This review is for those who know the rules of the game, however if your unsure of buying the game, the explanations on the stars might shed some light on things what you find is good or bad. Just read along with a smile.

This is my first review and I generally do not play huge boardgames so much because noone around me plays that as far as I know, however I did get to buy SCBG after having played it at a boardgame convention that my friend dragged me to and I really think it is AWESOME. However, this review is completely neutral and will sway in a positive or negative direction when I feel it is logical.

I am not an experienced boardgamer (save the Stratego and Monopoly games) however I do want to say I am a seasoned SCBG'er and I plan to keep playing this for many days to come. I have played it about 30 times with different people and they were mostly 1on1's and everyone that came by to play it found it amusing. So it speaks to the general public (read: people who barely can figure out what someone would mean with 'unplugged').

This review is structured in the order that you find the aspects of the game as you open the box.

Packaging/Rulebook


I think it is safe to say that the packaging could have been done better. Sure as soon are you opened it it's all in there, but where to put it when it's all organized and everything? My box is lifted somewhat because I couldn't place the planets somewhere else but on top of it all. I think all they had to do is make the inside of the box plastic. A lot more room for your stuff to fit in in a pre-determined way, are you always see it with the more simple boardgames. I actually had to fashion some thing from cardboard to keep things separated.

The rulebook is a great read. That is all there is to say though. A great read, once you need it for referencing I think if I were a betting man I'd safely say that I can go finish cooking dinner before the other guy found the answer. The index in the back is a good way to trick people. It's like hiding someones jeans. Why would you?

:star: :star: :halfstar: :nostar: :nostar:

1 star for the good reference sheets you DO get
1 star for the good read in the rulebook
0.5 star for everything being well organized when you first open the box
0.5 no star because 50 pages could have been made a bit shorter.
1 no star because I had to make things for the pieces to fit
1 no star because it's hard to reference stuff in the rulebook (note: I did sometimes find what I was looking for quite fast for a few times so it's not all bad, do not be lulled into the thought that it's all a nightmare.)

Pieces


I love Starcraft and therefore I loved having lots of tiny statues of my favorite units! I think nothing here is useless because the amount of everything you got was just right, there was no lack or surplus of things. If you had a broken piece, you could just mail FFG for a replacement free of charge - I didn't even have to prove that I had the game.

:star: :star: :star:

3 stars for good quantity(1), quality(1) and no useless parts(1)!

Strategy and Luck


Here's where it gets juicy. Every time I thought up a different strategy because sometimes A doesn't work aswell as B does. I don't mind playing any race, and I've been throwing dice lately to determine who I am to pick because I love it all. Make no mistake, they are all different from each other.

If you were to say to yourself that your going 'mass Mutalisks' is saying to yourself that you going 'to die'. You need variety and you need to adapt to what the opponent is taking. You need to think ALOT about what your going to build and ofcourse where your orders are going to be placed. This one time, I played a perfect game. Guess what happened? The opponent had no chance and he, who beat me a few times before, got slaughtered. The more perfect your game is, the better your chances at winning. Whoever has the best strategy and skills wins. Awesome, this is how a game should be played.

Something I hate with all my life is dice and luck. A game with chance is a game not worth playing. I hate it. It's simply a designer saying 'oh, I have no idea how to implement tactics on this feature, so I guess I'll fall back to the most easy method'. I hate Risk.

This gets me to the next point, but first:

:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

two stars for the awesome order feature
one star for there being so little luck involved, it's not worth mentioning
two stars for the fact that whoever is the most strategic, wins
one star for the need of variety

PS: I'd like to add that the event cards ARE based on luck HOWEVER it's a win/win situation, it will nearly always be useful somehow. Last time I'm repeating it, but I've played over 30 games and never have I thought an event card is completely useless. Sure it's sometimes not the best, but your not at a big disadvantage, ever.

Combat


So this is where it all is about. Combat. If this feature fails, the game fails. Luckily it didn't. There are cards you have to draw. Oh no. But there are 18 in total and 6 of them is what you get at start and you can generally draw 3 of them when battling. 9 out of 18 cards where the chances you'll get atleast one card with what you need is more than 95%.

Combat is simple, intuitive and when you know the game well, risk-free. You know what the other has if your good at the game, and you know what you need to win. If you don't, you lose. Since a few games, not many battles have been played with cards I did not expect. The battles are in my hands now. There is no luck, if I tech'ed the right cards I will win. No luck.

