Firefly: The Game First Impressions

I love Firefly the TV show and I love board games. This is Firefly: The Game

So this must be great, right?

In Firefly: The Game – based on the popular Firefly television series created by Joss Whedon – players captain their own Firefly-class transport ship, travelling the ‘Verse with a hand picked crew of fighters, mechanics and other travellers. As a captain desperate for work, players are compelled to take on any job — so long as it pays. Double-dealing employers, heavy-handed Alliance patrols, and marauding Reavers are all in a day’s work for a ship’s captain at the edge of the ‘Verse.

Firefly: The Game is a pickup and deliver game based in the Firefly universe. There is a Goal card with several tasks on it. In our game was a race to complete 3 tasks to get a counterfeit ‘very fine hat’. The first task required a Diplomacy check and a lot of money. The second was a Mechanics check and the third a Fighting check. But if you haven’t played the game before this will mean nothing. So, I’ll get into how to play the game now.

You each get a ship and a random Captain.

My ship was the Yun Qi. Serenity is available but the owner of the game gets first pick and besides, Yun Qi is the yellow playing piece so it suits me just fine.

You start off with Fuel and Spare parts and a normal Core Drive. You pick where you want to start on the board then you get a selection of Missions to pick from, keeping 3 and discarding the rest.

The Reaver ship starts in the Rim and the Alliance Cruiser starts in Alliance space.

So on your turn, you have 2 actions to take from 4 categories of actions.

Fly

This is your movement, you can Mosey 1 space or spend a fuel token to ‘Full Burn’ the distance allowed on your Core Drive which starts at 5 spaces.

When you Full Burn, for each space you move you draw a card and follow the instructions. If you are in Alliance Space you draw an Alliance card, in the Rim, draw a Rim card. These cards mostly say ‘Keep Flying..’ which does nothing but sometimes they move the Reaver/Alliance Ships to you and bad things happen. Other bad (and sometimes good) things can happen too. There is a bit of randomness and luck here. Some of the players were PLAGUED by bad cards while I was drawing 5-6 ‘Keep Flying…’ cards in a row. While it was really good fortune, I put it down to my Pilot 😉

Buy

If you land on a Planet where you can buy stuff, you can do a little shopping. You choose a combination of 3 cards from the discard pile and top of the deck and can buy up to 2. You can also buy Fuel and Parts.

Each place to shop has its own deck so you are most of less likely to get a certain type of card.

Instead of buying you can pay to send your crew on Shore Leave. Sometimes your crew get disgruntled and other players can steal them from you, sending them on Shore Leave cheers them up.

Deal

If you land on a space with a Contact you can get 3 cards from the discard pile/top of the deck and pick some missions. Should you complete a mission for a contact you become ‘Solid’ with them. If this is the case you can usually sell them Cargo/Contraband at an increased rate.

Work

If you are on the Start location for a mission you have you can activate it, if the needs are met. Some will require keywords from such as ‘Medic’ or equipment such as ‘Transport’. You then follow the instructions and make the job active.

Most of these missions need you to load up on Cargo/Contraband or Passengers/Fugitives and take them somewhere else.

Some, however just need to pass ‘Aim to Misbehave’ cards which are a random draw from a top of a deck, there are two options and you try to pass as many as you can. They are usually thematic and fun, crazy and hard. I love this part of the game.

If you are in a ‘Drop Off’ point for a mission you can spend an action ending it. When you complete a Mission you get paid, minus fees for Crew.

If there is neither of those things for you to do, you can ‘Make Work’ and get $200.

Firefly: The Game Summary

This game is HIGHLY thematic and knowledge of the Firefly universe, Firefly: The Game is a must. I can see this being an average ‘Pick up and Deliver’ game to non-Firefly fans but I love it.

The randomness, survival, the feeling of being out ‘In the Black’ and never knowing what might happen is just great from a Firefly point of view.

Disgruntled Crew, Warrants, being aught with Contraband and Fugitives etc are ALL things you can reference in the show.

Even River…

…is random. Although she really helped me win the game in the end.

Downsides to this game? Well as with most games, early turns are slow but as the game went on turns were very VERY quick unless multiple checks were needed, and it needs ALL THE TABLE SPACE! 🙂

I’m looking forward to playing this again.

Jesta ThaRogue