Setting Up Firefly: The Board Game

Introduction:
Firefly: The Game is a sandbox tabletop board game, for 1 to 4 players (yes, this game does come equipped for solo-play.  It is based off of the TV show and the feature film, Serenity; references to both are heavy throughout the game.

Each player is the captain of his very own Firefly-class transport vessel.  There are numerous different storylines that can be played (allowing for a great replay ability).  We will go into these storylines in greater detail in the future, along with strategies for winning the game.

In order to accomplish the goals on whatever Goal Card you are using, the basics of the game remain the same:
        1.  Assemble and Equip a Crew
        2.  Find Work
        3.  Keep Flying...

Time to Play:
For first time players, I highly suggest that you carve out an entire afternoon and evening to learning the game and reading the rule book, which you can download here.

For our (my wife and I) first time, it took about 4 hours (we have toddlers and they are like mini-Reavers).  With a seasoned group of players, it usually takes around 2 hours to finish a single game.  One thing that no one has mentioned yet is set up time.  It can take a half hour to set the entire board game up (by yourself).

Set Up the Game:
Setting up the board and all of its pieces can take a fair amount of time.  You will need a lot of space so use a dining room table or its equivalent in terms of surface area. 

• Take the board out of the box and carefully unfold it.  There is a high probability that you will tear the board if you do not maintain complete control of the entire board during the lay down.
• Next, there are three decks of cards:  1) Contacts Deck, 2) Buy/Shopping Decks, and 3) Travel / Misbehave Deck.  You should always keep them organized this way so has to streamline your set up process.
• SEPARATE the Contacts Deck into five individual decks organized by Contact (Harken, Amnon Duul, Patience, Badger, and Niska).  
• SHUFFLE each of these mini-decks (Do NOT mix them up together) and place them along the right side of the board.
• SEPARATE the Shopping Deck into five individual decks organized by location (Regina, Osiris, Persephone, Space Bazaar, and Silverhold).
• SHUFFLE each of these mini-decks individually and place them on the left side of the board.
• PLACE the Reaver Ship piece in the top-right corner of the board where the Firefly logo is.
• PLACE the Alliance Cruiser piece in the White Sun system at Londinium.
• ALLOT the following resources for each player:
• $3000 (We normally issue starting funds as follows: one $1000 Bill, three $500 bills, and five $100 bills.
• 6 Fuel Tokens
• 2 Parts Tokens.
• The Stock Drive Core card
• SEPARATE the Travel / Misbehave decks into three parts: 1) Alliance Space Cards, 2) Border Space Cards, and Misbehave Cards.
• SHUFFLE these decks (again, make sure you do not intermix them.) and place them in a convenient location.
• LAY OUT the Ship Cards, Ship Tokens, and the Leader cards.

Once all of the above has been completed you can start the game!

Tips for Speeding Up Set Up:

• PUT the Game back exactly as you found it when you are finished.  Consistency is key to maintaining efficiency during every subsequent game session.
• USE plastic baggies to store and segregate the tokens.  It keeps you from having to dig through tokens to find the correct one you need during the game.  We use the emptied game box tray to store the pieces during play.
• DIVIDE shuffling duties amongst the players.  This will cut your set up time in half.

Establishing Order of Rotation:
In order to start the game, every player will roll a die.  The highest number goes first and play continues from him in a clock-wise manner around the table.  Ties for first place are broken by a tie breaker re-roll.

Starting with the player with the highest roll, PERFORM the following actions:

• SELECT a Ship Card (and its color-equivalent token).
• SELECT a Leader and place him (or her) on the right side of the Ship Card.
• REPEAT until all players have selected a ship and a Leader.

Starting with the last player to pick their Leader and Ship, PERFORM the following action:

• PLACE your ship token on the board wherever you wish.
• DO NOT place your Ship Token in the same sector as the Reaver Cutter, nor the Alliance Cruiser, nor any space currently occupied by another Firefly.
• REPEAT this process, going counter-clockwise around the table until the first player has placed his ship token.

I will offer one helpful tip for initial placement of you ship tokens.  ALWAYS put your ship token on a planet or space station that has shopping opportunities (i.e:  Regina, Osiris, Persephone, Silverhold, or Space Bazaar).  This will let you buy gear on your first turn which will save you time in the long run.

Final Steps:
Now that all of that is done, there are a few more things left to do:

• UNCOVER the first three cards of each Shopping Deck and Contact Deck.
• PLACE them in their respective discard piles.
• DISTRIBUTE one mission card (face-down, not discard pile) from each contact to each player.
• DISCARD two of the five mission cards (so that each player has their pick of three of the five cards received). 

Now that everybody has their missions and their starting resources, you can start the game!

Stay Shiny!

~ Captain Paddy Bardic