Absolutely in love with Forbidden Stars...but I have a complaint

By Nagash1959, in Forbidden Stars

So my copy arrived today, and I've been watching a lot of reviews for it and all, really excited to play it! I had a single cardboard piece arrive damaged and sent in a parts service request, no big deal. But what IS a big deal to me, and I know there are other gamers who are like this, I immediately start checking everything against the components list.


There is no friggin breakdown of the plastic components by faction anywhere.

Sure, I get told total numbers of units I should have, but not how many of each kind. I have 9 Chaos Cultists but 3 Ultramarine Scouts. Is that correct? Do I have too many of one or not enough of the other? Mind you, I'm saying that rhetorically. It's pretty clear that the factions aren't supposed to have exactly the same numbers for everything (because the Eldar don't even get the same number of figures) but that exacerbates the problem when the number of individual units in each faction changes and I have nothing to compare it to.

So FFG I beg of you, when you publish the inevitable FAQ, include a full component breakdown for obsessive geeks like me who are worried they just might be cheating for having too many Land Raiders, maybe? Who knows?

But seriously, this game is freakin' awesome though. Have a beer on me.

Because is a asimetrical game like chaos of the old world. i personal like this diference

But even with an asymmetrical game, The rule book would still have a count of the different components.

The final counts for each faction would just be different.

Because is a asimetrical game like chaos of the old world. i personal like this diference

I think you might have missed my point a little, let me elaborate.

I'm 100% fine with asymmetrical unit disposition. My problem is that no where in that box am I told what number of each I should have so I can check the contents of the box.

I know I'm supposed to have 27 Ultramarine units. Cool. I can open the bag and see that it came with 6 scouts, marines and land raiders as well as 3 titans, strike cruisers and battle barges. Thats what I see I have. But for all I know, the design intent was for me to have nine scouts, three marines and six land raiders. I don't know because FFG didn't put in a break down by faction of what is supposed to be in the box.

I pointed out the varying numbers between factions only because that makes it even harder to tell if any one faction has the right number of playing pieces included. If every faction was supposed to have the same numbers then a packaging error would be very obvious. But as they are supposed to be varied, I have nothing to compare it to and no way of knowing if the contents of the box are right.

It won't help the real issue (not listing exact quantities of components in the rulebooks), but here's a summary of units by faction.

Baseline:

  • 6 C0 [zero cities] ground units.
  • 3 C0 void units.
  • 6 C1 ground units.
  • 3 C2 ground units.
  • 3 C2 void units.
  • 3 C3 ground units.

This makes for a "baseline" of 24 varied units per faction. In addition, each faction tweaks some of these numbers:

  • Eldar have +3 C0 void units (total of 6), but -3 C1 ground units (total of 3).
  • Space Marines have +3 C2 ground units (total of 6).
  • Orks and Chaos each have +3 C0 ground units (total of 9).