Star Trek Frontiers Review - with Tom Vasel
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
- Tom Vasel takes a look at Star Trek Frontiers!
00:00 - Introduction
01:55 - Game overview
11:52 - Final thoughts
Buy great games at www.gamenerdz.com/
Find more reviews and videos at www.dicetower.com - Hry
Best "Shut the door!" ever! Wasn't expecting it.
+Glen Petersen yeah, way cool :)
I like Star Trek, and I don't already have Mage Knight, but I much prefer the artwork and aesthetics of Mage Knight, if I decide to go for one of these, Mage Knight would be my preference.
Just thinking out loud huh
Nothing wrong with that@@newclassicsgaming6368
Oh, Federation officer, i remember her! :D
Thorough and informative review. Great help. Thanks
I was pretty excited for this one, but lost a bit of that enthusiasm when I learned it wasn't the Original Series Trek. I can understand why they use The Next Generation time-frame, though, since there is a lot more to mine from. Looks interesting, but I would want to play this first before deciding if I wanted to buy it. I may prefer the Mage Knight theme, in the end.
Mage Knight seems to have a better aesthetic and nicer looking cards, though. And the mechanics don't seem as ... intriguing? I like the idea that some enemies can just be beaten down with diplomacy as that fits the theme of Next Gen pretty well.... But, I think Mage Knight looks like a far more cohesive game.
Plus Mage Knight you feel like a badass conqueror/adventurer from the get go, who ison the up and up as practically a deity-to-be by turn 5. You feel like you're a reborn god rapidly growing into their power and nothing will stop you eventually. I don't think I'll be able to shake the feeling of; "I'm on the Enterprise D/E and I don't have any crew members yet ...." when I start the game.
And, I mean c'mon.... screen captures for characters? Couldn't they do an artistic representation? Like a comic book feel ... something that wouldn't feel so cheap and like a card designer cropping google images 10 hours before their assignment is due? There's no excuse now for high budget, low artistic integrity products now. Just looking at indie efforts like Karmaka. Aesthetic is part of the appeal, whether Ameritrash or Eurogame.
Mage Knight is my FAVORITE game & Star Trek (all the series) is my FAVORITE television. I have been anticipating this game for MONTHS!! It was initially due to release February 2016, but was pushed back to June 2016. Therefore, it will probably be released at/around Origins. I want this game so badly!!
I don't own Mage Knight and love Star Trek. This is a buy for me. I don't mind screen shot art as long as the picture quality is good, and it looks good. I see a lot of people dogging the art and calling it lazy. The price of the game would jump if they had to hire an artist to do original art. If this was FFG using shots from Star Wars, I guarantee most of the people dogging the this game would praise that one. Give Wizkidz some credit here. Can't wait to get my copy.
+Brian Luckus
I'm in the same boat. So many Trek games coming out this year so I've got a lot of options (ie. Ascendancy, Frontiers, Panic).
+azraelswrd Panic is also an instabuy for me!
+Brian Luckus Nope. FFG already uses art for Star Wars and LOTR... and those games don't cost an arm and a leg. They could have and should have use art -- and brand new original characters. But for me, the love I've heard for MK and it's gameplay has long been overshadowed by it's theme. Taking those mechanics to Trek is a win. Even with lazy stills from TV and movies.
+Kevin L. Kitchens (klkitchens) Good point, however, I don't think it is lazy necessarily. The cards look better than Attack Wing.
+Brian Luckus I don't get the hate for screen caps. I want to see Picard, Data, and the other characters just as I remember them. Artist renderings would actually detract from the effect for me.
I really want to replace my copy of Mage Knight with this Tom, but my question is this a more streamlined version of Mage Knight? Every time I play MK I feel like I'm playing it wrong and if this fixed that I'd much prefer it.
I actually agree that the mechanisms work reaally well with the Star Trek theme, but I was worried that this version would be a "better" and/or streamlined version of Mage Knight, like in the new Through the Ages, because then I would want to have the new one. Judging by this review, virtually ALL the mechanisms are the same, even most cards. I'll keep my Mage Knight... and maybe buy somebody in my gaming group the Star Trek version for their Birthday, so that we have the option of playing with fantasy or sci-fi theme depending on the mood :) Thanks for the review!
I can see the thematic connection in giving actions to the starship rather than actions to a mage. Always struck me as weird, trying to be efficient with your cards as a person. Here though I can relate a lot easier.
I'll probably stick to Fleet Captains, but this looks cool.
