Star Trek: Captain’s Chair Review

boardgamequest.com:

If you took a survey of a fan’s favorite Star Trek captain, I’m guessing it will be a two-horse race between Picard and Kirk. Despite there being a whole host of awesome captains from Star Trek lore, those two are the ones that have captured the glory. For myself, I’d go with Captain Sisko (don’t @ me). Deep Space 9 was a great series, and Sisko was someone you didn’t want to mess with.

Circling back to today’s review, we are going to be looking at Star Trek: Captain’s Chair, a new game designed by Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi. If those names sound family, it’s because they have teamed up before, notably on Voidfall and the Imperium line of games. It’s that last line that’s relevant because Star Trek: Captain’s Chair is somewhat based on the mechanics of Imperium. So set your phasers to fun as we check out their latest offering.

If you’ve ever played a game of Imperium (Classics, Legends, Horizons), then you probably will have a good idea for the complexity level of Star Trek: Captain’s Chair. Spoiler Alert: this is not a light game. With that in mind, I’m only going to give you a brief overview of the gameplay, if you want the full ins and outs, you can download a PDF of the rulebook here.

Star Trek: Captain’s Chair is played over a variable number of rounds. What’s important to know is that this game only plays with 1 or 2 players. Each player will control one of 6 captains from the Star Trek Universe: Picard, Sisko, Burnham, Koloth, Sela, and Thy’lek Shran. Each captain has their own unique deck, along with a set of reserve and development cards.

On your turn, you first check if you have control of any neutral planets. Planets are controlled by sending ships and away teams there. If you do, you add the planet to your tableau, activating any control powers.

Then you enter the action phase. Each card has 2 ways you can use them. The first is for their “play” effect if they are in your hand. This usually lets you move ships around, beam crew to ships or planets,