Forbidden Stars

I picked up this new Fantasy Flight Game a week or so ago and finally got it onto the table last night. There was just two of us playing so we tried out the Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. In this game you build up your forces and planets and try to conquer numerous worlds and capture objectives. Each world gives material (with which you build everything) and certain bonus items that can let you build powerful units such as Titans and large warships or build units for reduced cost.

The heart of the game are the Orders. Each player has 8 orders and they place them in a system where they want to do something. Other players can add orders on top of your orders, so certain systems can end up having a stack of orders on them. Orders are actually carried out from top to bottom, so you have to plan ahead to figure out the sequence that works best for you.

The four factions that come with the game are the Ultramarines Space Marines, World Eater Chaos Space Marines, Evil Sunz Ork clan and the Eldar of Craftworld Iyanden. Each faction has it's own units and own set of cards that reflect that races abilities.

As it was our first game it took us about 3 hours with my forces of Chaos triumphing over the Imperium scum. The game is for 2-4 players and I could see a 4-player game taking a good 3-4 hours. As this is a Fantasy Flight game, the components are of course top notch. Also as this is Fantasy Flight, they will probably be a few expansions covering the other factions in the 40K universe.