How Does the Homeworld Board Game Play

By Samantha Webb

 

Welcome to Fleet Command

Homeworld Fleet Command brings the control of the Kushan and Taiidan fleets to your tabletop. Command the Kushan survivors as they try to return to their home of Hiigara, or lead the Taiidan imperial forces as they try to destroy the Kushan before they become a threat to their galactic sovereignty. But how does it play?

Draw command cards. Roll for initiative. Play command cards.

Each round in any scenario is broken down into drawing command cards from your command deck, rolling for initiative, and the winner playing their first command card. Then each player takes turns playing command cards and enacting those orders until they’ve played their limit. With special orders on the card faces, and any card allowing you to issue basic commands the game is super simple to begin playing and specific moves easy to reference.

At the start of a new round, both players draw command cards up to their current hand value, shown on each faction card. Before you draw, you can discard cards from your hand too, if you want to find that one command that’s going to unlock your whole strategy! Each faction, Taiidan and Kushan, has its own Faction card that provides Hand and Play values as well as a special ability.

Rolling for initiative is as simple as rolling one of the six-sided dice and checking who rolled higher, re-rolling ties. Before rolling, you can discard command cards if you really need to act first this round - but at the cost of the number of commands you can issue this round. Either way, the player with the highest result goes first, playing their first command card.

As well as the unique commands on the faces, your command cards let you issue four other basic orders: move, attack, reinforce, and harvest. Some special orders allow more than one unit to be activated, and some even have some lasting effects, so it can be a tough choice to go with the orders you’ve been dealt or keep with a more regular strategy.

Each type of ship in your force has a unit card, from fighters and corvettes, right up to capital ships and stations—even the iconic Mothership. The unit cards list things like which dice results score successes with attacks, how much armor it has, how far it can move, as well as any weapons and special abilities it has like which types of units it is strong against.

Leader cards can be assigned to your force as well, boosting how many Command cards you can have in your hand and can play each round and giving the unit another special ability.

Played across an expansive hex map, with pre-written scenarios that mirror the events of the classic Homeworld 1 video game. You have a chance of winning each scenario by completing the objective or by scoring the most medals to claim victory.

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