The Core Space universe established itself in 2017 as a neat twist on the dungeon-delve miniature-board game hybrid of which we’re so fond. It’s set around 1500 years in the future, where you live by the Trader credo: Salvage – Trade – Adapt – Survive.
THESE ARE THE VOYAGES…
It’s a grubby universe that lives around the seediest edges of sci-fi, with knowing nods to 2000AD’s galactic thrills, the aimin’ to be misbehavin’ of Firefly, the villainous scum of Star Wars’ Outer Rim, the latinum underbelly of Star Trek and the something good, something bad and somewhere in-between of Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s a rich, believable setting, one of humans and aliens just trying to make a score and keep flying…
IF YOU CAN’T DO SOMETHING SMART, DO SOMETHING RIGHT.
This is a big beautiful box of game, with frankly fetishistic levels of cardboard, including all the scenery, scatter terrain, tokens, and cards that you could wish for. The game is designed for both solo or co-op play, although can also be played semi-competitively with the addition of another Crew box (as each player needs a Captain to run the crew in versus mode). However, to get to grips you’re best to play through the intro scenario for Core Space First Born, following the step-by-step guide.
The Core Space universe established itself in 2017 as a neat twist on the dungeon-delve miniature-board game hybrid of which we’re so fond. It’s set around 1500 years in the future, where you live by the Trader credo: Salvage – Trade – Adapt – Survive.
THESE ARE THE VOYAGES…
It’s a grubby universe that lives around the seediest edges of sci-fi, with knowing nods to 2000AD’s galactic thrills, the aimin’ to be misbehavin’ of Firefly, the villainous scum of Star Wars’ Outer Rim, the latinum underbelly of Star Trek and the something good, something bad and somewhere in-between of Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s a rich, believable setting, one of humans and aliens just trying to make a score and keep flying…
IF YOU CAN’T DO SOMETHING SMART, DO SOMETHING RIGHT.
This is a big beautiful box of game, with frankly fetishistic levels of cardboard, including all the scenery, scatter terrain, tokens, and cards that you could wish for. The game is designed for both solo or co-op play, although can also be played semi-competitively with the addition of another Crew box (as each player needs a Captain to run the crew in versus mode). However, to get to grips you’re best to play through the intro scenario for Core Space First Born, following the step-by-step guide.
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF A PLAN…
The guide takes you logically through the system, with references into the rulebook at every step of the way. Also, the rulebook is laid out sensibly so everything’s easy to find – which is a bit of a novelty when a game has this much crunch. In particular, whilst the skill trees are initially baffling, they’re actually fairly easy to get grips with, and allow for massive amounts of character customisation. Want to give a crew member a background as a Marine, with an emphasis on stealth and shooting? No problem. More interested in survival and trading, as a regular Trader Crewman? Easy as swapping over the token on the board.
I am vaguely reminded of the game Mastermind when I see all the pegs, but it’s an easy way to track health, skill points and ammo – yes, every bullet counts and is counted in this game. Managing ammo is key – and so even in the space-future, thrown weapons are a valuable resource, and if they don’t break, can be recovered from unfortunate targets.
GET AWAY FROM HER…
One of the most entertaining, intuitive and frankly terrifying aspects of the game is the Hostility tracker, where the danger increases not only every turn but the first time a shot is fired also (amongst other things), so there’s a giddy tension. The antagonists, the First Born, are an ancient alien race that have gone insane through millennia of isolation: as you raid their long-dead civilisation’s ruins, they awaken from their slumber enraged. But if you can be quiet and stealthy, avoiding their patrol drones and shutting down stasis pods, you can steal priceless alien technology and artefacts – and make the score of a lifetime.
DON’T GET COCKY…
You can actually, if you’re incredibly unlucky, get KO’d in the walkthrough, although the game has an entire system for not only dragging downed crew members to safety but going back to do rescue mission if you’ve had to abandon people. Anyway, amazingly, we survived – even at its most basic, the game feels genuinely threatening and thrilling. The tip you get at the end of the walkthrough is Don’t Be a Hero and this is excellent advice – in the end, this is a game of finding stuff and running away like buggery.
WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER… SHIP
Yes, it is undeniably fiddly in places but it’s a rich setting with enormous amounts of content: as well as the 10-game campaign and all the downtime actions of trading, hiring new crew and tinkering with your ship, there’s plenty of side missions and extra adventures available for download, along with campaign design and generators – and that’s before you even get into purchasing expansions. The first crew expansion for CSFB, In the Line of Fire, also includes a Media Team that can show up as NPCs and generally be a nuisance, trying to film your exploits. Trading Post 5, meanwhile, adds in an entire side-campaign built around a spaceport that you can visit time and again (as well, also, as adding more crew options). The game has a huge array of add-ons, allowing you to tailor the game to your wants and needs, becoming a full narrative experience: build a customised shuttlecraft or buy a better tricked-out ship, do some risky business and run into the Galactic Agents, or even mix and match with the original Core Space (also Zatu Gold rated!) and face off against the terrifying android menace of the Purge (although full disclosure I marginally prefer Core SpaceFirst Born).
For those who don’t know Battle Systems, they were first born out of founder Colin Young’s love of making 3D model terrain for 28mm wargame systems. Fully coloured and printed on thick, wipeable cardboard they complemented leading games in both the sci-fi and fantasy worlds. From there it was but a small step to developing their own games and thus the genesis of the Core Space Universe. First Core Space itself and now (ironically?) First Born.
Terroir and terror
Like a fine wine Battle Systems games are all about the terrain. Throw in a dash of Alienesque like horror and you’ve got everything you need to know about Core Space and First Born. If we consider Ridley Scott’s genre setting masterpiece, Core Space leans heavily on Chris Foss’s artwork of the Nostromo space tug while First Born is more of the H.R.Giger inspired Alien planet. As it should be. The scenery is stunning and the quality is (literally?) out of this world.
For those who don’t know Battle Systems, they were first born out of founder Colin Young’s love of making 3D model terrain for 28mm wargame systems. Fully coloured and printed on thick, wipeable cardboard they complemented leading games in both the sci-fi and fantasy worlds. From there it was but a small step to developing their own games and thus the genesis of the Core Space Universe. First Core Space itself and now (ironically?) First Born.
Terroir and terror
Like a fine wine Battle Systems games are all about the terrain. Throw in a dash of Alienesque like horror and you’ve got everything you need to know about Core Space and First Born. If we consider Ridley Scott’s genre setting masterpiece, Core Space leans heavily on Chris Foss’s artwork of the Nostromo space tug while First Born is more of the H.R.Giger inspired Alien planet. As it should be. The scenery is stunning and the quality is (literally?) out of this world.
The production values are top-notch with heavy duty cardboard, laminated so it can take dry-wipe pens for marking stats on the character dashboards. The 150+ walls, doorways, entrances, arches and terrain pieces all punch out really neatly. This is crucial as when they slot together or are linked with their clips they hold together firmly and don’t fall apart in use. All based on a standard 4” for a wall.
The pre-set scenarios are all well designed so the scenery builds to a good rigid structure which makes building the sets a pleasure. I must mention here that you need to find pleasure in this aspect: like Lego or K’nex, because you will spend time doing it. Colin in an introduction says to allow 15 minutes to set up. Well he is the master but it took me an hour – a very enjoyable hour may I add but more than 15 minutes!
Pillars, goody-holding Pods and Arks, Exhaust Vents, Dyson Reactor, Alien Console and True Born stasis chamber all require some pre-assembly before use. Mostly just push together firmly (very) and there are video guides available to aid you if needed. A spot of glue can be added to items that will remain assembled. Lids for vessels that will hold collectible items are easily on-and-offable and stay in place nicely.
The 18 well-sculpted miniatures are a delight, from the brave Traders and Game Hunters through the dozen First Born up to the terrifying 8cm high Rock Worms. All bar the 5 Drones have individual detailed poses and the Drones themselves are on clear plastic stalks to simulate their hovering. In coloured resin: grey for the Traders, green for First Born and Orange for Neutral NPCs to distinguish them on the battlefield but I will paint them up (eventually!) as their characterisation sets them apart.
If that wasn’t enough, to round it all off, there is a 2ft square luxury neoprene mat. This is not only printed with a fantastic detailed depiction of the alien catacombs but also a really useful 1” gridded square overlay. This means movement is as easy as on a chess board and also enables recto-linear alignment of your terrain.
