Star Trek: Away Missions Wave 2 Expansions Review

boardgamequest.com:

It feels like just a couple of months ago that I was hearing about this new miniatures game called Star Trek: Away Missions, and now there is already a new wave of expansions for it. I think it felt like that, because it was and now there is. I had some pretty good things to say about the core game and its initial expansions, so I was looking forward to seeing what direction they took with the next release.

As someone of the correct opinion that Picard is the best Star Trek captain, I’m pretty happy to see him coming to this game in his own expansion, alongside the House of Duras. But will the expansion live up to the legend? Lets take a look.

There were two expansions that released alongside the core set: Chancellor Gowron and Commander Sela. These two new expansions follow the same format with a new Commander (or two, in the case of the House of Duras) and a team to support them, along with the core missions, mission deck, and support deck that goes along with a team. The mission and support cards can be used to customize a deck to suit your plan, with the missions going in different directions than the core set and expansion teams in the same factions (Riker’s away team in the core set, and Gowron’s expansion, respectively).

The main thing that sets these sets apart from the first two expansions is a very welcome change: the mission and support cards come with a prebuilt option like the core set’s teams. This was missing in the initial expansions and made it a little harder to get them into the game quickly. Since I think the deck-building aspect is more intimidating, it is good they went back to it with these sets. Hopefully, it is a trend that will continue in future sets, should there be any.

Integrating these expansions is simple. You just use the characters and the included decks in place of one of your existing teams. The cards can be mixed, and the new oversized core missions are interchangeable with existing ones, but the missions and support cards