USSBurritoTruck

Yeah, I know he's was compromised by Ferengi, but c'mon, Reg, the guy you were templated on literally served under Picard when he was assimilated.

"Even the fan fiction?"
"Especially the fan fiction."

Back in late September, WizKids shipped their Disco themed board game based on the four mirror universe episodes of season one, striking while the iron is room temperature. I, of course, purchased this game as soon as it was available to me, and yesterday evening I got the opportunity to play it for the first time when I brought it along to family game night, much to the scepticism and jeers of my sisters.

So, let's talk about it!

(Probably worth noting that we did play it after two games of Wingspan, and it would be difficult for most board games to compare to that)
 

Concept:

As mentioned, the game largely inspired by the episodes, "Despite Yourself", "The Wolf Inside", "Vaulting Ambition", and "What's Past is Prologue", from season one of Disco. Players take on the role of either the characters of the Discovery, or their mirror universe counterparts aboard the Charon. It's an asymmetric game where each side has different abilities, limitations and goals. The Starfleet characters need to zip around the board to complete three missions, while the Terran Empire wants to successfully infiltrate the Discovery three times.

It plays two to four players in teams of up to two. For this game, I played as the Starfleet side, with my opponents being paired together as team Terran Empire.
 

Components

• Everything here seems decent enough. There were no obvious production flaws in the copy of the game that I own.

• The standees for the various ships you move around the board, specifically for the Discovery and the Charon are both dark images on a dark background, so you kinda lose the image of the ship, and instead just have an oddly shaped red or blue bit of cardboard.

• Maybe I'm getting old, but the text on a lot of the components seems a little small.

• Personally I'm not a huge fan when licensed games just use stills from the show/movie/comic/whatever as game art, but I get why they do it. It's cheaper, and has immediate familiarity with fans of the thing, who is likely whom you're trying to sell the game to. Still, it seems lazy.

• This is a hugely nit-picky of me, but players can collect resources which can be spent to enhance actions or complete missions for the Starfleet side. Those resources are dilithium, intel, and tritanium. If you're going to have a "Star Trek: Discovery" themed game, why not go all in and have one of the resources be fungal spores? Cowardly. Anyways, the little bits of plastic you collect to represent those resources are fine.
 

Rules

• This is where my biggest issue with the game is. Some of the rules are not particularly clear, and some are outright missing. Basically things would come up, and I would have to patch in a rule based on what I felt made the most sense in the moment.

• The the most egregious issue is the Threat cards. These come up for both players, and there is a section in the rule book on them, but it's too vague. The cards are divided into three sections, though one of those is only a small circle in the upper right corner. The rules are more clear on how the Starfleet players interact with the cards, but what specifically the Terran players are supposed to do is basically guess work. Even the initial brief description of the Threat cards only mentions the Discovery. What's needed here is a diagram in the rules with a specific breakdown of each section of the card and what circumstances they're supposed to be used in.

• Similarly, a better designed rules document would have breakdowns of the other cards. Most of them seemed fairly straight forward, but I could see where someone could struggle. For example, the Command cards have a circle in the upper left corner with a number in them that is their "Resolve" value, which is used when bidding on Challenges. While it's called out in the rules that's what the number is, I think it would be easy to overlook for someone learning the game, if for no other reason than that there are a lot of different mechanics here that make up the whole.
 

Gameplay

• So, I think there's a lot of neat mechanics here, which is why I was interested in this game beyond just the Trek aspect.

• Players control characters from the show. Starfleet has: Saru, Burnham, Stamets, Detmer, and Tilly. The Empire has: Georgiou, Lorca, Killy, Landry, and Stamets. Each character has a unique ability which can only be used once per game. Some of the abilities feel fairly powerful, but I'm not sure how well balanced they are. Each player chooses a single character, or in a three player game, the side with only one chooses two, and has to play two hands. I do think the game could be more interesting and a better representation of the show if all characters were in play.

• The board is made up of a number of hexagons tiles which are placed semi randomly and can be moved or rotated by certain effects available to the characters. Each side of each hexagon connects it to other points in paths that make up the mycelial network that the Discovery is able to travel along. These paths can be looping around or lead to dead ends. And the Discovery players are able to rotate any of the tiles on their turn. By contrast, the Charon and the other two Terran Empire ships controlled by the Mirror Universe player move from one hexagon to the next in a pretty straight forward fashion. My only quibble here is that the Discovery usually isn't able to move very far because it needs to stop at Nodes along the network, and that means that they're mostly limited to moving one tile at a time.

