Rogue Review - Starship Samurai

At Comicpalooza I had the chance to demo some games for Asmodee. While this included X-wing 2.0 (Luke Skywalker is a beast with his ability to regen a Force token whenever he gets shot), it also included a new game called Starship Samurai. Not yet released this game turned out to be a pretty fun experience.

Starship Samurai is a strategy game that sees you fighting with spaceships and giant mechs for domination. The basic idea is to acquire more victory points than your opponents by acquiring the allegiance of eight different clans. The game plays out over a fixed number of rounds, each broken down into three phases.

During the Order phase, players take turns issuing one of four orders to their forces using tokens numbered 1-4. Which token they use will determine how many times their order is carried out. For instance, if they put the four on the Move Forces order, they will be able to move four units around the board. These units will help them fight for control of a given planet.

Players also have access to cards, which they can draw with the Draw Cards order. These cards will have either the keyword Order or Battle. Order cards can be played during the Order phase, before or after you issue your primary order. This allows you to draw cards and then play one immediately or draw wealth and then spend it immediately to pay the cost of playing a particular card.

Players take turns issuing one order a piece until everyone has issued all four orders. The first player changes every round so everyone will have the chance to be the last player and first player. Both positions carry advantages. Being the last player to move units gives you the chance to ensure you have the advantage over a planet during the Battle phase. Going first lets you control planets early.

In the battle phase, players add up the strength of all of the units they have at a planet and then do battle. Additionally, players have the chance to play one Battle card to change the final value. Some cards can change the status of the battle quite dramatically but always at a cost, usually wealth but sometimes victory points. The winner of a battle earn five victory points and then removes their units from the board. This allows the losers to have units already deployed at the start of the next round.

There are three types of units; fighters, carriers and samurai mechs. The fighters are the weakest but you can pay to increase their strength. The carriers aren’t much more powerful than fighters but allow you to move some fighters with it for free. The mechs are where the game gets interesting. Each one has a special power and they are assigned at the beginning of the game, so you will rarely ever have the same two mechs together. Depending on what mech you have it will encourage a very different strategy.

For example, one mech allows you to destroy ships when it is moved. This encourages you to perform the Move order later so there are ships you can destroy. Another is pretty weak but gives a boost to all ships at the same planet, encouraging you to concentrate your forces. From what I was able to experience each of the mechs had a useful ability and none of them felt worthless.

After the Battle phase is complete the round proceeds to the Resolution phase. Here players will gain the rewards for their allegiances with the various clans you have been fighting over. Each player gains victory points (or wealth) based on how far along the clan tracker the clans are. Getting a clan to the top of the track rewards a max of five points.

The core strategy of the game is deciding when you want to issue each order and how well you utilize your mech’s special ability. Each mech calls for a different strategy. Do you seize control of planets early, potentially gaining rewards from them each round until someone challenges you? Or do you wait until the end and know exactly how many forces you’ll need? Do you save your wealth for cards or use it to power up ships or issue more orders? Do you improve your relations with a clan or ruin your opponents?

I enjoyed the game and it didn’t feel like a huge chore to set up. It also played relatively fast. There are a fixed number of rounds based on players so it won’t drag on forever. And players also only have four choices of what to do on their turn. So while they can engage in some decision paralysis it’s not to daunting. Overall, a good game and will go on my list to potentially get when it comes out.