Ascendancy: Reloaded

Now let's be clear. This isn't a new game but it is one that has stood the test of Star Trek time extremely well.

Originally launched back in 2017, Star Trek Ascendancy pushed past the ship-to-ship combat of Wizkids Attack Wing and ventured into new and unexplored territory. Quite literally in fact. But why should we still be interested in this when there's Into the Unknown out there and GFN's own Away Missions? If you want galaxy building why not dip into Infinite on your PC?

Because this one is all about tactics and empire building that's physically on your table and brings fans together in one place to play and chat Trek. Magnificent.

It's a bigger galactic picture and offers varied gameplay versus those now established tabletop and digital experiences. This is going to take some time, a lot of thinking and a shuttlebay full of patience to manage so buckle in for a good long afternoon of gaming.

With a base game box that is packed to the gills with tokens, playing pieces, control panels, planets, space lanes, hazards and a rule book that covered every scenario, it's a Trek fan's dream. Players could start from their homeworld and expand out across the galaxy, discovering new worlds, new civilisations and boldly... ok... you get the picture.

Crucially Ascendancy has evolved through the last seven years of its life, adding in player expansion packs for the Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Andorians and Breen as well as two substantial game expansions with Borg Assimilation and The Dominion War. In comparison to Away Missions this is more galaxy spanning and fleet based rather than a set of characters on a single board so the two aren't competing for the same space.

As we head towards the end of 2024 I pulled out the box and got ready for a steady session on the table because Gale Force Nine (GFN) are set to release a single box which will contain everything produced to date as well as some new and exciting content. Definitely a great sign for the game after seven years!

So let's just refresh on the systems as we unpack the plethora of equipment.

In the original starter box players could choose from the Federation, Romulans or Klingons with each faction offering different tactics. For instance the Klingons can't run from a fight and the Federation will never try and take over an established civilisation by force. These factors and others come into play when you reach out from your starting planet and influence how you interact with your discoveries.

It's also an incredibly organic game because of how the stack of worlds may be played as they are "found" and each of these will only have a certain number of pathways that can be connected to it. As they are revealed by exiting the space lanes with your ship or fleet, each new destination will have some form of action to complete via the Exploration card that is turned when you "arrive".. It may be to make contact with an existing species, it could be to colonise an empty rock or worse, it might be to try and avoid a dangerous nebula or other such hazard lurking in the depths of space.  New planets to colonise will offer space to acquire additional Production, Culture and Resource nodes that can be used in the Building Phase of each round to enhance your existing facilities from ships to bases to completing research.

No two games will ever be the same but just make sure you're ready for a long haul because GFN expect that for every player on the board there's at least an hour of game time (three players, three hours). Each round of the game sees players Build (chips, assets etc), Command (exploring, combat) and Maintain (assessing victory qualifiers and collecting resources) but don't forget to keep an eye on where your adversaries are up to!

If you're not looking for that kind of commitment then there is also a one player option that was introduced as part of the Borg pack. More on that shortly.

Ultimately the aim of each player is to reach Five Ascendancy points which can be acquired by collecting and trading in your Culture tokens. In the case of the Federation should you flip over a Civilisation card when exploring a new world that will immediately give you a Culture token! Each level of Ascendancy unlocks new abilities so you can run more projects and fleets with each increase.

One of the things that I levelled against this game back in the day was that it focused heavily on TNG and TOS without much care for Voyager or Deep Space Nine. In terms of the latter, some of that has been accomplished with one of the two larger supplements which includes the Bajoran wormhole and the Gamma Quadrant. There is still to be anything forthcoming from the Delta Quadrant however!

But back to the main game for now and it can play out a few ways. Boundaries can be set and some players may choose to try and avoid other major races, instead choosing to cultivate new worlds and build up resources with which they can upgrade weapons, fleets and abilities while others may be looking for a fight. That's the genius of Ascendancy in that it can play out however you want it to.  Each journey along a space lane opens up a new and unknown challenge. You'll never (probably!) get through the entire planet stack (Exploration deck) in a game so there's always going to be a variation from the off. Nor is it a given that the Federation moves first each time so you never know what order events will unfold or who will have that key tactical advantage. Uncovering a planet might be a good thing but it could also draw the attentions of an opponent keen to expand their resources of a particular type or simply add some territory to their sector of the board. GFN includes sets of ships to represent fleets in the box but players can supplement further with different ships, starbases and dice packs if they so wish although some of these are now verging on rare to impossible to locate (especially the Defiant pieces).