I would really like to get one of the two. I was going to get Fleet Captains but then decided I'd wait and see how this turned out. I'm still not sure which one I'll pick up.
Wesley Harp The decision is made easier by the fact that you'll have a much easier time finding Frontiers (when it releases) than Fleet Captains, as the latter is out of print and the expansions at least are hard to come by.
Not hard to find at all. They're on amazon for top dollar.
***** It's top dollar on Amazon because it is OOP and hard to find in your OLGS and FLGS, clue dart.
Fleet captains is fantastic. This is good.
If you don't care about Start Trek, would it be better to try Mage Knight? Is the fantasy theme easier to get into?
Great shirt
Lots of variants, and probably the best Star Trek game to get. Awesome. Adding this to my collection as soon as possible (or when money allows me to) haha.. ;) :D
Thank you Tom for tackling these huge games. In the past you call Fleet Captains "Star Trek in a box". Does this game give more of a immersive Star Trek feel, or is Fleet Captains more Star Trek-y?
I could tell you without a doubt fleet captain is the most “Star Trek” Star Trek board game there is. You feel like you’re playing an episode or two it has all the things from the show multiple captains multiple ship pharmacy exploration beaming across and down just wonderful.
Also mage knight or frontier is a deck building puzzle combat game. Not really built for Star Trek from the ground up.
Can someone explain why all the hate over the screen shots? When playing a game with a theme which is tied directly to a TV show that we used to live by when younger, I MUCH prefer the evocative and warm feelings I get by the images taken directly from those shows, as oppossed to some artist's interpretation or rendering of the same.
Basically, for a KNOWN cinematic universe, artist paintings are always less immersive for me than are actual stills.
Thinking of either getting this (Star Trek Frontiers) or Mage Knight as a solo board game. Which do you think is a better first mage knight game i should first get? Which theme works best on this mechanism?
I don’t think either theme is inherently better. In fact some of the fantasy stuff is just as random.
I'm neutral to star trek but I love me some mage knight. Anyone know if the mechanisms are different enough that I would get some new enjoyment out of this game or should I just stick with mk?
I think the implementation of the theme is shaky in some areas. Treating "Data Crystls" as some important resource, for instance, or recruiting random crew members. It also seems an odd choice not to set this in the TOS era, since the emphasis on exploration is much lessened in the TNG era. An even greater oddity is the choice of Martok and the sisters as captains. If you have Cisco, then Dukat would have made a logical choice. And Sela, being one of the key nemesis of that era, makes for a very recognizable captain, rather than being relegated to being a crewman. Maybe I'm being fussy, but it's not the auto-buy I was thinking it would be. Probably be on sale within the year.
How in the hell is the emphasis on exploration much lessened in the TNG era?!?
This looks like alot of fun!
...but what I really wanted to know was, theme aside, is this different enough from Mage Knight to warrant owning both? Like, exactly what are the differences between the two? Are there any mechanical changes? Are there noticeable differences in the cards you buy and use? Or is this really just a straight re-theme that doesn't warrant a need to own both games?
It’s a reskin, mostly.
If you had to choose between this game, star trek ascendancy or fleet captains, which would it be.
Also, which game would be more kid friendly.
Thanks...
id like to hear this too
All right, I can see the downgrades here pretty easily. But what exactly got upgraded since "Mage Knight"? Besides changing one mana color to a question mark and shortening XP track a little bit?
I'm not a hard core Star Trek fan, but this game looks like a lot of fun. I think it works a lot better with the Star Trek theme and will be a great game as such. This will go in my collection, thanks Tom.
In the past, I haven't been all that interested in Star Trek... but this one looks very interesting... why does it remind me a little like Adroid Netrunner? Don't know... is this game out yet? Who publishing it? About how much? Thanks for the review...
How's the ship quality. I have Fleet Captains and the miniatures are terrible. I'm not expecting FFG or Cool Mini or Not quality, but I want something that doesn't feel like it'll break if I hold it too hard.
I see mechanisms that appear completely arbitrary- no tie to theme. Definitely would take Mage Knight over this, despite the theme.
Not me. I was totally disappointed with the presentation of Mage Knight, which is a busy mess. This looks much cleaner.
Looks fun.
I'll stick with Mage Knight.
I played Heroclix from day one and up until 3 years ago. I can tell you first hand; Wizkids is the first name is garbage components. They might have put more into this one and that's good but it's a shame they have so many licenses and generally terrible production quality. In the end it comes down to commitment to quality which I think they lack. Great review, as always.
