All of my nutshell reviews aim to offer a brief but helpful explanation of each board game. I touch on what I consider to be the most important aspects of the game at hand as well as give a quick view of gameplay.

I reccently saw a copy of this on clearance and remembered reading some positive things about it. I bought it and recently had my first play. Here's a brief review:

Overview

The year is 2315. Rubium, a very valuable energy source, has been found on the moon of an unnamed planet. Several corporations have been sent to this moon in order to mine the rubium. The largest concentrations seem to be around the moon's monoliths. It is around one of these monoliths that the game takes place. Each player takes control of one of the corporations. They soon discover that the moon is home to several different alien creatures, which the enlist as part of their army. The race to mine the rubium soon turns ugly as war breaks out between the corporations.

Components

For the most part, spectacular! The miniatures are a high quality plastic that is very durable. The different alien creatures are sculpted very well. They're even kind of a transparent, flourecent hybrid that adds well to the futuristic theme. The board is made up of cardboard hexes (not dissimilar to Settlers of Catan). These hexes are of high quality, a step above Settlers I'd say. For each corporation there is a summary sheet that is designed very nicely and gives all the necessary information in an easy-to-figure-out fashion. The one complaint one may have would be with the cards. They are a little thinner than the standard card stock. But all in all I was very impressed with the bits!

Gameplay

Each corporation has a home base that includes 3 hexes, each with a rubium mine. All hexes with a rubium mine that are controlled by a single player earn that player rubium at the end of their turn. Rubium is used to purchase units at the beginning of the turn. The turn phases are as follows:

Deploy: Purchase and place units. Newly purchased units must be placed on one of the three home base hexes.

Move: Each unit may move one hex. Some units have special movement.

Explore: Every hex has a tile upside down on it. If your movement led you to a hex with a still upside down tile on it you flip it over. It may be a rubium mine (which can give you extra rubium at the end of the turn), an alien creature (which you place on the board and becomes a part of your army immediately), or a combination of both.

Fight: If you have any units in the same hex as another player a round of battle occurs.

Income: Gain rubium for each mine you control.

Draw: You always draw one secret mission card at the end of your turn. If you have sole control of the large monolith you also receive two energize cards, which give you very useful bonuses.

This sequence is followed each turn. The battles are similar to Axis & Allies with some units hitting on a roll of 2-6 and other hitting only on 6s. There is a battle sequence which is followed which allows the most powerful units to attack first and so on down the order until the humans attack last. If after a full round of battle there are still units from each side left then the battle still ends. It's not like Risk where you can continue to attack until you decide to stop. I really like this feature. It allows for much quicker battles and less time waiting for others' turns to end.

If you completely eliminate an enemy from a hex during the battle phase you get a victory point mission card. You may also be able to play secret mission VP cards from your hand for achieving certain conditions. Game plays to 12 VP. Whoever gets there first is the winner.

Overall

I REALLY liked this game. Obviously with dice luck will play a factor, but there is plenty of strategy to go around. Deciding which units to buy and where to deploy them and who to attack are just the tip of the iceberg. Do you go after your opponents mine even though it is heavily guarded? Do you try and control the monolith to get the extra two energize cards? Will you try and knock of the opponent on the monolith or let someone else do it? I've only played it once, but I can't wait to play it again!

I give it an 8.5

Thanks for reading!

Edit: added header