Another Glorious Day in the Corps

The obligatory front of the box….

….and the back. 

I am a huge fan of the Alien films and in particular Aliens, the James Cameron directed second film in the series. I should also mention that I prefer the extended version as it puts a lot of the film into context, significantly the relationship between Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Rebecca or ‘Newt’ (Carrie Henn). Plus you also get Sentry Guns….

Following the release of Aliens in 1986 and its subsequent success it was inevitable that the gaming world would take note and so licensed material appeared from West End Games and a number of miniatures manufacturers also got in on the act with unofficial versions - some of which are still around today. Even Games Workshop had a cheeky dabble with Space Hulk - substituting Colonial Marines for Terminator Marines and the eponymous Genestealers for the ‘acid for blood’ aliens. This remains by far my favourite GW board game. As I recall there was a variant of Space Hulk published in the Ragnarok - the journal of the Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers - that factored in the Colonial Marines which was rather fun to play at the time. 

Anyways, a couple of years or so ago, Gale Force 9 launched the game you see above. An updated version is now available and after an extended period of careful contemplation and consideration as well as being buoyed by a rather fuller war chest than usual (as in there was actually something in the chest rather than cobwebs and moths!) I pulled the trigger.

The game is described as ‘A Cooperative Survival Game’ meaning that the players really need to work together to accomplish their mission. The game features most of the characters from the film although the base game only includes seven, one of which is Newt. There is of course the aliens themselves - sixteen of the stand up warrior type so no face huggers, chest bursters or the Queen but these can be purchased. With the original release there were a number of expansions including a full set of the characters from the film, extra aliens, the Queen, Ripley in a power loader and a terrain box featuring sentry guns, crates, computer consoles and alien eggs, face huggers and the young reptilian/snake/lizard alien. With the current release GF9 have an expansion with the rest of the film characters including Apone and Drake as well as Carter Burke and a set that contains the Queen, Ripley in her power loader, Bishop - whole and in half, nice touch! - and Ripley carrying Newt. Both of these sets have a stack of additional material - rules, cards missions and campaign material - so it does mean buying them both to get the full experience.

Colonial Marines plus Ripley and Newt and the ‘busy little creatures’

The components are very high quality and the figures are hard plastic, 32mm and require assembly so playing this straight out of the box is not going to happen. I rather like the idea with the double sided map board as one side is very ‘Sci fi corridor and room generic (with some nice Weyland Yutani touches)’ whilst the other shows the structure after the aliens had infested and ‘decorated’ the place.

Corridors on the left and the ‘hive’ on the right

Did I mention sentry guns? Well you get them but only in counter form but you do get an ammo counter dial which adds to the flavour! There are also motion tracker cards and a couple of face hugger counters.

So the whole lot has nudged into three figures cost wise but I am happy with it. The number of models is not too onerous to contend with from an assembly and painting perspective and the game itself will certainly be a lot of fun with plenty of film based flavour. 

My initial reservation with the whole thing was along the lines of ‘would it too limited in scope?’. It is after all a game based primarily on one film. I thought about this long and hard and came to the conclusion that in many ways it is almost like Space Hulk on steroids or rather the game I wanted Space Hulk to be. Back in the day I played an awful lot of Space Hulk so the idea of a Sci Fi dungeon crawl is something that I enjoy so I am sure this will tick an awful lot of boxes.

One thing I did notice on eBay is that there is a massive amount of unofficial 3D printed material that you could enhance the game with. I have seen a scale APC with a detachable roof to fit the troops in, even a drop ship although that would be beyond my needs and budget!

Postscript

Following on from my recent piece of wheeling and dealing with the recent board game bonanza I have been able to finance and finish off a couple of long distance projects. The Flying Colours project was partially unexpected - I certainly did not expect to find the base game and the campaign game for such a good price - and Another Glorious Day in the Corps was something I had a very long distance eye on. Luckily I had the resources available to realise it!

I have one final piece of expenditure on the horizon which will complete a further project or rather will enable me to acquire what I need to finish it and then it is once again a sit down to sort out what is what and when is when.