Has no one mentioned his hat?
I'm still gonna buy both. I like both medieval fantasy and Star Trek. Are they going to put out expansions for this like they did with Mage Knight?
I don't understand all the hate for this game over mage knight granted wizkids does there crappy recycling old stuff and outdated components but I'm still a huge star trek fan regardless of wizkids having the license (which omg i wish another company did lol) but i don't have mageknight so this one is a win for me.
I've never played mage knight. Am I wrong or is this a rather light game?? I know Tom said there's a lot of depth and all but he isn't known for playing really heavy games.
+Hitchslapped I found Mage Knight to have one of the steepest learning curve in any game that I've ever played. Especially when allowing player combat. Light it is not! It is however, one of my favorites. :)
+Hitchslapped Mage Knight has a fair bit of complexity to the point that I'd never consider it a light game. The game makes you work a fair bit for any of your progress which means if you want to do well you need to be able to puzzle out how to get it. It's probably on par with a mid-weight Euro with a steep learning curve.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Mage Knight is sort of like Stochastic Calculus. No wait....Quantum Electro Dynamics...no wait....
ordered. just sold my mage knight.
Out of curiosity, after you sold MageKnight and bought Star Trek Frontier, did you regret it or was it fine?
It doesn't look differentiated enough from MK. It seems like a retheme only. Wonder if they changed any of the rules. I'll probably get it because I like Star Trek and Mage Knight and this one has The Sisko. For some reason Fleet Captains had every captain BUT Sisko. Even had his ship and some of his crew but no Sisko >:(
I'm sold, I had this on my watch list waiting for a review and this looks solid. I never bothered getting Mage Knight and between the generic fantasy theme and the Star Trek theme I'd rather get the Star Trek one, I already have other perfectly good fantasy games but a good Star Trek adventure style is harder to find. Also I have no problem with the design and art here, it all looks perfectly fine to me (not that I care too much about that anyway, as long as the game is fun that's the most important part to me.)
It's made by Vlaada Chvatil and it uses my #1 game as a base for gameplay. This is an instant buy for me.
That box though
I'm disappointed by the art and graphic design. I find Mage Knight to be a just a little much for me so I was looking forward to streamlined game in the same system. But now I'm questioning if this is worth replacing Mage Knight in my collection...
If you don't like the puzzly nature of Mage Knight, would you like this? In general, I like fantasy more than sci-fi, even so, after reading reviews I decided to pass on Mage Knight, as it wasn't my kind of game. But I am a Star Trek fan, again I still prefer fantasy, so would I like this?
The core gameplay is identical to Mage Knight, only a few minor changes, you wont like it if you don't like Mage Knight.
+Doma Agape My question as well. As far as I can see, it's not that much different than MK to justify buying it. ( The same problem with movement through the map that takes 1 billion years ).
Everything was punched out!? Punching out and sorting components is one of the best parts of boardgaming! :P
Which way did they want to go? They did not streamline this enough to be that much different than Mage Knight. Despite the theme, I’ve got to go with Mage Knight. They did not make enough changes, and Mage Knight is the heavier, more challenging game. For example, in MK, you cannot partially block in combat. Star Trek, you can. In MK, you HAVE to block the ENTIRE amount of the enemy. Also, STF only has 3 data colors. MK has 4 mana colors (including gold & black; also has the day & night system). Mage Knight just works better. I want MK before this. But if you want to play both, play Star Trek: Frontiers first. There would be no need for this after getting good at Mage Knight (it would be too easy).
Was that Marina Sirtis?!? How did Tom manage that?
+Ivan Conrad Yes! Indeed it was!
+Ivan Conrad Thanks for the spoiler!
man I am stoked about this one
TREKKERS! :P
I have Mage Knight and Fleet Captains, and although I think this looks like a great game I'll probably skip it for some time. The mechanisms are really similar so I don't see a point of playing it. If you don't have Mage Knight this might even be more fun. The Star Trek theme can add a lot like it did to Star Trek:Catan, but while it's easy to justify being a psychotic murderer in Mage Knight going around burning monasteries, playing a blood-thirsty Federation just doesn't fit the theme. Sure, they might have more diplomacy in their skills but if you can recruit Romulans and Borg without any penalty it's just kind of breaks the theme. At least in Mage Knight you can reason that your subjugating your units and forcing them to follow you, but that somehow doesn't fit the Federation. It looks like a great game, but if you have both Mage Knight and Fleet Captains, I don't think it's worth it. I'd love to give it a try, but I doubt that I'll be buying it.
