First, let us start this journey exactly where I started. Finding a giant box on my doorstep. Here’s the video from my Ring camera: https://ring.com/share/9b7eb6dd-b116-41bd-9177-9fffbc58ebed?fbclid=IwAR20Uwo_WUui7_9t4atnrx58SUnJA8V8q2pJRwr6gbZlNgciFYm_34daps0 or youtube:
I was not aware that I gasped like a B movie actor in real life — nor that I snicker like a leprechaun stealing gold when I grab happy things. Apparently, I do. So there’s that. Let’s hope if I’m ever witness one of those dramatic “I’m pregnant with your baby” moments in real life, that I keep it together. I did buy this, obviously. However, kickstarters usually come so late and I never got a tracking notice so I was NOT expecting this.
LET’S OPEN IT! There is a lot of waste in this packaging because this guy has dense foam on the top and bottom and full corner pads. But it makes for a perfectly unblemished box.
I think it’s cute that it looks like a cargo crate, but I’m a bit sad that it doesn’t say “Firefly” on the side because that is what shows on my game shelves. So it’s not particularly attractive on my gaming shelves. It sticks out because it’s so large too. So it’s kind of unattractive on my shelf, to be honest. Insanely impressive when you get it out — but just not a looker on the shelf. (*See UPDATE at end of post)
The first layer is 4 token trays. Note that every tray in this box has a clear lid, they are removed for the photos so they don’t glare. So each of these trays has an individual lid for it. As you can see, I’ve already punched out all the tokens. Note that I put the round green tokens in the wrong place. They should go in the slot marked “Haven.” (*See UPDATE at end of post) I had to watch the gif of the packaging on the kickstarter a few times to get a screenshot of this level to see if I did it correctly.
I do love that everyone can have their own tray, or at most, share a tray with someone else. Less reaching around the table and huge game board. Less little piles of discarded fuel tokens all over the place where we’re not sure if you own that or just discarded it…
Level two has a lot to reveal. We can see they have a slot for the neoprene mat (which is actually part of the tray below this one). THANK YOU for giving us a place for the mat in the box. Holy shit, hallelujah!
In this tray we have all of the start up “stuff”. You’ve got your ship cards, the captain cards, and the drivecore cards here. Every ship has a custom matching die. The number six is marked by a Firefly. As you can see on the last die in the row, the number one is marked with a sad face. I think that is for a game variant.
We have the “Big Money” here. I wish it came with the regular money. This game takes up enough table space. I love the big money, but I wish they had included the small money to play with too. I don’t want to cannibalize it from my previous game because I might as well sell that game or give it away.
There’s also the setup cards, single player story cards, and regular story cards. I do love that they made in-theme envelopes to hold these large “decks.” However, there’s a major flaw. There are far too many cards to fit in the envelopes. (*I WAS WRONG See UPDATE at end of post). With all of the expansions plus all the kickstarter stretch goals, they just don’t fit. So pretty envelope with no purpose. Only the setup cards will fit. Another stretch goal was the dice bag. Unneeded since you have the slot to store them. I will use it to store the Haven tokens since I put those in the wrong slot in the token boards. You don’t need those every game so this is a nice option and location for those.
Lastly for this layer, we have the current player token in enamel. It is not very bright, but it is very nice and hefty. The punch outs also had the traditional dinosaur if you prefer to use it. This is also where they stashed one of the BEST PARTS of this campaign: EVERY SINGLE PROMO CARD EVER RELEASED. Holy fuck! Those will get distributed to their appropriate decks, but this is where they stashed them. So exciting! I only had a few promos before.
Below that level, we start to get into the card decks. We have the Navigation decks, Misbehaving decks, and various expansion decks. Plus… the mat.
Look at this baby! The original Firefly mat by itself was a pain in the ass. It folded out in 6 squares. You know those squares never laid perfectly flat. Then two expansions had additional mats for each side of the board. Now we have ALL OF IT in one beautiful mat. Might I add, nicest neoprene mat I’ve seen. Stitched edges and insanely heavy. Note that straight out of the box, BARELY any edge curling. And this is the first unroll with no effort to fix that corner. Top notch quality on this and it wasn’t even the “Vera” upgrade mat.
