Got my 5th full competitive play through of this game and I just can’t stop thinking about it. I was finally able to coerce my partner into learning it last night and she scored extremely well, actually tied with the other experienced player who’s done three games previously. The icons were quite the hurdle but by the final cycle she was comfortable playing her cards without issues and seeing her combo all her agendas was very impressive. I’m still in awe with how fun this game feels to play, how exciting getting a new tech is, or how scary it can be to have an opponent on your borders with some crazy missile tech. Will they abandon their agenda to take my sector in order to cause me to lose some agenda scoring? Or will they play it safe, and allow me to take the final turn of the game to attack them and rip their sector from their grasp? It’s a perfect game for me other than the setup time, but I actually enjoy game setups so as long as I have time it’s no problem. There is just enough exploring, combat against the game enemies, and tech building to give me real sense of a grand space opera. But, at its core it’s truly just a euro game where you are trying your hardest to print points from your agendas. After five plays, every icon makes perfect sense and the game is smooth and we can play a three player game in about 3 hours, and that’s with a new player. What a treat this game is! Has anyone else had the pleasure of diving into it? It’s quite the time investment but so worth it. I see this hitting the table way more often than Eclipse 2E or TI4 and I enjoy the euro stylings much more anyway. What a masterpiece!

Release the hounds