• The board has two sections representing the interior of each ship divided into five different locations, and what I really like here is that characters can jump from one ship to the other provided both are on the same tile, and mess with them by stealing resources or doing damage. You can also capture the opposing characters and briefly confine them to your bridge/agony booth.

• A stumbling block for me was the action economy, which can make turns feel pretty ineffectual. During a turn you draw cards up to your hand of three, move your character from one place on the ship to another if you choose, perform the action associated with that ship space, and then clean-up which only applies if a specific type of card is used during the turn. Things that qualifies as actions include rotating a network tile, or collecting resources, or moving one of your support ships for the Terran player. You can play cards in your hand as a free action, but you don't always have cards that are going to be applicable, and then they feel like a dead hand, waiting for the opportunity where they're useful to come up. Frequently I would take my turn and afterwards be like, "I guess that's all I can do." On the plus side, turns do seem to be pretty quick because of it, but it would be nice if say, moving the ship counted as a free action.
 

Conclusion

I asked one of my sisters for her impressions while writing this, and her reply was, "I don't think the rules are super clear. I'd play it again now that we understand what you're supposed to do, and I think it's a pretty neat concept despite all the Treksplaining, but it was definitely frustrating trying to figure it out."

I think there's a decent game here, and that it replicates the scenario we see in the show very well, but with the rules document not covering some pretty essential bits of information, there's no way I could recommend it to anyone. Especially not someone who is maybe a huge fan of "Discovery" but a casual board game player. I'll almost certainly play it again, but it's not about to become a staple of my weekly friend group board game night, or the occasional family board games nights.

Components: 9/10
Rules: 2/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

• When we see Starfleet Academy in the open shot of the episode it is a recreation of the closing shot of “The First Duty”.

• In the flashback there is a figure in a straw hat and overalls tending the grounds. We only see them from the back, but based on their appearance I think we can assume it’s Boothby, the Academy’s head groundskeeper, and occasional advisor to both Picard and Janeway during their academy days. Boothby was introduced in “The First Duty”.

• We see all of Nova Squadron during the establishing shot, but Jean Hajar waves goodbye and runs back down the path before the close-up.

    • As we saw last episode, Robert Duncan McNeill reprises his roll as Nick Locarno.

    • Shannon Fill reprises her role as Sito Jaxa. This is her first acting credit since 1995.

    • Welsey Crusher is played Wil Wheaton, the host of Paramount+’s “The Ready Room”.

    • This is the only on screen appearance of Joshua Albert as he was dead before the USS Enterprise D arrived to Earth in “The First Duty”.

• “I don’t know Nick, the starburst maneuver is banned for a reason.” In “The First Duty” it was established that the Kolvoord Starburst was banned because an entire flight group was killed while attempting it some years earlier.

• Cadet Becket Mariner is excited to learn about various alien species’ history:

    • The Perseveres - First mentioned in “The Paradise Syndrome”, and have a habit of relocating Indigenous peoples and leaving their obelisks lying about

    • The Xindi - The Xindi attacked Earth in “The Expanse” and were the antagonists for much of season three of ENT

• Mariner is wearing the pips of a second year cadet, meaning she was in the same year as Wesley. Of course, at the end of “The First Duty” Picard informed Wesley that he would be losing all academic credit for the year and not advancing with his class.

• Nick’s Nova Fleet has a number of familiar alien vessels:

    • The vertically arranged Romulan-warship - “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”

    • Cardassian Hideki-class starships - “Profit and Loss”

    • A Tellarite cruiser - “Babel One”

       • I am basing this on the arrangement of the impulse engines; the original Tellarite cruiser model was a redress of the CGI model used as an Arkonian warship in “Dawn”, and then a Xindi-Arboreal ship in “The Council” but both those models had slightly different impulse engines

    • A Pakled starship - “Samaritan Snare”

    • Klingon Birds-of-Prey - “Star Trek: The Search for Spock”

    • An Orion Interceptor - “Something Borrowed, Something Green”

    • Federation Sphinx-class workpods - Andy Probert made this particular design for TNG, but it was too expensive, and until now did not show up on screen, but was in the “TNG Technical Manual”

    • A Bynar ship - “A Few Badgeys More”

    • A Ferengi ship - “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”

• Admiral Vassery was introduced in “Moist Vessel”.

• Admiral Alonzo Freeman was introduced in “Second Contact”.

• There are a number minor characters who were introduced this season who make appearances this episode:

    • Risik was introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”.

