Review Summary: More space. Can it be filled up with the extra enemy vessel, the new contacts and the shiny little things that are happening?

Blurb from the publisher: 'The Rim is calling...

The second Rim Space Expansion set for Firefly: The Game, Kalidasa adds a massive star system to the 'Verse with loads of new opportunities for adventure and profit.

The long arm of the Alliance reaches out beyond core space with the addition of the Operative's Corvette. Two new Contacts, Magistrate Higgins and the twin brothers Fanty & Mingo, provide new work opportunities for ambitious crews. The bustling port of Beaumonde offers exciting new gear and supplies for captains of all sorts. New Set Up cards, new Story cards and a host of surprises await the bold.

Will you answer?'

What you get: Your EUR 35 or GBP 30 or USD 40 will buy you Kalidasa, an expansion for the Firefly: The Game line. The basic game is indispensable to enjoy this product. The box contains the rulebook in English (the same rulebook as well as an FAQ can also be found on the game's website), as well as the following items: one Game Board, one Plastic Ship, 3 Story cards, 2 Set Up cards, 54 Tokens, 50 Supply Cards, 71 Nav Cards, 75 Job Cards and one Leader Card. There is heavy use of language on the game components; if you plan to play with non-English speakers you might have to wait until the licensed versions for your language of choice come out.

Gameplay: Kalidasa is the third big expansion for Firefly: The Game after Pirates & Bounty Hunters and Blue Sun. It greatly expands the map, when it comes to gameplay however it remains rather prudent. Thematically speaking, it introduces elements from the series that had been overlooked up to now like traveling to the Rim, facing the Operative's Corvette etc.

The Rim is a new area of space attached to the right of the existing board in the same way that Blue Sun was attached on the left side; it increases its capacity by some 25%. The Kalidasa system dominates the map. Beaumonde is only one of its satellites, a seventh supply area and the joint that Mingo and Fanty haunt. The Operative's Corvette will start from another small planet in the general area, Cortex Relay 2. Magistrate Higgins on the other hand is added in Harvest on the Red Sun, back in the map of the basic game.

Mingo & Fanty are as illegal as you remember them (25 out of their 25 jobs). They dabble in pretty much everything (contraband, fugitives etc) but their gig invariably contains Misbehaving not once but multiple times. They are selling contraband at $400 apiece, while being solid with them adds an additional $500 when you complete a Transport job. Magistrate Higgins on the other hand allows an additional active job when you are solid with him. No way you can work with him however if you have Jayne in your crew. His jobs are nominally illegal (13 out of 25), while 9 out of 25 are also Immoral. There is both cargo and contraband in his jobs, as well as passengers and fugitives, with a sauce of misbehaving every now and then. In many ways he can be considered as having a balanced mix of jobs. Either however may offer Bonus jobs, a sort of a job within a job that racks in extra cash.

As to Beaumonde, it is a place teeming with Grifters and Mudders. You will find items of worth like weaponry, contracts and all sorts of items like Nav Charts and Flak Jackets. There is even a boardgame collection lying around. The service areas from the basic game also get a boost with five cards each.

The game also contains 5 additional cards for each of the other contacts in the game: Niska, Patience, Harken, Amnon Duul and Badger. These are essential to introduce Jobs from these contacts into the new stretch of space.

The main attraction of Kalidasa is the Operative's Corvette. This is a brand new ship that moves autonomously through Persistent Pursuit cards that can be found in all three Space decks. Contact with the Operative is rather unpleasant. Flying stops, Fugitives are discarded and Wanted Crew is removed from play. At least he protects your ships from the Reavers, moving their ships back to their starting sectors when they end up on his. Alliance Alert Tokens appear in even higher numbers thanks to even harder Nav Deck cards. Oops.

Two of the three new Story cards are addressed to all experience levels, even though they last from two hours onwards. In The Well's Run Dry there will be only $5000 per player in the bank. The game will end when the bank's money ends. It might end even earlier, if only one player has more than half of it. Clearly, the goal of the game is to acquire credit. It's All You Know is a timed game of twelve jobs. Every completed job brings the game close to closure. However it is not money but solid Reps that wins the game. In case of ties that would be the highest valued Crew wins. The third Story card is The Scavenger's Verse, and is sort of different to the others in that it addresses itself to 'experienced, friendly folks' and describes its objectives in the form of a riddle. There are nine prerequisites to have on your ship in order to win (e.g. a saint, a Friend in High Places, a Hold with no spaces etc), however all of those are open to interpretation with the opponents voting on whether something fulfills the condition. Needless to say, this story demands a good knowledge of the show and movie.

