Core Space: Set Up Dry Run and Some Initial Thoughts

Since I have all the bits and bobs punched and assembled for Core Space, I decided to give it a dry run on to set up for the example mission, Salvage Run.  Start to finish took me about 30 minutes give or take just for the board, which isn't bad considering how nice it looks.

There were a couple of things that weren't initially clear in the rulebook (the doorways vs. the openings for example are pretty similar) but overall it was pretty smooth.  Other than that little hiccup, everything seemed to be clearly labeled and went together smoothly.  And the end result?  Honestly it looks really sharp!

I haven't punched out the doorways or window, and probably should for LoS purposes but I was thinking I might just do that in game.  I was hoping to squeeze in some play through as well but life returned to normal, so I needed to run some chores before everyone got moving.  This did give me an idea of the total room need though and I think I will be able to clear enough space on my larger hobby table to do a full set up.  Might be a little tight, but it would give me another reason to tidy up my hobby space some more.  Things have gotten a bit messy... oops!

I have a couple of observations though that I thought I would share for anyone looking at taking the dive into Core Space.

Terrain

The build for the Salvage Run scenario uses literally all of the scenery; walls, tables, crates, you name it.  While this might be seen as a red flag, it really does give a nice and dense play space without being too crowded.  Battle Systems makes quite a few other sci-fi sets besides the expansions for Core Space, so I can see that expanding this would be very easy and really not that expensive all things considered.  Could I make a bunch of scenery like this that was modular and looked cool?  Sure, but no where near as quickly as punching and assembling this terrain has been.  And this stuff is very sturdy as well.  I also recently picked up their Fantasy Village set and after assembling several pieces of that, this stuff has a nice solid feel to it.  No, you can't walk on it or anything ridiculous but just holding the pieces you can tell that they are of a solid construction.  There are also a lot of ways to customize the Battle Systems terrain just with all the scatter bits they include.

Class boards

The base game comes with eight class boards, and I know that the deluxe rules let you create your own characters but I never saw a breakdown of which classes were in the base game.  So here they are.

Crewman/Augmented (x2)

Crewman/Soldier (x2)

Crewman/Hunter (x2)

Tech/Support (x2)

Seems like a pretty good mix though I'm curious what other ones come in the various crew packs.  Looking in the deluxe rulebook, it looks like there is also a Merg and machine class board which should come in the Yamato and Skylark crew expansions respectively, though I'm curious what other combo are included.  I was worried about there being enough of a mix but I think the way that they handled it should spread out nicely, especially once you add in a crew or two onto what it in the base game.

Overall, I'm really happy with this purchase and I can't wait to actually get a game in.  From what I've seen and read, it looks like Core Space does a great job balancing between being a miniatures game and a light role playing game which is just what I've been looking for.  Until next time...