Players can also be defeated if their homeworld is captured by an opposing force. The neat thing that the Dominion War expansion pack does is allow a conquered people to turn into a resistance force so that you're not left sitting out the rest of the game. 

The Borg expansion does add in a feature which makes it impossible to avoid the Collective as they will spawn and head directly for the nearest opponent. In a one player game that's a given and with their "AI" ability it actually becomes more of a challenge to see how long you can last out rather than attempting to defeat them which is near impossible.

As with Attack Wing before it, the Borg dynamic is naturally overpowered and almost invincible meaning that any true attempt to defeat them would likely require at least two if not three or more players hounding their cubes until the bitter end. There's a ton of new content in the Borg packs beyond the ships such as additional/expanded rules, new nodes and tokens. For me this has become something of a go to where I can try out different factions against the Collective to see which is most effective. So far the results are not promising!

One thing that frustrated me was how fast the Borg could come out of the gate and be on top of your home system. Best case three turns, worst case two - the margin was that fine. However, by a bit of YouTube research and just thinking more about strategy it's actually quite straight forward to elongate the game - just make sure that any pathways into your territory are completely used up. For example if a planet has four space lane options, use all of them to connect it into your network. This is where the additional resources and the built ships really come into play as otherwise players wouldn't stand a chance to build any form of defence.

So to that Dominion pack and that's an entirely different twist again. Adding in the Dominion as their own faction there is the chance to use Changelings as infiltrators onto opponent worlds and also to battle through a campaign loosely tuned into the Deep Space Nine saga.

This is a real step upon the multiplayer concept with the Dominion faction starting on the other side of the Bajoran Wormhole and having to make their way into the Alpha Quadrant as part of the initial setup. Of course they could just fly around the Gamma Quadrant but at some point trouble will come calling.

The nice piece here is that the Gamma Quadrant systems can ONLY be used on that side of the wormhole and there's some familiar planets in there for the Karemma, Dosi and of course the Great Link. 

The problem with the Dominion War campaign is that four players are needed to form two alliances consisting of four already developed and explored worlds (ready for conquering). That's a lot of people to get together and at least a four hour play time both of which I would personally struggle with but may suit other gamers perfectly. I expect that in this case I may field the Dominion as a faction against the Borg or in a smaller 2/3 player scenario perhaps even without the wormhole piece.

Ascendancy is a superb, detailed and in depth Star Trek game that does require some time and patience to get the most out of it. If you want quick and straight forward pick up some Fluxx cards or head for your copy of Away Missions but for a real test of your metal this is the game to do it. Will you try and conquer from the Gamma Quadrant? Dominate from the off with the Klingons? Offer peaceful co-existence via the Federation or watch your foes be assimilated by the Borg? You make the calls!

Star Trek Ascendancy is available NOW from retailers stocking Gale Force Nine. Prices (for expansions) start from around £25 ranging to around £75 for the base game set.

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Expanded: The Dominion in Ascendancy

Following on from a series of faction packs and the Borg Expansion, Ascendancy has introduced the Dominion to the board at long last.

Taking the game into the Gamma Quadrant, the Dominion War box provides not just another faction to the game but a whole new aspect to the Ascendancy experience.

At its core the new faction comes with the standard control panel as well as Jem'Hadar ships and fleet markers plus the usual array of tokens and space lines to ensure that there are enough to go around each and every player at the table.

But there's still more because the Dominion launches from the Gamma Quadrant on their Great Link base and can only access the Alpha Quadrant via the new Bajoran Wormhole playing piece which combines four elements into one. With this there are a series of new planets which can only be added to the game when exploring the Gamma Quadrant and cannot be utilised unless the Wormhole is in play. But even if you don't want to add in the Dominion there are rules to allow the addition of the Wormhole and the Gamma Quadrant for exploration and empirical expansion.

Also the Dominion can utilise Infiltrators. This is, personal opinion a damn cool addition. When you capture Bajor it also means you gain a Command Token for taking control of a space station as well as an established, independent civilisation. Bonus!

Allowing the Dominion to use two Command Tokens, up to five of these little annoyances can be spread out across the board. Their title also tells you al lot about their role, allowing them to provide false orders to rival factions which can in turn lead to some rather underhanded takeovers!

So if you want to use the Dominion in play, it's really as simple as that. Start them out in the Gamma Quadrant and then head off for, no pun intended, domination of the galaxy. But if you want something a little different - perhaps not as different as the Borg expansion - then delve a little deeper into the rule book.

