Background:
I've played Cuba Libra, Fire in the Lake and now Falling Sky.
My other favourite games are 1960: The Making of the President, Star Wars: Rebellionand the Game of Thrones board game 2nd Ed.
I don't have a nice camera, so I'm going to scatter the review with other people's images (I wont be taking the time to credit each of these because life is short, but if you see your photo here its because your photo looks great!) - images are important to any review of Falling Sky because unlike the older COIN games, OH MY GOD, THIS GAME LOOKS GORGEOUS.
Board & Components
For me, this is the most attractive board game in my collection (though I don’t like chrome/figures soo).
The various wooden pieces look and feel wonderful in conjunction with the board. Its a strange thing to be saying about basic wooden cubes, octagonal cylinders, wooden disks and blocks but the color of each faction contrasts very attractively with the board. When the game is fully deployed, it looks amazing. The board in particular is a work of art. The embossed pieces are very pleasing, and make me wish ALL the pieces were embossed.
The only part I found disappointing is, like other people, the thin-card player mats fail to keep up with the high standard of production that the rest of the components radiate. I understand the expansion will include better player mats for all the faction so kudos to the team for hearing our pleas.
I also feel that the design of the cards (both sides of) is not quite as attractive as it could be and looks a little dated compared to the setup, although the thickness of the cards is absolutely stellar and should be held up as a standard that other games should meet – these cards are not going to fall apart any time soon.
Approachability/Weight
Like other COIN games, Falling Sky is relatively simple and pleasingly fast paced once every player knows how to play - for a game with such a broad range of options in what action a player can take in a given turn, it flows well. For someone with a mind that is seduced by elegant and deep game systems this game is absolute crack, but for my ageing mother it was more like kryptonite.
Unfortunately, like other COIN games the incredible breadth of possible action and the unapproachable nature of the action sheets (dense text, which itself has been tightened down into barely legible shorthand) make teaching this game to new players very hard work.
My girlfriend (who enjoys playing 1960: Making of the President and Star Wars: Rebellion) noped out of Falling Sky after about 30 minutes, and I had a similar response from my normal group. The game mechanics are fantastic and fascinating, but are also a real hurdle to internalise (IF this is your first COIN). Approachable as the game may now look because its smaller and very pretty, its still a wargame at heart and no easy beast to teach. You will need players who are either excited enough to stick with it for 2 hours of confused learning, or are excited enough to go away and learn the game before you get together, in order to play this with a local group. The long play time is also a bitch - even the short game is hard to close off in one long session.
To be clear though, this game is totally worth it if you manage.
If I could make a suggestion to the designers, if they want to make a COIN game that is more accessible to the masses - try and make the player aids that show each factions possible actions as visual as possible (use icons for resource cost, images of pieces it affects etc) Perhaps try and make the actions themselves a little simpler. Perhaps make the order in which players perform action + special action rigidly fixed. 336
I know that amounts to a reduction in breadth of possible action, but it would make for a much, much more teachable game.
Gameplay:
Wonderful. Elegant. Varied. Every faction by turn feels overpowered and interesting and very different (I don’t see why others felt the Gallic factions were too similar). Unlike in Fire In The Lake, I felt that there were multiple ways to play each faction, and that faction relations are not so baked in. That every faction can come to battle with the others makes things a lot more interesting than eg. the one sided relationships between VC & US pieces in Fire in the Lake. The presence of leaders allows you to have an Avatar in game, which helps with immersion. The diplomacy is real, and negotiations are constant. No runaway leaders and no player knockouts.
Compared to other COIN, doing away with LoC was a good choice. I think LoC added a lot of complexity for little gain. I also greatly prefer the simplified handling of support/opposition by having tribes instead of fiddly control makers, which I hated. 579