Just bought this, and the expansion. Mage Knight felt too generic. Looking forward to the slow build, and the bonus of a solo game! Screenshots were a selling point for me, as I too like the Next Generation era best.
So Wiz Kids takes the cheep way out with show captures. I hate it when people do that it shows lazy art design.
+Andrew Denison FFG has been using the same art for cthullu related games in multiple different board and card games :D
+Hitchslapped Honestly, though, it looks better done in BSG and the Arkham stuff, and one can appreciate the stab at continuity and serial arcs. Wizkids stuff looks cheaply done.
Sean Weeks I totally agree. My comment was more of a side note. It looks better in BSG because it's a more recent show and more importantly it's ONE show. Mixing screenshots from different Star Trek shows always looks odd because the shows looked different.
Not into your collection?
Ugh, the lack of artwork and graphic design is atrocious. Compared to Mage Knight, the presentation of this game is not even close. I hope the gameplay and theme make up for it.
yeah, the artwork in Mage Knight is fantastic and evocative of the magic and world you are creating. The stills on the cards in this game make me feel like I am looking at cheap trading cards from the TV show.
Its star trek. It takes place in space. How the hell you gonna make black background with white spots look prett
I love mage Knight and i love star trek, but this seems a little forced. The "data" system feels so arbitrary compared to mana
yep! RIP Mage Knight
I was really looking forward to this, but every card I saw until the 9min mark was an exact copy from Mage Knight with some flavor-induced word changes :( Also all the mechanics are exactly the same and I think I could play this game without even looking at the rulebook straightaway, since I know Mage Knight. Sure, if the game is as good as Mage Knight, but with a Trek-theme, I guess that's fine, but still looks very disappointing to me since they seem to have changed pretty much nothing. I also have to agree with other replies that the artwork looks a bit like the 90s :(
Still, it's a Star Trek-version of my favourite game, so go figure... :P
Geordi La Forge, come on board please. On my KLINGON SHIP!!!!
Art is underwhelming. I had a feeling Tom would like this better than MK, but I'm not seeing the advantage for myself unless the play times for a full blown scenario are legit. Those take 2-3 hours per player in MK.
Star Trek > Star Wars. Definitely selling my MK and buying this.
Tom, to be honest...you pronounce a lot of things wrong . . . not just Star Trek. Love you Tom!
As a huge star trek fan, I gotta get this.
Lore is exiting? I think not
It is exactly the same as Mage Knight. This is Wizkids which means no real effort was put into anything. Horrible company. I'll skip this one and support other business.
BTW Terrible artwork.
K. Polok
Yeah, I was hoping it would tweak the engine a bit (not that Mage Knight needs tweaking, but there's always room for improvement). I see zero additions/differences.
Everyone here will hate me knowing that I'm a star wars fan, but Star trek still cool
7 or 9? I'm gonna say she's a 7.
Lazy cash-grab to get dollars from Star Trek collectors.
Photos from the TV series instead of art?!! Given what Trek-heads will pay to add this to their collection-are you serious?!!!!
Unless you hate fantasy and love Star Trek you're better off getting Mage Knight (which is without a doubt my favourite board game) which has better artwork and a bigger community for the actual board game. (I know the Star Trek community is bigger but I'm talking about the actual board game not the IP-and actually playing the game rather than just collecting).
I can't stand Mage Knight, so I'm giving this a pass if it's basically an 80% copy. If you are able to push away the Star Trek theme and only look at this mechanisms here, then you've defeated the entire point of adding Star Trek to this game.
in theory...Mage Knight is awesome.
Tom you are trying very hard to be positive about this game, while in fact the only positive is that you prefer Star Trek's theme to Mage Knight's.
The mechanics are onviously top notch since this is Mage Knight rethemed. But the aesthetics...
Components are worse than Mage Knight, just compare the minis/ships quality and the crystal/data quality.
I remember reading a Wizkids guy stating that this game is 60%-70% as heavy as Mage Knight and shorter. However most of the cards are word-for-word the same, mechanics are the same.
Star Trek fans will appreciate this, but dissappointing for anyone else.
This game is a clone of Mage Knight which I must be the only one who did not particularly like !
ST Panic , another clone, at least has missions.
I will buy the Panic.
this video was confusing as hell.
Forgive Tom Vasel's mistakes... hmm... lol
In other words it's a lot of Star Trek crap randomly squashed together into a pocket universe that makes no sense.