Tell me a Story
First Born is an immersive solo skirmish adventure game. It is at its best when you invest in the characters and their developing careers; whereas its worst aspect is being in the hands of Lady Luck’s die rolls! Developers who are not operating in a pre-defined SF world: Star Wars; Star Trek: Alien etc. have to build their own and create a comprehensive cosmos for their adventurers to exist in. Colin Young and Wayne Abela have achieved this admirably, starting with Core Space with its various competing Traders and their ships dicing (!) with the perils of the robotic Purge and moving on through the various expansions and add-ons to arrive at First Born.
Yes First Born is a somewhat different system but it shares a lot of its DNA with the original. Indeed a fair amount of the rulebook is cut and paste from Core Space. The differences lie in the new protagonists being a sentient species rather than robots and the game being geared to a Solo Crew. It is also, in my view, harder. Colin and co are keen to stress how the two systems can interact together and new crews and/or equipment can be brought in although the new advanced Alien gear is only available from First Born. As ever they are keen to stress that you can write your own rules or scenarios and play about with the system.
There is a lot of narrative interwoven throughout: Character backgrounds, settings for the scenarios, including the introductory ones, and even the between combat steps of development and trading. You, of course, can tell your own stories of daring dashes to a stasis chamber or close encounters with a writhing giant space worm.
What We Do in the Shadows
Core Space games have a relentless timer in the form of the Hostility Tracker bringing ever increasing numbers of foes. In addition, First Born brings the dreaded purple Knowledge Die. This arrives along with any enemy above the 1st level, semi-sentient drones and introduces all sorts of mischief alongside the first attack of a Liege or above in a round. This makes an already tight game even harder as it upsets your carefully mapped out plans.
In fairness, this counteracts, somewhat, the player’s unnatural ability to see the whole layout of the battle space before opening doors or peering round corners. Whilst there is some randomness to the entry of the creatures all the Pods, Arks and equipment positions are known from the start. I’ve considered changing the set up so these items are placed randomly when a Trader can “see” into a room but doing so takes the joy of meticulously maximising your moves. So, I guess, the old purple people eater is a useful balance.
One footnote: as well as having detailed graphics on its faces the purple die also acts as a D6 with tiny numbers on for random selection. Very hard to read so do yourself a favour and use an ordinary D6. I know you’ve got one!
Tips & Tactics
These are my ideas, use or ignore as you will.
Efficiency is the key. You will always be pushed for time so aim to keep the Hostility Tracker (HT) down as much as possible. First in the Patrol phase keep out of sight of the Drones by creeping around. Once they are alerted the HT will jump forward a number of pegs. Use silent weapons and Close Combat to avoid adding ammunition pegs. The Regulate Skill can be used to take a peg from the HT, use this to avoid crossing a boundary line if possible.
The use of Skill Points (SP) is crucial, try to keep some in hand for emergency situations but don’t forget to use them. You’re not going to get any plaudits for bringing back a full rank of SP. When allocating Skills remember Passive Skills can be used multiple times and don’t use up your scarce SP. Make sure each Trader has at least one Passive Skill. I also lean towards Skills like level 2 Slippery which mean you can avoid or mitigate Attacks of Opportunity and glide past enemies to get to your target destination.
I also like Hack and Grab which gives you a very useful 2 extra Actions for 1 SP. But, hey, make your own choices, that’s the fun of First Born and Core Space. Choosing the right skills and equipment and upgrading as you go along is what it is all about.
So STAS – Salvage/Trade/Adapt/Survive and have fun, Colin would want you to!
“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.
“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….
Core Space First Born – How to setup and play your first game
In Core Space: First Born, players take on the role of Traders exploring ancient temples, belonging to the very first race that inhabited the Galaxy, The First Born. While these aliens are resting in their eternal slumber, the temples are far from being unprotected. Drones and defensive systems will immediately react to any intruders venturing the ancient halls and the Traders will need to think on their feet if they want to survive and avoid to be overwhelmed by the strength to the awakened First Borns.
In this stand-alone version of Core Space, the Traders’ goal is to survive as long as possible, complete some mission objectives and acquire as much loot as possible. The final goal of each mission is essentially to earn enough money to upgrade and develop your crew’s skills in order to be more effective during their next mission. While this aspect is just a nice perk when playing single mission, it becomes critical if players decide to use the campaign system provided.
Core Space First Born – How to setup and play your first game
In Core Space: First Born, players take on the role of Traders exploring ancient temples, belonging to the very first race that inhabited the Galaxy, The First Born. While these aliens are resting in their eternal slumber, the temples are far from being unprotected. Drones and defensive systems will immediately react to any intruders venturing the ancient halls and the Traders will need to think on their feet if they want to survive and avoid to be overwhelmed by the strength to the awakened First Borns.