Did I mention it fits in the box? It does. It has its own slot in the box. No box plus mat bullshit. THANK YOU.
The last level brings us to the core decks. Firefly has a fuck ton of cards. Now they are all separated in their own beautiful compartments. That’s nice. Yes, you still have to shuffle — but this will really speed up setup.
One reason I didn’t get the “Vera” mat was that it had card deck locations. Yeah no. Aint nobody got arms long enough to reach the decks. When we play, we set up a separate card table with all of the shopping and job decks. This way everyone can take a look through the discard at any time without interrupting the game. Plan your turn, people, or never get invited back.
And whats that little box there? THE SHIPS!
Note that these do have the little stands. Those were up in the previous card level in an empty deck slot. All of the ships have been hand detailed and are made of resin. No more bent spikes on the Alliance Cruiser. The Jetwash and Esmeralda, being a newer class of Firefly ships, are larger than the others. You’ve also got other expansion ships, of course, like the Interceptor and the SS Walden. plus the others.
But can I point out the Reaver ships? They used the same mold for the three ships — standard practice. But they painted each differently. That’s such a nice touch! So they look like different ships even though it’s the same mold. I appreciate that.
I’m super happy with the ships.
I call Serenity with Jayne or Mal (maybe Zoe? I don’t know her captain stats as we didn’t have that expansion) as my captain since I bought the bougie game! I told husband this and he thought it was unfair. I was like I spent $220 plus shipping, so I get Serenity, dammit! He asked how long that lasted. At least the first fucking game night. Damn.
Though I have to point out, so worth the $220. Someone on r/boardgames (Reddit) said that was an insane price to pay for a game. Um, excuse me. First, the base game is a $70 game. And lets look at what is in this box IN ADDITION to that base game:
Two HUGE expansions that add on to the board itself:
- Blue Sun
- Kalidasa
Three full game expansions:
- Crime and Punishment
- Pirates and Bounty Hunters
- Still Flying
One mini expansion:
- Breakin’ Atmo
Two ship expansions (yes, they were packaged and sold separately):
- Jetwash
- Esmerelda
So you’ve already come to almost $400 just in the base game and expansions. And what else are we getting? How about a glorious play mat? Hand painted resin ships — the originals were all cast single-color plastic. Big Money (if you like that). Custom matching dice for each ship (only the expansion ships had matching dice before). New unreleased story cards for basic and solo play. The awesome storage box that makes set up and take down a breeze. Plus, every single promo card ever released — including the ones that were in the special lootcrate subscriptions. Plus all the new promo cards that came with the kickstarter stretch goals.
The value for your money here is huge. I actually feel really bad because one of our friends actually already owns every single expansion. So he paid a lot more than we did for our original game plus this anniversary edition and doesn’t have half the cool shit we do now. Husband had to point out that he paid a premium to have them all when they came out. Fair, I guess. I’d be pretty bitter about it though.
Also, don’t underestimate how much these huge boxes bring to the game just by themselves. We bought the big Terraforming Mars box when it came out. Like this, it holds every expansion, has trays for everyone’s pieces, two trays for the money tokens (one for each side of the board), card organization, etc. Takes setup and tear down time from over an hour to very short time. Having everything already sorted and ready to go with games like this is just like a cherry on top. Except way better, because I don’t like the cherries — so more like those milkshakes where they put like a whole-ass fucking slice of cheesecake on a stick on top of it and cake icing on the rim.
~~~~~ UPDATE ~~~~~
Today I got the game out and rearranged the token trays to be correct. I stored the Haven tokens in the dice pouch in an empty card deck slot.
I Also used some of the kickstarter stretch goal stickers to spiffy up the box. Now it looks much better om my shelf.
And furthermore, I actually tried out the Story Card envelopes. I was wrong, the cards do fit. Does the Story Card envelope close properly? No. It’s a chonker. But they DO FIT. I only wish the envelopes weren’t so thin since it’s going to take a beating with so many cards in it.
