Board Game Review- Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps

If you’re a regular reader of Outside is Overrated, you know that I’ve been eagerly awaiting this game since 2018. Well, I’m happy to announce that after multiple delays, I’ve finally gotten my hands on a copy of the base game and both expansions. Will it live up to my lofty expectations? There’s only one way to find out. It’s time to grab your pulse rifles and play Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps!

Rogue Hippo’s Review Score: 8.0

Alien: Another Glorious Day in the Corps (AAGDITC from here on out) is a co-operative survival game in which 1-6 players control a squad of Colonial Marines and embark on various missions in an attempt to survive a xenomorph infestation. The missions follow the major firefights of the Aliens film, with some bonus scenarios thrown in for good measure.

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Game Summary

Setup

Players will first decide which scenario to play (there are 9 included in the base game), then they choose a squad of six Marines. Each Marine has a character card with unique stats and abilities; and each character card has two sides: Hero & Grunt. Each player will pick a single character to control and they will use that character’s Hero side. Any characters not directly controlled by a player will use their Grunt side which is slightly weaker.

Next, players equip the Marines with various weapons, armor, and equipment (and possibly experience cards if you’re using the Ultimate Badasses expansion). You can expect to see all of the iconic gear from the Aliens film (pulse rifle, smart gun, flamethrower, etc.). Some character’s special abilities will direct them toward certain weapons while others can be outfitted to best fit specific roles in your squad. With the variety of characters and equipment options, AAGDITC provides a lot of different ways to approach each scenario.

The Endurance Deck

Before I dive into further the game, I should explain the Endurance Deck which will be a focal point of every game of AAGDITC.

The Endurance Deck is an abstract representation of your squad’s fighting capability (think ammo, morale, endurance, etc.). Many effects (including attacking) will cause you to move cards from the Endurance Deck to the Exhaust pile. Some effects (like Resting or character abilities) will allow you shuffle cards from the Exhaust pile back into the Endurance Deck. Occasionally you will send cards to the Discard pile where it is very unlikely that you will get them back. As a result, balancing the Endurance Deck becomes a major component of every game. Sure, your squad can unleash a firestorm of hot lead against that approaching hoard of xenomorphs, but you will quickly drain your Endurance Deck and find yourself with limited options on future turns. It is imperative that you act wisely.

Now that you’re familiar with the Endurance Deck, lets rock!

The Marine Phase

During each turn, the players get to act first which generally involves each character taking two actions. Most of the available actions will be familiar to experienced gamers:

• Move– Move up to your character’s movement value
• Attack– Perform an attack
• Barricade– Attempt to seal a door or spawn point
• Aim– Increase your Aim Dial by 1
• Interact– Interact with an object/character on the board
• Card Action– Perform an action on a card
• Rest– Move 3 cards from the Exhaust pile to the Endurance Deck

If you’re familiar with the source material (and the picture above) it’s clear that you’re going to be doing a lot of attacking. I like the decision that Gale Force Nine made in this regard. This is the Aim Dial:

Each character gets one. At the beginning of each character’s activation, they reset their Aim Dial to the value indicated on their character card. When a character makes an attack against a Xenomorph, they roll a d10 and score a hit if they roll less than or equal to their current Aim value. Then their Aim Dial is reduced by one. Certain weapons have a Full Auto mode which allows the character to attack over and over. However, the constantly reducing Aim Dial, combined with the Endurance cost of attacking, will result in some tough decisions when you have to weigh the diminishing returns of an additional attack against the threat of the approaching Xenomorph swarm.

Most of the other actions are pretty self-explanatory so I won’t go into detail with them. If I have one gripe, it’s the randomness of some of the event cards. This one is a good example:

All of these effects are good and potentially life-saving. The problem is that you don’t get to decide which effect occurs when you play this card. Instead, you reveal the top card of the Endurance Deck, and the symbol on that revealed card will indicate what this card does (either Green Helmet, Yellow Star or Blue Weapon). It’s just such a bummer to play a card with the hope of saving a knocked down Marine and… you randomly get an effect that doesn’t help you. Card wasted. Most of the cards don’t do this so I’m not sure why GF9 decided to make some of them so random.

The Alien Phase

The Alien Phase isn’t too complicated and basically boils down to moving Aliens, attacking with Aliens, and spawning more Aliens.

First, any Aliens within LOS of the players will charge and attack the nearest character. If an Alien moves adjacent to a Marine, nearby friendly figures are given the option to make a Defensive Fire attack (I hope you still have some Endurance cards and a respectable Aim value after the Marine Phase). If the Alien is still standing, it makes an attack and a d10 is rolled The result compared to the target’s Defense value with the following effects:

• < Melee Score– The Alien is killed
• < Defense Score- The attack has no effect
• > Defense Score– The character is knocked down
• 10+ The character is killed

As you can see, that’s quite the range of possible effects. I have to admit that I found myself scratching my head the first few times that a Marine killed a Xenomorph in melee combat. However, I can also appreciate the tough position that GF9 was in. They had to balance the famed lethality of the Xenomorphs while also creating an enjoyable gaming experience. After playing a few games, it seems to work. The chance of instant death is always looming without eliminating half of the players after the first few turns.