In this stand-alone version of Core Space, the Traders’ goal is to survive as long as possible, complete some mission objectives and acquire as much loot as possible. The final goal of each mission is essentially to earn enough money to upgrade and develop your crew’s skills in order to be more effective during their next mission. While this aspect is just a nice perk when playing single mission, it becomes critical if players decide to use the campaign system provided.
Disregarding how you want to develop your team, Core Space: First Born starts from your very first mission therefore we would like to keep most of the campaign aspect out from this walk-through. Considering also that Battle systems provided a very handy tutorial scenario with reduced rules, we decided to pick the mission “Who Goes There?” as the best scenario for this content. Let’s board our spaceship to the temple and follow the steps or our intrepid traders as they move their first steps into Core Space: First Born.
A new Mission: preparing your crew and game setup
When I started playing Core Space I found that preparing your crew for your first mission is not an easy task as you have to balance a lot of factors. However, Core Space allows players to tailor their gameplay to fit their team thus it is really difficult to make “bad choices”. In addition, any choice a player makes when creating their Trader crew can be altered during the campaign.
Following the rules provided at page 50 of the Core rulebook, your standard Trader crew should start with 3 Traders and their equipment. Considering Hopper is not available at the beginning of the game, players should just pick Cassie, Wade and Balcor unless they have access to other Characters from any of the expansions. The total value of a standard crew for the chosen mission is 220 credits of which 205 would be taken by the three standard traders leaving just 15 credits to buy some equipment. The rulebook suggests a balanced set of weapons and tools that you should consider for your starting crew but you can pick any you prefer as far as the total value of them does not exceed 15. I personally avoided to pick any weapon for Balcor as he is already quite able in hand to hand combat even without any. I instead picked a cheap mining tool for him to gain some valuable materials by exploring the rooms. I also purchased a gun instead of a rifle for Wade to save more space for valuable loot. As I said, there are plenty of options to choose from but you should also consider that with a bit of luck you will find some decent weapons anyway during your mission.
After choosing your team, it is time to set up the terrains on the board to reflect the mission map at page 67 and to place your ship in the designed player arrival area. While you are setting-up the terrain, make sure you do not peek on the items you placed on the searchable locations as I found that opening them is one of the best part of this game. As mentioned initially, I assume this scenario will be played by a single crew of Traders although nothing stops multiple players to take control of them. This setup therefore covers both the solo game mode as well as the cooperative mode and it is also a good starting point for any multiplayer competitive games as well.
Once all Traders are on the board and the player(s) received their Trader dashboards together with all starting equipment and pegs, the game is ready to start. As you are using ready made Characters, I strongly recommend to carefully read to description of their Skill to make good use of them during your game. Battle Systems created a great set of Skill cards that can be purchased to help all players to improve the use of their Character abilities.
The last two tasks to complete the setup for this first mission are to prepare the event deck and the hostility tracker. In this scenario, the tracker starts at zero thus no pegs are added to it before the game starts, and the event deck includes all the cards listed on the bottom left of page 67.
Game Turn and Player Actions
Every round of Core Space: First Born starts with the Hostility phase. One or two black pegs are always added to the tracker at the beginning of the phase depending if the Trader crew includes less or more than 3 members.
Once the hostility tracker updated one of the players draws an event card, reads and resolves it. Players should consider that some events have different effects depending on which Hostility Level the tracker shows, and that in some cases some or all these effects may not be applicable if there are no valid targets. It is also important to note that you should alternate which player reads the event if you are playing cooperatively as the event deck also includes “Assistance cards” that can be saved to be used later in the game. These cards must be kept by the player that drew them.
Once the Hostility Phase completed, the Traders can perform their actions. Each Trader can perform a maximum of 2 actions per turns including moving, searching/mining, fighting, interacting and using special abilities. Search and mine are among the most important actions for a Trader as they allow them to collect all items from a searchable location or a random item or mineral from any room that has not been searched before. Remember: as a Trader, your aim is to find as many valuable items as you can in these Temples and then run out as fast as you can.
In addition to their two main actions, any Trader can perform one “Effortless action” per turn. The most common effortless action is to move one square to place your Trader in a better position or to throw a weapon with the effortless action icon on it. This type of actions can be performed at any time during their turn, not just at the end.
