I purchased this game at CanCon last month and was attracted by the price, box art and subject.

The contents of the box revealed a goodly amount of components with nice artwork, and so appeared to have both quality & quantity for the price.

The rulebook is short, to the point and generally well written & laid out. As pointed out by others on this games' forum, I agree that the first few pages of the rulebook (dedicated to the background story) entirely misses the mark in both humor & composition....but don't let that put you off. The rulebook contained some ambiguities, but were cleared up by the Frontiers FAQ, and this seems to be de rigueur for new releases these days and is a welcome by-product of cyberspace.

The game subject matter is centered on a future confrontation between humans (legionnaires) and alien robots (Zirls). The scale of the infantry combatants are depicted on the generous 1.5 inch circular counters and show between one and three figures. The larger sized elliptical vehicle counters show one (armored vehicle) type of unit. A nice feature of the counters are the inclusion of all stats required for the game and are color coded & iconized for ease of use. All counters are back printed and as such, some units are flipped to simulate partial losses, some are flipped to indicate elimination and some of the large armored vehicles receive small damage markers directly on them when they are face-up.

Other components contained in the box include a standard sized poster map showing basic desert/moonscape type of terrain, which is a nice addition for small actions but tends to be cluttered when using a high density of combatants and so the rules suggest using a 4'x2' table or larger. Also contained are a decent number of rectangular parts of buildings and elliptical tiles to add to the map as terrain. Since movement uses ruler measurement (supplied in the game box), infantry movement within buildings is simplified by connected 1.5 inch circles (same size as the infantry counters, funnily enough) so that they move from one circle to the next without having to fiddle about with ruler measurement. Buildings can be constructed by the many tiles supplied and are simply butted up against each other to form a large building or numerous small ones. Features represented on the building tiles include rooms, windows, passageways and doors. All tiles feature quality sci-fi artwork and include building stats & shooting modifiers for windows and doors. Since buildings can be destroyed after taking the required amount of hits, the tile flip-side features rubbled terrain. It's good to see that all stats and modifiers on both units and terrain are present and as such, does not require constant reference to the rules. This feature certainly speeds up play.

One of the main features of the game is the fog-of-war and uncertainties of combat which are adequately represented by two decks of action cards (each being unique to a particular side - although there are some similarities present). There are too many cards to feature in this review, suffice to say that there are enough in each deck to confound, disrupt and frustrate your opponents' plans, in addition to enhancing your own. Finally, there are numerous counters used in the game and these include smoke & blast templates, secret equipment caches, damage counters, the famous six-sided dice and scenario victory condition markers. A small number of fairly standard miniatures style scenarios are included, but the high replay ability of this game will no doubt spawn new ones on-line. All in all, there's enough here to keep you interested and occupied for quite a time.

Ok, after all that, let's get down to play. This game has a smallish learning curve and it only takes a few games to catch on to the combinations & subtleties of play. As an overview, play consists of allocating uniquely numbered order counters face down on the units you wish to receive orders during this turn. Each player reveals their identical numbered order, starting with order number one, and takes an action with the unit it is placed upon. When all orders have been exposed and carried out, the turn ends, all order counters are recovered from the map and a new turn ensues. In detail, each turn plays exactly like this:

(1) Preparation phase.
At the start of the game, each player draws four action cards from his/her deck into hand. After this, all the following prep turns allow a player to discard up to his/her entire hand and re-stock back up to four.

(2) Order phase.
The numerical order counters are allocated face down on to units a player wishes to activate this turn. Since armies are created by adding the build points for each unit taken within a scenario defined limit, up to 500 points gets you two order markers, up to 1000 gets you four, and over 1000 gets you a maximum of six orders. In addition, 'officer' type infantry units (if taken) can also provide up to three additional orders per officer. However, if such units are eliminated, you will loose these extra orders. Finally, there are two 'dummy' orders each side can use to (hopefully) confuse your opponent. There is a fair amount of subtlety involved in this play mechanic. Which units will you activate? In which order? How will your opponent allocate his/her? Other extenuating circumstances may involve the play of cards, scenario victory parameters and the condition of various units vis a vis potential elimination.

(3) Activation phase.
Here is the real meat of the game. When each opposing pair of units are activated by order, the player with the lowest unit movement value declares its' action first and each player may only do one of the four actions described below (dice roll decides ties). This quasi-initiative mechanic may allow the player with the higher movement to modify his/her planned action based on what the opponents' revealed action is. After both actions are verbally revealed, they are carried out in strict sequential order as follows:

[1] Move
[2] Shoot (& melee)
[3] Play an action card
[4] Activate a units' special ability

Note that a unit that is activated to move will do so before an opposing unit that is activated to shoot, and that a unit activating a special ability will do so after his/her opponent has either moved, shot or played an action card. So there is a hierarchy involved in taking the four actions available. Combat simply involves a d6 roll versus the targets' defense and is modified by various situations which are both logical and un-complicated.

(4) Reserve phase.
The end part of the turn allows any unit not allocated an order during the order phase (and includes dummy ordered units) to either move or activate a special ability (actions 1 & 4 above). Units can be so activated in any order, with movement (and dice rolls) deciding order if the players require it.

So there you have it. What I haven't touched upon is the surprising depth of play that this game provides, given the wide range of units, their various special abilities coupled with the natural vagaries of action card use, and the elegant sequence of play and simplicity of the rules.

I'll give it a BGG 8 out of 10 and look forward to some more Frontier expansions in the future (forgive the pun).