bowling, reading, playing board games, listening to music, and watching movies and TV. He originally hails from Wisconsin but is now living in Michigan with his wife and sons.
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