Once a Trader completes all their actions, the turn passes to the next Player clockwise till all Traders completed their turn.
Once the Trader phase completed, it is finally the turn of the First Born to take action. First, players need to determine if any enemy spawns based on the hostility tracker. In the first slot of the Tracker (“Patrol”) enemies have a chance to spawn only if there is an icon next to the farthest peg in the Tracker but in all subsequent phases they will spawn in waves. In some of these cases, enemy may spawn automatically or only if you roll an icon on the green dice. You should also remember that one Drone should be placed on the map at the very beginning of the game.
Every new enemy arrives at a random spawn point location. Once all enemies have been added to the map, they can immediately take two actions starting with the model with the highest rank. The game provides a very handy AI diagram to decide what actions the First Born models will take but essentially, they will always prioritize attacking the Traders if they are in range or moving towards them. Drone are slightly different as they will scan the area right after spawning and then move to the next patrol point and scan the area again for intruders. While it is not possible to forecast where the enemies will spawn is pretty easy to identify how the drones will move on the map therefore players should pay attention to keep their Traders hidden from the drones as long as possible to avoid the Hostility Tracker to escalate faster. At the same time, players should be aware that the “worm hole” markers on the game mat can quickly spawn terrifying Rock Worms thus it will be wise to keep you Traders as far as possible to those….
Fighting for survival
No matter how silently the Traders will move around, the First Born will find them sooner or later and this will inevitably lead to the need to fight and eliminate as many enemies as possible avoiding to be killed. Traders can either shoot on any model they can see or move closer to attack them in hand to hand combat. In each case, every attack costs an action and the outcome is performed by rolling a number of dice and then summing up the number of “Hit” icons. Cover and armour will then both reduce the number of hits by one to determine how many wounds are inflicted to the target of the attack. As this applies to both the Traders and the enemies, it is important to consider carefully the position of your Trader and your enemy before attacking as some weapons will never be able to deal enough damages to wound a target with armour and cover bonuses.
When attacking or defending, players should also consider the Special abilities of their Characters and this also applies to the First Born models. Specifically, a Knowledge dice should be added to the first attack a First Born makes every turn to boost it with a special effect. This ability does not apply to the Drones and it can be used for two attacks every turn once the Hostility tracker reaches the “Cleanse” phase.
Last but not least, every time a Trader shoots with a weapon, the player should remove a ammunition peg from their Character board. If this was the first time a round was shot in the Trader phase, the gold peg should also be added to the Hostility tracker increasing its level.
Ending the game: how to win
Once the First Born phase is completed a new round starts again from the Hostility Phase and the game continues until the players either escape to their ship or they are all defeated. Some missions will also have specific objectives the Traders need to complete before they can escape while some others will have optional/additional ones that will help increase the reward for the survivors.
It is always important to remind that Traders main objective is to survive, grab the loot, complete objectives for their reward, and escape to the ship as soon as possible. Remembering this credo is important when playing a mission but it becomes critical if you are playing a campaign as every credit you collect after a mission can help your team become stronger to face the next challenge.
Luckily, Core Space: First Born rulebook also includes some good recommendations in order to help new players to strategize. Some of these suggestions should not be taken lightly including the most important one: do not split your team. Sending Traders in different part of the map seems a great idea when the threat of the First Born is minimum but things can suddenly change and your Traders may find themselves isolated and at the mercy of the enemy. I honestly made this mistake a couple of times in my first games and I always end up regretting it. The best way to maximize your team efficacy is to prepare a clear strategy and move your Traders to achieve your goal. At the same time, you should always be ready to escape disregarding if you have or not fulfilled all your goals. Remember the credo, if you survive you can always come back!
Core Space: First Born is a sci-fi miniatures board game in which you control a band of Traders venturing into the ancient First Born temples.The game takes place on the highly- detailed 3D board included in the box. Your Traders must explore the area, fulfil their objectives, salvage what they can and then escape back to their ship, spending their earnings on desperately-needed repairs.The exciting campaign system will track your crew from game to game, developing their skills, upgrading their equipment and immersing you in their story.First Born is based on 2019's cyberpunk bestseller Core Space but is a fully standalone starter set playable by new and existing players alike. It retains the same simple core mechanics and Battle Systems' unique 'real search' system while seamlessly integrating this new and mysterious alien race.
*For a limited time, get a free Patrol Shuttle with a purchase of Core Space: First Born Starter Set. While supplies last.