Note: If a character is knocked down and remains knocked down until the next Alien Phase, they are dragged off to the egg chamber to become hosts for more of those… things. In a single mission, this essentially means they’re dead. In the campaign, you can launch a rescue mission to get them back.

After the Aliens move/attack, the Blips move/attack. Blips are essentially just Aliens that are not within your LOS. They are represented on the board as facedown white tokens, meant to look like the white dots from the motion tracker in Aliens.

Blips move around the board like an Alien or character. Once a Blip moves into LOS of your characters, it is flipped over revealing a number between 1-5, and an equal number of Aliens are placed on the board. This gives a nice effect of knowing that the Aliens are coming, but not knowing how many are coming until they’re right on top of you. Once the Blips have been converted to Aliens, they finish moving/attacking in the same way that was mentioned above.

The last step of the Alien Phase is to spawn more Aliens. This is done by drawing a Motion Tracker card which will indicate where, and how many, Aliens get spawned. Each player draws 1 card and places the Blips accordingly. I’ve found that this phase can be quite swingy as each Motion Tracker card can place between 1-6 Blips. If you remember, each Blip represents 1-5 Aliens and each player draws a Motion Tracker card so you can end up spawning 3-50 Aliens in a single turn. It goes without saying that you can get overwhelmed very quickly.

Once the Alien Phase is complete, there are a few clean-up steps and then you begin a new turn with the Marine Phase. This is repeated until the mission is accomplished or your squad is dead.

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Other Thoughts

• The miniatures DO require assembly. This wasn’t a big issue for me and I actually really enjoyed the roughly five hours I spent gluing the minis together while listening to OiO. However, many others have reportedly found this frustrating and felt it was unacceptable that a modern board game didn’t come with pre-assembled minis.
• The Get Away From Her, You B***h! expansion lets a player take control of the Aliens to allow a one-vs-many experience. I own that expansion but haven’t tried that mode yet so I can’t comment other than saying it exists. This expansion also has some additional scenarios.
• The Ultimate Badasses expansion felt like a cash grab with half of the Marines coming in the base game and the other half sold in the expansion. You gotta have the whole team! It would be like if Madden only came with half the roster for your favorite team and the other half was released as DLC. (Actually, don’t let EA read this. I don’t want to give them any ideas.)
• I’m worried that this game is already dead. I really have nothing to base this on other than the fact that Disney gained control of the Aliens IP while this board game was in development, and they tend to be pretty controlling with their properties. I wouldn’t be surprised if they refused to let GF9 create any new content.
• The tails of the Aliens are a pain in the ass to move around the map. Be warned that every game of AAGDITC will also include an unintended game of Barrel of Monkeys.

Lastly, the narrative is fantastic if you’re an Aliens fan. In my last game, we played the scenario the recreated the Operations firefight from the movie. Things were going great at first. Bishop had just relayed the location of the drop ship and we decided to move out with a full Endurance Deck and a board largely free of Xenos. We had barely left our defensive position when we drew two of the worst Motion Tracker cards back-to-back. Suddenly, a relatively secure situation turned into this:

There’s not much you can do in that situation except grab your pulse rifles and play the hand you’ve been dealt. Most of the squad focused on clearing a path to the drop ship while Crowe and Dietrich tried to hold the rear. The rearguard was overwhelmed and carried off to the egg chamber within two turns, but they managed to buy valuable time for their teammates who had pushed forward and only had one last cluster of Xenos standing between them and the drop ship. Hudson had been surrounded and knocked to the ground when Frost hit the entire cluster with an inferno from his flamethrower, Killing most of the Xenos… and Hudson. Death is better than being carried off to the egg chamber… at least that’s what I tell myself.

Ripley had already been impregnated by a face-hugger and was prepared to lure the Xenos away and make the ultimate sacrifice. Unfortunately, the Alien’s inner jaws reached her brain before she could reach for her grenade. That 10+ roll is always a threat. With only Frost and Vasquez left, the nearby Xenos rushed the closest target, simultaneously sealing Frost’s fate while opening an escape route for Vasquez. Such is the cruel hand of fate. With the rear hoard rapidly approaching their position, it was a losing battle to stand and fight. Vasquez took the opening and escaped to the drop ship as Frost’s screams echoed behind her. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.

With one survivor, it was technically a victory. I try not to think about what happened to Newt.

Despite the losses, I can’t wait to play again.

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The Good

• This game truly feels like Aliens
• The rules are pretty easy to learn compared to other modern games
• Supports 1-6 players with just the base game
• This game is bursting (chest-bursting!) with narrative

The Bad

• The randomness will occasionally ruin even the best of plans
• The base game plus both expansions will cost about $130
• The miniatures require assembly
• Future of the game is unknown

The Verdict

A wise man once said “know thyself.” This is the case with Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. You have to know what you want out of this game. If you’re an Aliens fan, this is a must-have game that captures the essence of the source material. If you simply want to mow-down hoards of deadly creatures, this game will definitely scratch that itch. If you’re looking for a sci-fi dungeon crawl, there are probably better options out there.

Until Next Time,

Rogue Hippo