Twilight Imperium! Shattered Empire Expansion ... all told ... pretty good.

When I first started playing this game, before the expansion, I thought it was long, cumbersome and slow.  It takes for ever to set the board and the set-up was unbelievably difficult to understand.  But after 3 games ... I realized that it was a really great game.  For some reason, it reminds me of the old Wing Commander Computer Game and that only makes it more kick ass.  Given that the board is always different it makes it really cool for me also.  It is full of different tactics and strategies that you can use to win.  Because this is not really a crush, kill and destroy kinda turn based Strategy game, you can win without really fighting other players that much.  You can sit back and watch the others pommel each other while you just TECH UP and get the Victory Points that way!  Concentrate on guarding your Home Planet.  I once made the mistake of neglecting it and it cost me ... dearly.

So since this is my first post I guest I should solicit advise about what kinda rating system I should use ... like stars ... 1 to 5 kinda of thing ... Anyway.  For now I guess I'll just talk about the expansion.  Shattered Empire.  The storyline in this game is complex and layered.  But kinda secondary to the overall game.  You just have to get a good grip of the advantages of your Race and make sure not to forget to apply them whenever you can.

Now the guys I was playing with are way better than I am and they had played more that I had.  So it was good for me that they fought all game and I did not have to fight them at all.  I tried to get the planets around my home world first but I got stopped by the Domain tokens (Biohazard and Hostages).  The real war was Black ( Winnu) and Grey (Saar).  The new Strategy cards are interesting.  Like all the aspects of the game, the ones you pick end up always balancing out.  This is why this game is so good.  No matter how you play it, everything seams to be even.  Some exceptions maybe... but overall.  (one star for that i guess).

The Battle begins ...

I don't wanna get into this thing where I describe every single ability of each and every new Strat. Card or Race Ability so I will just talk about the stuff that stuck out overall.  The new races are cool.  One of them, Embers of Muaat, start with a War Sun right of the bat.  When you get the Deep Space Cannon TECH - the War Sun moves 2 AND you can spend Command Tokens to spit out fighters or Destroyer!  I think next game I will play this species!

The warfare card II was really good.  You get a High Alert Bonus.  +1 Combat and +1 movement until the end of the Status Phase.  It allow the other players to get a to use command tokens to move to adjacent systems without using commands.    Sorry about the blurry pics.  The camera i have is old and raggedy.



So.  All in all The expansion is good.  It fits well with the game and it gives the option of using all or some of the new cards which makes it a good add-on and worthy of the original.  I will update when I have played a little more.

In the meantime GAME ON!