:star: :star: :star: :halfstar: :nostar:

one star for the no luck involved
one star for the ability to forsee battles and make the chance to lose smaller by knowing what the opponent has
one star for how battles are setup, I love this feature!
halfstar for the lack of being afraid to lose assist units (assist as in science vessel)
no star because some cards are a bit overpowered and some balancing issues, but they do not arise much

Winning and losing


This is neat. When you lose, you feel like a loser because you could have played better but you didn't so your a true loser. Don't get me wrong, it's not in an insulting manner. Even at the end there's a big chance you might win if everyone played fairly well. You can win because of victory points, by a special victory, by elimination or by drawing too many event cards. Victory points are important, but you never win solely because of them. That's what is great, you can't focus on a certain type of win, because if two people get their specials at the same time, the VP is the answer as to who truly won. Winning and losing is just around the corner at endgame because they're all so easy to complete (the specials) so what you need is the head start to be the first around the corner. Awesome.

:star: :star: :star: :star:

one star for the many types of winning
one star for the interesting concept of making winning EASY.. for everyone!
one star for the need to have a little of both
one star for the chance to win when it seems like your on the losing hand; I've seen this happen time upon time again. Want to read some reports on surprising wins? The Sessions forums are full of them. This doesn't mean he didn't deserve to win.

Overall score:
:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: :star: :star: :star: :halfstar: :nostar: :nostar: (8.12 to be exact, but I want to give it an edge :))

Thanks for reading!

Nice review Stan. My favorite part of StarCraft is the turn order. I love doing the the double build or the double mobilize move. 2 stars for the how they handled turn order. -1 star for missing a major rule on the easy reference sheet on the back page. I have the StarCraft rated a 9.0 after 6 plays.

Put me in the Starcraft board game gan club too. I really like this game for most of the reasons you mentioned. I don't mind dice in my game, but the combat card systems is great and unique. Not just because it lowers the luck factor but because it adds a new element to managing your forces. In most games of this type, whoever has the biggest army wins. The end. But in this game, the cards could be seen to represent logistics and organization, essential to running an extended campaign.

I love also that the game isn't on rails. The random layout of planets and the system along with the multiple development paths available to all factions means there's a lot of variation in strategy. I've played games where scant resources meant mostly marines and zerglings battling it out. And others that developed into control for air superiority. Even if both players are playing the same race, they don't have to play the same game.

Starcraft is a great game, innovative and creative. A worthy addition to my own game library.

Good review, especially since you add the insights from playing the game a lot of times. Look forward to any future reviews you post here to BGG.

awesome review yeah, games with dice make those of us with great strategies at the dice's mercy. i don't think it's a downside about forseeing battles and units, just think of it as you are sending a scout to see what they are up to (think like observer or a ghost). oh, and how bout making some sessions of you 30+ battle? bet that would be a good read

You will probably like FFG's AGoT (A Game Of Thrones) series if you like Starcraft. It is another diceless area control/wargame that is simply just elegant. It uses orders (similar to starcraft). I feel that much of the mechanics from Starcraft were evolved from AGoT.\

Go and pick up a copy of it. You will probably enjoy it!

Agreed about AGoT. Another with similar mechanics is Warrior Knights, although you get random cards during battles, instead of controlling your deck.

I have played this game four times. My theory is that you get to do exactly half of the things that are possible to do (upgrades & such) - have you found this to be true? With new players, the surprise ending is not understanding this and the timing of the ending of the game. I made this reference: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/27848 so that new folks (including me) could wrap their brains around the multiplicity of options available and have some chance against guys like you!

Yes, you should always know your priorities, if you want to build or research or attack. I can generally only research in the first round and being able to research gets harder as we all devise a very cunning plan. I've recently used the Weasely Retrogade, it was so awesome. I needed to defend planet C, and my forces were spread out (Protoss vs Protoss).

The bulk of them being at planet A, I attacked a scout and put a zealot up front, with 2 dragoons and an archon backing him up. I 'lost', retreated to planet B and attacked with everything I had on to defend planet C. It was Helios, so I had the two unitlimit areas filled with Archon/Dragoon and the four unitlimit area was filled with zealots and one dragoon. I had a turret on my base. He couldn't penetrate my defense without losing all his attackers aswell (mutual defeat, region empty). So he lost; I was Aldaris and he was Tassadar. I won by end draws near cards.