    • The three Bynar defectors were introduced in “A Few Badgeys More”.

    • Malok was introduced in “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”

    • The female Romulan lower decker was introduced in “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”

    • Livik was introduced in “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”

    • Jeef was introduced in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”

    • The second male Ferengi lower decker was introduced in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”

• ”He looks like Tom Paris.” Personally, much like Boimler, “I don’t see it.”

• The Maquis were an independent, unaligned fleet fighting against Cardassian oppression and occupation, introduced in “The Maquis, Part I”.

• We saw Andorians wearing the uniforms here on on Tulgana IV in “Envoys”

• Petra Aberdeen was introduced in “Reflections”

• The PADD the Hysperians are using appears to be the same design as the Betazoid PADD seen in “Empathaological Fallacies” flipped horizontally and coloured peach as opposed to blue.

• The large Tamarian lower decker is wearing a towel, following the precedent established by Hans Federov (“Second Contact”), Big Merp (“First First Contact”), and one of the Klingons aboard the IKS Che’Ta’ (“wej Duj”).

• The black market Ferengi Genesis device was first seen in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”.

• ”This guy sucks!” Mariner’s enthusiasm for Starfleet is frequently underestimated, such as when everyone assumed she purposefully made the crew of the USS Cerritos look bad in an interview in “Trusted Sources” be she was actually full of praise.

• It’s Goodgey! From Star Trek!

• Mariner is able to take control of the *USS Passaro” NCC-52670, a Sabrerunner-class starship.

    • The Sabrerunner-class bears a lot of visual similarity to the Steamrunner-class introduced in “Star Trek: First Contact” but is significantly smaller.

    • A Gagarin-class USS Passaro was seen PIC’s “The Last Generation”

    • Both Passaros are named for Fabio Passaro, a CG model maker for Eaglemoss Collections who passed away in October 2022. The Sabrerunner-class version’s registry reflects his birthday, May 26, 1970.

    • The Sabrerunner class name was provided by producer Brad Winters on the bad social media site. You know the one.

• Mariner is able to transfer controls to the captain’s chair, causing a stick to sprout from the chair. Riker was able to control the USS Enterprise E with a joystick in “Star Trek: Insurrection”.

• D’Erika was introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”

• The tryna shield bears some resemblance to the Tholian web seen in “The Tholian Web” and Q’s energy net introduced in “Encounter at Farpoint”.

• ”What about Rule of Acquisition 91: Your boss is only worth what he pays you?” This is a new rule not from any previous source.

• ”You’re forgetting Rule 289: Shoot first, count profits later.” It was established in “Rules of Acquisition” that there are only 285 rules, though the Nagus can add or change them as they see fit, as in “Acquisition” there were only 173 in the 22nd century, and Zek was going to release an entirely new set in “Prophet Motive”.

• Twaining was established as a sometimes effective means of conflict resolution in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”.

• Mariner and Locarno playing cat & mouse inside the ion storm recalls the USS Reliant hunting the USS Enterprise through the Mutara nebula in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan”.

• Boimler has been made acting captain of the Cerritos despite being outranked by at least two other officers we see on the bridge, and several more besides. In “The Arsenal of Freedom” Geordi was made acting captain over chief engineer Logan, who outranked him.

• The Cerritos’ captain’s yacht is a similar design to that of the Enterprise E but distinct enough to assume they’re not supposed to be the same spaceframe.

• ”Wow, I’ve never actually seen someone use the captain’s yacht.” Apparently Boimler skipped watching any video logs recorded during the events of “Star Trek: Insurrection”. It’s hard to blame him, but it still seems out of character.

    • Mariner signed out the keys to the Cerritos’ captain’s yacht in Boimler’s name in “Terminal Provocations” and then invited him along, though it sounds like he was either able to prevent Mariner from actually taking the ship out for a joyride, or hid in his bunk until she returned it.

• The explosion of the Ferengi Genesis device recalls the original detonation in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan”.

    • Like that explosion, this one also creates a planet, seemingly from the material in the ion storm. Unlike Genesis, the planet Locarno is apparently stable.

• T’Lyn ignores a call from Captain Sokel. In “Empathological Fallacies” she was so stressed over not being able to transmit a message to him that she telepathically caused the crew to lose control of their inhibitions.

• The Orion ship that arrives to collect Tendi is inspired by the one introduced in “The Pirates of Orion”, but appears to be a more modern iteration of that craft, as well as being significantly larger.