Flagship is a new starship combat card game by GMT Games. It is not collectible, but it is expandable. This curious notion means that while the game is playable straight out of the box (and boxes have fixed composition), there is a possibility of combining cards from a number of boxes to construct a deck. Actually, each box contains two 55 card decks (54 of which are used for the game and one is a play aid showing turn order), or two factions, as well as 6 dice for used as damage counters and to keep track of the game's single resource, command points. There are two sets available at the moment, Prometheus Unchained and Coyote Stands, giving a total of four factions playable against each other. Each set has fixed composition, so by buying a single one you are getting all the cards available for the factions included in the set. GMT Games promise future releases in the series which will follow a similar format. Also, they are committed to supporting the game (in tournaments, for example) played using standard, out-of-the box decks, so there should be no "single box is for sissies" attitude in the Flagship community.
Before I continue, I have to admit that I really like this game, so if you are looking for a witty review poking fun at the game's flaws, you have to look elsewhere. Having said that, I'll try not to drool too much over how I adore it, but rather give an overview of what it is about. YMMV, as usual.
Each game depicts a single space fleet engagement, and each player has two kinds of cards: the ships and actions. Ships (and a single commander) are bought before the game begins, and their value represents the general power of your fleet. They are deployed on the table, and removed from the game when destroyed. Actions (actually Action Cards and Crew Cards) are shuffled into your draw pile and cost nothing to include in your deck (though actually playing them might involve spending your command points). Here is my first nitpick with the game--both types of cards have the same back (different for each fleet) and thus it is all too easy to shuffle your ships into your draw deck. Not a big thing, but it would be nice if they were easier to separate (they do have a different front-side background, so it is not that bad).
All card art is computer generated, and while none of the pictures look outstanding, they are all quite pleasing to the eye (my eye, that is). It scores points in my book for not all characters being white males, though for some reason all the female cat-human hybrid pilots wear really bright red lipstick. One would have thought that at least some of them would realize that it doesn't go very well with facial fur, but apparently no. Culture thing, probably. Each faction has its own graphical design style, which adds to the game's atmosphere.
As for the factions themselves, there are no big surprises here. Big insectoid hive-mind swarm uses advanced biotechnology to eat everything in its path. Cat-human hybrids use fighter ships and boarding parties. Human empire, the Heisenberg Dynasty, have broadside-firing capital ships and the best crews in the universe. A bunch of human rebels fly hi-tech alien warships found in a hidden cache. As I said, nothing unexpected, but at the same time such setting makes one feel immediately at home.
Game play itself is reminiscent of your usual CCG fare, with ships being tapped (sorry, tasked) to perform various actions, and hand-held cards being played either as instants (discard after use) or enchantments (mostly Crews, but also Racks attached to ships) that stay with the ships they are attached to. This is where the game's theme gets really weird: ships start the battle bare, and become increasingly powerful as various crew cards and racks get attached to them. What is even stranger, different crew cards often share the same name, as well as coming in multiple copies, so one can end up having Johanson: Missile Gunner (twice), Johanson: Beam Gunner (also twice), and Lt. Johanson active at the same time, often on different ships (all of this using just the standard deck). My impressions is it's Attack of the Clones time, but the game's manual tries feebly to dispel my concerns by saying that the crews start the battle on their posts, and the cards represent only their contribution to the battle. Moreover, they use complex networking system, so a single Johanson can contribute to the success of many ships. This does not seem too convincing, as crew cards linger, so Johanson's contribution means he helps all these ships every turn, but only after being deployed (noticed?). Furthermore, each ship can carry only a single captain (what, no networking for captains?), but Captain Young is present in two copies. All this gives the battle a rather weird ambience. The goal of the game is to destroy enemy flagship, so each side has just one ship that really counts. In my games, this ship almost inevitably ends up with tons of crews, while are the rest are sparsely (if at all) populated. But so what, that will be the ship talked about in history books anyway—I for one cannot recall any ship other than H.M.S. Victory from the battle of Trafalgar.
Still, none of the weirdness detracts from the game's playability. And this is where the game really shines--it plays really well, is more or less balanced (though each faction has a quite different feel), and it goes a long way to present a believable (if pulpish) idea of spacefleet combat. I cannot stress this enough: the game is an absolute blast to play, and so all the other issues can be regarded as mere nitpicks.
Which brings me to the reasons why I think it's worth buying. First of all, I like the theme (this is what made me interested in the game in the first place). Second, it is not a CCG, so there is no hidden "whoever spends more money has a better chance at winning" assumption. Third, it plays very well, and there are enough possibilities to allow for a large number of replays (three scenarios, apart from the standard big and small slugathon, are included in each game, and it is easy to construct your own). Fourth, it looks nice, if not outstanding. Fifth, at $25 for two decks (i.e. one set, easily split between two players), the game is not overly expensive.
On the minus side, I'd count the crew cards' poor integration into the game theme as well as a few graphical design nitpicks.
For these reasons, I give Flagship (both sets) 4 for Style and 5 for Substance: heartily recommended.
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