Stats:
No. of players: 1-4
Amount of time to play: 120 min
Age requirements: 12+
Set-up time: 5 min

Kalidasa is the second rim expansion for Firefly the game. It adds more space, a new captain and additional contacts as well as the Alliance’s Corvette.

Firefly Kalidasa Rules Description:

This review of the Kalidasa expansion assumes you generally know how to play Firefly the game. If you haven’t had the chance to try the base game you can read my review and overview of it here.

If you have seen the movie Serenity then you know who mans the Alliance Corvette. The Operative stops at nothing to bring delinquents to justice. Well this infamous Alliance agent’s ship has been added to the Firefly game. There are also new nav cards that allow the Corvette to move. Other nav cards generate Alliance alert tokens on the board. These act like the alert tokens left by Reaver ships in the Blue Sun expansion. If you enter a space with one or more alert tokens you roll one d6. If the result is less than or equal to the number of alert tokens the Corvette moves to your space. Then you must stop if you are flying and lose one wanted crew and all fugitive tokens.

Nested Skill Tests have also been added. Certain results (usually low ones) require you to make an extra skill test to pass the original.

There is an additional sideboard that brings to total size of this game if using the Blue Sun expansion to 20” x 50”. As is the norm in the Firefly expansions there are new Story and Setup cards, a new captain too.

There are two new contacts, Magistrate Higgins and Fantastic & Mingojerry Rample. Once you are solid with them, Magistrate Higgins lets you have one extra active job and you can sell the twins contraband for $400.There are also few jobs for each Contact from the base game that interact with the Kalidasa sideboard.

And of course there are rules for combining the Kalidasa expansion with the Blue Sun expansion.

Quick Review of Firefly Kalidasa:

The Kalidasa expansion really adds a lot of the lore from the series and especially from the movie, Serenity. I love the movie and it is great to see the Operative in the game. Even though he is scary and will get rid of your wanted crew. From a theme perspective it is great.

The components for this expansion are in line with the rest of the series. The miniature for the Corvette looks nice. The cards and art are good and the rules do a great job of introducing you to the new elements.

The Operative is my favorite new addition, but I also like the new nested skill tests. They add some additional tension and possibly opportunity to the jobs they are on.

It is also nice to see Fantastic and Mingojerry from Serenity and be able to get jobs from them. They are located on Beaumonde on the new board. And give players a reason to travel to Rim Space.

One thing to be aware of is the size of the game. I have a large table but with both rim expansions Firefly has a large footprint. It is not the end of the world but if you don’t have a lot of space it will be tough to get this to the table (literally).

If you like the base game or are a fan of Serenity you should pick up the Kalidasa expansion. It adds a lot of great things from the movie without adding a bunch of new rules.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6