Dividing a minimum of four players into two alliances, the game then allows both expansion and co-operation to reach that crucial Ascendancy level. Dominion players of course will start on the other side of the Wormhole and then connect to their ally from there. Notably though this also means that players start the game with their home system immediately connected to four other randomly selected planets from the Exploration deck. Homeworlds can be conquered although this in turn opens up the chance to act as a Resistance force with your own set of actions to try and destabilise your conquerors. 

Certainly a change from being ousted in the main game and then having to sit it out for hours and watch others take all your rewards.

The biggest issue for me comes in the fact that I'm going to need to have a game with at least three others to take full advantage of the Dominion War element to this pack and that incurs a game time of four hours minimum. Ascendancy is not a game to be taken lightly or as a quick win. This set absolutely cements that and it would be wise to ensure that you have the time to be able to invest in the game before considering adding this to the collection. I for one do like the additions it brings however I'm more likely to be unpacking the Borg for some solo play rather than heading into the Denoris Belt and heading for the Great Link. A shame but I have to be realistic on the limitations unless I manage to find another three willing associates who can sacrifice a Saturday or a Sunday.

The Dominion Expansion opens up the playing field to ensure that everyone can be involved for the duration of the game. I think one of the issues has been that conquered players in the past can be left doing nothing for hours and the Resistance element counters this nicely. There's not a ton of additional rules and it's a step up from the standard faction expansions that provide a homeworld and some new tokens. This feels like a full package and something that can stimulate the game in new directions. Indeed, when I heard it was coming it excited me that, unlike Attack Wing, Gale Force Nine have looked to change up elements of their base game and try to engage players in different ways. 

There are a lot of pluses to rule over the negative of needing multiple players although I can still utilise the Dominion, the Wormhole etc as part of that Borg expansion. In fact that's absolutely what I will be doing (literally dawns on me now) so all of the elements will get used to their fullest as best I can.

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New Heights in Ascendancy

Off the bat I want to say this - I'm in love with Ascendancy.

I've been playing Attack Wing for some time now and that's offered at least one foray into tabletop gaming with Star Trek with a very one-on-one combat focus with a ton of upgrades but nothing much beyond (excellent) space battles with a handful of ships.

Ascendancy by Gale Force Nine on the other hand puts you at the head of your own empire. At the beginning you've just got a home planet and some limited resources but as you Build and Command your fleet those vital Production, Culture and Research tokens will start to trickle in and soon you're venturing out into the galaxy to seek out new life a - I think you know how it goes. 

For starters, let's take a closer look at the contents of the box...

The principle of Ascendancy is straight forward; explore, annex/invade the worlds you find to reach an Ascendancy level of five or conquer your two opponents outright by capturing their home worlds. Except that it's not that simple and I'd recommend setting aside a whole afternoon if you're looking to play at least for the first venture into the game.

Ascendancy is an incredibly immersive experience and you do need to dedicate the time to it. It's not something you can rush through and even the set up can be a bit of a task with numerous tokens to assign to each player, cards to place, planets to establish, control panels to zero...and more. It is all well worth it though and the key to a successful campaign/domination of your enemies lies initially in that set up. If you know where everything is and what everything does then you're already in good grasp of the game and stand a much better chance of making it to full Ascendancy. 

Initially the starting game box provides three powers to control; the Federation, Klingons and Romulans with two additional packs adding the Ferengi and Cardassians which means you could turn this into a massive five player game. We just started off with the boxed three factions and it's probably best enjoyed with three players to give you the variety in the game. I reckon two player is manageable but a third brings a more balanced chord to proceedings.

Playing Ascendancy takes the form of three stages; Building, Command and Maintenance. During the Building phase you can construct new starships, increase your abilities and add resources to your research projects as well as establish Production, Research and Culture nodes on your planets. Each player completes a Building phase before moving on and you can use as much or as little of your resources as you want and in some cases it might be better to conserve and spend on larger items further down the road.

Command then allows you to explore the galaxy by developing space lanes (each planet can only have a certain number spreading from it), charting planets, taking on hazards and challenges that they unearth and even engaging in combat to win worlds or defeat your opponents. Closing out the round is Maintenance where you assess if victory has been achieved, dish out collected resources from your developed/developing worlds and reset any hazards on the board.

Klingon Empire Command Console

Now at the beginning I tried to be a bit of a smart arse and failed because I set out to divide and conquer as the Klingon Empire and generally forgot about actually developing my civilisation.

