The Forbidden Stars Review

In my slightly younger days, I was very much into Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 (40K) miniatures wargame. I'm a Nottingham nerd, it's something we do. However, like most things, my interests ebb and flow, and I haven't played the game proper in years. Part of this is GW recent behaviour and apparent disinterest in balancing their fricking games, the cost of playing too, but another reason is my increased interest in nerdy boardgames. Today, I talk about a game that involves both, Fantasy Flight's Forbidden Stars, a space strategy/empire game based on the 40K setting, but apparently building on the out-of-print Starcraft boardgame(1). Is it any good? Well, yes, but not without some criticisms.

Let's start with the obvious plus. Forbidden Stars is a really nice looking game on basically every level. The plastic miniatures are basically ideal. The infantry are depicted as elaborate and abstract banners, but apart from that, these immediately recognisable and invites comparison with GW's own models. Land vehicles seem to be taken from the old Epic miniature game, while the ships could be used in a game of Battlefleet Gothic with no trouble. These are gaming pieces, not display pieces, so detail isn't as sharp, but you aren't gonna complain. They would probably look gorgeous painted too. An assortment of cards are used, no doubt drawing from the standard GRIMDARK clip art library, but undeniably attractive. Map tiles are very nice too, and seemingly new art. There's a buttload of tokens, but they are pleasant tokens, and not used for their own sake. There are custom dice, Fantasy Flight is in the habit of such things, but like the tokens they seem to belong and add to the experience. This is the most expensive single boardgame I have ever purchased, but cracking the box open for the first time does a lot to justify the price of entry. Its just that well made, not a single thing feels cheap, and they did every conceivable thing to tie the game to its setting. Where the otherwise excellent presentation fails however is rulebook structure. Things are split between a how to play booklet and a rules reference, which are written differently. Whereas the former works reasonably well as a simplified introduction, the latter is obtuse and dry. Its organised alphabetically, rather than conceptually, which makes actually finding things out a nuisance up when playing. I find myself reminded of those confusing games of Warhammer 40K that happen just after a new edition comes out, and I'd single this out as the only real weakness of the game.

While baggies are provided, I added some more

Once I got my head around the rules though, about game 4, I found a pleasingly involved strategy game. Its not on the same level as the similarly big and spacey empire game Eclipse, the setting is more about open war than empire building, but there's more than enough to get your teeth into. The use of order tokens requires a lot of careful thought, as they are alternately placed in secret, and resolved as a stack. Some compromises inevitably have to be made, and a complex plan is easily ruined by enemy action, making that phase the most important in the game. This is further complicated by order upgrades, which vary from simple buffs to game changers. Orks for example have one which allows them to cross voids without using a ship, while Ultramarines can combine Orbital Strikes with land invasions, both of which are otherwise impossible and are nasty surprises for people. Another big consideration are Warp Storms and a player's Event Deck, both of which are not completely under anyone's control. The storms act as barriers which are moved at the end of a turn, meaning your lines of battle keep changing, while the Event Deck grants a bonus of some kind, some saved for later turns. This all means that the big picture is prone to shifting both turn-to-turn and within turns, so you have to be adaptable while keeping the bigger goal in mind, claiming your Objective Tokens. Games are not won by xenocide or building up a big army, although that doesn't hurt, its more about making sudden, blitzkrieg assaults on worlds, holding only long enough to claim the token. There's meat to this.

Tactically, the game is even better. While my experience with war-oriented boardgames is regrettably limited (2), the method for resolving land battles in Forbidden Stars is surprisingly involved. Its a combination of dice and light deck-building with extremely thematic cards. Each player rolls number of dice are rolled based on the models participating, with the players taking turns to apply a card to that result, up to three times. Cards add to dice total, but actually have a fair greater effect on the game than the dice themselves due to their special rules. These combats play out like a really short game of Magic: The Gathering, players responding to each other's moves, cards complementing the models and each other. Cards match up with their faction and setting extremely well, with no obvious repetition or overlap in mechanics. Orks take the brute force approach, Eldar are sneaky and mobile. Marines tend to be tanky and defensive, with Chaos doing subtle things with cultists until the slobbering loonies are set loose. Its brilliant if you have any familiarity with the setting, although nitpicks can be made(3). The nicest thing I can say is that if Fantasy Flight broke this system off and sold it separately, I'd buy it. Of course, this is not to say its a game unto itself, there's a lot of overlap between the tactical and strategic concerns too. You can and should upgrade your deck via an order, but this costs materiel that could be used to build actual armies as well limit your ability to take other action. Spaceships meanwhile bridge the gap between the tactical and the strategic concerns, and in some respects are less developed than land units. Your average marine for example can jump from world to world if they are adjacent, but areas of open space require a ship to cross, so ship roles tend to be transport before battleship. There's also only two ship types per faction, and they use the same Combat Deck as land units. That said, ships do have a greater freedom of movement, and can nuke a site from orbit, if that's the only way to be sure.

Nuts to this

The experience of playing the game does seem to depend on the number of players though. Two player games work very well, and tick along at a relatively fast past; games seeming to take about 80 minutes a player to resolve. As you may recall from my first impressions article however, playing the game with four players proved to be a bit acrimonious at first. Its very easy given how orders work for players to trip each other up, back-stab, or just dogpile on someone, and not always on purpose. Two player games tend to be more straightforward. How much of that was just us learning the game, we made a lot of mistakes, is debatable, but one thing I would never do again is use the introductory map. In normal play, players usually take turns to place map tiles, building up the map in an organic fashion where you can react to other players, but with only one player putting units on a tile. This forms a slight buffer zone between parties, and grants you some control over your borders. If you pay attention, you can at least keep your home tile from adjoining someone else's and being bad neighbours. The introductory map however seems to have been designed to save space in the booklet, with Chaos and Ultramarines intermingled, but with the Orks and Eldar getting uninterrupted columns, added to the right of the map. This means Orks have an advantage in a 3 player game, only to get caught between a rock and hard place in a 4 player. As I play Orks, I have a bias there, but don't use that map. I have only been able to play a single three-player game for comparison, but that did result in a bit of downtime for one player.

The Verdict

Forbidden Stars is a great game, with high production values, only marred by the way it explains itself. Once you get going with it, its excellent. There's loads going on in terms of strategy, tactics and rules mechanics. There doesn't seem to be an “optimal” way to play, its more about being adaptable in the face of an unpredictable universe and learning how to modify your forces to that situation. It is not a game where you have a long term plan of any great detail, its about making compromises and making the best of a bad job. Its all that, and an excellent representation of the setting with really nice gaming pieces. Short of future expansions, this is probably the best boardgame ever associated with 40K, although in saying that, I must acknowledge its immediate problem. Learning to play it is hampered by the writing style, and doing so in a four player games can result in epicentres of chaos and irritation. Then there's the matter of price. As mentioned, I'd say you'd be getting value for money, although there is legitimate and cheaper competition from the likes of Eclipse and Quantum. I own the latter and have played the former, and I would say Forbidden Stars holds it own against those games, and has a lot more personality. Then there's the small fact even at £80, its at least one order of magnitude cheaper than playing 40K proper.

Its a lot of fun, so give it a try. Its a game you agree to play before the day, rather on a whim, but damn, you won't feel that time at all.

Foot notes

1. If you want to troll a 40K forum, suggest that 40K ripped off Starcraft. Write your will first.
2. Worker placement and cooperative games are the styles I tend to find myself playing of late.
3. Like the Chaos faction being the Khorne worshipping World Eaters but having cards for the other gods. Whatev's.