The Set Up cards on the other hand detail alternate ways of starting the game. One can be paired with any existing Story card to add variety to the game. Both of Kalidasa's Set Up cards relate to all experience levels. In Rim's The Thing only jobs from the Rim will be used, making the game run mostly in the periphery of the board. Time's Not On Our Side on the other hand limits the game to twenty rounds only. If you are not finished by then, the game is decided on credits alone at the time it was abruptly stopped.

The strong points: The Firefly universe is finally complete! Unless Gale Force Nine do a quirky Doctor Who or Star Trek combo, there is nothing left to discover map-wise. It is great to see the 'Verse in its full glory, with all the places to visit and the people to meet and good grief it sounds as if I am writing an obituary. It is my belief that Kalidasa is the last big expansion for the game, with such a scope and components, and I register this as an extremely positive fact. After a certain point, even completists would be weary. The minor things that are coming out like boosters and accessories are very welcome, yet if there were more map expanding expansions I'd be skeptical.

Kalidasa does not try to convince the ones sitting on the fence. If you liked the original game you will like it for the additional depth it offers. The Operative is fun to play, the stakes are higher on every movement you try, everybody is out to get you (even your co-players, if you are using the P&BH expansion), what else could one want? No, the answer is not 'for the Corvette to also leave Alert Tokens behind it'; it doesn't, and rightfully so. Seriously however, the Nav Decks are harder than in the previous expansions. I was surprised by how fast Alliance Space was filled with Alert Tokens, which of course stack and become harder to beat. Around mid-game it will be very clear which sections of space are the most used, because they will be filled with Alerts. Using the less beaten path is easier said than done for a game with such an enormous map. Adding turns upon turns on your missions is not the best idea, and even less so in timed games. There's some serious risk-taking to be had, that's for sure.

As I had said in Blue Sun, I like all the new rules relating to the map's expansion and the handling of space. The two new contacts were sort of a necessity; what good is space, if you have nothing to do there?

The rulebook is concise and easy to read. Each element particular to this expansion is noted with a turtle. If you ever decide you want to purify the game back to its basics, it is easy to get all the new material out. Frankly, however, I don't see why you will ever want to do that.

The art follows the one from the basic game with confidence. Everything is exactly what it should be. Nothing else to see here.

The weak points: Kalidasa is a big expansion, but not as profound as P&BH or Blue Sun were on the gameplay and feel of the game. It adds space and the Operative, that's however mostly it. Many of the things I see on the missions and decks feel partially derivative; idem for the Set Up and Story cards where at least on the timed game imitate one another. I think it's rather unlikely that somebody will buy Kalidasa straight after the basic game while omitting the two previous major expansions; I might be wrong, but were one to do it I think he'd feel disappointed. On the other hand, this is still a bigger expansion that Breakin' Atmo, Jetwash and Esmeralda.

The present expansion does not touch upon the high luck factor that F:tG boasts. At its heart it remains a luck-driven game where you move things around. I cannot easily imagine Kalidasa changing your opinion from 'Firefly sUxXx0rz!' to 'Firefly rocks bruv!'. What is more likely to happen is for Kalidasa to invigorate the passion of somebody who approached F:tG with an open mind and wanted to see more.

No matter how you see it, game times will increase. Distances are bigger, and Jobs that require you to move Cargo from the Kalidasa to the Red Sun do exist. Hell, there are even jobs from Blue Sun to Kalidasa. That's more than a meter away on the map!

Firefly is now officially the only boardgame I know that needs more table space than boardgames with dedicated gargantuan miniatures like Cthulhu Wars, or even dedicated miniature games like Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection, Judge Dredd and Dust Tactics. If you don't have a big enough table (I'd say two square meters should probably cut it), I sure hope you have an empty enough floor.

The company's website includes all the rulebooks and that is nice and dandy. Unfortunately, for the hard core fans or gamers that want to play a full, immersive, no-holds-barred version of F:tG with everything and the kitchen sink thrown in, there is no consolidated rulebook. The full rules are not presented in a single, cohesive text, in a way that makes sense and incorporates all FAQ questions. This means looking stuff up in half a dozen reference documents, be them rulebooks or cards. If you want to enjoy everything, brace yourself, make the necessary references on the existing rulebooks, have the (otherwise good) FAQ printed out and go. Not optimal, unfortunately.

Conclusion: I like Kalidasa because it provides a closure to the main Firefly: The Game mechanics. It rounds off the map, provides a third danger that roams delightfully around, and overall makes the game fuller and vaster. With this, Firefly is complete.

For more info on Gale Force Nine and Firefly, visit the websites http://www.fireflythegame.com and www.gf9.com.

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