Y'see Ascendancy is not as clear cut as I imagined and that's what makes it such an immersive experience. You really do need to plan out your Building phase and utilise the resources at your command to help upgrade your weapons and make your Command phase therefore easier to manage. As you discover new worlds and new civilisations by boldly going you will begin to gain a regular source of resource "income" if you will, which in turn makes advancement easier and allows you to spin your people off onto a more successful path of your choosing. Also you will be able to issue more Commands as you gain Ascendancy that will let you act more across your expanding empire.

You might go for all out domination or consolidate your borders against invasion choosing to pool your resources more inwardly while others might seek to plunder what you have constructed.

Full game layout for three players

In the three hours we bashed out our empires there was a lot of discussion and arguing over just what each rule meant and whether there was a point to warping or impulse speed. Needless to say there is a point to everything and at the end we all had a good gist of exactly how the game mechanics worked and how each player's civilisation differed in its style. I cannot stress how important it is to keep the rule book to hand in those early stages.

One of the big twists in the game comes from uncovering your next unexplored world at the end of a space lane. In fact when you flip the top card on the Exploration deck you don't know what you'll get. In some cases it's a totally blank canvas, in others a dangerous hazard to overcome and in a few it might be a pre- or post-warp civilisation that you'll need to coax into your way of life. As you research and spend resources these actions do become easier but at the beginning trying to create an hegemony was a total waste of tokens since I didn't have enough experience behind me. My advice would be to spend internally before branching out to developed and developing worlds. Make sure you're fully prepped for the big unknown.

Even at three hours we barely scratched the surface of this epic game. Each time we play it, the outcome and layout will be distinctly different because you'll find something unexpected to do each time. We did get quicker at running through the trio of stages but I do again recommend laying aside a good afternoon to really pick apart your understanding of Ascendancy at least the first time you crack open the box.

Romulans advancing to Excalbia

One niggle was the heavy focus on The Original Series and The Next Generation within the look and feel of the game even down to the planet choices and a lot of the Exploration cards. While the subsequent expansions added Ferengi and Cardassian factions I would think expanding the cards to deal with events from Deep Space Nine and Enterprise at the least might encourage more players to take it up. I even pose that a Voyager expansion pack could add transwarp elements and Borg encounters. Deep Space Nine might add the station itself and a dicey passage to the uncharted Gamma Quadrant.

Saying that it is a very small niggle because this really does celebrate some of the great elements and events of Star Trek. Given it's the 50th anniversary it's more than understandable that the focus is on the two more popular series even down to your ships being Galaxy Class, Vor'Cha or Warbird starships, Each faction has their own agenda set out on their Command Console and while there is a part of the game which does rely on inter-player combat it's also about construction, exploration, negotiation (trade agreements) and the hazards that those pieces bring with them. Ascendancy is very multi-faceted and I'm fascinated as to where each journey will take me.

The rulebook is a hefty piece of kit too and I recommend a good read through at least twice before kicking off with your first game. It will speed up your set up period and probably your first couple of rounds where there's likely to be zero first contact with new worlds. I did find that I was referring back quite a bit especially during the combat phases to make sure I was rolling the right number of dice and similarly when we pitched up to our first spacial anomaly. Watch out for those by the way since they'll either be a useful goldmine or an unwelcome reset button for your ships.

Federation starting from Earth - note the hub and resources

I'd also suggest grabbing hold of this game right now because there are an extra batch of 50th Anniversary Exploration cards included which add in a few more scenarios to deal with when you reach a new planet. Yet even without those few extra helpings, this is still an incredible game for Star Trek fans that provides more than just "pew-pew" action and makes you think beyond the turn you're playing. It is a little more costly than other Star Trek games with the big box retailing for anywhere between £55 and £75 in the UK. The expansions are retailing for around the £22-£25 mark.

As a fan I absolutely love this game but you do need some like-minded fans to enjoy it with you. I have some family who will play and enjoy it more as a big tabletop experience more than it being Star Trek but I would love to play it against people who "get" the franchise and will really understand all the nuances of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. It's not a game I'm going to be pulling out every day to play because of the big set up process but it is one that will keep me and others entertained and engrossed for many hours on a weekend or a day off. The price might put some off but this is probably the best all-round Star Trek gaming experience available right now and if you're into your strategy then this is a must on all levels.

You can find out more about Gale Force Nine's Ascendancy at their website now. Thanks also to Gale Force Nine for giving us the chance to review their game.

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