Also known as heaven
I'll stick with my Mage Knight. The components and art look MUCH nicer in Mage Knight. No brainer...this looks like garbage.
You need to go into your preferences and start looking at what advertisers you allow. I'm not going to watch your channel if I have to sit through a 30-sec ad for anything - but especially for crap like American Ninja Warrior.
I use adblock and I don't see ads in this channel and I've watched hundreds of dice tower videos.
+Mark S CZcams app on iPhone and Apple TV
The 21st century has become known as the century of recycled ideas. Movies, tv shows, pc games and board games. Has no one got any creative ability anymore?
+Jim Ferguson All of history is similar, you're only alive now and therefore can see the present for the mixed bag it is while looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses. There have always been remakes across media in every medium - from The Wizard of Oz to The Lord of the Rings and from Greed (1924) to Ghost in the Shell.
Like I said, its the century of recycled ideas, blood rage, pandemic, star wars x wing miniatures game. Nothing new, no imagination, just recycled ideas boxed with new art.
Jim Ferguson This is nonsense. There are no more - percentage wise - of these kinds of rehash/reskin games today than there has ever been. If anything, there are just more games today since board games have gone through / are going through a golden age right now.
Every medium has its remakes/rehashes/reskins, and every medium has its ground breakers. They come at about the same rate at all times in all media.
There are as many big new ground breaking game ideas today as there has ever been when you look at the percentage of total games. From Love Letter to the Legacy mechanism - from King of Tokyo to Camel Up. This is easiest to see in films. It seems like there are more films which are remakes/adaptations but really all that's changed is more TV and Movies are being turned into other movies - books have always been turned into movies and that adapationism is constant across the medium.
Once a medium has existed for long enough, it can begin to make meaningful reinterpretations of prior material in the same medium. This happens to books too, where an old piece of writing like Beowulf, Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet or whatever is retold in modern language.
You're simply mistaken that this is some kind of new or more common phenomenon. Board games are just a big booming business now and there are a lot more people making a lot more games. So you see more of these reskins because you see more of everything. 40 years ago there were tons of clones of every popular game with every retheme you can imagine. Same 20 years ago. And at the dawn of history, you had a thousand variations on Chess. Look up how many variant Chess pieces there are. There are thousands of them. So many that there are different classifications of their types and at least 3 different major sub-groups around modern (fairy) chess, historical variants and chess-like games that are variations on the whole concept but have potentially compatible pieces.
All of history looks like today, only today there are many many more games created than before.
Look at Greek mythology, then look at Roman mythology.
Ugh! Screen Shots on the cards! Blech! Pass.
The second Tom explained this game was a retheme of Mage Knight, he lost me. I watched this review all the way through, and I'm simply not sold.
I love Mage Knight. This game looks lame.
so... mage knight with a new title. i see some changes, 3 crystal colors instead of 4, but i mostly see the EXACT same card powers, the EXACT same gameplay. This is like Star Trek Monopoly. Looks like star trek game, but it is monopoly underneath. I love MK, so i will absolutely not buy this. Pass.
The preferred term is "Trekkers" - for those who appreciate the franchise for its (mostly) serious attempts to portray sci-fi. "Trekkies" is justifiably a derogatory term for those who are overly obsessed with the franchise, who wear costumes to conventions, stalk cast members for autographs, worship the shyster Roddenberry as a new-age deity, believe his "perfect utopian future" BS, etc. :-)
+Greg Heilers Sounds like a "I'm a Trekker, those other fools are Trekkies" type thing where all the things you like are ok but all the things you don't like are bad and what a Trekker versus a Trekkie is will change depending on who is using the labels. That is, no one would self-describe as a Trekkie using these definitions.
I consider myself a "trekkie" though I don't own any uniforms, never been to a convention, never been to California for that matter, don't stalk actors, never asked anybody for an autograph, don't worship Gene Roddenberry, and frankly find nothing wrong with hoping for a better future.
I have a DS9 uniform, been to a couple of conventions, have two tri-dimensional chess sets (one custom made to look identical to the TNG version), have Starfleet Captains with both expansions, watched every episode of every series dozens of times, have all of the PC games and media titles, have every printed item from the Klingon Language Institute, have the book on the Vulcan Language, the Starfleet Technical Manual, the Star Trek Chronology book, too many CCG cards... well I won't list everything. And I'm a Trekkie! A Trekker to me sounds like somone who goes on hikes.