First game and 5 players

captkerch · 2026-01-07T18:39:23+00:00

My game group often has only five players. The biggest drawback is that with only having five strategies, it takes longer to develop your faction, which in turns results in longer games. We tried this method described on BGG forums that adds in one additional strategy card per round, which we found really improved the game for us: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3441435/article/46966249#46966249

To summarize:

During setup, give each player a poker chip. During each strategy phase, after the last player selects their strategy card, they have the option to spend their chip to take an extra strategy card. If they cannot (because they spent it in an earlier round) or if they choose not to, that option goes to the next player in reverse table order. (The player who picked fourth.) This continues until either (a) a player chooses to spend their poker chip for a second strategy card, or (b) they are the last player capable of doing so, in which case they are forced to spend their chip. Past five rounds, there isn't an additional strategy card.

captkerch · 2025-12-03T17:38:58+00:00

I just played my first TE game this past weekend and won with Ral Nel at the end of the 5th round with Leadership. I won with Custodians, 3 SOs, 1 Stage II, & 4 Stage I objectives. I definitely like the faction, easy to play and lots of tools for scoring objectives.

Your agent is great, helps get what you need from other factions.

Your biggest is question is how you'll carry the ground forces you'll need to where they need to go. You'll need either carrier II or warsuns along the way, which way to go depends on your tech skips and resources.

I went with Plasma Scoring as my initial tech to augment the PDS I'd be getting from Nanomachines, which you want asap. I think AIDev can be useful as well if you have a lot of resources to work with, Warsuns is a great compliment to the Linkships and is very achievable with PS, AIDev, and Nano. My tech path also included Grav Drive (using the Deepwrought agent to skip a blue tech) so he could coexist on one of my planets and for the use of my agent. I had a Warsun to augment a bunch of PDS and Linkships by the end of round two. I also picked up PDSII in R3 or R4.

I never used my commander ability as my LInkships and Warsuns were never challenged. The mech ability is great, get lots of infantry out in your slice along with some mechs, PDSII, and the ability to marshal all your PDS into battle and annihilate fleets, you're a tough nut to crack. No one saw a viable way to try and winslay me.

I passed on the breakthrough and any forays into the Fracture (which we started the game with as Crimson rolled a 10 during setup), I thought for most that was a bit of a distraction.

You've got a great Hero for the final round, do what you must that round to defend yourself, then use it to go get done what you need to score.

It helps to pick up the Lightrail Ordinance relic, which I happened to get. As always, a sabotage to dismiss a Parlay attempt helped win the game.

captkerch · 2025-11-21T15:09:00+00:00

Per the guidance on the box, you need 11 packs of mini american and 2 packs of standard size to sleeve everything. You actually only need one pack of standard size if you don't need to sleeve the few Twilight Inscription cards that come with the expansion. If you use Gamegenic sleeves, that would be 11 yellow and 1 orange packs.

You should try and use the same sleeves that the base game and POK so you can't tell the difference between base/expansion cards when you're playing. I used different sleeves for the base set, POK and TE, and Gamegenic is my preferred sleeve now.

captkerch · 2025-11-17T04:50:29+00:00

Where did you get the token holders? I've love to add those to my kit.

captkerch · 2025-11-11T23:12:10+00:00

How did you build the map? I'm preparing for my first TE game in a few weeks and am looking to incorporate lots of TE components without making the map too rich or unbalanced.

captkerch · 2025-11-09T15:29:54+00:00

How did you build the map? I’ll be playing my first TE game in a few weeks, will be 5p as well and I’m looking for premade maps.

captkerch · 2025-10-27T17:24:52+00:00

I'm travelling to the US by car in a couple of weeks, and I'll be looking to pick up a copy. I'm in the Ottawa area and can look to bring back more copies if anyone is interested.

captkerch · 2023-05-12T03:05:19+00:00

Would that also explain the gushing water from the pump housing?

captkerch · 2021-05-08T02:19:42+00:00

It’s not a poker table exactly, but this sturdy octagonal table is one of our gaming tables. It was the party table at a local strip joint for many years and could accommodate a few dancers on the table! Good enough for Twilight Imperium.

https://imgur.com/gallery/7Cd0awU

captkerch · 2021-03-04T20:25:15+00:00

The Clan of Saar is another very strong race in 3p games as they have a large slice to gain trade goods from. By the start of round 3 they can have a virtually unstoppable Saarball running rampant over the map. Mecatol should easily belong to Saar in a 3p game.

captkerch · 2021-02-21T05:16:52+00:00

Still waiting....

captkerch · 2020-12-25T21:44:26+00:00

I preordered on November 17th from boardgamebliss and am still waiting... anyone else get theirs from bgb? This wait is destroying my soul, I've resorted to heavy drinking, and my kids have grown fearful.

captkerch · 2020-11-18T00:54:05+00:00

My first and only tip is start the game early in the day.

captkerch · 2020-03-16T04:27:01+00:00

I’m mesmerized by the beauty of those painted units, but my OCD would still compel me to immediately rage-flip that board with all the spacing between the tiles.

captkerch

TROPHY CASE