Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 30-60 min
Age requirements: 13+
Set-up time: 5-10 minutes

Gunship: First Strike! is a game of space combat. You command a carrier, gunship and fighter squadron that must destroy your opponent’s carrier.

Gunship: First Strike! Rules Description:

You start Gunship: First Strike! with a small fleet of ships. Your carrier and squadron are not customizable, but your gunship needs to be outfitted with guns, shields and armor. After selecting your starting equipment and their locations you draw five cards and are ready to begin.

There are three main areas of the play area, each player’s carrier zone and the neutral center zone between them.

You start each round by rolling initiative. Next both carriers shoot at each other then the player that won initiative takes their turn followed by the other player.

Your turn is divided into a few phases. First your fighter squadron move and/or attack. If it is present with another squadron it must attack it. If it is just with an enemy gunship it may attack it. Squadrons fight by rolling a number of dice based in the number of ships in the squadron.

Next your gunship can take three actions. The choices are move one zone, attack a squadron or gunship or carrier, or land on a friendly carrier for repairs. Gunship resolve combat differently depending on who they attack. Attacks against gunship and fighters require a hit or ionized card. Against fighters this lets you roll one die per card played. If used against a gunship the hits will damage a random component of the enemy ship. Ionized hits disable random parts of the enemy ship and may cause power failure.

Your opponent may be able to avoid a hit card with an evasive action card. But any component hit takes light damage. Another hit on the component results in heavy damage. Damaged components cannot be used and heavy damage will effect your gunship negatively. If your gunship ever sustains twelve total hits it is destroyed. You can repair damage by landing on your carrier and using your actions for repairs.

Your gunship can also attack your opponents carrier. All gunships have a torpedo launcher and you can outfit yours with thruster bombs. When you make an attack run on the carrier its defenses fire at you. After applying damage you can damage the carrier. This is automatic with your torpedoes but requires a torpedo card. Thruster bombs can always be used but require a roll to hit.

The repair phase lets you fix your gunship. Some repairs can be made in flight but more serious damage must be fixed aboard your carrier.

To end your turn you discard one card or two if you did not play any that turn.

After the player with initiative finishes their turn, the other player takes their turn. This continues until one carrier has been destroyed.

Quick Review of Gunship: First Strike!:

Gunship: First Strike! is a fast-paced, action-packed game of space combat. Once you configure your gunship the battle begins. Fighters strafe, carriers defend and gunships soar through space.

The components for this game are good. I wish the cards were a bit thicker but they aren’t horribly thin. If you play the game a lot, you might want to sleeve them. The art and boards look great and the rules are well written with tons of examples.

I like that you get to construct and customize your gunship. The configuration you choose can be specialized to battle the other player’s gunship, take down their carrier or a more generalized jack-of-all-trades.

Although it takes up a lot of table space Gunship: First Strike! looks impressive. The ships just look cool and can easily gather a crowd to watch the action.

The theme is strong in this game and the mechanics help to support the theme. I have never been in a spaceship battle but I think it would be chaotic. This game does a good job simulating that chaos. This means there is a lot of random elements in the game. Some cards can help you minimize the randomness. So before you play you should be aware that you might have less control in this battle than you’d like.

Gunship: First Strike! is a fun game that plays fast. You can enjoy this with kids and it makes for a fun family game. If you don’t mind the random elements of this game you should really enjoy it. It looks great and the theme is strong. If you like space-themed combat, or want a game like that in your collection you should pick up Gunship: First Strike!

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6 (if you can embrace the randomness of this game)