“Core Space First Born” is a stand-alone Sci-Fi Miniature game developed and published in 2021 by Battle-Systems, a company very well know for their amazing Fantasy and Sci-FI 3D-scenery. While the game is set in the same universe of the original “Core Space” boardgame, First Born brings the players to the far reaches of the Perseus arm of the Milky Way where they can explore the ruins of a very ancient civilization, scavenging for unknown and valuable artefacts. As you may have imagined already, this lost civilization is known as the “First Born” but they are far from being extinct.
In fact, the First Borns were once the only race that inhabited our galaxy many millennia ago and they decided to put themselves into a state of suspended animation once they realized they were alone in the Universe. Millions of year after this decision, the Galaxy is now busy with many different races and it was just a matter of time before the Traders discovered the seemingly abandoned temples of the First Borns and the riches that lied within it. Unfortunately, the First Borns awakened once more when the first Traders invaded their temples and they don’t seem inclined to welcome nicely the thieving Traders. As a result, Traders have to grab as much valuable items as possible and flee before the First Borns detect their presence and take their lives.
In “Core Space First Born” players take the role of a Traders crew (or more crews) exploring a First Born temple. The game can be played cooperatively with each player controlling one or more Traders belonging to a single crew or competitively if each player controls a different crew. The rulebook includes 10+1 different missions that can be played separately as stand alone adventure. Alternatively, they can be linked to create a thematic campaign where your crew can improve by buying new equipments and developing new skills after each mission unless of course they lose their lives at the hand of the First Borns.
Would you and your crew be able to survive this adventure and discover what lies in the dark depth of the temple of the First Borns? I had a lot of fun playing the campaign with my wife and my son recently and I wanted to share a few thoughts on this game which might be of helps in case you are trying to decide if this game is for you. Before we start, I wanted to mention that Battle-Systems provided me a copy of the game to enjoy, although any opinion and information shared in this content are an honest reflection of my experience with this game.
What do we have here? Game Contents
Opening the box of a new boardgame is always an amazing experience, in particular when they are packed with nice components. Opening the Starter set of Core Space First Born left me in awe considering how many amazing components are included in this starter set. First, you have a nice little box with 18 miniatures including 4 different traders (Players characters), 2 Game Hunters (sort of NPCs), and 12 different First Born characters. All miniatures are stored in a plastic insert within the box that also provides a few spaces to hold tokens and other game components.
The compartments and the different inserts provided are quite handy considering the game includes nearly 300 different tokens. All tokens are made of high quality cardboard and they come in very different sizes, ranging from the equipment ones that are quite small to the larger player boards. These last ones are also laminated to allow writing on them with a dry erase marker to trace Character ability and progression. The set also includes various tokens and markers used to trace a variety of events and aspects related to the different missions. To help store and handle some of these tokens, the box includes also a bag and some Plastic dashboard to mount Character boards.
If you played Core Space before, you know these dashboard are amazingly well designed and pretty handy. Not only they have different slots for the character and the career tiles but they also have a peg board at the bottom to trace the current Character stats. There is even a slot for the inventory that can only hold enough item tokens as they physically can fit. For example, a Rifle takes twice the space of a gun and a gun is twice as large as a healing item. At first glance, I felt some token may feel a bit small but when you realize they are designed to easily manage your inventory, it all fits together nicely and the system makes a lot of sense. Most important, there are so many items in this game that the size of the tokens just makes sense.
Last but not least, the First Born box comes with an amazing amount of 3D cardboard terrain including a 600 x 600 mm neoprene playing mat to be used to setup all your mission. Battle Systems is very well known for their gorgeous terrain that can be used to play many different games and RPGs using 28-35mm scale miniatures. The terrain is fully modular, and made from high-density cardboard components that can be assembled quickly almost without using any glue. In addition to be visually stunning, some terrain elements are also interactive including a few “searchable” ones (a lid of the terrain elements can be removed to reveal some loot), a Command Console that can be activated by adding control key the size of item tokens, a Stasis Pod that opens up to review the True Born character, and some exhaust vents and a Dyson reactor that can be altered to match their current operating status.
Overall, I think the terrain is amazingly well designed and easy to assemble. I like that all the components are also printed in full colour on both sides and that there is a references of which elements they belong to printed on the boards. Assembling all terrain pieces is a super enjoyable experience, thanks also to the very detailed videos provided on Battle-Systems website. The only aspect to consider is that it may take a while to build everything before your first game. If you are eager to get started, you can consider building only the pieces you need for your introductory mission to save some time but make sure you build everything before you start doing the standard missions.
The fun just started! Gameplay
Core Space: First Born is a great game in terms of components thus it does not surprise that also the rulebook is quite large with more than 100 pages beautifully illustrated. Considering how much is going on in this game, I’ll just provide a high-level overview of the gameplay but I will be looking to add a dedicated “How to play” content soon to the Blog. On this note, I would like to note that the overview below refers to the full game while the Starter Set includes a “Learn to Play booklet” with an introductory mission that new players should always play first to learn the basic rules of the game.
The most important part to understand of First born is summarized in the Trader philosophy: “We run in, we grab as much loot as we can, then we run out”. In other words, First Born is a game where Traders will win by surviving to come back another time. Gaining loot to sell and experience after each mission is key to this as it makes easier for the Traders to survive one game after the other. Adding new crew member to your starting party of 3 Traders and buying better equipment is also very important together with maintaining and improving your Space Ship to prevent it to fall apart just when you need it to quickly escape.
