Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps Board Game Review:
Aliens-Core-Game-ReviewStats:
No. of players: 1-6
Amount of time to play: 60-120 min
Age requirements: 14+
Set-up time: 5 min
Aliens Another Glorious Day in the Corps is a scenario-based, cooperative survival board game based on Aliens. Can you keep your squad of marines alive long enough to reach their objective?
Aliens Another Glorious Day in the Corps Rules Description:
You start the game by selecting which characters you will play. You always use all the characters, but the ones you do not select use the grunt side of their player board. Next you can go through the deck and outfit all the characters with the equipment and weapons you want them to have.
Each scenario has an objective you need to reach to win and includes directions for the initial setup. This includes where to place spawn points and blips (which represent unseen xenomorphs). If a marine has line of sight to a blip flip it over and place an alien figure in its space. If the value is greater than one, add a token under the figure until the figure plus number of tokens equals the number on the flipped over blip token.
Any endurance cards not used on characters form the endurance deck. This deck represents team morale. You will exhaust cards to pay for equipping additional cards and to fire weapons. Once you are unable to add cards to the exhaust pile they are discarded. If all cards are in the discard pile you lose the scenario.
On your turn you reset your aim dial and use any activation skills you have. Then you may take two actions including:
Move: Moving is free and uses your character’s speed stat.
Attack: Attacking costs endurance cards depending on the weapon you use. After firing a weapon roll the ten-sided die. If it is equal to or less than your aim dial you hit. Each hit removes an alien token or figure from the board. Next you must drop your aim by one.
Barricade: You can barricade doors to slow down the advancement of the aliens.
Aim: If you take the aim action you increase your aim by one.
Interact: Some scenarios include objects on the map you can interact with.
Card Action: Some cards have special actions on them that require an action to take.
Rest: When you rest you may draw up to two cards and then move three cards from their hand or the exhausted pile the bottom of the draw deck.
Some characters have after activation actions. These will trigger once they have resolved their two normal actions.
After your character’s turn is finished, you may command grunts, taking turns for them. The number of grunts you may command is based on your character’s rank. No character or grunt may be activated more than once per turn. Once all characters and grunts have activated the marine phase is over.
In the alien phase any alien figures move six spaces towards the closest marine. Once adjacent they will attack. But first any marines up to four spaces with line of sight to the alien may attack it. This defensive attack still costs cards and reduces your aim dial as usual. If the alien survives the defending marine rolls a d10 and adds one for each token under the attacking alien. If the result is less than or equal to their defense stat they dodge. If it is higher, they are knocked down. Rolling a ten kills the character.
A knocked down marine skips all actions and will stand up if there is no alien next to it. They are captured if at the start of the alien phase there is one or more aliens next to them. Captured characters may be rescued by playing the rescue Mission. If your hero dies you may take control of a grunt flipping it to its hero side.
Once each alien has activated, the blips move based on a d6 roll. If a blip is spotted, flip the token, add the required aliens, then finish movement and carry out a regular alien turn.
To wrap up the alien phase each player draws a motion tracker card which adds blips to the spawn points. Next check for victory or defeat based on the scenario. You lose if all marines die (or are captured) or if the endurance desk runs out.
Quick Review of Aliens Another Glorious Day in the Corps:
Aliens Another Glorious Day in the Corps is a tense, fun, cooperative board game. Surviving is not easy, and you will need a bit of luck to make it out alive. Both the mechanics and theme are strong in this game.
The components for this game are great. Much of the art is pulled straight from the movies and the miniatures look great on the table. Be aware you must put the miniatures together. They are not too difficult to construct but the aliens’ tails are tough to work with. This might be a showstopper for some but once finished they do look good. The rules are not the best and glaze over a few areas that need clarification. Thankfully, there is a FAQ and most other answers can be found online.
The way the exhaust deck works is unique and does a good job representing team morale and endurance. Everything you are doing costs cards which represents spending energy. You can rest but that might cost you or a teammate their life. If cards go to the discard, you might remove them from this playthrough them between scenarios. So, you need to keep all this in mind and balance it when playing. It makes for some interesting decisions.
The aim dial is another mechanic that does a great job representing stress and needing to act under pressure. Since it drops whenever you fire and doesn’t reset until the start of your next turn, you need to pay attention to it. Especially for defense.
Combat is very tactical and positioning and turn order can sometimes make a big difference. Your team will need to make sure they can defend each other yet remain on the offensive every turn.
If you are a fan of Aliens and don’t mind building the miniatures, pick this up. It might take a couple rounds to get the hang of, but it does a good job marrying mechanics and theme.
Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 5 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6