Battlestations: 2nd Edition! Tabletop Starship Simulator – Kickstarter

Battlestations: 2nd Edition kickstarter will be closing March 3rd (tomorrow), and is currently 394% funded at $165k. Battlestations first came out 16 years ago, and has a following of avid players. You can read reviews of the first Battlestations here: Boardgame Geek – Battlestations.  The Battlestations 1st edition game comes in strong with a 7.18/10 rating at Boardgame Geek.

The game is a mix between a strategic space combat, and one-on-one action with crew members that can level-up. It is a SciFi board game that has many elements of classic role-playing games with goal driven scenario for the players to complete. You can have 2 to 5 players, where one player takes on the role of the Enemy, and the other players take on the role of a member of a spaceship crew. Jeff Siadek has a video that you can watch to see how the game is played, which I’ve included a link at the end of this article.

There is a hefty buy-in at $90 for the full game and detailed miniatures, but then there are a lot of stretch goals that have already been unlocked that increase the value of that investment. If Battlestations sounds interesting to you then here are some more details:

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: Faster than Light 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.

A great review video by Undead Viking Videos:

Kickstarter Page & Quickstart Rules

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gorillagames/battlestations-second-edition-classic-board-game

Quick Start Rules: http://www.mirrorboxgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Battlestations-Second-Edition-QuickStart-Rules_draft2.pdf

KickTraq Live Tracking

Watch the Video from Gorilla Games and an introduction to Battlestations below:

Read more about Gorilla Games here: http://gorillaboardgames.com