To Boldly Go... (A Review of Star Trek: Fleet Captains)

[Editors note: The following is a Nemesis Review, featuring opinions from our in-house thematic-loving @futurewolfie and his ferocious opponent, the stodgy euro-loving @Farmerlenny.  Make sure to read both opinions to get a better overall picture of the game!]

If you fit into the "geek" sphere in any way, there's a good chance you enjoy at least one Star Trek series. If you haven't had your head buried for the last 45 years, you have at least heard of Star Trek. One of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time, Star Trek brought us action, adventure, and social commentary way out in deep space. Whether you are loyal to Captain Kirk or Captain Picard, the world of Star Trek is deep, broad, and rich with potential. With all the strange new worlds, alien races, powerful ships, and advanced technology, there is plenty of room for exciting, player-driven adventures to be had.

Star Trek: Fleet Captains attempts to capture the feel of an entire season of Star Trek. Exploration, encounters with mysterious aliens, missions to complete, and a little combat add up to a hefty experience. But the ultimate question arises—is it an experience worth having?

Get your heroclix!

half-finished.  I couldn't find the final picture.

If you've read some of my earliest posts on this blog, you may know that I used to play Heroclix avidly.  Those were the good ol' days, back in high school, when I thought I didn't have much money but I didn't have any expenses.  So what I really had was lots of disposable income, and dispose of it I did.  Right into boxes and boxes of Heroclix.

I loved playing heroclix; I mean, whole teams of superheroes battling it out in various arenas, to the death? Awesome! I had some pretty great teams and figures.  Batman, Black Adam, Kane, Doctor Fate, Invisible Woman.  My friends and I even built our own 3D Heroclix game board.  It was one of the few things we actually did in real life.  Mostly we just played Halo, so it was great to actually feel like we accomplished something.

Then, Heroclix defeated me.  I realized, after a couple years in college, that I couldn't keep up.  The new sets were releasing too fast.  It became overwhelming... and then our local gaming store went out of business, cutting off our main source of new figures.  I stopped collecting and eventually we stopped playing.  We just found easier things to play, more self contained games.

All this to say... I've decided that it's no longer worth it to keep my old collection on hand.   I don't see me playing anymore, and the boxes are just taking up space on the shelf.  I've decided to try and pass them on to someone who would appreciate them more.

I had built up quite the collection over the years, but i'm selling it on ebay split up into the various "collections."  There are some pretty useful figures, some decently valuable ones (Unique Batman! Deadpool!) and a few Uniques.

The full list of what I'm selling is here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/grummzaire/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

Being that you're most likely gamers, I figured I'd post here since you or someone you know might be interested.  If you are or if you know someone who would be, I'd love it if you could pass this on in their direction.

FDQ: Expansions or new games?

Board gaming is a pretty great hobby. You get the benefits of getting away from a screen for a while and interacting face-to-face with friends and family. You get your brain a little exercise. And you have a whole variety of experiences to jump into and out of for a few hours at a time.

Not only can you buy new games to get this variety, but you can often buy expansions to your favorite games to change up or deepen the experience. Of course, most people have pretty tight wallets and can't just buy whatever they want. So today's question... which do you like the most—buying a new game, or buying an expansion to one of your favorites? Answer in the comments!

(P.S. You'll definitely want to check back for next week's FDQ. It's a super special surprise, and I don't think you'll regret it. And I'm not giving any hints; you'll find out what it is next week!)


@Futurewolfie answers:
 This is probably a tough answer for most gamers. The call of new games is always strong, but at the same time, my favorite games deserve a little love as well, and most of the time new expansions add variety and excitement to an already great game. With limited money, it's always a tough choice between buying an expansion or going for something totally new. Not to mention the fact that I'm somewhat of a completionist, so when I have a game I love I feel like I want to get every expansion just to complete the collection. I bought waaaay too many Heroclix in high school for that reason. Still, I think at least at this point I prefer buying new games. There are a lot of unique experiences out there that I haven't had a chance to get my hands on, and as a blogger of games, I'm pretty willing to risk my money on a game that I don't know much about just to try something new. Whereas with expansions, it's just a variation on a familiar experience; not necessarily a bad thing (Dominion expansions, you rock my world) but just not necessarily my first priority.

@FarmerLenny answers:
This is a tough question. Buying new games can be a mixed bag, whereas expansions to a game you already like generally seem like a safe bet (except maybe some Carcassonne expansions, which seem to have jumped the shark). Because I like new shinies, I usually opt for new games (after copious research), but I'm rarely disappointed when I decide on expansions. For Dominion, I think the expansions are what keep the game so exciting, but there are other games that seem more complete in themselves, making expansions less necessary (Agricola, for example). Really, I'm open to any purchase that brings exciting plays to the table.