The game does not have a fixed duration and each mission is played in turns until all traders are knocked off or they leave the Catacombs by boarding their ship. Or a combination of both as it is very possible some Traders will not make it out alive… Each turn starts with the “Hostility” phase where the Hostility tracker is updated and a new event is drawn. The hostility tracker is a measure of how the First Borns are aware of the Traders’ presence and it drives how many enemy unit will spawn during the First Born phase. Initially, no-one has spotted the Traders thus it is likely that only a few drones will be patrolling the Temple as routine surveillance. To represent this, the tracker starts with no pegs in most of the missions but pegs are added at the start of each Hostility phase and the first time a Trader shots with their weapons in every turn. This system create a lot of tension as the level of awareness of the enemy builds-up quite fast.
Once the event resolved, the Trader phase happens. Every character can perform two actions choosing among moving by 4 squares, attacking using a ranged or melee weapon, searching/ mining, and performing a special action that includes persuading, interacting with an object, reloading or knocking back an opponent. Each Trader also has an “Effortless action” that allows them to either move by 1 square or use an ability or one of their items without spending any of their two actions. Most of these special actions are detailed in the character skill or on the icons on the item and they can be very valuable to extend the Character turn.
Attacks are driven by die rolls, where the number of dices to roll depends on the weapon used and on the skills of the Trader. The number of hits rolled is reduced by the armour and by the cover of the target before inflicting wounds.
An important part of the Trader turn is to look for valuable loot and equipment in the First Born catacombs. Opening Arks or Stasis pods or just searching the rooms can allow the Traders to obtain very useful items to survive the mission or to sell to improve their chances to survive future quests. However, the space available in the inventory is limited therefore it is important to make clear choices of which items should be kept and which ones should be dropped on the ground. Two Traders can also trade among themselves (no puns intended) at the cost of an action as far as they are in base contact.
Once all Traders have performed their actions, it is time for the First Born to deal with the intruders. This phase begins with the spawning of new enemies and the more pegs are on the hostility tracker, the more First Born units will arrive. A simple AI will determine how each unit will behave once on the field but essentially the First Borns will always try to move towards the closer Character and to attack them aiming to the best result. In addition to their standard damage, a Knowledge dice is added to the first attack performed by any Fist Born unit in each turn other than for the Drones. This dice adds a special effect to the first attack in every round making more difficult for the Trader to plan their turn.
Turn after turn, the First Borns will become more and more deadlier and the Traders will need to time well their exploration if they want to survive and escape to their ship. Once a mission is completed the players can decide if they want to play a different mission using the same crew or using the standard starting crew. In the first case, players can chain the 10 missions provided in the rulebook together in a campaign where they starting crew can improve one mission after the other. Between mission, players will also need to spend their hard-gained money to upkeep their equipment and that’s why looting the temple becomes quite important. The 10-mission campaign provided also include some narrative ans RPG elements with a few nice and interesting twists I do not want to spoil.
I cannot resist and I need more! Final thoughts
I personally loved playing Core Space: First Born Starter set. The game has an amazing table presence and the gameplay contributes in creating a tense and exciting atmosphere. Everything in these abandoned temples is deadly, including the occasional Rock Worm Larva that can bite you while you are searching around. The narrative in the campaign is also quite good and the overall story provides a lot of hours of exciting adventure. In addition, Battle-Systems offers many expansions to add more items, more Traders to boost your crew and, most important, more missions. A few additional ones are also actually available for free on the Battle-Systems website adding a lot of hours of fun even if you have just the Starter set. I must admit I couldn’t resist and I bought the Spaceship expansion right away after playing the first couple of missions as I wanted to start the campaign with the expanded rules for the “Nebula”, the space ship used by our crew of Traders.
Among the strengths of this game we can sure count the amazing terrain (and miniatures) and the high level of customization offered by the equipment and classes available. I already discussed at large how well designed is the terrain provided in the box and I cannot emphasize more how having such high quality 3D terrain helps in creating the right atmosphere for your games. Having piles of tokens and equipments players can buy to specialize their Characters is very important as it creates the right drive for them to fulfil the missions and survive in order to have enough cash to buy the equipments they need. During my first two missions, Wade always ended up being knocked off but this all changed once I managed to buy him some well needed armour. On the other hand, Balcor pretty much did not need any item to protect the rest of the crew with his impressive strength.
In terms of gameplay, I think the hostility tracker is a great mechanic to give the players a sense of escalating danger. I found this system to be well tuned although new players should really be considered that the danger will escalate VERY quickly. In a few mission I found my crew jumping from “we are sneaking around” to “oh my god they are everywhere” in just a couple of turns. Levelling-up your Characters may help a bit but Players will still need all their luck and brain power in order to survive each mission.
Interestingly, I had a feeling that the large amount of equipments and abilities can also be a bit overwhelming when you start playing the game. The rulebook does a very good job in summarizing all the abilities and the effects of each skills and weapons although it may take a bit to learn all of them to avoid opening the rulebook every round. However, once all the rules click in place, you will love having so many artefacts and items to enjoy and having a large variety in abilities is absolutely worth this inconvenience.
Overall, Core Space First Born Starter set is an amazing box that packs tons of value and quality. I cannot wait to complete all the missions of the campaign and to look through the expansions to add more variety to the game. At this moment, I am not sure of which one I would like to add first although I have my eyes on the Utility Dashboard expansion that adds more space to carry items around and new wearable equipment including exoskeletons and automated weapons. And I may also start looking to the original Core Space to allow my Traders to challenge themselves also against the Purge. Who knows….
Overall: 97%
ARTWORK: 5
COMPLEXITY: 4
REPLAYABILITY: 5
PLAYER INTERACTION: 5
COMPONENT QUALITY: 5
YOU MIGHT LIKE
Excellent terrain
Hostility tracker create an increasing tension
Highly expandable
MIGHT NOT LIKE
Setting up Core Space can take some time.
Campaign mode requires time commitment
